Written by Suraj Shah

Here’s to beginning 2020 by setting the goal to grow some of your food at home whether it’s greens for your sandwich or herbs for your pasta. I’m going to show you how to create the perfect soil for your plants to thrive. Creating an ecological regenerative edible garden is one of the best things you can do for your health and environment.

As a Permaculture Designer, I use permaculture principles in all my edible landscaping designs. So how do we create the perfect soil for our gardens with Mother Nature’s help? Easy, look for how she has done it and repeat the same process. One of the best examples of this is Karura Forest (or any other Forest). There are no gardeners in the forest (not Human ones anyway) and there is no irrigation system yet everything is in balance and growing perfectly. The forest soil is dark, soft, moist, full of humus and millions of worms and insects that providing rich nutrients to the plants, who will die and fall to the ground to provide food for these critters. Above ground, it’s the same.

To get our garden soils to function and behave the way the soil does in Karura Forest, simply replicate what happens there. Now, we can’t get as many wild animals to our gardens, or always have mature trees shedding their leaves every day, but we can add organic matter to our soils. Organic matter is everything from old leaves and twigs, kitchen waste, and any other biodegradable material. Forest soil is created in our gardens by digging 12 inches of the existing soil and filling it up with dry organic matter in the following order:

• Bottom 2 inches – Broken sticks and twigs

• Next 3 inches – Dried organic matter (dried leaves, dried grass, cardboard, newspaper etc)

• Next 1 inch – Good quality garden compost

• Next 3 inches – Dried organic matter (dried leaves, dried grass, cardboard, newspaper etc)

• Top 3 inches – Original topsoil mixed with good quality compost

Then add 1 to 2 inches of dried leaves or grass as mulch, and give your newly made garden bed a thorough watering. The bed will be ready to plant after a week of curing. What we have done is create a regenerative garden bed. Over time, the organic matter will slowly decompose into compost and create a thriving environment for the underground economy to thrive. It will retain lots of water and nutrients for the plants it supports above ground.

The sticks and twigs will also slowly decompose creating a home for the underground fungi which provides plants food in a mutual exchange of nutrients. The mulch you have added on top will need to be replaced every year as it will slowly decompose and provide compost for your plants from the top while aiding in retaining moisture underground. An ecological garden feels alive and well integrated, and this is the start. Look out for the next issue of Yummy, where we will be now explaining the basics of companion planting along with planting examples including how to create and complete your ecological garden once you have prepared the forest floor soil mentioned above.

Permaculture is a holistic way of landscaping using Mother Nature as inspiration for all of our work and designs.

Soil is one of the most crucial assets we have, and conventional gardening and agriculture methods over the last few decades have completely exhausted our soils.