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SOIL. WELL, IT’S just dirt really, isn’t it? It’s something to be cleaned off our boots and scrubbed off our hands, right?
When I started growing my own food, I didn’t have any respect for the soil that the veg was growing in.
My focus was on the seed, the plants, the vegetables. The soil was actually a source of annoyance to me – it had to be dug, raked, hoed, rotivated, coaxed and cajoled.
If we brought in a big digger and scraped the thin little layer (about 6 to 8 inches) of rich topsoil off the surface of our planet, all life as we know it would cease to exist. Plant matter would not grow, and without plant matter there would be no animals (including humans).
Given its importance to our survival, it’s strange that we treat it with such contempt.
Centuries of commercial agriculture has assumed that we can continue to rob the soil of its nutrients by growing intensively from it and that all we need to do is replace the three core nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (the key ingredients of commercial NPK fertiliser).
In fact, what soil needs to support life is far more complex than that. Composts and manures (which are the organic alternative to chemical fertilisers) also return dozens of trace minerals and other nutrients to the soil – the vegetables that grow in this soil have more nutrients in them as a result and healthier veg leads to healthier people.
Then, having served their purpose in the kitchen, the vegetable trimmings and waste are returned to the compost, releasing the nutrients that are left back to the compost heap and then eventually back to the soil.
Even a cursory understanding of this never-ending cycle of growth-maturity-decay leads you to one conclusion: growing your own food is actually all about the soil.
From that perspective, my most significant achievement as a GIYer has been to learn how to make proper compost. Each winter I put wheelbarrow loads of the crumbly stuff on my vegetable beds.
And each year my soil starts to look less like a potter’s clay, and becomes a little darker, a little more crumbly and a lot more lovable. In a nutshell – I’ve stopped treating my soil like dirt…
The Basics – Pick Blackberries
As autumn progresses and we move in to October, we’re coming to the end of what has been a tremendous blackberry season.
Sometimes you’ve got to be impressed with Mother Nature’s infinite wisdom. As we approach winter and the first snivels and colds, what does she do? She piles hedgerows all around us full with more free vitamin C then you could shake a stick at.
Blackberries have been consumed by humans for up to 2,500 years, contain polyphenol antioxidants, and are abundant in vitamin C.
It’s pretty ridiculous that we spend good money on fruit/berries and vitamin C tablets while millions of Blackberries rot in ditches all over Ireland. If you spend the time to pick them you can then freeze them and enjoy for months to come. Blackberries are supremely useful – they can go in to jams, smoothies, tarts, wine, tea, ink and dyes. So get picking.
Recipe of the Week – Blackberry and Apple Crumble
Eldest Boy at home here has become somewhat of a whiz at making blackberry and apple crumble and he’s at the age now where he can pretty much manage the process from end to end – including picking the blackberries.
Happy days. It’s the ultimate autumn comfort food.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 200C. Pour the lemon juice over the apples – this will add flavour and stops the apples from going brown.
Layer the apples, blackberries, and sugar in a lasagne dish. Place the flour in a large bowl and then rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the muesli and another 50g sugar and mix through. Sprinkle the crumble topping over the fruit. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool for a few minutes and then serve with custard or cream.
© GIY Ireland 2018 – all rights reserved.
”Sharp increase in suicide rate is linked to recession”
Yes
A recession caused by greedy corrupt and criminal bankers
They must be held accountable.
Our spineless, toothless, bought out government must be made stand up to this corruption.
I am sick of losing my friends.
Daniel, unfortunately you’re wrong:
Suicide is never the answer.
What an insensitive comment. Thousands of people are going to lose their jobs in the Irish banking sector and they’re at every risk of suicide as the rest of the population.
The idea that the banking sector has been in any way shielded by the bailout is false, it’s the public sector that carries on relatively untouched.
David, the public sector were probably the first to take a very substantial paycut back in 2009. Remember? Or were you even old enough to read back then?
I’d like to add, David, that due to public sector pay being cut by so much, my husband (a Garda) and I (a nurse) and our 2 small children left Dublin 2 weeks ago and now live in Perth, Western Australia. Which is where our 3rd baby will be born in approx 15 weeks. Thousands of miles from our families and friends.
Grow up, David, and stop telling lies.
Waiting for a few of the commenters on the Peter McVerry’s article to suggest the jobless and suicidal should pull themselves together and get a job. I’ve never encountered such cruel attitudes towards people as I often read here. Workplace pressure and bullying is a major factor in suicide and depression, and people are particularly vulnerable to being bullied during recession, when the pressure is on, like to see some Irish employers dealing with those issues, in a more proactive manner, that sticking up some posters on suicide awareness, they might actually save some lives if they listened to their staff now and then.
As an ex victim of bullying, Gabriel I understand exactly what you are saying.
Eventually I stood up to the bullies
All I can say is that when I stood up to them it might not have looked as choreographed as a scene from Rocky,
but it felt like it to me.
Bosses must listen to their staff
Our country’s bosses must listen to their people.
Banks must listen to their customers.
me too Gabriel & Harry, me too. theres been many of us, Workplace pressure, bullying, lies, extremely rude, intimidating behaviour that goes on without correction in companies that are household names.
A paramedic told me that it is usual for them to come across a suicide on every shift?! That’s 2 shifts a day everyday in just one area, I think it would horrify when we hear the exact number of suicides since the start of this recession, FF , dodgy bankers and the corrupt alike have a lot to answer for
This is 2012 and only now 2009 is being reported on. What about 2010 and 2011 ? Scary stuff.
Didn’t that pr##k B Ahearn tell us to commit suicide !!
the politicians don’t care whether we commit suicide or emigrate – if they did it would be reflected in the amount of money and rescourses to prevention.
Please tell me this isn’t yet another bloody useless survey we’ve had to pay for?! Who the hell really needed ‘experts’ to tell them this?
This great sadness – where does it come from?
How’d it steal into the world?
What seed, what root did it grow from?
Who’s doing this?
Who’s killing us, robbing us of life and light?
Mocking us with the sight of what we might of known?
Does our ruin benefit the earth, aid the grass to grow and the sun to shine?
Is this darkness in you, too?
Have you passed through this night?
It would suit the banks very well if we all committed suicide as then they could claim what we owe them off insurance.they somehow cant do that while we are alive. This should and could change. No income no job can’t pay.sorry.claim it off insurance or do what u want .not our fault pay cut to shreds or job gone. Don’t give em the satisfaction of having one less problem to deal with. When at the bottom there is only up to go. Enjoy life at
its grand in the back seat too. U will get to move to the front again if u want but wait don’t jump out of the car .
Sharp increase in suicide rate is linked to recession – Joe Soap….
Don’t need a weatherman to tell me it’s raining outside.
Having looked at how opinions in law strip all recognition in law and destroy peoples worth in society this article is mere white washing the effects.
The truth is probably something else and a statistical approach really does not get to the truth.
Is there any numbers for attempted suicide? I saw them before the recession kicked in and they were astronomical, something like 20 a day I think.
RIP Col. love you to bits
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