Urban gardening isn’t just about growing tomatoes in a small closet. It’s about understanding the complexity of soil microbes in unconventional spaces and utilizing new methods that make city gardening not only possible, but also incredibly rewarding.
Plants with healthy microbial communities in their root zones tend to grow more vigorously and are better equipped to withstand stressors such as drought, pests, and diseases. In urban environments where plants face challenges like air pollution, heat islands, and limited space, this microbial support system becomes even more crucial.
Urban soil faces unique challenges that rural farmland doesn’t necessarily encounter on a daily basis. You’re dealing with:
Start with Quality Organic Matter
Your soil microbes are essentially composting machines, but they need fuel. Add compost, aged manure, or leaf mold regularly. These organic materials provide the carbon and nutrients that feed your microbial community. In cities like Portland and Seattle, many neighborhoods now offer community composting programs—take advantage of them!
Test and Track Your Progress
Understanding your soil’s microbial health doesn’t have to be guesswork. Modern soil testing technology allows you to monitor microbial biomass and the fungal-to-bacterial ratio right from your balcony or rooftop garden. This data helps you understand whether your soil management practices are actually working.
Minimize Chemical Disruption
Synthetic pesticides and fertilizers can disrupt your carefully cultivated microbial community. Instead, focus on building soil biology through organic amendments and natural pest management strategies. Beneficial soil microbes perform fundamental functions such as nutrient cycling, breaking down crop residues, and stimulating plant growth.
A recent study reported by the NIH reveals an intriguing connection between gardening and human health that goes beyond fresh vegetables and exercise. It found that frequent exposure to environmental microbiota, especially through skin to soil contact, diversifies commensal microbiota, enhances immune modulation, and ultimately lowers the risk of immune-mediated diseases.
As more Americans embrace urban gardening & soil health practices, we’re seeing innovations that make microbial monitoring and management more accessible than ever. Whether you’re growing herbs on a fire escape in Brooklyn or maintaining raised beds in a Phoenix community garden, understanding and nurturing your soil’s microbial community will help you grow healthier plants while potentially benefiting your own well-being.
Successful composting depends on understanding the microbial life within your compost pile. This is where soil testing kits become invaluable tools for gardeners and farmers alike. Modern testing technology allows you to analyze your compost’s biological activity with scientific precision, ensuring you create nutrient-rich amendments for your soil.
Understanding Compost Biology
The foundation of excellent compost lies in its microbial ecosystem. Billions of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms work together to break down organic matter into valuable nutrients. These microscopic workers determine whether your compost becomes a powerhouse of plant nutrition or simply decayed organic matter with limited benefits. Bacterial populations typically dominate the early stages of composting, breaking down simple compounds like sugars and proteins. As the process continues, fungal networks develop to tackle more complex materials such as cellulose and lignin. The balance between these microbial communities directly affects the quality and effectiveness of your finished compost.
The Science of Compost Testing
Traditional methods of evaluating compost quality relied heavily on visual inspection, smell tests, and temperature monitoring. While these indicators provide useful information, they cannot reveal the true biological potential of your compost. Modern soil testing kits offer scientific analysis that goes beyond surface observations. Microbial biomass testing measures the total amount of living microorganisms in your compost sample. This measurement indicates the biological activity level and helps predict how effectively the compost will benefit your soil. The fungal-to-bacterial ratio represents another critical measurement that influences how compost affects different types of plants. Vegetables and annual crops typically prefer bacterial-dominated compost, while trees, shrubs, and perennial plants benefit from fungal-dominated amendments. Understanding these ratios helps you tailor your compost for specific garden applications.
microBIOMETER® Technology Advantages
The microBIOMETER® advanced testing platform system brings quality analysis to home composters and small-scale farmers. These tools eliminate guesswork by providing quantitative data about microbial populations in compost samples. The testing process involves extracting microorganisms from compost samples and analyzing the color intensity of the solution using specialized reagents, measurement cards, and the microBIOMETER® app. Results appear within minutes, allowing you to make immediate adjustments to your composting process if needed. This standardized approach ensures reliable results that you can track over time to monitor improvements in your composting methods.
Conclusion
Regular testing throughout the composting process helps identify optimal harvest timing. Compost that appears finished may still contain high levels of bacterial activity, indicating continued decomposition. Investing in soil testing kits transforms composting from an art into a science-based practice. Understanding the microbial life in your compost empowers you to create consistently high-quality amendments that maximize plant health and soil fertility. Modern testing technology makes this level of analysis accessible to gardeners at every skill level, building confidence in composting success.
Bright Endeavors Now (BEN) located in Tanzania, East Africa was started by Biology professor Dr. Regina Herbert, PhD and her husband, an Electrical Engineer, Ricardo R. Herbert, MUP, MBA.
The BEN program provides an environment where budding engineers, designers, scientists and doctors are introduced to concepts in the sciences, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM), through engaging, developmentally-appropriate activities.
Bright Endeavors Now classroom
Bright Endeavors Now (BEN) located in Tanzania, East Africa was started by Biology professor Dr. Regina Herbert, PhD and her husband, an Electrical Engineer, Ricardo R. Herbert, MUP, MBA.
The BEN program provides an environment where budding engineers, designers, scientists and doctors are introduced to concepts in the sciences, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM), through engaging, developmentally-appropriate activities. Preschool, weekday, weekend and summer programs for children ages 3 to 16 are offered. BEN aspires to travel around the globe providing STEAM education.
Recently, microBIOMETER® was utilized as part of the “Soil and Microorganisms” series in their multi-age science class with students aged 3 to 15. Earlier in the school year, the students established Winogradsky Columns to observe microbial communities. The students then tested the soil with microBIOMETER® to see how specific ratios of fungi and bacteria can have an impact on soil health. In addition, it helped lead to a discussion on how different types of soil can have different ratios which can have an impact on how they grow plants and crops.
We love the microBIOMETER® soil test kit and will continue to test different samples with students as we travel to the US.” – Regina Herbert
You’ve probably read how important it is for your soil to have a large, diverse microbial population, but how do you know that all those microbes are good?
Well to start, a healthy and optimal microbial population in your soil will always have a mixture of good and bad microbes. Together, these microbes perform important tasks to keep the soil functioning and the plants flourishing. Despite the complex relationship between plant and soil microbes, research suggests that soil microbes play a significant role in nutrient cycling, structuring plant communities, influencing plant performance and growth, and in disease control, which is why it’s so important to have a dense and diverse microbial community.
Thankfully, these soil microbe-plant interactions are self-regulated. And to keep these microbes functioning and plants thriving as they should, there’s a system of checks and balances that occurs within soil. For example, in a healthy, diverse soil mixture, microbes help plants suppress pathogens by inducing natural plant defenses, producing antibiotics, fighting against pathogens, or through the hyperparasitism of the pathogen. However, when there is an influx of pathogens in a not-so-healthy and diverse soil, things will start to function differently.
Once there’s a large enough influx of pathogenic microbes that have colonized within the soil, these microbes will produce chemical signals called autoinducers, which regulate microbial gene expression in a process called quorum sensing. In this example, quorum sensing allows those microbes to communicate with each other and change their genes to become virulent. Soil can become more susceptible to virulent factors if there isn’t adequate microbial diversity, as a diverse microbial community is critical to maintain ecological processes. To mitigate the negative aspects of quorum sensing, it’s imperative to have a diverse vegetation aboveground and a diverse microbial community belowground.
However, despite the good microbes’ best effort, soil conditions change and sometimes pathogens can take control. Depending on the pathogen, different physical signs and symptoms will become evident on the plant. Common signs of pathogenic disease on a plant can include foliage wilting, stunting, browning, and yellowing. Fortunately, because these are all aboveground symptoms, diseases can be easier to identify and potentially treat. Though, there are common belowground pathogens that affect the root systems of plants. These are more difficult to diagnose as they don’t always produce physical signs on the plant. The only way to specifically identify the pathogenic microbial species within your soil is to send your soil’s DNA to a lab for further analysis.
The best method that researchers have found to combat these soil pathogens is by supporting the good microbes, as the best defense is a good offense. Because microbial diversity has an almost linear relationship to microbial biomass, increasing the soil’s microbial biomass will increase its microbial diversity, which is the key to having a functioning and thriving ecosystem.
Janet Atandi, a nematology PhD student in Kenya, is currently working on an assessment of banana fiber paper on soil health as part of a Wrap and Plant technology study. In brief, she is testing the long-term effect of using modified banana fiber paper to manage plant-parasitic nematodes and its impact on the beneficial soil microbial communities.
The banana fiber paper is used as an organic carrier for either ultra-low dosages of nematicides (abamectin and fluopyram) or microbial antagonists (Trichoderma spp.) and is to be compared to unmodified paper.
This study is being conducted using potatoes and green peas as the test crops over five consecutive seasons. With the aid of a microBIOMETER® test kit, Janet will be able to assess the impact of the paper on the soil microbial biomass and thus will be able to determine whether the banana paper is effective or detrimental to soil health.
Wrap and Plant technology sources:
NC State explores promising pest-control strategy with high-impact potential for sub-Saharan Africa
Banana’s Waste, potatoes gain
Potato farmers conquer a devastating worm—with paper made from bananas]
