Well-Loosened

Most gardeners know that our garden plants really suffer in deeply compacted soil. This is one of our reasons for tilling each season. We till to destroy weeds and turn vegetation into the soil, sure, but we also till to loosen the soil. We all know this intuitively. We’d never plant our vegetables in the garden without first loosening the soil for them. And we definitely wouldn’t plant a row of vegetables directly in the deeply compacted soil of one of last year’s paths without first tilling or otherwise loosening it. We know our plants would really suffer. But why is this? 

Part of the reason loosened soil so clearly benefits our plants is that it makes it TONS easier for their roots to grow out in all directions, gaining increased access to available water and nutrients as they grow. Conversely, think of all of the energy it takes for a plant’s roots to force their way into compacted soil. Imagine roots attempting to grow in soil as compacted as your garden path, or even into some field soils that are almost as hard and compacted as concrete. Their roots are barely able to penetrate these soils, making life and their search for nutrients much more difficult, seriously decreasing their abilities to fend for themselves. But they also fail to reach their full potential in any soil not fully loosened. Truly, our plants only reach their fullest potential when they grow in very well-loosened soil. They become their fullest selves, capable of fending off most insects, diseases, and dry spells simply by having their strongest foundation, their roots, spread out to their fullest extent. 

Another part of the reason loosened soil is so beneficial is that truly healthy soil needs millions of pores—or “air pockets”—for the movement of both air and water. Well-loosened soil has millions of small pockets of space between the soil particles that help with water, nutrient, and air movement.³ The air movement made possible by these pockets of space allows the aerobic microbes characteristic of healthy soils to thrive. Furthermore, not only does water drain better through this well-loosened soil—importantly, making it well-drained, as well—its multitude of small pores provide extra storage spaces for water. Loose soils are also better at keeping water present because of their enhanced facilitation of the upward pull of water through capillary action.

The tremendous depth of our plants’ roots pictured above also shows us that everything done to your soil is best done deeply.

³ _{The increased aeration of the soil from plowing, as much as the relative ease of cultivating a larger space, is credited with the boom in agricultural production after the invention of the plow.}