Soil Care + Plant Care = Earth Care
Its time to stand up and take notice!
Our planet is fragile … do we even realise? ... and if so, do we make changes?
We were blown away by the damage caused to our soil and soil life after using light machinery and rotavating just once. The compaction, the lack of life, movement, air!!!
Now imagine how much modern agriculture is damaging our soil and microorganisms on a much wider scale using our current conventional methods and heavy machinery, once, twice or more EVERY YEAR, season after season.
Yet despite we humans (certainly in the western world) having more food available to us than ever before, we are sicker and more nutrient deprived than ever before... !!!
WHY? Because much of the soil that our food is grown in is DEAD ... depleted, striped of its life, minerals and nutrients, by the constant over use of heavy machinery disturbing and compacting it. Add to that the increasing use of Weedkillers and Pesticides then, largely, all that is added back is synthetic N,P,K... the bare minimum that most plants need to grow.
Furthermore, its not just the weeds and chomping insects that are absorbing all of these toxic chemicals, its on the food that WE are eating too and is intrenched in the soil in which our food is grown.
Take wheat for example, here in the UK (along with other countries) once wheat is ready for harvesting, often the whole crop is sprayed with glyphosate (Weedkiller/Roundup) to dry the Wheat out fully so that it can be harvested quicker and before any changing weather conditions damage it. This Wheat is then processed for human and animal consumption.... Glyphosate included!
The levels of Glyphosate (weedkiller) in products are checked and monitored by the UK and European authorities and of course deemed to be safe, but this is calculated on a product by product level, and not the overall intake that a person may be exposed to over the course of a day, depending on what they consume.
Then of course we have the insects and invertebrates to consider, those who live or fly above the soil and below, they are NOT immune to this weedkiller and they are being seriously affected too and this affects the WHOLE of the soil food web.
Add to this the fact that Industry is breeding new seeds (F1's) for extended shelf life and looks, rather than taste and nutrition, further messing with the balance of nature and our food.
The result to us of these 3 destructive processes…
We no longer get the nutrients we need from our food!
This conventional model is NOT working long term and it is NOT SUSTAINABLE for us or our eco system.
The TIME FOR CHANGE IS NOW. Everything in nature is linked. The way we treat our land our soil and de-forestation is all effecting the water cycle and climate change is a symptom of water cycle disturbance.
But we CAN fix it 💚… with Regenerative Agriculture and by making some simple changes. By feeding, caring for and valuing our soils, soil life and forests, leaving it as undisturbed as possible so the worms, bugs, microbes and mycelium can all do their job, just as nature intended:
Stick to No-Dig
Care for and feed your soil and soil life
Don't use Chemicals
Minimise synthetic additives
Grow with Heritage or carefully saved seed
Support local smaller scale Growers who care
Eat seasonally for your area as much as possible
Buy Organic whenever possible
Learn and Support regenerative agriculture
Grow you own … if space is limited, a window box of fresh greens & herbs for salads is a great start
Some of our FAVOURITE RESOURCES
Check out Charles Dowding – The King of No-Dig Market Gardening
Zach Bush puts out a HUGE amount of AMAZING information and also works with Farmers Footprint (Links to his website and 3 of our favourite every interviews below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWgnkgYtqnw&t=3132s
Darin Olien and Zach Efron's Netflix series, Down to Earth is a great starting point for understanding more about food, nutrition and the world, and is a super easy, fun watch.
Seed types - This short documentary explains really well F1 seeds vs Heritage seeds, and the nutritional impact.
Restoring the water cycle to regenerate earth – This is a must watch seminar https://www.soilregensummit.com/talks/restoring-the-water-cycle-to-regenerate-earth/
And of course check out our video below showing our first hand experience of rapid soil de-generation, using common practices.
Laurie ✌️🌿
