Indoor seed starting has become a March event in our home.
The changed climate has brought enough uncertainty and juggling of flats in and out of the cold, that I gave myself an extra three weeks of short days and warm fires before starting tomatoes, peppers and other heat-loving plants under lights.
For seed starting, I have always made some self-directed version of living soil; adding worm castings, fungi, trace minerals, and home-activated biochar to clean growing mediums. Fumbly pumice chunks would be added to the mix only during the second potting-up, although last year I did the tedious work of crushing and then sifting pumice to a fine grade for use in the initial seeding. A bit obsessive, to be sure.
While the doing of it all remains a much-loved ritual, I did find myself last year whining hopefully to my soil and worm farmer friend Andrew, whose passion is the design and delivery of bespoke living soil.
Fast forward to this February, when I visited Andrew and his wife Jane at their Chilliwack soil and flower farm. Andrew is the “terra” and Jane the “flora” of Terra Flora Soilworks. The couple was hosting a day-long deep dive into hot, cold, and bokashi composting, and I was keen to take photos and chat with students about their experiences.
So much has changed in the composting space. Not so long ago on the North Shore, backyard composts were discouraged due to wildlife concerns. Many communities offered plastic drum or modular composts to homeowners, but without essential aeration those were largely a fail.
Our collective intentions were good but misguided, as we now know that soil and human health improve only in a circular economy of beneficial biology. Also now, we are encouraged to compost kitchen waste through green bin pick-up as well as at home, and new understandings of soil biology are enabling smaller and healthier ways to recycle waste.
In our home garden, we’ve sunk five-gallon, lidded, in-ground worm compost buckets into each of eight 4x8-foot raised beds. To these composts we add bed trimmings in real time, kitchen green waste in rotation, and small handfuls of dried leaves or mulched hemp. To sweeten the mix, we add the odd sprinkle of activated biochar which serves triple duty reducing odours, retaining water, and housing microbes.
These in-situ vermicomposts are beautifully clean, self-contained systems that need little or no maintenance and provide incalculable benefit. The worms, shredders and micro-organisms transit nutrients in and out of the surrounding soil on their own.
Inside, we use a five gallon bokashi compost system with airlock lid, in which we “ferment” organic matter in an anaerobic environment through a simple method of layering all manner of kitchen waste, including meat and dairy, with yeast-innoculated bran. In just a few short weeks we have nutrient-dense, pathogen-free, fermented compost that can be added directly to garden soil without fear of attracting predators. A by-product leachate can be diluted and used as a foliar spray or soil amendment.
If all of this sounds complicated, it isn’t. Composting is elegant biomimicry, and anyone living anywhere can do it. Few of us can’t find room for a five-gallon bucket with a lid.
My happy news is that, just in time for seed starting, Terra Flora has introduced Living Soil Genesis, a bespoke seed starting and blocking soil with all the nutrient bells and whistles, including fungal dominant worm castings, bokashi and tiny wee sifted pumice – in bulk or in bags. I left the farm fully loaded.
Laura Marie Neubert is a West Vancouver-based urban permaculture designer. Follow her on Instagram @upfrontandbeautiful, learn more about permaculture by visiting her Upfront & Beautiful website or email your questions to her here.
For a taste of permaculture, watch the video below:
