Is My Soil Healthy?

Start here for soil basics

Growing amazing organic food starts and ends with the soil. Understand what soil is and whether yours is healthy, and learn simple, practical skills to support the fruit trees and other plants in your garden.

Fruit trees get their nutrition from the soil, and people get their nutrition from the fruit. It only makes sense that to grow excellent, delicious and nutrient-dense fruit you have to get the soil right first.

What a lot of people think of as soil is really just “dirt”, which is just the boring physical and chemical parts of the earth. Vibrant, live, rich organic soil also needs plenty of organic matter and to act as a welcoming home to millions of ‘good’ critters like worms, bugs and microbes.

In this module you’ll learn the difference between soil and dirt, do some simple tests to figure out the condition of the soil at your place, and learn the secrets your fruit is telling you about the state of your soil.

What’s included in this module:

• Unit 1: What is healthy soil (article)
• Unit 2: What is healthy soil (video)
• Unit 3a: Soil tests and do I need them? (article)
• Unit 3b: Soil tests and do I need them? (activity)
• Unit 3c: Measure the water-holding capacity of your soil (activity)
• Unit 4a: Diagnosing nutrient issues in fruit trees (article)
• Unit 4b: Diagnosing nutrient issues in fruit trees (audio)
• Unit 4c: Diagnosing nutrient issues in fruit trees (activity)