Notes - Mending the Soil

Mending the soil

Before you can grow crops, you have to grow soil. * Jessica Seaton learns how

We’ve all now learnt that soils are both vital and beautifully complex. As well as mineral elements of clay, sand and so on, a healthy soil will comprise millions of microbes, fungi, earthworms and other creatures, held in an intimate, intricate matrix with organic material and water. A healthy soil will smell sweet, earthy and fresh – a home to many worms, easily crumbled into friable lumps.

I wanted this delicious soil for my garden. With the realisation that I was short of experience, I took myself off to learn how to make better compost, choosing the well-known no-dig gardener Charles Dowding to teach me. If only my garden could look like his, burgeoning with life and health because of the blankets of compost he applies each winter. I needed to see, and feel, and smell how he does it.

The principle behind Charles Dowding’s methods is to work as in nature, applying compost just once (like autumn leaves) on the top of the soil and to otherwise leave the soil undisturbed, twisting off spent plants to leave roots in the soil and allowing earthworms and other natural processes to incorporate the compost and boost the nutrition available to plants throughout the year.

I joined a dozen others under a hot June sky to learn from the master. Seated around the long wooden table in the conservatory we learnt that the microbes found in soil are very similar to those found in a healthy human gut. We learnt about bin sizes (the bigger the garden the bigger the bin – his are 1.5 m3 ) or 1.5 metre cubed), how much to make ( 12kg per m2 (or 12kg per metre squared) – he makes half and buys in half) and where to position your bins (somewhere in the middle of the garden not too far away from sources of material).

You can use any raw vegetable matter to make compost. Charles is a pragmatist who gently poohpoohed our superstitions about leaving out citrus peel and eggshells, and dealt kindly with an atavistic fear of rats in the heap, mentioning that they can aerate the heap in a helpful way. The important thing is to keep the ratio of green (fresh leaves, weeds, grass, vegetable peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds) to brown (chopped twigs, sawdust, soil, paper, cardboard, dead vegetation) roughly even. Making sure all material is chopped up small will contribute to fast composting and a good, soft and un-twiggy texture. Pile up layers quickly and throw new additions to the edge to avoid holes and gaps.

After the talk we wander outside to examine his array of heaps. There are seven large bins roughly dividing the vegetable patch from the fruit and flowers. Each bin is lined with cardboard to retain heat and the whole range protected from any cooling rain by a corrugated zinc roof. Heat is important. A compost heap has to consistently reach a temperature of over 50°C to kill weed seeds. It must work for Charles, because he only weeds his massive garden for around half an hour a week and I couldn’t spot even one dandelion. The compost thermometer read 65°C in the centre of the active heap. He turns the pile once the temperature drops to around 30- 35°C, removing the side divider and dragging the compost over into the next bin. It’s a quick and easy job with a large, long-handled pitchfork.

Some days later, as I measure the temperature of my own heap with a shiny, newly acquired thermometer, I ponder the significance of making compost – how everything starts with the soil and how what it gives should be returned to it. I’m the custodian of this small patch of land and I can’t just take from it. Learning about how to make good compost has sharpened my awareness of the waste we produce as a household. I’m now ripping up spent letters to add to the heap and begging coffee grounds from friends.

Everything that can go into the heap is added and production has multiplied as a result. We are talking of making more bins. My thinking has shifted from the growing vegetables to growing soil. As I enjoy the sweet crunch of peas or cabbage, I know the taste and texture as evidence of health below ground. We depend on good soil for our very lives.

* The idea of ‘growing soil’ borrowed from Gabe Brown in Dirt to Soil – One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture Charles Dowding teaches at Homeacres, Somerset and online at charlesdowding.co.uk