Thursday, October 15, 2009

Adventures in the Rhizosphere


I was digging up summer plants in order to plant winter plants and almost everywhere I dug I found these networks of mycorrhizal fungi. This was very exciting to me because I have been reading Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets and he was talking about the benefits of mycorrhizal fungi and mycelium in general.  Mycorrhizal fungi play an essential role in the soil by closely associating themselves with plant roots and helping to break down organic matter in the soil and transporting water and nutrients from other parts of the soil to the plant.  Plants are supposedly much happier when growing with these mycelia.  You can buy innoculants, but where did mine come from?  I think it came from my compost tea, but I am not sure.  While trying to figure it out, I stumbled upon this slide show about the rhizosphere, a universe of amoebas, bacteria, plant roots, fungi, mites, bugs and more.  Very happy to be building a thriving ecosystem in my dirt.

{Memo to self: Garlic is planted in rear garden, south western most section before the asparagus.  Facing south, left rows are Metechi (marbled purple stripe garlic) next rows to right are Early Italian Purple (artichoke garlic).  To the right of that is elephant garlic.  Facing west, the rear asparagus bed has shallots in the right hand section where the asparagus did not make it. Also, in the right hand side of the bed that had peppers and arugula in it, next to where the tomatoes were I planted  Korean Red garlic.}

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