Living Soil – A Must Have for Natural Cultivation

Unlock the secrets in the soil

Maximum Quality Yields. Mother Nature Approved.

Chances are you’ve heard about SoHum Living Soils through the grape vine (pun intended?). If you’ve tasted products grown in living soil, then you have experienced the deliciousness first hand. Living organic soil is the best way to naturally aid plants in achieving their fullest genetic potential. At this point, you are probably asking yourself, “What is living soil?” SoHum provides an all-natural, organic cultivation methodology.  Living soil provides a healthy ecosystem and steady supply of nutrients for plants throughout their life-cycle.

When you look at a living soil, you might just see plain old dirt.  In actuality, you are looking at millions of tiny beneficial organisms that live harmoniously with each other, which helps to break down the rich organic matter within the soil. These microscopic organisms found in living soil are part of an ecosystem that provides plants with a properly balanced diet and healthy root structures for sustained growth.

From seed to harvest, a plant requires a full buffet of premium nutrients to reach its full genetic potential. Individuals not using a living soil, have to simulate this environment by force feeding their plants macro and micro nutrients and carbohydrate boosters on a set feeding schedule.  This makes plant growth reliant on human interaction.  This is just not as Mother Nature has intended. If there is an imbalance of nutrients or error in the feeding schedule, this error can lead to stunted plant development or even crop failure.  A living soil allows the plant be the boss, taking the human out, allowing it to feed and nourish itself as required.

Living Soil Nurtures Diverse Ecosystems

A living soil is an ecosystem of macro and micro beneficial bacteria that supports and nourishes plants by providing a healthy and sustainable supply of nutrients, without dependency of chemicals or pesticides. The living organisms found in living soil include but are not limited to nematodes (tiny worms), fungi, bacteria and other beneficial organisms. Soil is a part of life that exists and thrives in nature. A diverse range of living things found in the soil contribute to the success of living soil:

  • Macro-fauna such as slugs, earthworms and termites
  • Micro-flora including a range of varieties of soil molds, fungi, molds, algae and yeasts
  • Micro-fauna like many types of protozoa and bacteria in soil
  • Other microbes such as actinomycetes

Reaching Full Genetic Potential

Think of your plant like a person.  Someone with a balanced diet of organic food, living in a sustainable environment is likely to live out their entire life in superb health and wellness. A plant’s life cycle is no different.  When a plant has a balanced diet in a healthy environment, it will thrive and reach its genetic potential.  A living soil ensures a plant has a full buffet to choose from throughout its entire life cycle.  Plants and people are the same when it comes to feeding; how would you feel if you were waiting around for someone to give you food? What if you were given food you didn’t want or someone forgot to feed you altogether? You would be exhausted and withering away! Here are some of the benefits of living soils for cultivating the optimal garden:

  • Enhanced flavor
  • Natural pest mitigation
  • Strong roots
  • Low environmental impact
  • pH balanced
  • Sourced from sustainable materials
  • Reduced labor
  • Maximum yields

Balance Through Simplicity

Like so many things in life, the secret is balance.  We need each of these organisms living in soil working in conjunction with each other.  A living soil mix allows the plant to reach its full genetic potential without the limitations of human feeding schedules. Plants in nature are able to flourish because their environment makes all of the beneficial material readily available.  Living soil allows a cultivator to replicate nature by avoiding dependence on chemicals, pesticides and eliminates time spent pandering to tedious feeding cycles.  Living soil leads to happy and healthy plants while freeing up time and effort for the grower.  Living soil will give your garden the most natural and sustainable environment, giving way to maximum yields.  Just as Mother Nature intended.

Download Our Brochure    living soil brochure

 

Get To Know Our Amendments: Kelp Meal

Kelp Meal

Kelp Meal Amendment is powerful for gardening.

Kelp is a brown colored seaweed that has a variety of shapes, sizes, forms and usually is found in cold waters throughout the world that grow underwater and on rocky shores. When used as kelp meal amendment for gardening, it really brings plants to life.

The role of kelp in agriculture, dates back thousands of years and has been an integral part of coastal farming. The kelp that has been used widely is the one that grows in the cold Canadian waters of the Atlantic Ocean, it is called Ascophyllum Nodosum. Ascophyllum Nodosum has more than 70 minerals, trace elements, growth hormones, vitamins, enzymes, and proteins.

Importance Of Kelp Meal Amendment:

Kelp provides many benefits to the plants. Kelp is truly Mother Nature’s gift to the modern gardener. There are many ways to use kelp. Foliar spraying is the most effective way of applying kelp since leaves are up to 8 times more efficient in taking in of nutrients than through the root system. Let us look at the ways by which kelp benefits the plants.

Disease Resistance:

Plant diseases can be prevented by spraying seaweed extract on plants. They work by improving the overall health of the plant. Foliar sprays (liquid fertilizers sprayed on plants) supplies many nutrients when the soil is of poor quality or when roots are stressed from transplant shock or are suffering from extreme heat and drought conditions.

Kelp as a soil conditioner:

Many researches and scientific studies have proved that kelp or seaweed is one of the most valuable and beneficial soil conditioner in the world. This shows that why gardeners and farmers have using kelp for centuries. Kelp helps to stimulate soil bacteria which in turn help to increase the soil fertility by humus formation (which feeds on the bacteria), aeration and moisture retention.

Healthy soil is the key to successful gardening.

Now and then we’re so centered around what happens over the soil, we regularly overlook that what’s going on beneath the soil’s surface is a ton more than we understand.

An ideal approach to accomplish solid soil is to include natural materials. Here’s another approach to put it: Feeding plants without concern the long haul strength of the soil resemble building a house on sand. Accordingly, natural planting practices are by a wide margin an ideal approach to enhance this basic piece of your plants’ living space.

You can likewise apply kelp as a fluid compost at the base of plants to achieve the root zone, add it to a trickle water system framework or as a weaken foliar splash. In later tests at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, soil showered with an ocean growth arrangement had 67 percent to 175 percent a bigger number of roots than untreated soil.

What are gardening soil amendments?

gardening-soil-amendments

Gardening soil amendments are great for your garden!

Most people use this word to simply describe a substance that helps soil change its properties when added to it.

We mold out this definition simply to provide clarity and distinguish our customers. In this era, we heavily focus on the chemical inputs like fertilizers, etc., but we ignore the other two types of soil amendments. At Sohum Soils, we divide the soil amendments or conditioners into three distinctive categories:

Fertilizers: They may be organic or synthetic. It is a soil amendment that provides nutrients to the plants.

Soil inoculants: Soil inoculants are particles that improve the soil food web by adding biology to the soil. These substances, mainly focus on fungi or bacteria and some beneficial nematodes that play important roles in carbon cycles.

Soil Amendments: They are the substances that enhance the soil properties. They mainly focus on areas such as soil pH, soil compaction, cation exchange capacity, and water holding capacity.

Importance Of Soil Amendments:

Soil amendments mainly consist of organic matters. Plant and animal remains that are in various stages of decomposition (referred to as compost) are mostly used. Compost decomposes the soil immediately when added to it. It provides a rich food source for the microorganisms in the soil. They eat the plant and the animal remains and die eventually, thus adding themselves to soil composition. The end product is a dark-brown colored humus, which is extremely important to the soil composition because it readily forms chelates with the soil particles and increases the water holding capacity. We are helping the plants sustain a healthy life by providing organic matter as soil amendments.

Soil amendments are used to repair damaged soil and to help maintain the soil quality for plant life. When the soil amendments are added to the soil, they help  loosen and replenish the soil. As well, as maintain nutrients that helps the plants to flourish. It is best to mix the soil amendments and the soil before planting. Although, they work great when placed on the top of the soil after planting the crop.

The soil’s ability to hold and release various elements and compounds that plants need for nutrition is through a process called Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). Cation Exchange Capacity is balanced by adding soil amendments. Soil Amendments work by binding with the atoms that are needed for the plant to grow. They also released certain nutrients at the time when the plant needs them the most. The property of the soil is ultimately changed through the soil amendments to be a perfect state that a plant needs to grow.

Vital Roles Of Soil Amendments:

> Improved soil structure and aeration

> Increased water-holding capacity.

> Increased availability of water to plants

> Reduced compaction and hardpan conditions.

> Improved tile drainage effectiveness

> Alkali soil reclamation

> Release of “locked” nutrients

> Better chemical incorporation

> Better root development

Get To Know Our Amendments: Kelp Meal

Picture taken with an Olympus digital Camera

Kelp Meal is an all natural, 100% organic fertilizer made from dried ocean seaweed. Full of beneficial vitamins and mineral, this all purpose soil treatment works great on potassium loving plants. Oceans contain every natural element known to man. And while sea water is being experimented with as an irrigation alternative in some parts of the world, dried seaweed applications such as Kelp Meal, are proven growth supplements with verified results. Kelp Meal is an outstanding organic fertilizer full of minerals and vitamins that plants benefit from. Further, kelp meal helps encourage against crop stresses like insects, disease, frost and drought.