Permaculture - In reverence of soil ..

In my city upbringing, soil-dirt-earth - the stuff in the garden and in the little square patches surrounding the trees in their concrete homes on the pavement was considered almost taboo. Stuff to stay away from, stuff of dog poo and germs and to wash off your hands and feet. So, I never had a deep relationship with the soil of England. I had a crazy love of the soil of Africa with its deep redness and wanted to crawl into it and cover myself in it - but as for the stuff in the back garden where I lived - I barely noticed its existence.
Last night, I really got to meet soil - the kind of soil that belongs to gardens - the commonplace brown earth. It was almost a spiritual experience!! Touching it in my hands it felt so soft and bringing it to my nose it smelt like the earth after rain. "Good soil," said our instructors, John and Benjamin, 'will look and feel like chocolate cake. You can roll it into little balls and then watch as it falls apart in crumbs."
The soil we touched was black and spongy. Something I never really appreciated about soil before is that this is where life begins. "If we focus on growing the soil,"said John, "the crops will take care of themselves."
Just like we, as people, need good surroundings to optimise ourselves in - good shelter, good love, good food, good community, good air, good opportunities, good mentors and so forth - plants also need to be provided with this warm, cushy environment in order to thrive.
So, by creating good soil, we are creating good food, which in turn will feed us and create healthy cells and bodies for us, which will impact who we are and how we are in our lives and on this planet. I love how everything in life is connected!!

Starting with the basics, what is this stuff we call soil? Basically it's 50 per cent space (the space being made up of air - and this space will hold the water that drains into the earth); it's 40 per cent mineral (and I've often heard it said that various nutritional supplements are needed because the soil is no longer as mineral rich as it used to be) and the final 10 per cent of soil is the living component - this is made up of earthworms who do a fabulous job of ploughing the soil, bacteria which break down decomposing plant matter, fungus, compost and so forth.
Industrialised farming has done a lot of harm to the soil due to the use of foreign chemicals (pesticides, fertilisers etc), through not giving the land time to recover between planting and not encouraging bio-diversity. It takes a forest 1,000 years to create 1 inch of soil through the gradual decomposition of materials - with bad practice, we can lose that much soil in one year through erosion.
The message to me from last night's class was a clear one - our job is to create good soil! It is no accident that in the UK one of the main organic certifying bodies is "The Soil Association" - as good soil is at the heart of the organic philosophy. So many people back home, who don't understand my passion for organic food, think it's all about spending more money than required on groceries - but it's about so much more - it's about creating a healthy planet and ultimately being nourishing, rather than harmful, to both ourselves and those involved in the growing of the food that gives us life. It's about putting the sanctity back into our relationship with our earth and with our bodies.
Ok _ off my soap box now!! And onto some practical information .. what can we do in our back gardens to create good soil?

1 - Compost, compost and more compost seems to be key!! The darker the soil is, the richer it is in organic content. When i asked what the secret was behind the chocolate cake Esalen soil (which my gardening friends Yvonne and Mike admired when they visited last week) I was told it was all in the compost. Last year, when I spent my summer at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Centre, the organic farmers there grew the most fabulous and enormous vegetables - and again composting was a way of life. I feel proud of my ma and pa as I write this, who fill up old yoghurt tubs with vegetable remains and put them outside in the council-supplied compost bin - I feel proud of our old London mayor, Ken, for his green policies and providing houses with compost bins. I think i am about to become the compost queen!! I remember feeling repelled at the idea that you needed to have worms in your compost bin - but now I understand that worms are amazing soil tilling machines. Charles Darwin said in 1881 that having oxen plough the land is something pretty modern - however earthworms have been ploughing the land on their own initiative since their inception.
2 - Keep the soil nicely aerated with tilling. John said that as well as composting this was part of the secret of good Esalen soil. He adds compost then tills the soil once a week - he will do this for 10 weeks before beginning planting.
3 - If you feel so inclined, pee on soil - your urine is nitrogen rich and plants will love that! Your pee is far more useful in the soil than in the sewage system!

My eyes were opened last night and I am in deep reverence of soil and it's life-giving properties. I hope you have the experience too, to hold good soil in your hand and recognise it for what it is. so much more than dirt. Something that we want at the heart of our lives - not something to stay away from and label as unclean. I want good, dark, chocolate-cake earth to cover our planet and I want us all to care passionately about the kind of soil our food is grown in. I feel a missionary's zeal about this issue and unabashedly want to convert you all!!!