March in the Vegie Patch, Fruit Tree To Do’s + Simple Soil Rescue

March-in-the-veggie-patch-Echinops-and-sunset-cosmos-Ediblebackyard-NZ

To everyone whos gardens are under silt right now – my heart goes out to you bigtime.

The hope I can bring, is that silt is rich – it’s displaced topsoil, and as such, is full of potential goodness. It is however lacking air and therefore life – bring the air back and you’ll be up and running again. The best way, is not by digging, but by letting the biology loose. Make the silt thrum with life! Here’s my super simple soil rescue:

  • Don’t dig. Unless the silt is unworkably high and some needs removing. If the levels are ok, just leave it be and go on top.
  • If you feel you need to mechanically bring the air, don’t twist and turn, use a forksta or broadfork and aerate instead. You don’t have to though – you can leave this step to the soil biology. Much depends on your situation and what feels right to you.
  • Create new bed(s) by spreading homemade compost, vermicastings or cheats compost or a mixture, as thick as you can – 15cm means that vegie seedlings can establish in the compost itself. In between the beds, spread sawdust or woody mulch or homemade mulch, nice and thick. NB: If you buy compost in, its best to innoculate it with life by mixing it with vermicastings, homemade compost or a dose of your best soil.
  • Saturate the newly made bed(s) in a biological brew. Choose either activated compost tea, EM, Seaweed, Worm-wees, Bokashi juice – geepers so many ways! Use this weekly until soil temps drop to 10°C.
  • Sowing a mixed greencrop is the icing on the cake. A great team would have a cleanser like mustard or rye + a nitrogen fixer like lupin or broadbeans + a few tap roots like parsley, daikon or borage + a few flowers eg: bishops flower, phacelia or nasturtium. Tap roots are going to help transform the silt big time! Sprinkle the seed around your newly planted seedlings for a nourishing living mulch that will get the biology firing.

If you are worried about soil toxicity, trust your instinct and get a test. Useful as, because if the soils AOK then you wont need to go to the expense and effort of removal + you get to hang onto all that silty nutrition. Grow your next crops in boxes, tyres, pots, buckets et all while you await your test results.


This April, I’m down in Dunedin joining the Wild Dunedin festival. It’s celebrating soil this year. 10 days reveling in fungi, compost, soil biology + loads of hands on, practical home gardening advice – my idea of heaven! I’m talking chickens + soil + pruning and am hanging around signing books too. Their website is due to be live today, but if its not up at the time you read this, give them a day or so. And perhaps I’ll see you there!

Yours in the earth,
❤️