Nutrient Cycling is Key to Fertile Soil

The soil must be alive to be the foundation of a healthy and low-maintenance garden. Living organisms like Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa, Amoebae, and Nematodes are crucial for nutrient cycling, meaning providing plants with enough of the proper nutrients at any time. Fungal hyphae in symbiosis with plant roots can make your garden more self-sufficient. As an extension of plant roots, the symbiotic fungal networks make plants more drought-resistant and fungi, as chemical wizards, will supply the plants with the required nutrients. It turns out that the traditional chemical soil tests and determining the pH of soil don't provide the information that is needed for a holistic garden approach.
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As a powerful climate solution, fungi store carbon longer and in higher concentrations in their hyphae in the soil than plants in their tissue. Even in your garden, you can create conditions to promote the underground network of fungi through less - but more thoughtful - maintenance practices, and you will help to counteract climate change. As a side effect, the soil chemistry will change, bringing your garden into a more advanced successional state which will not allow weeds to dominate.