(Photo by Giacomo Sartori) (Earth Primer #9) I had grown accustomed to earthy alpine soils, with their scent of moss and sap. Then, without warning, I suddenly found myself dealing with the soils of a valley lined with the disciplined rows of apple orchards covering every wedge of the wavy hillsides, even . . .
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Photo by Giacomo Sartori: North Algeria, a typical Mediterranean sequence. Light-colored bumps caused by erosion, red soil on the hillsides, dark soil in the hollows. (Earth Primer #8) The hues we have in our heads for landscapes often spring forth from the colors of their soils. Left uncultivated, vegetation would cover such . . .
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Dung: Photo from Pixabay.com (Earth Primer #7) From its earliest days, one of the agriculture’s main problems has been giving back to the earth the organic matter that it steals from it. Harvesting seeds, tubers, and fruit (e.g., wheat grain, potatoes, and apples), we take organic matter away from the fields. And in . . .
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RER Ambiente: Erosion on a hillside in Emilia-Romagna. (Earth Primer #6) During rainstorms, soil gets soaked by water, which it then retains within its most minute pores, acting as a reservoir. To achieve their ends, which include bringing nutrients all the way up to the leaves, the roots of plants draw water . . .
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Crete Senesi. Photo by Gunther Tschuch, 2008 (Earth Primer #5) I don’t know why I ended up with soil as my specialization. I could tell myself it was a matter of chance, since that rendezvous seems to have happened on its own, not as an act of will: I did nothing to bring . . .
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Red and Green Tomato Plants on Train Rail, photo by Markus Spiske (Earth Primer #4) For some time now, tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and strawberries and raspberries and other plants have been grown in tiny containers, often small plastic jars filled with peat, usually in plastic greenhouses that manage partially or fully . . .
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Countryside in Algeria, photo by Giacomo Sartori (Earth Primer #3) Cultivated soil is very fragile—just a bit of water running over the surface is capable of stripping away its thin upper layers, which are the most rich and fertile. The soil is then deposited at the base of the slopes, where the . . .
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Mycorrhiza mushroom: Photo by Backpackerin, Pixabay (Earth Primer # 2) Unconsciously, we associate soil with life, because we’ve had the experience of observing the critters that live there: insects, ants, glassy larvae, light little spiders, snails, worms. A swarm of life that somewhat repels us, it is very distant from the ideal . . .
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Photo courtesy of Giacomo Sartori (Earth Primer #1) When I travel around, giving lectures on soil, I ask my listeners—who sometimes are children—how deep it is. In response, some people say a mile or two, others say hundreds of yards. They all imagine it limitless; you can tell by the seriousness in . . .
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Photo courtesy of Giacomo Sartori N.B. With this post, we inaugurate a weekly series penned by the brilliant Italian novelist and soil scientist Giacomo Sartori. We’ll be posting a new column each Friday, so stay tuned! Wars are as unfortunate for the earth as they are for people. The aerial footage from . . .
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