storage ability is called effective rainfall.

“microbial activity also drives the process of soil aggregation, enhancing soil structural stability, aeration, infiltration, and water-holding capacity. All living things, above and below ground, benefit when the plant-microbe bridge is functioning effectively.”

Mycorrhizal fungi secrete a glue-like substance called glomalin that helps bind soil particles together, and the more soil particles, the more pore spaces. These pore spaces are critical for water infiltration, and it is in and on the thin films of water in soil pore spaces that most soil microbes live.

Varying from two to eighteen inches deep, or deeper, the A horizon is where much of the liquid carbon ends up when it is exuded from the roots of plants.

These simple sugars, referred to as photosynthate, are the building blocks of life. Plants transform these sugars into a wide array of other compounds. Many of these compounds are used by plants for growth, however, a significant amount of them are transferred to the root tips where they are ‘leaked’ into the soil as root exudates.”

“If you want to make small changes, change the way you do things. If you want to make major changes, change the way you see things.” It was

Holistic management focuses on the four ecosystem processes and our potential impact on them. Those processes are: the water cycle, the mineral cycle (which includes the carbon cycle), energy flow, and community dynamics (the complex set of relationships of biology within the ecosystem).

we shouldn’t refer to particular plant species as “native” because species are ever evolving, too. We should refer to the landscape simply as an ecosystem of plants.

What is hugelkultur? The word means “hill culture” in German and is a technique where woody debris is utilized as a resource