Video | Soil is Alive

Here in the forest, the soil has everything it needs, and because of that, it can take care of the trees. It feeds this oak here, and this thing is super happy. Here is the kicker, each year, this oak drops these leaves. This rotting stuff, this is soil food. And if we have this, we also have air, and we have water. This is what keeps soil alive.

I’m Basil, and today I’m here to talk about soil. It is alive, I mean it’s like really alive. It’s like you and me. It needs oxygen; it needs water; it needs food. If it has these things, it gonna feed your trees. It’s going to take care of your trees. They’re going to be healthy. They’re going to be happy. If it doesn’t have these things, then you get this…

This is what used to be a really beautiful old oak tree, and it is suffering right now. It’s a sick tree. And let me show you why. Check this out.

So I’m going to use this screw diver, and I’m going to try and push it into the ground. I want you to see how much I struggle to get this thing in. We are talking, oh my goodness, maybe two inches. If I’m lucky. That is definitely not full of air. You can just see this stuff; there is no water. Let me see if there is anything in here that looks like rotting food for soil. No, it’s just more of the same. It’s dry; it’s super hard. There is no rotting stuff in here.

This is sick dirt which means we have a sick tree.

Here is the exciting news, we can resurrect this dead dirt and turn it back into healthy soil. By replicating what we see in the forest every day. So here I recommend that we put down lots and lots of wood-chips and let the leaves fall and rot every single year. That’s going to create this amazingness that’s full of air and water and giving the soil that rotting stuff that it needs to eat. That means we have healthy, happy soil that can then feed the trees. Now we have healthy, happy trees. It’s a win-win. And the best part is this:

If we do this on a large scale, we can restore the health of this planet that we call home.