It All Starts With Soil

There are so many cool things about soil! Without it, we wouldn't have good food, good water, good land to build on, or. . . well, really we wouldn't have much of anything without soil. In this blog post I'm going to run over some of the more tangible aspects of soil, and how it affects you every day.

Recently I read an entertaining and interesting article on The Atlantic that discusses how just smelling soil can boost serotonin (the feel-good chemical your body naturally produces) in your brain. Isn't that amazing? We're genetically inclined toward enjoying being close to the earth! I suspect this is not surprising for many of you. :-)

You know that earthy smell and taste you get especially from certain vegetables grown under soil, like carrots? The smell, called "geosmin" by scientists, lends the sought-after flavor depth to foods.

Another cool thing I learned is that different soils produce different-tasting foods. A tomato from Paraguay will taste differently than an Indiana tomato, simply because they were grown in different soils; a Cabernet from Chile will taste different from a California Cabernet. Cooks call the flavor variations due to the soil in which foods were grown "terroir." The unique bacteria, microbes, and other inputs into the growing land all affect the final product.

On the flip side, a cantaloupe grown in an area with poor soil health - one that has had nutrients leached out of it by any number of poor soil management techniques - will be inferior to one grown in healthy, rich soil.

What this all comes down to is that Everything Starts With Soil. Our very livelihood: our food security; our city and town development; our culture; our natural resources, be they forests, fields, or waterways; they are all profoundly influenced by the health of an area's soil. Land management is soil management.

Learn more about how you can improve and protect your soil's health with the help of your local Soil and Water Conservation District. Click here for a listing of Indiana's 92 county offices.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service also has a wide range of resources for learning about Indiana's soil health, and our strategy for preserving it. Check it out here.