Know Thy Soil

Last Updated on January 26, 2024 by Brian Beck

I was thinking today, after remembering a quote about the beginning of wisdom. You may be familiar with Socrates, Greek Philosopher, early 4th century BC, in the cradle of Western society invented the mindset, “Know Thyself”. He also was noted for saying, “I know that I know nothing.” The two biggest struggles that I have found in teaching people about lawncare deal largely with these two challenging statements. One deals with overcoming ignorance and the other humility, or the willingness to be teachable. New ideas are challenging and sometimes pride prevents us from discovering the truth. In our society we have also been conditioned to expect immediate results, dismissing delayed gratification. Our groomed impatience drives our need for a quick fix and instantaneous results in our modern world. If this stings a little, good, truth has a way of doing that. That means you are being challenged and you should pay attention and investigate.

If I had to distill for sake of brevity and to appease the modern mindset of having a slogan or a bumper sticker for the uninitiated, I would borrow from Socrates the phrase and add a little spin on it using the world of biology and simply say, ” Know Thy Soil.” for therein lies all that one needs to know about a healthy lawn. When you take the time to lay down tradition and examine what works in the world of biology you now only gain knowledge but you also gain wisdom in being teachable. I really hate to dumb things down so much but this is what I would do if I were to put this on a bumper sticker, a Socratean challenge to inspire one to find out as much as they can to find a better way. When one knows their soil (soil test is a good start), they become more intelligent and make better decisions.