REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Fruits & Vegetables with great flavour, no chemical inputs, all whilst enhancing soil health, increasing biodiversity and storing carbon in to the soil. This type of agriculture is called ‘Regenerative Agriculture.’
The drive to increase crop yields after the Second World War was driven by noble intentions, yet has led to the degredation of the soil through intensive machine-based land use and the widespread application of artificial pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilisers. This has led to two main problems: very high emissions of greenhouse gases (contributing to the climate crisis) and habitat loss that threatens to irrevocably damage the life-sustaining biodiversity of our planet.
It is estimated that intensively farmed parts of the UK are only 30-40 years away from zero fertility in the soil and 1/3 of the planet’s land is severely degraded and fertile soil is being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year, according to a United Nations-backed study that calls for a shift away from destructively intensive agriculture.
Regenerative argriculture seeks to address these issues. There are 5 core principles:
1. Keep the soil surface covered as much as possible - we do this by applying compost to the beds.
2. Limit the amount of physical and chemical disturbance of the soil - ie don’t dig, till or plough deeply.
3. A wide diversity of plants is encouraged to increase soil biodiversity.
4. Keep living roots in the soil for as much of the year as possible - when we harvest crops, we cut the plants at soil level and leave the roots to degrade in the soil.
5. Integrate rotations of grazing livestock into the system - frequent rotation and long rest periods for the pasture.
OUR MARKET GARDEN
In 2017 we took ownership of a 2.5 acre field which had been used for grazing sheep. As well as dense rye grass, the top 1/2 acre was densely covered in nettles, docks and thistles. With only cardboard, compost and woodchip, we have converted this area in to a thriving vegetable garden, orchard and wildflower meadow.
This is where No-Dig gardening makes complete sense! Instead of trying to eliminate weeds by digging (and thereby churning up the soil and bringing other weed seeds to the surface and also releasing carbon in to the atmosphere) or spraying with herbicides, the best approach is to deprive weeds of sunlight. The cardboard rots down under a thick layer of compost and the weed roots and leaves are also incoroprated in to the soil.
Paths are made of woodchip to improve water retention and supress weeds. There are no wooden barriers or bed edges - these just provide cover for slugs! 3 polytunnels offer shelter and warmth for tender crops like tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers and in the winter, mixed salads, broad beans and spring cabbages. A mixed orchard (apples, pears, plum and quince) is planted in rows with fruit bushes and rhubarb.
An acre of land houses our 4 new ponds and wetlands with a surrounding wildflower meadow. The meadow is grazed rotationally by our 2 Hebredean Sheep who are known for their ‘conservation grazing’.
In summer the meadow is full of wildflowers, nitrogen-fixing species like clover and vetch and is home to a great number of invertibrates, small mammals and a visiting barn owl and buzzards. Year on year we are seeing big increases in the number and variety of moths and butterflies at the site, with marbled whites, commas, speckled woods, Holly blues, meadow browns, ringlets, chimney sweepers, small skippers, small coopers, magpie moths and orange tips being the highlight of the year.
