The Underground Web of Life

Our relationship with dirt plus four ways to nurture our soil, and be nurtured by it

Apr 10, 2022

person holding green plant stem — Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

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I RECENTLY SAW THE DOCUMENTARY Kiss the Ground. In it, actor Woody Harrelson narrates a well-paced movie describing the rich benefits of taking care of our soil. It turns out that even dirt needs nurturing.

April is both Earth Month and spring, the season of new growth, so let's take a closer look at the miracle under our feet that promotes the leafy surge of green.

The ground (aka dirt, soil, loam, or earth) is an often neglected part of our planet. It's stomped on, dumped upon, dug up, and generally ignored. Dirt implies something negative, as in "Dig up some dirt on that candidate" or a mother's warning to a child, "Don't get dirty!"

Our disdain for dirt has led to a loss of about one-third of the Earth's topsoil through deforestation, erosion, and improper farming techniques. Topsoil is the upper 5-10 inches of soil, normally rich with organic matter and microscopic life. It’s where our food crops grow. When topsoil is washed away or depleted, what's left behind is a carbon-poor soil that barely supports plant life.

Shockingly, at the current pace of topsoil losses, our planet can only support about 60 more crop cycles (60 years).

The solution? On a large scale, we need to reform agricultural practices, prevent deforestation, and erosion. On a smaller scale, we can add organic matter back to soils which will encourage the return of healthy levels of microorganisms. The ground needs to be full of life to support more life.

There are more soil microorganisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are people on the earth.
United States Dept. of Agriculture

In the Kiss the Ground movie, ranchers and farmers show how changes in their practices—no plowing, rotating animals on the farm, feeding the soil with diverse cover crops, and forgoing toxic sprays— make a world of improvement in both food quality, healthy ecosystems, and even carbon sequestration.

Soil minerals, sunlight, and water are the building blocks for plants and thus all life on Earth. Is it time to plant a flag in the ground for soil, celebrate it, and give it the respect it deserves?

We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.
Leonardo Da Vinci, artist and inventor

1. Try grounding or earthing

If you're lucky, you walk on earth or grass daily, not just on artificial surfaces. Going barefoot outside (use common sense about where you walk) is now recognized as health-producing. This practice is called grounding or earthing, and the article here explains its benefits.

Research has shown barefoot contact with the Earth can produce nearly instant changes in a variety of physiological measures, helping improve sleep, reduce pain, decrease muscle tension, and lower stress.
Could walking barefoot on grass improve your health? By Carrie Dennet, The Washington Post

What is the theory behind direct contact with the Earth and our skin? Our modern lifestyle bombards us with "free radicals," positively-charged atoms which can damage our cells and produce inflammation and all the diseases rising from that.

On the other hand, the Earth's surface has a negative charge, generating electrons that neutralize the harmful positive free radicals. In other words, direct contact with the Earth gives us beneficial antioxidants.

Perhaps we should all be “barefooting” more in stressful times, letting the Earth heal us.

2. Grow a garden or get your hands into the Earth

Another way to get the benefits of grounding is to get your hands into natural soils. Contact with the ground exposes us to microbes, improving our health and immunity, as described here.

Plant a garden, a window box of herbs, or pots of succulents or flowers. Pull weeds or invasive plants up from their roots. Make mud pies with children or build sand forts at the beach.

To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist

3. Feed the soil

Make your own compost. Even if you don't have a garden, compost can be used on potted plants, lawns, landscaping, trees, or to improve bare soil.

Most people use outdoor aerobic composting bins. Another method used by my friend Susan in Colorado is the Bokashi anaerobic composting system. It takes all food scraps, even meat, dairy, and bones, and breaks the foods down into a fermented state, including a liquid "tea." Susan pours her compost "tea" around her roses and vegetables. Here are some of her healthy roses.

Susan and her roses grown with compost and care

Composting food scraps is good for the planet and the climate. It returns biological matter back to the soil, enriching it and even helping the soil hold more water.

For each 1% increase in organic matter U.S. cropland could store the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls in 150 days.
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services

When food waste is not composted it goes to landfills, where it rots and creates methane, a greenhouse gas that's 25 times more planet-warming than CO2. Composting is a clear winner compared to landfills.

4. Support the people who are feeding the Earth

Farmers who practice permaculture and organic growing need consistent buyers for their fresh produce. Join Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) by signing up for farm-fresh products or buying from farmer's markets.

My family purchases a seasonal CSA from Oz Farms in Point Arena, CA. We get foods like frilly kale, heirloom tomatoes, antique variety pears, and purple elderberries in the farm box each week. They now have a non-profit that contributes to food security for hundreds of people locally, plus they also train young farmers in best practices for healthy farming.

Vegetables, fruits, and animals grown on healthy soils have more nutrients and vitamins than those grown on industrial farms. You're also nurturing yourself by buying from farmers who build better soil and grow more nutritious foods.

We all rely on the next generation of organic farmers for food security, community resilience, ecosystem preservation, and carbon sequestration.
Oz Farms website

The soil on Earth is a precious foundation that supports our lives and that of all species. Kiss the Ground says it can even help us fix the climate crisis. Just dirt? No, so much more than that.

Happy Earth Month to you! Now, excuse me while I take off my shoes. Spring and the Earth are calling.

Mother E