A summary of the key points of how to heal your soil

Summary of the Key Points of How to Heal Your Soil

Thank you for taking this course. We hope that you've enjoyed learning about soil health and healing. As you start to put these lessons into practice, here are a few things to remember.

• Keep your soil covered. Whether you're growing crops, perennials or green manures, these plants will feed your soil and help to keep it healthy.
• Keep your soil aerated, especially if it's starting to become compacted. Use a broadfork to loosen the soil without disturbing it.
• Remember to feed your soil too, just like you feed yourself. You can do this with compost and plant teas.
• The most important thing, though, is to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and connect with your soil. Remember, you have the power to heal your soil, improve your health and help the planet.

Further Reading

For the Love of Soil: Strategies to regenerate our food production systems - Nicole Masters

No Dig - Charles Dowding

The Living Soil - E. B. Balfour

Rooted: How regenerative farming can change the world - Sarah Langford

Sixty Harvests Left: How to reach a nature-friendly future - Philip Lymbery

Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy - Diane Miessler

Garden Organic's Soil Information Pack can be downloaded here

Where to Source Equipment and Seeds

Bocking 14 plug plants

Broadfork

Copper rake

Copper trowel

Jakoti shear

Turf cutter

Green manure seeds

Soilmentor app

Refractometer

Appendix

How is Soil Being Degraded?

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has warned that over 90 per cent of the world's topsoil will be at risk by 2050 if things don't change. Currently one soccer pitch of soil is being eroded every five seconds, with intensive farming and deforestation being two of the main root causes.

Since the mid-20th century, intensive farming has been gradually destroying the structure of our soil owing to an over-reliance on chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Chemicals aren't the only problem though. According to the FAO, out of the 6,000 different plant species grown for food, just nine account for 66 per cent of total crop production.

Relying on these crops - which include wheat and maize - is weakening the fertility of our soils and making these crops more susceptible to pests and diseases, which means more pesticides are used and the vicious circle continues.

Our food system is driving biodiversity loss too, with 86 per cent of global species at risk of extinction because of the way that we produce food.

What Would Improving Our Soils Mean for Us and the Planet?

Despite these worrying statistics, all is not lost. Our soils are remarkably resilient, and just like humans, their health can be significantly improved with a few simple changes.

Not only will healing our soils improve our food, but it will also play its part in fighting climate change too. Soil is a great carbon sink, and currently there is more carbon stored in the Earth's soils than in the atmosphere and all plant life combined. As a result of industrial farming though, soils have been losing their carbon, worsening the effects of manmade climate change.

In more positive news though, we now understand that healthy soils capture more carbon, so by improving the health of our soils, we can begin to reverse this loss.