Soil Amendments

Mar 19, 2025 • 3:15 PM UTC

Rock Hill, SC, USA

140x Magnification

Microorganisms

Holly Stuart (Foldscope Team)

Education Specialist at Foldscope Instruments

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As I began building new raised beds for my garden, I had to choose the type of soil I would use to fill them. I opted for a combination of top soil, compost, and garden soil. Before I put them into the new beds, I decided to look at them under my Foldscope to see what kind of microbial life they were bringing to my garden.

Garden Soil: This was a brand name garden soil. I found very little microbial life in this soil. There were bacteria swimming around, but none of the larger microbes like ciliates, nematodes, rotifers, and paramecia I had previously seen in my established garden beds. These images were collected at 140X plus 5X digital zoom. You can see the inorganic material, but no evidence of any larger soil microbes.

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Top Soil: The top soil had bacteria swimming around in it just like the garden soil, but it also had many small ciliates. This image was collected at 140X plus 5X digital zoom and the videos were taken using the 340X lens plus 3X digital zoom.

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Compost: I found the most microbial life in the compost. I saw fungal hyphae (the 50X images), and recorded video of bacteria and ciliates swimming around. The videos were recorded using 140X plus 3X digital zoom and 340X plus 3X digital zoom.

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I will continue to monitor the soil microbiome in my garden throughout the growing season to observe any changes in populations of the microbes that I am tending to (in addition to the plants!).