If you want to get in touch with where your food comes from then pick up a handful of soil. Although it looks brown it’s alive and living. A whole micro- ecosystem of its own. How could anyone call such a remarkable resource ‘dirt’?
Soils have been a bit of a Cinderella topic, but are currently getting an airing for all sorts of reasons. One is evidence of catastrophic damage to our soils from intensive arable farming, (flooding and runoff leading to soil erosion), and then increasingly the realisation that soils are massive storage systems for carbon on the earth. We need to look after our soils carefully so that they store water and carbon while giving us abundant crops.
Gardeners mostly bat along quite happily without knowing too much about soil. Gardening books usually have sections on soils, but they look dull, complicated, ‘sciency’ and best to flit over!
It’s my mission to make this fascinating
One great joy of the Stroud Permaculture Course is that I get the chance to teach the soils topic. It is about understanding something of what makes up a soil, what type it is, how to look after it and more. We learn about soil types, fertility, nutrient sources and feeding crops by organic methods. Applying Permaculture design principles to making food growing systems, caring for the earth and looking after the soil are central to the process.
I have been cajoled (nicely) into leading a walk at Stroud Summer Street Allotments on Sunday July13TH at 3.00pm., entitled ‘Caring for our Living Soil’. We will be looking at the soil, feeling it, peering into a hole or two hopefully, walking up and down the slope and discussing what’s going on in the soil there. We will find out how fertile the soil is and what the challenges are. I know that in general allotment site soils are always well cared for, and I know how much love Summer Street gets. I’m really looking forward to my afternoon there. (And I hope to see the Silk Weaver’s Plot).
