The soil in my part of the world is not great. There is a seven- or eight-centimeter layer of topsoil, followed by hard clay that’s antithetical to life. After that it’s nothing but bedrock.
It is possible to recondition the soil so that it becomes healthy and usable for crops. If one has ever watched a farmer tilling their field with a tractor or a gardener turning over soil with a garden hoe, this is what they are doing—breaking up the clay and soil and adding nutrients for their plants to grow.
This method is time-tested and effective, but it requires special tools and countless pounds of either fertilizer or store-bought topsoil.
When I started growing food on my land, I decided to go a different route and use raised garden beds. I built them out of lumber from the local hardware store. And they stood 30 centimeters high by a meter wide and two meters long.
Filling them with soil was a bit of a bear. Bagged soil that comes from the hardware store comes in a variety of textures that serve different purposes. I learned the hard way that the cheaper in-ground soil compacts when placed in container beds, making an inhospitable place for new seedlings because their roots can’t penetrate the compacted soil.
But the finer container soil was three times the price!
I found a compromise through the practice of Hugelkulture, which encourages gardeners to fill the bottom of their garden beds with natural plant matter: branches, leaves, hay, straw, and so on. Once the bed is about two-thirds full, the remaining space is filled with soil.
Not only is this an effective way to save money on soil, it also fertilizes plants as the natural materials release nutrients as they break down. Additionally, the branches help the soil retain water during dry periods, so the plants require less watering.
So I filled my beds, planted my seeds, and watered them diligently. I pulled weeds where I found them and mulched the beds with grass clippings from my yard.
Then the magic happened.
The seeds sprouted, the sprouts became vegetables—potatoes, carrots, radishes—and then I had my first harvest. It’s a special feeling, eating food that came from your land. The tomatoes are more flavorful, the lettuce is more tender, and the carrots have a crunch that can’t be found in the store-bought variety. At the end of the day, it’s a lot of work, but it’s all very satisfying.
That said, as the years progress problems arise that are unexpected. One thing I never realized is that plants literally eat soil. As they remove nutrients from it and the natural additives I mentioned earlier break down, the amount of soil in the bed diminishes. So every year I have to give each one a bit of a top-off—a bit more soil, a bit more straw, and a lot of love
But sometimes I have to do even more than that because wood breaks down over time. And garden beds are made of wood. They are also filled with soil that speeds the decomposition of that wood until the bed finally starts to crack and break down.
I let it go as long as I can, and when the damage gets too bad to ignore, I make a trip to the hardware store. I buy more lumber, I build a new garden bed, and I replace the old one. As long as I have a garden, this will be required.
And as long as I do my part, the garden will keep producing food.
As Westerners, it’s easy for us to have the mistaken belief that things can or should last forever. We live in a consumer society where we rarely need to learn how things work. We don’t repair things—we just replace them with new ones. We don’t build things—we just buy what we desire.
As a result, we don’t know how to react when things don’t meet our expectations, when they break and there is no easy fix. But Buddhism teaches that everything in life is impermanent, everything will break over time.
This goes for relationships, jobs, homes, and especially garden beds.
So it’s incumbent on us to learn how to fix things, and to have the tools available so that we’re ready when they break. One effective tool in the Buddhist tool kit is mindfulness. The Buddha taught that we must be mindful, which is to say we must pay special attention to our thoughts, emotions, body, and environment.
When we do this, when we train ourselves to pay attention, we notice things that we may have missed before. Does our spouse seem a little sad? Is there a shingle missing on the roof? Does one of our car tires look a little flat?
When we are mindful of the world around us, then we can make repairs before situations become dire, and we can ensure that there is a healthy container for our plants, our families, and ourselves to grow in.
Namu Amida Butsu
Related features from BDG
A World of Weeds and Mud
Sensing Our Way Back to Earth
Tending the Flower Garden
Rooted in Inter-being: What Ancient Trees Taught Me About Grief and Connection
The Soul of Soil: A Portrait of Frith Farm
