The soil of your garden contains countless numbers of organisms so small that it would take a microscope to even get a peek at them.
These tiny creatures are known as microorganisms, or more commonly in gardening, as microbes.
Microbes are essential to a garden and to healthy plant growth because of their ability to decompose organic material within the soil.
They enrich the soil with nutrients, supplying each succeeding generation of plants.
This type of decay doesn't come about as a result of using chemical fertilizers, but rather is essentially a natural cycle within the soil.
There are many different types of microbes.
Some include bacteria, fungi, and protozoa.
These microbes are essential to the overall nutrient cycle of your garden; however, they require ample amounts of moisture and the right kind of air in order to function properly.
The primary source of nutrients within the soil is the organic matter of dead plants and animals, and this is commonly called detritus.
Since almost all of this dead organic matter is decomposed by bacteria and other types of microbes, the importance of these tiny organisms is immense.
This is especially true considering the fact that this organic matter must be broken down first and then put back into the soil before your plants can uptake nutrients.
Another important function of microbes in the soil is their ability to provide a sustainable structure within the ground.
Many bacteria produce sticky substances such as polysaccharides, gums, and others which help to cement and solidify the dirt into soil aggregates.
Fungi also assist in this overall process when their strands provide protection for plant roots from deadly pathogens (bad microbes) as well as help wrap the soil into a nice and tidy package.
The primary nutrients that microbes help to deliver into the soil include sulfur, carbon, phosphorous, and nitrogen.
In addition, microorganisms also regulate the amount of nitrogen that certain plants receive through a process known as nitrogen fixation.
In nitrogen fixation, inert nitrogen gas is taken from the air and turned into a nitrogen compound that can be utilized by plant roots.
However, oftentimes this process can be hindered by small amounts of fertilizer nitrogen and cannot always be relied upon for ample supplies of nitrogen for each plant.
Nevertheless, the importance of soil microbes should never be underestimated when caring for your garden.
The benefits for healthy plants in relation to these organisms are countless, and the only way to preserve these important creatures is to avoid the hostile environment that chemical fertilizers introduce into the soil.
This type of environment only hinders the work that the soil microbes undertake for your plants.
On the other hand, these microbes are essential for allowing the nutrients from natural fertilizers to be utilized by plants in order to make them healthier.
Natural fertilizers help microbes by keeping harmful chemical additives out of the soil.
Knowing that microbes assist natural fertilizers in getting nutrients into the soil and activating them for plant use, it can only be said that this is the healthiest and most effective combination for nourishing plants, allowing them to create overflowing amounts of produce in your garden.