A key element for healthy soil and a vibrant garden

Did you know that 50% of soil is actually space? A little more or less depending on the unique soil structure itself, whether the composition has more clay versus sand. Wild right! I was blown away when I learned about this. Yet, it’s one of the key elements that ensures healthy soil and a vibrant garden. Space is (arguably has to be) everywhere. Space is just as much a part of the world below our feet as it is of the air we breathe.

Soil has structure ranging from porous sand to dense clay. The quality of the soil determines how the water, air, roots, and fungus, to name just a few subterranean components, move and exist. It’s truly a matrix. Space, coincidentally, is critical and essential for life to flourish.

Space, in fact, fosters live. It’s essential for it actually and though you may not think of it, the world below your feet is full of it. Vibrant soil is alive and in providing space it offers passage for roots, nutrients, moisture, and creatures. As stewards of the land and to those who propagate a garden, ensuring a healthy amount of space is an important component of a thriving landscape. 

The act of adding organic matter, double digging and aerating the soil, propagating and cycling plants with nitrogen nodule root systems, penetrating taproots which burrow deep breaking up the inevitable compaction of time, or plants whose very ecosystem attracts plumes of beneficial microbes, all create space.

Knowing the nature of the soil you have is the first step in preparing a garden. It also provides the baseline – how are you and how can you be present in the space around you?

Every month, just like every year, the garden is different. For example, in July I create space by literally pruning or removing plants. Pulling those that have bolted, cutting them up and piling them up in the compost. This makes space for other plants to emerge or for seeds more responsive to cooler weather to be planted. 

It’s a constant conversation, be it a silent one, where spaciousness is at the heart.