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• Bring back front gardens and revitalise our streets

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  "We want to encourage everyone to get gardening together, whether you are a seasoned gardener, an enthusiastic amateur or a complete novice!
  Many front gardens in the UK are being lost to driveways and tarmac, but we want to bring these vital gardens back.
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Soils Matter - Conference

Soil, It takes 500 years to form a 2cm layer

Soils Conference – Soils Matter

Klaus Laienberger from Leitrim set up a soil conference in Clargalway Castle this Monday just gone. He arranged the event with the help of the National Organic Training Skillsnet  (NOTS) who provide high quality, low cost training for the expanding organic sector throughout the Republic of Ireland.

The event marks 2015 as the UN designated Year of Soils and there was a long list of soil experts on hand to assess the important state of soil quality not only in Ireland but globally too.

Soil really matters

Klaus tells us about the talk.  “The main problem humanity is currently facing is the degradation of our soils.”

And adds:  “The world population continues to increase while we destroy more and more topsoil.  Every child could do the sums – there won’t be enough fertile soil left to feed a growing world population.”

Here are some disturbing facts:

• 24 billion tonnes of fertile topsoil are lost every year.
• Or 12 million hectares of topsoil are lost every year.
• 25% of the earth’s surface has already become degraded.  This could feed 1.5 billion people.
• The UN FAO calculated that we have about 60 years of harvests left – and then?

“We are using the world’s soils as if they were inexhaustible, continually withdrawing from an account, but never paying in.” 

More soil facts:

• Soil stores 10% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
• A fully functioning soil reduces the risk of floods and protects underground water supplies by neutralising or filtering out potential pollutants and storing as much as 3750 tonnes of water per hectare.
• It takes a long time for a soil to recover:
• Natural processes can take more than 500 years to form 2 centimetres of topsoil.

“We completely depend on our soils.  Without soil the earth would be completely different.  Apart from some algae, fungi, bacteria and other microscopic creatures there would be no other life.  We certainly wouldn’t be around.

So why does nobody care about the soil and why do so many of us still call this precious substance “Dirt”?  How come these facts that were known for many decades were ignored by scientists and the general public?

As a matter of immediate urgency we need to wake up to the fact that our soils may just give up.  They had enough of the ill-treatment since industrial chemical farming started.

However, there is a little glimpse of hope at the end of the tunnel:

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have declared the year 2015 as the International Year of Soils to highlight the dangers we face.

Feed the Soil

The organic movement is also increasing throughout the world.  One of the key concepts of organic farming is the care for the land and recognising that our soils are the givers of life.  They need to be kept healthy and alive.  Only a fertile soil can produce healthy crops and only with healthy crops can we have healthy animals and people.  The mantra of organic farming is ‘to feed the soil which in turn will feed the plant.  The reverse is true for conventional farming where the soil is considered just a medium on which plants grow and anchor themselves.  The soil is considered as an inert sponge on which plants are force fed like being on a drip.

Over the last few decades our soils have suffered immensely and are close to the brink of collapsing.  As a matter of urgency we need to learn how to care for our soils we need to learn how to “bring soil back to life” as Alex Lavarde appropriately called for.”

“Industrial farming has caused this degradation” says Klaus.  “Amongst a few other factors, the use of artificial fertilisers is one of the main causes for the degradation of soils.  If farmers and growers rely solely on artificial fertilisers our soils will degrade.  The reason for this is that artificial fertilisers only do one thing.  They supply NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) in a soluble form which means fast release.  So they work quickly but also cause damage quickly.

But soils don’t just need NPK.  Soils need inputs of manure, compost, leafmould, seaweed or green manures.  If you add any of these organic fertilisers you will enliven the soil in many different ways.  The billions of living creatures that are in just on handful of topsoil need to be fed and only organic fertilisers will provide this food.  Also by adding these bulky organic fertilisers the structure of our soils will be improved.  There will be better drainage, water infiltration, less compaction, better water holding capacity and importantly it will be easier to work the soil.  If you think about it – through a change of farming systems flooding could be controlled and wouldn’t that be much cheaper than putting up concrete defence structures around our towns?

Artificial fertilisers don’t provide any soil services – they literally just pump up plants.

As a matter of urgency we should give up using artificial fertilisers immediately.  They should be treated by governments just like other dangerous substances and should be taxed highly.

George Monbiot summarised this unnoticed danger:

“Almost all other issues are superficial by comparison. What appear to be great crises are slight and evanescent when held up against the steady but unremarked trickling away of our subsistence.” Klaus concludes.

Neem in the G**den

Neem Tree

I have always said that gardening is an exciting profession and this week has been no exception. I have found out about a product called neem oil. The oil comes from the Indian native Margosa Tree and is nicknamed the “plant with a promise”. It promises to make my gardening more ‘underground’ as the product has been banned in all European countries and Canada. That sounds a bit too exciting so to clarify, you can buy need oil in aromatherapy shops but under no circumstances can it be sold or marketed as a gardening product. So everything you read from now on is top secret and just between you and me…OK?

The oil can be bought in America as a product and has 6% neem content in the bottle. The other 94% are “other products” so it’s best to get the 100% cold pressed type from India which is what I did.

About Neem

In ancient Vedas, the neem tree is referred to “Sarva Roga Nirvarini” – one capable of curing every illness and ailments. Neem has been used in India since thousands of years and is used extensively in many Ayurveda medicines for its disease fighting properties.

Every part of the tree, branch, leaves, barks, fruits, flowers and root are extremely beneficial as they contain azadirachtin compound which gives neem its anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic properties.  Besides its several health benefits, it is also used in a variety of household products. Neem oil contains fatty acids like oleic acid and linoleic acid which are beneficial for the skin. People eat neem leaves to cleanse the blood and in India it is a very spiritual tree and worshipped.

About the Oil

Neem oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the fruits and seeds of neem tree. The oil is light to dark brown in colour depending upon its method of processing. It is very bitter in taste mainly because of its triglycerides and triterpenoid compounds. It is used for several purposes:  There are claims that neem can treat Eczema, fungal infections, removes skin dryness, acne, aging, healthy hair, dandruff, lice, dogs fleas, making medicines, diabetes, arthritis, digestive, cosmetics, insect repellent, prevents mosquitos breeding, treating minor wounds, cleaning, cleaning teeth with the sticks and of course the thing I can’t mention as it’s banned… a pesticide.

In the G***en

How does it work as a pesticide? Neem oil has many complex active ingredients. Rather than being simple poisons, those ingredients are similar to the hormones that insects produce. Insects take up the neem oil ingredients just like natural hormones. Neem enters the system and blocks the real hormones from working properly. Insects "forget" to eat, to mate, or they stop laying eggs. Some forget that they can fly. If eggs are produced they don't hatch, or the larvae don't moult.

Insects that are too confused to eat or breed will not survive. The population eventually plummets, and they disappear. The cycle is broken. How precisely it works is difficult for scientists to find out. There are too many different active substances in neem oil, and every insect species reacts differently to neem insecticide. Only chewing and sucking insects are affected.

Takes its time

But this is not something that happens overnight. People spray neem oil as insecticide, and expect everything to die instantly, because that's what they are used to from chemical poisons. Apparently it needs time to work. It's a much smarter way to deal with insect pests than to just kill everything. But it is also the presence, the mere hint of a smell of neem oil is said to be enough to keep leaf eating insects away. 

The subtlety of the hormonal effects, and the fact that they may take days or weeks to manifest, makes people overlook them. If it’s instant affects you are looking for you will be disappointed!

Neem oil breaks down very quickly, too. It is especially susceptible to UV light. But neem oil is also a systemic insecticide. That means you can pour it on the soil (not pure neem oil of course, you use a dilution or extract) and the plants absorb it. They take it up into their tissue, and it works from the inside.

Like real hormones, neem oil insecticide works at very low concentrations, in the parts per million ranges. A little neem oil goes a long way. This might be one of the reasons for it being banned as it can be overused and the hormones could be disruptive to humans. There could be more political reasons about the ban though.

Other Reasons?

Neem has been very lucrative and successful for the pesticide industry. The European patent office granted a patent for antifungal products in the US department of agriculture and a multinational agrochemical corporation. The Indian government challenged this saying that the product has been used in India for over 2 millennia. In 2000 the European Patent office ruled in India’s favour and the subsequent appeal by the big corporation in 2005 where they tried to claim they found new ways to extract the oil. The tree is now free from patent restriction which maybe a reason for why it's not more widely used as one company couldn't control the production and products. It’s a hard item to categorize as the tree has so many different parts to use and as a garden pesticide, and household, medicinal ingredient, it will need treating with care and consideration.

Application

In any country where it’s not banned it’s bees to spray early in the morning, or late afternoon /evening. Once the spray has dried it does not harm your bees, ladybirds, lacewings, predatory mites and wasps etc. 

Remember though, you didn’t hear it from me…

Pouring on the Garden

 Pouring the leftover pickle vinegar onto a dandelion

I get through a lot of pickles, onions and gherkins mainly. I’m sure you are not really interested in my supper routine but I do find them very palatable with a bit of cheese. 

The Americans seem to love pickles too if the raised bed Facebook page is anything to go by.  Nearly every other post is someone taking pictures of their ‘canning’ harvest and cucumbers seem to be top of the list.  I have pickled my own onions and beetroot in the past and probably will do again, but I’ll need to set a field aside for the amount I get through. I find the vinegar really settles the stomach and medicinal, curing anything from sunburn to hiccups. It’s not much of a breath freshener though and I do see people backing away from me when I’m talking sometimes, but maybe that’s more to do with what I’m saying rather than what I am spraying if you get me.

Natural Weedkiller

There are also a lot of posts on the Facebook page about how vinegar makes a great weed killer. It’s claimed to be as effective as the harsh polluting chemicals we get from the multinationals. The recipe is nearly always a subtle modification of:  ½ gallon of vinegar, ½ cup of salt and 2 tablespoons of washing up liquid. I hasten to point out that all of these items are still chemicals, even though we use them so often we forget. Vinegar contains acetic acid, salt is sodium chloride and washing up liquid is made in an industrial process, this is used to spread out the water droplets when it’s applied to the plants. It’s more commonly known as a “surfactant”

I thought it was about time I did my own research and do some tests myself, so over the last year or so I have been trying it out on my own garden and taking into account the fact these are still chemicals I have been careful where I pour it.

My driveway has a lot of cracks in it so the solution was poured into the areas where perennial and annual weeds were growing. The combination of the acetic acid, salt, and soap eventually killed many annual weeds, especially when applied to small weeds, but the perennials just kept coming back.

The vinegar - salt solution works on contact primarily by disrupting the cell walls of the leaves. It will not travel long distances through the plant (say, from one leaf to another). So if you don’t get complete coverage of the plant leaves with the vinegar and salt solution, there is potential for the plant to re-grow from the living tissues. The vinegar- salt solution, since it doesn’t move throughout the plant, will not be effective on perennial weeds. It will burn off the top growth of perennials (which may be desirable), but it will not provide long-term control.

The contact nature of the vinegar and soap can be a benefit, though. If you need to kill weeds in close proximity to a desirable plant for example.  But you will need to miss out the salt or you will poison the soil and it could run off into the waterways.

I have also been emptying the salt free contents of my amassed vinegar bottles directly onto weeds again with mixed results. Some annual weeds have withered but the perennial dandelions have just got mottled leaves and are still growing well. I also have small heaps of red pepper bits and dill leaves collecting in corners where they came out of the gherkin jars. 

Industrial

For vinegar to be really effective we would need industrial strength. Shop bought vinegar is about 2-5% acetic acid and for a weedkiller, it’d need to be about 20% acid. If that were the case we would have to adorn rubber gloves, facemasks and protective clothing and not the pinny I usually wear.

So all in all, vinegar does do a bit on the garden, but I’d be tempted to apply it without the salt as it’ll poison the ground and wash into the waterways and soap… so it’s straight out of the jars from now on.

Another idea

As things are being throw into the garden from the kitchen, how about pouring the cooking water from vegetables onto the plants (after it’s cooled of course) again, it’d need to be a solution with no salt added.

Vitamins and minerals lost from cooking the vegetables are released in the water.  Even boiled egg water leaves behind calcium, so use the liquid to water calcium-loving solanaceous garden plants: tomatoes, potatoes, aubergine, peppers, and squash.

Even pasta and potato starch water will spur the release of plant nutrients in the soil, meaning starch may be better for plants than for us.