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The garden provides us with a lot of "services". It makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for thousands of species, changes with the seasons to our aesthetic enjoyment, builds soil, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, and self replicates.
One important cycle in the living systems which is presently out of balance is the daily exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen among plants and animals. Today, primarily due to the combustion of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is building up in the atmosphere. One could say, the capacity of the natural system to recycle carbon dioxide has been exceeded And there is no known substitute for this life sustaining process. So, the garden is our version of a carbon dioxide recycling oasis.
Another component of the carbon cycle is the soil, the heart and soul of the garden. The Chinese call it the mother of all things. It is the home of the ultimate loop-closers and the basis of planetary metabolism- the soil micro organisms. When you consider that 20 to 30 times more biomass exists below the surface than above, you can see how important the soil is. Plants depend on beneficial soil organisms to protect them from pathogens, to help them obtain nutrients, to breakdown toxic compounds, and to build good soil structure that will allow the proper flow of air and water.
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