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Soil Renovation LLC, Daviess County, IN (2026)

07/25/2026

Building Soil Part 4

The Big Picture.

With soil, context is king. Learning to read and understand the terrain is the most important factor in your soil building journey. Knowing how different soil types, past land use, weeds/plants, soil minerals, and current management all interact together is the difference between taking actionable steps and just spinning your wheels.

Past land use has drastic effects on how soils act. Learning the history of the land is very important. It's one of the essential questions I ask when working with a client. Any disturbance to the soil profile can have detrimental effects. Often times the area around where a house has been constructed has had the soil regraded and the soil layers inverted. The same could be said for land used for row crop production.

When organic matter gets trapped below the surface, excess CO2 or even methane or ethane can be released into the soil. This leads to the growth of many types of weeds. This especially true if that organic matter is covered with heavy soils like clay that do not drain well.

Hayfields are notorious for having lifeless soils. Cropfields often have a hardpan in them. Strip mined land has it's soil organic matter destroyed and suffers from heavy metal toxicity. These "artifacts" from the past are often present long after the land use has changed. Take note of indicators of past use and take time to learn the history of your soil. This can be critical to addressing problems that could be overlooked.

Soil texture is another major factor. While many tools work well in all soil types, paying attention to soil types and textures can direct you to the most effective course of action. Sandy soils might benefit from cover crops or biochar, and clay might benefit from broad-forking or a microbial inoculant. In both cases we might be addressing low soil organic matter, but our approach may change based on soil type.

Observe any effects related to soil texture and type. Are you dealing with soil that is tight? Is it eroding? Waterlogged or draining too quickly? Maybe it isn't able to infiltrate water at all and any rainfall just runs off...

Dig into the soil to see how deep the topsoil is (if you have any topsoil at all). You can also observe how deep plant roots are penetrating. Can you drive a stake into the soil with your hand or do you need a hammer? Check how deep it goes and pay attention to any hardpan layers. Soil texture is very important in my line of work.

The weeds and plants in a given area can tell you a lot about the soil conditions. Some plants may indicate past pesticide use. There are plants that indicate high aluminum (which can inhibit nutrient uptake in plants), iron, or other elements. Many weeds grow in soils that are low in calcium. Other plants grow in places where organic matter is rotting in the soil. Others indicate sandy soil that doesn't retain nutrients or water. Some grow in waterlogged places.

Plants can fairly accurately indicate nutrient availability. Each species has a "window" of conditions it will tolerate. By taking note of the plants growing in a given area, you can look for themes indicated by those plants. If several plants indicate conditions that pertain to a certain nutrient being too high or low, it can be safe to assume that is the case. There are plants that only thrive when conditions are nearly ideal. Reading the weeds is an invaluable skill that, in some cases, may be more accurate than (but not as specific as) some soil tests.

There are many things you conclude simply by observation. Red soils indicate high iron. Tight soils usually have a low calcium to magnesium ratio. Do these observations line up with other indicators? Is there bare soil? Why? In several cases I have able to address problems for clients by observing that they had used pine mulch on their garden, and then applying an appropriate microbial input.

By observing indicators of past land use, learning about its history, taking note of soil type, texture, and color, reading the weeds, and considering current land management, you can make decisions to improve your soil. Once you have a good idea of what needs corrections, you can apply the appropriate tools.

Building soil is a lifelong journey. There are so many factors in soil that, without proper context, you can easily do more harm than good in your attempts to build it. It is very important to take things slowly and pay attention to feedback loops. Pay attention to what your land and plants are telling you. Learn, learn, learn. Be patient. The reward of rich soil is worth it.

In some ways, soil building is more of an art than a science. We'll take a look at that next...

07/22/2026

Building Soil Part 3

While plants are the primary soil builders, sometimes we need to accelerate plant health. In poor soils, nutrients are often unavailable due to being too deep in the soil profile, being in an unavailable form, or just general soil dysfunction. In these cases, addressing nutrient shortages can greatly expedite our soil building journey.

Addressing nutrient deficiency can take two primary forms. One is by adding the nutrient directly and the other is by increasing soil function. Increasing soil function can be done with a microbial inoculant, although the inoculant must often be accompanied by other management changes.

If we are going to add nutrients where do we get them? One obvious answer is from other plants. If you have a healthy plant it contains nutrients that your plants need. Duh! Using plants material you have available to make ferments or compost is an excellent place to start. Bear in mind that fruit will contain more micronutrients, and green material (leaves & stalks) will contain more nitrogen. For this reason I often like to use a higher percentage of fruit in ferments and use the rest of the plant in compost.

Certain plants accumulate particular nutrients in their various parts. For example, Tupelo trees accumulate cobalt in their leaves and dandelion accumulates calcium. Study this and use it to your advantage. The same goes for various parts of animals and animal products. Animals are also nutrient accumulators.

An important source of nutrients are our waterbodies, particularly salt water. Many of our nutrients are washed away into the waterways, and make their way to the seas and oceans. Since many of migratory insects, birds, and fish are extinct or in decline, we no longer have the transport mechanisms we once had to move these nutrients back onto our landmasses.

That leaves the nutrient transport up to us. (I like to think of humans as the ultimate migratory species...) Unrefined sea salt, as well as plant and animal products from the sea, are an important addition to our soil fertility. Sea salt can be added to our ferments, and kelp can be added to biofertilizers or compost teas. Make sure to use very little (think pinches...), especially when it comes to the salt. Less is more as we don't want to over salt our soils.

Often times what our soils really need is microbes. From the frozen sea ice to the barren desert, microbes are everywhere. They are an essential part of every ecosystem. They build soil structure (that "chocolate cake" we farmers dream of), make nutrients available to plants, and bind up toxins.

Next to plants, microbes are the other big factor in soil building. In fact, just like you can't have soil without plants, you can't have (natural) plants without microbes. Some microbes like cyanobacteria even perform their own photosynthesis without plants at all. Microbes really are a powerhouse when it comes to building soil fast.

Like plants microbes need to fit the environment. If you put a fungal dominant compost extract into bare, sandy soil those fungi will die. You need to have mulch for the fungi to feed on and keep the soil moist. Preferably you would have many living plants as well. In abused, dry, compacted soils it is best to start with extremophiles like the various photosynthetic bacteria or facultative microbes like lactobacillus.

These microbes will decompact the soil, break up anaerobic zones, and bind up toxins. They should be followed up with mulch or cover crops. Next we can encourage a more diverse set of microbes via compost and inoculants. As the soil improves, becomes looser, and has more organic matter it can then host more fungi and other "higher" level microbes.

Culturing microbes is not necessarily difficult, but it does require specific knowledge, attention to detail, and time. If you already have access to microbes in your fermented foods, compost, and nearby "natural" areas, these can be used to help encourage them in your garden.

The techniques for culturing microbes can be found in books, Facebook groups, and YouTube. That being said, there is little replacement for learning directly from an experienced practioner. Be patient with yourself in the learning process! It is very worth it!

We here at Soil Renovation have removed hardpan in fields, opened up waterlogged soils, and turned around struggling gardens with our microbial inoculants and biofertilizers. These microbial cultures are very valuable when used in the right situation. Just like anything else, context is critical when it comes to microbes. They can only be effective if they are matched to the issue at hand.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for soil, one practice I recommend to all gardeners is to use the "bokashi" method of fermenting your food waste. It is a far better than a standard slop bucket. You're going to have food waste, so it might as well increase the beneficial microbes in your soil.

While plant management like cover crops, mulch, chop-and-drop, and rotational grazing are the primary way to manage soil, there is often room for improvement by using targeted microbial and nutrient inputs.

Next we will cover reading the terrain and the big picture of soil health improvement...

07/20/2026

Building Soil Part 2

What is the role of plants in building soil? That's right, plants build soil. In fact you can grow a crop while increasing your soil vitality. This is the opposite of what many of us have been taught. The scarcity mindset is what keeps us from building soil. An abundance mindset will allow us to more effectively fix our soils.

Plants are the ultimate solar panels. They use solar energy to turn CO2 and water into sugar. This sugar is the building block of most of the life on earth. These simple sugars are then converted into more complex carbohydrates, fats, cellulose, and lignin. Worldwide, photosynthetic organisms convert more than 100 billion tons of carbon into biomass per year. That is an enormous amount of energy, about 8 times that of global human power consumption.

In our previous post about building soil, we noted that soil is made up of minerals and organic matter. The biomass created by photosynthesis is what makes that organic matter. Plants pump some of the sugars they create into the ground to feed the microbial life in the soil. This microbial life uses the energy from the sugar to extract nutrients from the mineral base of the soil. The microbes convert nutrients into a form the plants can absorb.

Together plants and microbes make nutrients and energy (sugars, carbohydrates, and fats) available to animals and humans. Living and dead plant and animal material are what create organic matter in our soils. So how do we encourage maximum photosynthesis so that our plants can do a good job of creating biomass to feed ourselves, our animals, and our soils?

Time...

Firstly, we must always have living and dead plant material on our soils for as much of the year as possible. Land should never be left bare and there should be a living root in the ground as often as possible. Cover crops are an excellent way to build soils. Also, removing plant material from your growing space robs the soil of valuable nutrients and cover. (That cover, whether living or dead, is essential for maintaining moisture, and remember, water is essential for photosynthesis...) Don't remove any more of a plant than necessary and that includes weeds.

Efficiency...

Secondly, matching the plant to the soil conditions is an essential part of using plants to build soil. Every plant has ideal conditions in which it can best perform photosynthesis. For an example we will look at Johnson grass.

Johnson grass grows in depleted and abused soils. It can take over when soil conditions are poor. It's "invasive" if you will. But Johnson grass is a member of the sorghum family. That means it is a warm season grass that produces copious amounts sugar. It can produce the sugars and biomass we need to restore soil even in very poor conditions.

Another example might be dandelion which grows in compacted soils that are low in calcium. It uses its taproot to break up the compaction and also mines calcium and potassium and brings them up to the surface.

We often call plants that grow in poor soils, "weeds". That right, weeds are giving back to the soil, not taking from it (this is were the scarcity vs. abundance mindset applies to soil building). Our job is to manage the plants on our land, whether weeds, crops, or cover crops, so they can build soil faster.

Instead of pulling plants out of the garden, leave them in place, especially their roots. Plant cover crops on unused land, especially over winter. Use your weeds to build soil, either by grazing them, chopping-and-dropping them, or making fertilizer or compost with them. When plant growth declines get something else growing in its place to ensure maximum photosynthesis (relay cropping) Plant mixtures of plants to ensure maximum biomass production (cover crop mixes, intercropping, or companion planting). Mix perrenial plants and annuals as the perrenials keep the soil alive when annuals are absent.

Seek out plants that produce sugars (like sorghum), that create lots of biomass both above and below ground (sunflowers and rye for example), store valuable nutrients (like beets, turnips, or radishes), or mine nutrients from deep in the ground (say dandelion or comfrey). Add these plants to your garden to fix problems you might have.

Grow aggressive plants nearby your garden that you can use for mulch. Comfrey, Maximilian Sunflower, willow, and poplar trees are just a few of the aggressive plants that can be used to build soil. Embrace plants that are a bit on the "invasive" side. These plants WANT to grow in your conditions and they can perform the functions you need to build better soil to grow the crops that don't currently do well in your environment.

As side note, you can use landrace breeding methods to adapt crop plants to your local conditions so that they too WANT to grow there. This an under-explored aspect of soil building...

Another way to use plants to build soil is by amending the soil or inoculating it with microbes to help the plants better perform their job. This is what many people think of when they think of "building" soil. Just bear in mind that this can be a huge amount of work if your plants aren't a good fit for your environment.

Start with the right plants first!

We'll explore using microbes and minerals to build soil next time...

07/18/2026

Here's an example of why trees and other plants are so essential to the water cycle...

07/18/2026

Building Soil Part 1

After my previous post about plants and soil, a friend suggested that I explain the best ways to build soil...

So, how do we build soil? Before we can answer that question, we must define what soil is. Soil is the combination of a mineral base and organic matter that provides ideal habitat for the "soil food web".

The mineral base is derived from eroded bedrock, glacial drift, volcanic deposits, etc. The texture of this mineral base can be expressed as sand, silt, loam, or clay. Many of the nutrients plants need are found in this mineral base.

The other component of soil is organic matter. This is made up of living and dead plant, animal, and fungal material. The plant material is obvious, but what where is all this animal material coming from? Decaying large mammals typically contribute very little to the soil, although their waste can play a part. But what if you don't have large animals, do you still have animal material in your soil?

Yes, of course! Small mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates play a part as well, but the vast majority of non-plant material in the soil is too small to see with the naked eye. Microbes! Microbes (including fungi, even though they're not animals...) make up much of the soil's organic matter and play a vital role in the function of soil.

Without microbes, plants can only absorb water-soluble nutrients. Many of the nutrients plants need from the soil are not found in a form they can absorb. Whether in the mineral base or decaying material, plant nutrients can get "locked up" or, even worse, leach out of the soil entirely.

Microbes "unlock" nutrients in the soil and make them available to the plants. Microbes, and soil organic matter as a whole, can also serve as a reservoir for nutrients to keep them from being lost to leaching. Poor soils are low in organic matter and microbial diversity. High quality soils have a relatively greater percentage of organic matter and microbial diversity.

The "soil food web" is made up of many plants, animals, and fungi living and dying; working together in beautiful harmony.

Without organic matter all we really have is dirt. Our job as gardeners and farmers is to turn depleted dirt back into soil. Now that we have a rough understanding of what soil is, we can further explore how to "make" soil.

We'll cover the role of plants next...

07/17/2026

Another good looking garden, and big improvements on the lawn... Look at that sweet corn!

07/15/2026

There is a connection between the recent cyclosporiasis out break and soil health...

The recent epidemic of "explosive diarrhea" is caused by a parasitic protozoa, cyclospora cayetanensis. This single cell organism has a two part life cycle. One portion of its life cycle is spent inside of its human host where it undergoes asexual multiplication and sexual reproduction. Once it is passed out of the human body via f***s, it has to undergo a sporulation phase before it can reinfect another human. This sporulation can take 5-14 days. At that point it needs to reinfect another person to continue its life cycle.

In April of 2025, food safety scientists published a paper covering research done on the persistence of cyclospora cayentanensis in the environment. These scientists tested both plants and soil in arid and wet conditions. At 56 days, the soil in the arid conditions no longer held viable cyclospora. They had died out by day 28... However, the plants in the arid conditions did contain viable parasites. Of course, in the wet conditions both the plants and soil contained viable cyclospora at day 56. All that to say, cyclospora cayetanensis has no problem surviving in the environment until it finds another human host. It can even survive freezing above 25°F.

So how is a parasite found in human f***s making its way back into our food system?
Unfortunately, there are many ways that this could happen. The most obvious source is municipal wastewater facilities. Aging wastewater facilities are prone to leaks and overflows. This is especially true under flood conditions. Michigan has been an epicenter for extreme rainfall this spring. There may be a correlation between flooding conditions and this recent parasite outbreak in the Midwest. Waste water overflows could introduce abnormal amounts of cyclospora into the waterways. Cyclospora has also been found in biosolid samples, and even if those biosolids aren't spread on farmland used for vegetable production, runoff from cropfields and pastureland could further contaminate the waterways.
..I promise we will get to the soil part soon... hang in there...

Home septic systems could also be a source of cyclospora contamination either through overflow or seepage. Aging and poorly designed systems can lead to inadequate filtration before affecting either surface water or ground water. Many industrial produce farms use surface water from rivers to irrigate their produce. While this water is often treated with chlorine, cyclospora is not affected by chlorine like E. Coli and other pathogens. These produce farms may also have inadequate on-site waste facilities further contributing to the problem. Furthermore, these farms employ low-wage workers, many of whom are migrants from places where cyclospora is endemic, who have little incentive to maintain sanitary conditions.

Packing houses, warehouses, and large scale grocery outlets employ a similar class of workers and may also fail to maintain sanitary conditions. Throughout the supply chain chlorine water is used to treat produce. While chlorine is effective against E. Coli, Salmonella, and even Giardia, it is not effective for Cyclospora Cayetanensis. The sexual reproduction of cyclospora may also allow it to adapt to and overcome attempts to kill it with poisons.

So, after all of that depressing information, what can be done about this and what role does healthy soil play in correcting these problems? Healthy soil is full of all manner of microbes that make up a complex food chain. Microbes eat other microbes. This keeps life in balance and prevents pathogen outbreaks. Protozoa like cyclospora are food for earthworms, nematodes, and rotifers. In waterways, copepods, water fleas, flatworms, and other invertebrates eat protozoa.

Unfortunately, the quantity and diversity of many of these microbes are in decline due to our overuse of synthetic chemicals. Our farmland is sprayed with all manner herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc. Lawns are no different. Forestry land, powerlines, ditches, and parking lots are sprayed with herbicide. All these toxins kill off the microbial communities in the soil.

These toxins build up in the soil until they are carried into waterways by storm runoff. Unnatural industrial fertilizers and destruction of soil structure hinder the soils ability to hold water. This leads to aggressive erosion and toxic runoff. Waterways become silted in and full of toxins from every direction. Nevermind all of the cleaners and pharmaceuticals that find their way into our water as well... This kills off the natural microbes in our water.

Our soils and water have been assaulted from every direction and no longer have their natural defense systems against pathogens. But there is hope! Regenerative farming is able to rebuild the microbial life in the soils. This leads to soil that can hold water so there is less runoff bombarding or streams and rivers. Not only does this leads to less flooding, it makes for healthier waterways. As the health of the land and water increases, a pathogen outbreak is less likely.

Food purchased from regenerative farms is also less likely to be contaminated, because small local farms are often family run and pay their workers better. They take pride in the food they produce! Moreover, food from a well run farm can improve your gut health so you are less likely to be affected by a pathogen. Unlike industrial food that may be contaminated with pathogens, produce grown in healthy environments will have healthy microbes on it that can serve as a probiotic. The nutritional quality is also higher, further bolstering your gut health.

This recent parasite outbreak is a wakeup call. Systems that are contrary to nature always fail. Aging infrastructure and denatured land will destroy us unless we start looking for solutions before it's to late. Rebuilding our communities and our waterways begins with rebuilding our soils. By using nature based solutions we can produce food that feeds rather than destroys (your intestines...with explosive diarrhea...). We can even use the principles of soil health to build better waste management systems.

When we destroy nature, she fights back with thorns, toxic plants, and pathogens. When we see these problems we need to engage in some serious introspection. We don't need to live this way. We can change...

07/11/2026

You can have plants without soil, but you can't have soil without plants!

That is one of the most important things you will read today...

We've all seen plants growing without soil. Moss on rocks, spider plants in water, weeds pushing up through cracks in the sidewalk...trees and shrubs clinging to rocky cliffs... Plants will grow almost anywhere. Plants don't NEED soil... in fact hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics are the practice of growing crops in a soilless environment. Sterile potting soil is sometimes called "soilless potting soil". So while we often think of soil as being necessary for plants, it just isn't true.

The inverse, however, is that you cannot have soil without plants. Soil, by definition, includes organic matter; much of that organic matter being in the form of microorganisms. That organic matter requires plants to form. Plants use water and carbon dioxide to form glucose via photosynthesis. This glucose is then formed into cellulose and later lignin via polymerization (ooh...big word!). This glucose, cellulose, and lignin are the building blocks of both plants and soil; and serve to feed the army of microbial life within the soil. The fact that plants and soil organic matter are largely made up of elements from water and air is why you can have plants without soil, but you can't have soil without plants. Plants. Make. Soil!

Not only that, but if plants are removed from soil it very quickly oxidizes and erodes!

While you CAN have plants without soil, most plants will NEVER reach their full potential without it! Soil is the delivery system of essential nutrients to plants, then animals, and ultimately humans. The key to building soil is giving plants what they need to reach peak vitality so that they can build soil faster! This where human stewardship enters the picture. By leveraging this information, humans can build soil at unprecedented rates of inches per year rather than an inch per century. This means healthier food, water, and air; and a more stable climate for everyone.

The future of humanity rests on the task of building soil and building it NOW! Who's with me?

07/09/2026

Fix soil with the right strategies...

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