Apple Earth

-Will holding all of earths topsoil between his fingers

Part of our exploration of compost is understanding why we do it, and what compost’s role on earth and in our gardens is. It is important to realize that the earth has its own way of recycling nutrients, and by composting we are merely putting our human twist on a process that has been happening for millions, perhaps billions of years. Today we did an exercise that focused on conceptualizing the earths topsoil, the product of earths decomposing precesses, and for that we used one of our favorite fruits, the apple! Here’s a little run-through…

Water makes up about 3/4ths of the earths surface, must of us have been taught that sense a young age. BUT not all land is arable (suitable for growing crops), half of the that land, one eighth, is too hot, cold, or wet. We are now left with a wedge that is one eighth of our original apple. You may be hoping that the remaining surface of our fruit is suitable for agriculture but you would be let down. Three fourths of that remaining earth is not suitable for roots to grow in i.e. mountains, cities, and our ever expanding roads. After cutting our last wedge into four pieces we are left with one 32nd of our original apple. Peel the skin off and you have an approximate example of how much suitable topsoil covers the planet.

From there our conversation touched on topics like soil erosion, the great dust bowl, development, carbon sequestration and conservation/agricultural techniques that can regenerate our precious top soil. Did you know that it takes an average of 100 years for most climates to grow an inch of the stuff? Compare that with the 5 inches our midwest was loosing PER YEAR at the hight of the dust bowl in the 1930’s. I’ll let you do that math, but that means we have serious work to do, and topics like no-till and perennial grain farming should be on our minds.

P.S. Our topsoil was delicious!