Soil4Life

 Always an inspiration! Wildflowers, hedges that offer habitat for biodiversity and wildlife corridors- listen to the birds in the background! You can just imagine the perfume of the May Flowers on this beautiful English summer day. Here is a quick video of the planting on the 11 acres at Othona, UK. We have tried to keep the bulk of the planting to the edges to keep maximum flexibility of the whole area. It is hoped that this will benefit the whole community and the wildlife of the area. This is on the Essex coast by Bradwell on Sea. The planting is 17 currents, 1 walnut and 1 greengage.  Jonney has also just registered with  uksoils.org you can see Othona´s page here: https://uksoils.org/living- labs-lighthouses/othona- community

Soil4All: Creating a Public Gardening Space  Background thoughts and purpose Creating a public vegetable garden in a rural area? “What for?”, you might think, “don’t people on the countryside usually have access to an amount of land to create their own gardens if they wanted?” That’s true of course, but while ‘urban gardening’ in cities enjoys increasing popularity, fewer and fewer people and families are gardening in rural areas- despite the prevailing conditions. Reasons might be less time, less or no need, decreasing knowledge and maybe also a lack of motivation. But as every gardener knows, a vegetable garden is much more than watering and pulling weeds: for your work, it delivers fresh, seasonal and ecological food - right on your doorstep. Old knowledge and new technologies, traditional methods and scientific findings can be combined and generated here. It’s basically a knowledge hub, serving among many other things also as tool to deal with crisis – as so ma...

  In South Africa the restrictions and impact of Covid-19 are having a direct effect on millions of children. 5 000 000 school children rely on government school feeding schemes. Since school closures and disruptions due to Covid-19 protocols and social distancing, millions of children are now going hungry. In a grassroots response to the ensuing food crisis and job losses, many local community members have set up soup kitchens from their own homes.  Establishing food gardens creates an opportunity to feed into these soup kitchens with fresh, nourishing, healthy vegetable. Growing gardens restores a valuable sense of purpose and teaches a skill set that can help people to provide for themselves and their families´ basic needs. It also provides a place to connect, share seeds, recipes, nutritional advice and stories!  Of course, at the foundation of these food gardens is the soil! Especially in a small, intensive space, soil fertility and nutrient cycling is ess...

 The Soil in this community garden in a field in Sussex, UK, is full of life. We know that because it’s had 8 years of care and attention helping turn it from over grazed clay pasture into rich loamy soil. The succession has been from initial double-dig, to no -dig, plenty of bio-char added and now since becoming a full blown community-led project in the last year, bio-dynamic preparations and techniques are now being used also. Meanwhile, in the surrounding 7 acres of land, those in the local community interested in animal husbandry have been able to initiate goat, sheep, pig and chicken co-ops as part of a broader regeneration land practices. This is all thanks to the land owner who recognized the growing need for deepening community bonds and producing healthier soils and thereby food, and offered the use of his land for a small membership fee.  The Crossing is an example where exchange with and honouring our soil, rather profiting from it is at the heart of this. This expr...

      The webinar will take place in 5 March  - 1 0 . 3 0 - 1 2 . 3 0 ( U T C + 1 ) on the Zoom video platform. The main topic of the workshop is the achievement of a preliminary alignment of positioning among the EU environmental NGOs with respect to the priorities on soil protection, the required rules at supranational scale, and the way to make them more effective.      Click here to register for the webinar

During the Soil4Life training, one participant Jonney gave this inspirational interview:   The thing that inspires me the most about Jonney, is they he has been consistently sending updates about his work with the soil and the plants. Even over lockdown and a UK winter season, he has remained active and connected. There is much we could learn about his continuity and commitment! Thank you, Jonney for acting on behalf of life.   13/12/2020 Jonney writes: I have been kept busy planting broad beans (fava beans) and Horseradish. The broad beans are planted where I will grow potatoes next and the horseradish on what we are now calling the 11 acres. The 11 acres (4.5 ha) is a new piece of land that was previously arable farmland and we are in the process of reclaiming. Richard and I are working with others in the Community to ensure that we get the best from the land to suit the needs of the Community. Covid and some of our other projects has meant that there is no mone...