Soil Concepts

摘要

This is the first in a series of articles that will build our intuition about how soil and water interact in a pot. I've used familiar language throughout and avoided both math and aspects of soil chemistry. Although some of the jargon may not be familiar, the concepts are not hard and with a bit of familiarity, anyone can make informed soil choices. With the understanding, you'll be able to answer questions like, "What grain size should I use?", or "What does sieving do?" or "Do I need a drainage layer?" or "What does 'fast-draining' mean anyway?" for yourselves. If I can do it, so can you! In this article, we'll learn some of the basic concepts of capillary action and what controls the amount of air and water in the pore space of your bonsai soil. These concepts will underpin some of the ideas we'll discuss in later articles in the series.