Soil

When the weather allows I am out in the garden digging up old shrubs and turning their beds into new vegetable and fruit beds ready for the new year and the start of the season. So far I have created three new beds this season. The first I dug is planted with strawberries grown from this summer's runners. The second is for raspberries and the last will be partly given to french beans.

I love digging. There is scientific evidence that chemical compounds released by micro-organisms in the soil is a natural anti-depressant. For more see: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm  No wonder I feel so happy in the garden.

Another reason for I feel so happy when digging is that I have very good soil. I live in a terraced house in an old Cotswold town. There have been houses and gardens on this site for hundreds of years - back to the middle ages in fact. In the newer parts of town the soil is lias clay. But here it is a dark loam, which seems to go down for feet. As I dig I think of the generations of gardeners before me tending this soil and I am honoured. We hold our gardens as a gift from those who tended them in the past and to those who will tend them in the future. We are caretakers not possessors.

Despite what my sister might think (she has a lias clay garden) and the garden books might say, my loam soil does have its disavantages. Firstly the loose soil means I have to stake plants, as the wind can knock them over. Only the other day two swiss chard plants were rocked clean out of the ground by a wind . The second problem is the richness of the soil - fine for leaf crops, not so good for root ones. Radishes just want to grow leaves in my garden. Aren't they meant to be the easiest crop to grow? But I am not really complaining. As I  hold the dark brown earth in my hand and inhale the rich smell (plus a load of seratonin-inducing microbes), I count myself blessed.