Report by Clara Shelton, Marketing Communications Assistant

Gardening columnist Adrian Higgins doesn’t like the word “dirt.” In a recent article in the Washington Post, he explains the vast network of organisms that make up a diverse, underground “cosmos.” While many articles on soil health understandably focus on farming, Higgins discusses a study of soil samples in New York’s Central Park that indicated hundreds of thousands of organisms below the surface. Studying soil in various parts of the world shows how disparate climates and ecosystems are actually quite similar on a microscopic level.

By understanding the major players—earthworms, insects, other arthropods, nematodes, protozoa, bacteria and fungi—growers and gardeners can learn how to improve the quality of their soil without adding in harmful substances.

Read the article here.