Soil Web

I’ve actually planted some seeds this week. I initially thought I was running late but the two nights after I put them in there was a frost!  Luckily I put them in the tunnel under bubble wrap so they are all coming along nicely.  My feeling of being late with the packets was also quashed by the fact that half of them said “Sow mid to late April” Klaus (Laitenberger) has his own packets and they are specifically geared for our climate. So on the back of a large companies seeds the instructions might suggest planting in February but Klaus will delay that for at least a month, maybe longer. Suits me.

Putting the seeds in modules has also highlighted the fact that a lot of the beds out in the veggie patch aren’t ready. I have gone over a few of them in last weeks dry spell and removed a lot of the perennial weeds. I am getting a lot of reeds coming up, they must be seeding from somewhere and it’s usually a sign of wet ground so I might have to add more organic material this year to build the beds up and improve the drainage. I think that in hindsight I damaged the structure of the soil when I first prepared the beds three years ago and it’s taking a while to get them back into a productive state. Soil is a complete eco system or “Web” and I went in with a sieve to take out all of the couch grass and stones and in doing so I broke down a very sensitive web.

Building fertile soil

Feeding the soil actually feed the plants. It’s a basic rule and far more effective than trying to just feed the plants themselves with a chemical feed. That’s why it’s important to spend time building up and more importantly not damaging the delicate structure of the soil.

Healthy soil needs to be teeming with earthworms, mites, bacteria, fungi — all kinds of mostly microscopic, interdependent organisms that release mineral nutrients and create the loose soil structure crops need to thrive. 

This complex, mostly invisible soil ecosystem can be damaged easily. Chemical fertilizers, dehydrated chicken manure or high-nitrogen blood meal can burn tender root hairs, and tilling or ploughing destroys soil texture, disturbing the layered web.

No Dig

To avoid soil damage this year I am not digging compost, grass clippings, leaves and other organic mulches will be added on a regular basis to promote and sustain this soil food web.

Tip

Keep the soil covered with live crops or, at minimum, organic mulch, preferably one that your dog wont eat. Whenever you are not growing a food crop, sow a cover crop such as clover of other nitrogen fixers so the carbohydrate pipeline isn't shut off.

Permanent Garden Beds

When I dug and sieved the ground, surface-layer organisms were buried, threads of beneficial fungi were broken and earthworm tunnels are destroyed.

Too much digging could also introduce excess oxygen that causes organic matter to decay too fast, and tilling causes plants to give off more carbon dioxide, contributing to global climate change.

Good Soil

Good garden soil should be about half porous space occupied by air and water. Compacted soil, created by rainfall on bare ground and the use of heavy equipment or repeated walking upon the ground, has much less space for air and water. That's a recipe for crop failure.

Tips

Avoid walking on the soil in the beds, or disturbing it or any plant roots in other ways. The roots left in the ground are food and shelter for microbes and earthworms. To incorporate compost into the soil, this just needs to be spread across the surface with a rake and covered with mulch. The worms will move the compost into the soil.

Once a permanent bed is established, feed the soil food web to manage a healthy microbial ecosystem in a home garden is to routinely apply organic material such as compost to the top of the soil. Gauging the amount needed by what has disappeared from the soil during the previous season. Generally, adding one-half inch to 1 inch (2.5cm) of compost every spring will be plenty. 

Hide them all

It’s really tempting to just dig the soil over to hide all of the weeds.  Perennials still come back. Digging over will kill nearly all of the annuals though but in turn it uncovers a load more seeds that were too deep in the ground to germinate. I’m taking a very laid back approach this year and just hoeing the tops of the annuals and let nature do the rest. I’m not even going to be fanatical about clearing the corners of the garden.  Realising the whole garden is one big ecosystem with  the “web” running through it, I am just going to let some areas just do their own thing. I realise I can’t control everything in the garden and this year more than most, I don’t want to.