Feeding the earth feels very much to me like feeding the soul.
Without growing my soil, there is nothing for the beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables to grow from. This is one of the beautiful nasturtium's that I grow as ground cover in my garden.
When I want to plant vegetables out, I clear a space and plant. In the meantime, this wonderful 'living carpet' covers the soil and keeps it safe from erosion from the wind and scorching from the sun...not that there's been much scorching going on lately...but summer is coming!
I concentrate not so much on feeding my vegetables and fruit trees, but more on making sure that the ground that they're living in is looked after.
By keeping the soil covered, I give the micro-organisms, fungi, the earthworms and the insects and safe harbour to live and to do their work.
I don't dig the soil. I constantly add organic matter in layers: mainly compost (whether well rotted or simply in the form of food scraps) grass clippings, seaweed, fallen leaves, worm castings, shredded paper, sawdust and pretty much anything I can lay my hands on that will decompose and feed the earth and it's inhabitants.
This deep mulch layer tends to attract slugs and snails, which then attract the local bird life. The birds clean up the slugs and snails for me and then add their own droppings to the mix.
Win:Win!
Even though we have plenty of water falling out of the sky at present, summer is coming and the ground will soon turn to rock. We have clay soil and it's only a matter of weeks before it goes from waterlogged to rock hard in the summer. A deep much layer tends to hold the water better for the plants in summer, so there's less worrying about making sure that everything is watered.
So, my soil is the soul of my garden. When I look after it, it looks after me by producing amazing crops of fruit and vegetables.
Yours in love & gratitude,
Toni xx
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