09/05/2026
🪱 THE SOIL FOOD WEB, IN ONE POST
Here's what's actually happening under your garden:
Bacteria show up first and break down easy material — fresh residue, root exudates. But they hoard nitrogen inside their own cells. It's locked up, unavailable to your plants.
Fungi handle the tougher stuff — woody material, dead roots — and some species (mycorrhizal fungi) go further, forming a direct trade with plant roots: the fungus mines water and phosphorus, the plant pays in sugar.
Protozoa eat the bacteria. Because protozoa need way less nitrogen than bacteria carry, they excrete the surplus as ammonium — plant-available, right in the root zone. This is the actual mechanism behind "good soil biology."
Nematodes do the same job from a few different angles — some graze bacteria, some graze fungi, some prey on other nematodes. Only one group (root-feeders) is the pest you've heard about. The rest are part of the same nutrient-release system.
Every time something eats something else down there, nutrients get released. That's the whole system. That's why compost and vermicompost work — you're not just adding organic matter, you're adding the workforce that processes it.
