Get The Soil To Do The Work

SOIL IS A COMPLEX LIVING ECOSYSTEM THAT KEEPS PLANTS ALIVE, HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE. WORK WITH IT FOR AMAZING RESULTS

- Angelo Eliades

There’s a saying: “Gardening requires lots of water, most of it in the form of perspiration.” Without doubt, digging through heavy, wet soil in cold weather can dampen any gardener’s enthusiasm, but it really doesn’t have to be that way. Gardening can be energy efficient and enjoyable if we undertake the right tasks and share the work with nature.

We often overlook how amazing nature really is. Plants have been growing on this planet without human intervention for the past 460 million years, so clearly nature has evolved some rather remarkable systems to support plant growth. If we want to work with nature, we need to ask ourselves how we can support these existing natural processes that support plant growth, and leverage them for our benefit.

TEAMING WITH NATURE

In the ecological design system of permaculture, we aim to use biological resources to do work or conserve energy. If we can use a plant or animal to perform a certain function or task, rather than our own effort or non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels, this is our preferred approach.

So what do we need to garden more sustainably? Conventional gardening and agriculture are energy and resource intensive, but permaculture is not; it’s information and imagination intensive instead. If we want to work with nature, we need to first understand how natural systems work and then get creative.

In permaculture, one of the central teachings is “feed the soil, not the plants”, because it’s physically impossible to naturally feed a plant directly. We’ll look at the science shortly. By understanding how plants feed, we can give them precisely what they need to achieve optimal plant health and vigour.

THE SOIL–FOOD WEB