SOIL MICROBES

The first forms of life, appearing at least 3 billion years ago. 

 Another form of Bacteria called extremophiles and they thrive in high temperature environments

Fungi like higher plants and animals, are eukaryotes: organisms that have cells with distinct, enclosed nuclei.

Algae and Slime molds are not related; we merely group them together because, while they have roles in the soil food web, they generally don't affect gardeners

Protozoa are singled-celled organisms with a nucleus,which makes them eukaryotic and therefore, along with fungi, members of the domain Eukarya

These fascinating roundworms are actually the second most dominant form of animal life next to the arthropods

In addition to joined legs and segmented bodies, all arthropods have in common an exoskeleton made from chitin, the same material that makes up the walls of fungus cells.

Earthworms are the most recognisable of all animals in the soil food web and, it turns out one of the most important to gardening

Often called mollusks, but whoever bestowed the common name with greek roots had the right idea - one big foot that does alot of eating.

The roles these larger animals play in a vegetable garden is very different from the role they play in other parts of your garden. But wherever they roam, their role is important and entirely underpinned by microarthropods and microorganisms which far outnumber them in any soil food web

The typical gardener knows very little about soil and why it matters. 

To us however soil is alive and the organisms of the soil food web live as the organs of  living soil.

In addition to  all the living organisms you can see in your garden soils, there is a whole world of soil organisms that you cannot see unless you have  sophisticated and expensive optics. 

We have inexpensive sophisticated optics and we see enough to help us work out whats going on in our soil food web.