Soil

Dot Appleby –
April 27, 2023

SOIL HEALTH IS KEY

Soil health is incredibly important to our business. Without healthy and nutritious soil, the plants simply won’t grow, I will have nothing to sell and this ceases to be a viable business. One of the things we do to ensure soil health is that we soil test each year and then react accordingly. Not only will this show me what state the soil is in now but it will give me a clear strategy to improve it and set a benchmark to build on for the years to come.

Our main reasons for testing the soil are always:

  • to get the strongest, healthiest crop
  • to ensure that the soil quality improves for years to come
  • to avoid waste on unnecessary or inappropriate plant food
  • to identify the best-suited plants to grow (and those that will hate it)
  • Efficient, responsible and cost-effective care of the land.

NO DIG METHOD

The ‘no dig’ ethos is a growing trend and there are some wonderful guiding books out there to reference. I think I can say now that it’s widely accepted that the less you disturb the soil structure, the more resilient the land is to environmental shift. Our ground is ridge and furrow, demonstrating that it is unlikely it has ever been deep ploughed and therefore our soil structure is well established. If we can avoid disturbing this then it will benefit everyone involved.

However, we are on heavy clay and this can be an inhospitable environment for the microorganisms that are essential to create a happy environment for plant growth. Also, the clay has a tendency to form large ribbons underground that hold water and create whole sections of boggy and unusable ground during the winter months. In the years to come plenty of natural compost, mulch and a light touch should naturally start to loosen the soil structure. There are friendly biological additives we could use on the soil and we will have this to consider in the years to come.

You May also like...

I’d read about the guttering options and we tackled it ourselves on a rare dry day in spring 2023.
After we had put the smother in place to clear the ground we turned our attention to the growing.
We started with a paddock, recently used to graze livestock and heavy with grass, thistle and dock...

Field 216 FAQs

Anyone! Just ask for what you need and i’ll see if I can help!

They are all different. It depends on what you want, how many and when? If they are not displayed in the shop then please ask and I’ll always help if I can.

Yes, if you let me know that you wish to purchase for trade then I can let you have our trade application form.

We don’t use anything nasty, no herbicides, pesticides or other chemicals but we are not accredited as ‘organic’

No. Unfortunately, as a working farm, I don’t open to the public. I do sometimes invite customers to visit to pick their own or to hold conversations about weddings or events.

Got a question that’s not covered here?  Please get in touch for more information.