Appendix – Actions!

Perfect timing for New Year’s Resolutions – instead of giving things up, taking action instead:

• Join Sustainable Haddington – get out into my local area and do something!
• Carshare with Gavin at least twice a week
• Revisit the Landshare site – see if any new opportunities for allotment space have appeared in Haddington
• Use the quiet time when I arrive early to work in the morning to go for a walk around Easter Bush rather than getting sucked into the emails – make more time for nature and me
• Read more about human ecology and sustainable education (try and stop me :) )
• Catch up with my garden photo diary on Facebook (woefully neglected in 2010!) and keep to the seasonal schedule this year
• See if the spare undeveloped land around the new vet school could be considered for a student allotment project – Wednesday afternoons may never be the same :)
• Join The Schumacher Society
• Find somewhere in need of guerilla gardening and share a clip on the Facebook site
• I always wanted to learn Hardanger embroidery, and to take up weaving. I have the books, I have the drive – time to get crafty!

Preparing the Soil

“[C]omposting is... a bridge beyond the industrial age to the ecotechnic future”

(Greer, 209; p109)

The Earth is at the heart of our existence . We are encouraged to “save the Earth”, our responsibility as “nature’s stewards”. What we need to “save” is ourselves, the intricate web of systems that makes this planet suitable for human life. If we don’t, Nature will fill the vacuum we leave with something else (Norman, in Louv, 2010; p296).

It is difficult to comprehend these complex interactions, so instead of looking at the Earth, I’ll start with the land, the soil.

The title of this blog is courtesy of Alastair McIntosh. He, in turn, was gifted the alliterative form by Satish Kumar of Schumacher College (McIntosh, 2008; p49). Soul, soil and society form the triune basis of community. Before we start to think about regeneration on a global scale, we first need to think about it on a local scale; before we do that, we need to reflect on our individual connection to the land.

(c)Alastair McIntosh

My first nature tale concerns my love of earthworms, my connection to the soil. As a child, I would spend hours standing in the mud talking. My mother at first thought I was talking to myself, and later found I was talking to the worms. I’m not sure which worried her more. That love of worms continued, and one of the most relaxing and de-stressing activities for me is going out and talking to the worms in my worm-bin. Worms consume organic matter, drawing it into the earth from the surface, mixing and breaking it down. The result is like gold, a rich humus and a worm “tea” that makes a fantastic plant food. By caring for my worms, I’m caring for the associated microbes that are invisible to my naked eye. Using that soil to enrich my pots, my garden, I’m restoring an ecological balance to my mini-landscape. A simple action, immensely satisfying, and one which everyone can try.