Stone Soup for the Soil: Perlite—Bottling Air from a Volcano — Dirt Factory

Stone Soup for the Soil: Perlite—Bottling Air from a Volcano — Dirt Factory

This essay is Part 1 of a three-part exploration of the mineral cast that props up modern potting mixes. In the chapters ahead we’ll move from kiln-puffed perlite to pH-taming limes and finally to the porous lavas and rock dusts that promise to “re-mineralize” tired beds. Each stone has its own origin story—and its own carbon ledger. On a wind-scrubbed plateau near Socorro, New Mexico—seventy-five miles south of Albuquerque and almost two hundre…