Mark World Soil Day (5 December) by making a difference to the soil in your urban garden.

Alternative text should describe the visual content of the image. — It can take up to 1,000 years to produce just 2-3cm of soil

Our planet’s survival depends on the precious link with soil. Over 95 percent of our food comes from soils. Afterall, they supply 15 of the 18 naturally occurring chemical elements essential to plants.

This year’s World Soil Day (December 5) focuses on the urban landscape and its connection with soil. Beneath asphalt, buildings and streets lies soil that, if permeable and vegetated, helps absorb rainwater, regulate temperature, store carbon, and improve air quality.

But when soil is sealed with cement, it loses these functions, making towns and cities more vulnerable to flooding, overheating and pollution.

Soil degradation 🔗

In the face of climate change and human activity, our soils are being degraded. Erosion disrupts the natural balance, reducing water infiltration and availability for all forms of life, and decreasing the level of vitamins and nutrients in food.

Digging can also destroy soil life. It damages soil structure (and the creatures within the soil) and leaves it vulnerable to compaction problems.

Sustainable soil management 🔗

When we think about soil, we almost always associate it with the countryside and nature. We rarely stop to consider that urban soil is also fundamental. But linked together, the soil in each garden can have a huge impact on the overall health of our neighbourhoods.

Our Every Garden Matters report shows the importance of urban gardens as part of the local ecosystem, and shares easy steps you can take to improve its biodiversity. This shows that soil health is better on veg plots. Well-managed vegetable gardens have a similar soil biological quality to a forest. Soil quality and carbon content in allotments is better than in surrounding farmland, despite light soil disturbance. It also shows good soil care can reduce the density of pests and protect crops from more extensive damage much more successfully than using toxic pesticides.

Organic practices overall help reduce erosion and pollution and enhance water infiltration and storage. They also preserve soil biodiversity, improve fertility, and contribute to carbon sequestration, playing a crucial role in the fight against climate change.

Here’s some key methods you can use to boost your soil health today…

Five ways you can improve your soil today 🔗

Protect bare soil during the winter months. Add well-rotted homemade compost or use leafmould as a mulch (cover) during winter weather. If necessary, cover with eco-fleece to prevent wind blowing everything away.
Grow a green manure over the winter rather than leaving the soil bare. This will protect the soil, improve soil structure and prevent hard-earned nutrients from being washed out by rainfall.
Minimise digging and walking on the soil to avoid disturbing complex soil life, or compacting the soil.
Plan your planting, and use techniques such as crop rotation, to make the best use of the soil’s nutrients and to avoid the build-up of ‘pests’ and diseases.
Grow peat free! Avoid destroying precious peat habitats by growing without peat. Sign the petition to call on Government to ban peat for gardeners and stop peat bogs being degraded.