The life of (building a compost bin) soil
No commentsBy sulamita berrezi
Soil primarily had its beginning from rock together with animal and vegetable decay, if you can imagine long stretches or periods of time when great rock masses were crumbling and breaking up. Heat, water action, and friction were largely responsible for this. By friction here is meant the rubbing and grinding of rock mass against rock mass. Think of the huge rocks, a perfect chaos of them, bumping, scraping, settling against one another. What would be the result? Well, I am sure you all could work that out. This is what happened: bits of rock were worn off, a great deal of heat was produced, pieces of rock were pressed together to form new rock masses, some portions becoming dissolved in water. Why, I myself, almost feel the stress and strain of it all. Can you?
Then, too, there were great changes in temperature. First everything was heated to a high temperature, then gradually became cool. Just think of the cracking, the crumbling, the upheavals, that such changes must have caused! You know some of the effects in winter of sudden freezes and thaws. But the little examples of bursting water pipes and broken pitchers are as nothing to what was happening in the world during those days. The water and the gases in the atmosphere helped along this crumbling work.
From all this action of rubbing, which action we call mechanical, it is easy enough to understand how sand was formed. This represents one of the great divisions of soil sandy soil. The sea shores are great masses of pure sand. If soil were nothing but broken rock masses then indeed it would be very poor and unproductive. But the early forms of animal and vegetable life decaying became a part of the rock mass and a better soil resulted. So the soils we speak of as sandy soils have mixed with the sand other matter, sometimes clay, sometimes vegetable matter or humus, and often animal waste.
Clay brings us right to another class of soils clayey soils. It happens that certain portions of rock masses became dissolved when water trickled over them and heat was plenty and abundant. This dissolution took place largely because there is in the air a certain gas called carbon dioxide or carbonic acid gas. This gas attacks and changes certain substances in rocks. Sometimes you see great rocks with portions sticking up looking as if they had been eaten away. Carbonic acid did this. It changed this eaten part into something else which we call clay. A change like this is not mechanical but chemical. The difference in the two kinds of change is just this: in the one case of sand, where a mechanical change went on, you still have just what you started with, save that the size of the mass is smaller. You started with a big rock, and ended with little particles of sand. But you had no different kind of rock in the end. Mechanical action might be illustrated with a piece of lump sugar. Let the sugar represent a big mass of rock. Break up the sugar, and even the smallest bit is sugar. It is just so with the rock mass; but in the case of a chemical change you start with one thing and end with another. You started with a big mass of rock which had in it a portion that became changed by the acid acting on it. It ended in being an entirely different thing which we call clay. So in the case of chemical change a certain something is started with and in the end we have an entirely different thing. The clay soils are often called mud soils because of the amount of water used in their formation.
The third sort of soil which we farm people have to deal with is lime soil. Remember we are thinking of soils from the farm point of view. This soil of course ordinarily was formed from limestone. Just as soon as one thing is mentioned about which we know nothing, another comes up of which we are just as ignorant. And so a whole chain of questions follows. Now you are probably saying within yourselves, how was limestone first formed?
At one time ages ago the lower animal and plant forms picked from the water particles of lime. With the lime they formed skeletons or houses about themselves as protection from larger animals. Coral is representative of this class of skeleton-forming animal.
As the animal died the skeleton remained. Great masses of this living matter pressed all together, after ages, formed limestone. Some limestones are still in such shape that the shelly formation is still visible. Marble, another limestone, is somewhat crystalline in character. Another well-known limestone is chalk. Perhaps you’d like to know a way of always being able to tell limestone. Drop a little of this acid on some lime. See how it bubbles and fizzles. Then drop some on this chalk and on the marble, too. The same bubbling takes place. So lime must be in these three structures. One does not have to buy a special acid for this work, for even the household acids like vinegar will cause the same result.
Then these are the three types of soil with which the farmer has to deal, and which we wish to understand. For one may learn to know his garden soil by studying it, just as one learns a lesson by study.
Sulamita is the developer of Sfondi Immagini, Sulamita also has a video nuoto federica pellegrini.
Your Source For Composting Instructions And Information
Important Tips, Information & Advices on Gardening
By Jessica Thomson
Most of us see and know gardening as a hobby but hardly does anyone believe that if every piece of information about gardening is to be mentioned then there would be volumes of pages and infinite number of websites on the subject. Most of the Gardening is a result of someone’s hobby. I done regularly and methodically, gardening can not only be cheap and fun but also very constructive. Some people consider this a break from the monotony of life. The snowy winters cannot stop a genuine and hardworking gardener from enjoying the sight of a green patch of land that he him has developed. Gardening can be indoor as well as outdoor. It is considered to fight stress and to provide relaxation.
The location of the garden is the first and the most important aspect. The location that you have chosen to develop as a garden should receive sunlight everyday for at least 6 hours. The other factors that are of prime importance are the climate, type of soil and the availability of water. After taking all these factors into consideration choose the plants that you are going to sow and grow in your garden.
Gardening can be done in pots or directly in the conditioned soil. Watering the plants is another most important issue. Care should be taken that the excess of water drains off through the holes in the pot. If you think of gardening in the soil around your house then the soil has to be treated and conditioned making it comfortable for gardening. Unnecessary weeds need to be plucked off and fertilizers need to be added to the soil.
The soil can be made fertile with two kinds of fertilizers. One is organic fertilizer and the other is inorganic fertilizers. Nowadays the organic fertilizers are becoming more and more popular.
When one starts gardening the other important issue is controlling the pests and the insects that damage the garden. One has the choice of using the insecticides and pesticides which can be either organic or inorganic. Again it is the organic insecticides and organic pesticides that are becoming more popular.
The choice of plants that you want in the garden could vary a lot depending upon the factors prevailing around. The gardening plants include flowers, vegetables and even desert plants like cactus.
On should practice gardening regularly to make it as productive as possible. Without any concrete proof never trust the neighbor’s advice. Your garden centre can be perfected with the latest garden supplies and garden furniture
Most of us see and know gardening as a hobby but hardly does anyone believe that if every piece of information about gardening is to be mentioned then there would be volumes of pages and infinite number of websites on the subject. Most of the Gardening is a result of someone’s hobby. I done regularly and methodically, gardening can not only be cheap and fun but also very constructive. Some people consider this a break from the monotony of life. The snowy winters cannot stop a genuine and hardworking gardener from enjoying the sight of a green patch of land that he him has developed. Gardening can be indoor as well as outdoor. It is considered to fight stress and to provide relaxation.
The location of the garden is the first and the most important aspect. The location that you have chosen to develop as a garden should receive sunlight everyday for at least 6 hours. The other factors that are of prime importance are the climate, type of soil and the availability of water. After taking all these factors into consideration choose the plants that you are going to sow and grow in your garden.
Gardening can be done in pots or directly in the conditioned soil. Watering the plants is another most important issue. Care should be taken that the excess of water drains off through the holes in the pot. If you think of gardening in the soil around your house then the soil has to be treated and conditioned making it comfortable for gardening. Unnecessary weeds need to be plucked off and fertilizers need to be added to the soil.
The soil can be made fertile with two kinds of fertilizers. One is organic fertilizer and the other is inorganic fertilizers. Nowadays the organic fertilizers are becoming more and more popular.
When one starts gardening the other important issue is controlling the pests and the insects that damage the garden. One has the choice of using the insecticides and pesticides which can be either organic or inorganic. Again it is the organic insecticides and organic pesticides that are becoming more popular.
The choice of plants that you want in the garden could vary a lot depending upon the factors prevailing around. The gardening plants include flowers, vegetables and even desert plants like cactus.
On should practice gardening regularly to make it as productive as possible. Without any concrete proof never trust the neighbor’s advice. Your garden centre can be perfected with the latest garden supplies and garden furniture
For more insights and further information about garden suppliesvisit our site http://www.gardencentreonline.co.uk
Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
