Ben Raskin takes us on a journey through the peaceful coexistence of trees and crops in a revolutionary approach to growing food. As Head of Agroforestry at the Soil Association and author of eight books, Ben shares how his 12 years as an organic vegetable grower evolved into a passion for integrating trees into horticultural systems.
The conversation reveals surprising insights that challenge conventional growing wisdom. Did you know vegetable beds sheltered by trees can be 4-5°C warmer than open ground, potentially extending your growing season by weeks? Or that many leafy crops actually prefer partial shade, especially during increasingly common heat waves? Ben expertly explains how trees buffer extreme weather conditions while fostering rich underground fungal networks that transport nutrients across remarkable distances.
Practical applications abound for gardeners of all scales. The humble wood chip emerges as an unsung hero – from its use as a soil amendment that boosts fungal populations to its potential as a sustainable peat-free propagation medium. Ben's firsthand experiments reveal that ramial wood chip – material from young branches – offers particular benefits when applied directly to soil without composting.
Beyond techniques, Ben shares a compelling vision for food system resilience in an uncertain climate future. Through his work at the Soil Association, he bridges the gap between environmental campaigners pushing for rapid change and farmers navigating practical economic realities. His perspective on diversity and resilience offers a hopeful path forward: systems that prioritize sustainability may yield less in optimal years but deliver consistently when conditions deteriorate.
Whether you're a home gardener curious about food forests or a market grower seeking climate adaptation strategies, this conversation provides both philosophical framework and practical tools for working with, rather than against, natural systems. Ready to reimagine your growing space with trees as allies?
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
how's it going everybody, and welcome to
episode 267 of astromagardenpodcasts.
Now, this week's episode is oneI've been looking forward to
for a while, so it's, um, yeah,glad to be joined this week by
ben raskin, who's head ofagroforestry with the silo
association.
He's also the author of manybooks I'd probably find out that
number quite soon and there'sbooks like the, the wood chip
(00:34):
handbook, uh, silva horticulture, there's books on agroforestry
and so much more.
Obviously the silo associationas well.
We can chat a bit about that.
So that's going to be reallyinteresting.
Quite a trusted body you know inin the uk and ireland and, as I
say, there's loads of kind ofpotential avenues here.
We're going to center theepisode, I guess, around silva
horticulture, which is theincorporation of trees into
(00:56):
crops, and where that willbecome relevant, I suppose, in
the garden situation is in thelikes of food forests, which are
starting to become popular, andI suppose there's a bit of a
lack of understanding of foodforests and how they operate.
But, you know,silvohorticulture is going to be
kind of a similar vein, sowe'll get some insight into it.
Soil health, I know, is alsosomething that Ben is quite, you
(01:19):
know, quite a strong advocatefor so, again, something that we
talk about a lot on the podcast.
So, yeah, there's loads ofpotential avenues here and, ben,
you're very, very welcome tomaster my garden podcast hi,
john, thanks so much for havingme on yeah, it's.
Uh, it does as I said.
There's loads, loads ofpotential avenues.
Um, you have many books out.
I wasn't quite sure the figurethere seems to be a lot is.
(01:40):
Do you know that figure offhand or?
Uh, eight eight books eight andit's everything from like your.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Your most recent one, if correct me if I'm wrong, is
the wood chip handbook no, themost recent is the silver
horticulture one that I co-wrotewith andy dibbon okay, who, if
you haven't yet had on, I wouldrecommend getting him on,
because he's amazing as wellright so yeah, so my, my
background is is horticulture,so I was a veg grower for 12
years or so, um, and they sayit's only in the last probably
(02:12):
10-15 years that I've started tofocus more on the trees and the
agroforestry stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So yeah, and when you say you're a vegetable grower,
like what kind of scale was itor what kind of format were you
growing in?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
so a range but sort of up to about 10 acres.
12 acres, that was sort of thebiggest I was growing um, but I
started I ran a walled garden umin sussex for a while um, I
worked for horticultural collegeup in north wales um, so yeah,
a few few bits and pieces sosmall it's small to medium scale
selling into, you know, boxschemes, farm shops, a bit of
(02:46):
wholesale, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, interesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but
you've always grown organically.
Am I right in saying that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah Well, actually the walled garden, my very first
job, despite my best efforts.
We weren't quite organic.
They couldn't stop spraying thepaths.
But paths run fast, stepharts,we weren't quite organic.
They couldn't.
They couldn't stop spraying thepaths.
But apart from that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So so that's kind of your.
Your grounding in horticultureis that sort of uh, organic
ethos and so on, and I did see avideo on on your instagram
profile earlier of you were sortof given a not not a history,
but you were saying that youcame from organic horticulture
and then you transitioned intosilva horticulture and the
(03:28):
incorporation of trees into thatand that's, I suppose, what
we're going to mostly center theepisode on, but we will talk
about other things like soilhealth and so on.
So maybe give us a little bitof the story from you know the
the organic market garden stylethat you were grown and to where
you started to incorporate, orwhy you started to incorporate
(03:48):
trees into your practice orwhere you started to see those
benefits.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I guess, like probably most gardeners, most
growers, I'd always had sometrees as part of the mix.
So you know, I'd always hadsome apple trees, some fruit
trees and I loved you know, Ialways loved working with them.
Pruning is is probably one ofmy favorite gardening tasks.
I really enjoy the, the, thesort of slightly meditational
(04:13):
state of it and but you know,you still got to think about it
a little bit and it's quitecreative.
But I hadn't really, I think,considered what the trees were
doing to the system.
I'd seen them in isolation, andit was probably about 15 years
ago, when I first came acrossthe concept of agroforestry and
started looking a bit more at,sort of, I guess, all the
(04:34):
benefits that trees bring, bothto the world at wide and to the
garden or the field itself, thatI started to investigate this
and I mean, god, it's massivetopic.
So I'm still so ignorant, youknow, it's so one of the classic
(04:55):
things of the more you learn,the more you realize quite a
little.
You know, yeah, um, but it,yeah, it's extraordinary and
we're we're scratching thesurface and and I guess the
other big driver for me isaround you know how we cope with
climate change, the mitigationto some extent through, you know
, carbon sequestration, all ofthat stuff.
But actually, more urgently forme is just how we keep
(05:18):
producing food in the face ofreally uncertain climate, in the
face of really uncertainclimate, and and trees buffer us
at both extremes of hot, cold,windy, wet.
You know, all of that stuffthey help to, they help to keep
us going, I guess.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Um, so yeah, that's, that's what's driving me really
yeah, I I said that this episodewill be will be kind of linked
I I covered an episode a coupleof weeks ago, so we've three
week here in ireland coming up,which is it's a quite an
important it's when this podcastgoes live.
It's actually the week thatthis podcast goes live and I was
at a conference a couple ofweeks ago and henrik showman was
(05:55):
was there chatting about treesand the urban environment and
you know the, the cooling effectand the attenuation of water
and all of those things and itwas really interesting.
And from a gardening stroke,market garden stroke,
agriculture perspective, there'shuge benefit in trees and I
(06:16):
guess, like, as you said, it's ahuge and complex topic and we
won't necessarily get into toomuch of the technical data.
But what is the benefits oftrees in the garden d?
And it's funny because I live ona farm here and if I was only
walking through the fields theother day and we have quite
(06:37):
mature hedgerows and the fieldsare quite yellow at this time
not yellow but they're.
They're not as green as theywill, as they will be once the
temperatures rise in a few weekstime, but all along under the
trees is just lush, it lookslush and there's that element of
it.
Then, in times when we getlittle periods of drought, which
(06:58):
we are getting with a littlebit more frequency again, if you
look under the trees, rightdirectly under the tree, might
be a little bit burnt, but in,if you look under the trees,
right directly under the tree,might be a little bit burnt, but
in that root zone area it seemsto be the grass is is greener
than it is in the fields.
So there's clearly you knowthis is my very basic
(07:19):
information on it but thereclearly is a benefit in having
trees plants in that root zone.
So what exactly is happeningthere?
Why am I seeing that?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So I think there's a few things we can talk about.
So there's the soil, which isone thing, there's the shade and
the effect that interceptingsunlight has on crops, and
there's the shelter, and thenthere's also the influence that
the trees have on water movement.
So so maybe, if we start with,let's start with the shelter,
(07:58):
maybe, and and the fact that ifyou're in the shelter of a tree,
you're typically four or fivedegrees warmer than if you're in
open ground.
So immediately you've raisedthe temperature throughout your
main growing season assumingit's a deciduous tree You've
raised that temperature by fouror five degrees.
Now that might give you I don'tknow a couple of weeks each end
(08:21):
of the season, potentially Idon't know, a couple of weeks
each end of the season,potentially.
And particularly, what it doesis it helps to warm up the soil
a little bit early on so you canget stuff out earlier.
But the other thing it does isit prevents physical damage.
So particularly stuff likesquash, for instance, which is
really susceptible to wind inthose early phases of
(08:42):
establishment where they mightjust get blown about.
In an open field where they'resheltered, they can get away
quickly and grow.
So you can have a significantimpact on both length of season
and yield, potentially, if youget it right.
Um, and even stuff.
Andy talks about um.
So, andy, I co-wrote the book,the silver horticulture book
(09:03):
with.
He talks about, uh, the damagethat happens to a lot of leafy
crops.
So for him you know, one of hisbig markets are, you know,
chards, lettuce, spinach, all ofthat sort of stuff, and if he
gets a nasty wind across it canshred the whole crop.
So, although in theory it'sstill edible, actually it's
unsalable.
(09:23):
So, although in theory it'sstill edible, actually it's
unsalable.
So for him it's a reallyimportant part of protecting it.
You know the physical bit ofthe crop as well.
So that's shelter.
So then the shade.
So I guess we've got a bit ofan assumption maybe in our heads
that we need full sun for ourvegetable crops.
You know it's sort of in ourmind.
(09:43):
We think, yeah, it's just getout in the field, aren't they
with full sun.
But actually most, or a lot ofvegetable crops don't need or
want full sun, and theyparticularly don't want full sun
when it's 35 degrees, which weare now getting sort of fairly
regularly.
So, particularly leafy crops,they can make do with maybe two
to four hours of sunlight a dayand they can be in semi-shade
(10:06):
the rest of the time andactually things like lettuce
really like being in the shadein in the hot summers.
So so, re-evaluating in a waywhat your crop needs in terms of
sun, but then also thinkingabout how the the sun moves
across the sky and where theshade is falling at different
(10:26):
times a day and at differenttimes a year, you can start to
be quite clever about how youplan your rotations and how near
to the tree you put them.
So something like, uh, garlic,for instance, you could plant
almost under the tree becauseit's quite shallow rooted and
it's done most of its growing bythe time the tree's coming into
leaf, whereas other stuff youknow, tomatoes or sweet corn or
(10:49):
something you'd want furtheraway, where it is going to get
full sun.
So yeah, so you can, sort ofyou can play around a little bit
like that.
I mean, the water is probably abit more obvious, you know it,
when you've got tree roots thatare breaking up the soil and the
helping infiltration and all ofthat stuff, then it, you know,
just allows you to dry out morequickly.
(11:10):
So again, particularly in earlyspring, if the soil is a bit
damp.
If you can get it dry a bitquickly you can get, you know,
maybe a couple of weeks extraseason, but also just it stops
it getting clogged and wet andclaggy.
So particularly if you've gotheavy sores it can really help
um sorry, go on yeah yeah, soand they're.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They're the sort of, I suppose, what you'd call the
the obvious, the obvious ones,and I guess there is some
benefits.
Um, I've had jeff lawnfels onthe podcast in the past and he
he has spoke about, you know,bacteria transfer and root
exudates and and and so on andof which I don't understand.
I'm not.
I'm not a scientist, but I dounderstand when there's benefit
(11:53):
in something and you can see itand but I don't understand
what's actually happening there.
But clearly there is.
There is benefit because if youlook, you know, in a, in a
forest, in a forest or in a, anedible forest setting, you're
getting really, really goodplant health typically, you're
(12:14):
getting your crops do extremelywell, less disease and so on.
So there's, there's somethinghappening there around that as
well.
Are you up to sort of elaborateon that or is that the sort of
no?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
no, absolutely well, I mean, it is a mind-fooling one
say I'm certainly I am, I'm nosort of scientist either, but
but there's, you know, we knowthat diverse systems are more
productive.
Monocultures are, you know,they're efficient from a, from a
human labor point of view, butthat's about it.
They don't work.
They don't work as asself-sustaining natural systems.
(12:47):
So the more diversity we caninclude, the better.
Which goes back to into yourintroductory point about the
forest, food forests, and youknow, those multi-layered things
which in in a garden you cancertainly create.
When we're, when we're, growing.
Commercially it's harder to dothat because you've still got to
get machinery in and sort of,you know, make a living.
But the um, I guess what'shappening your your point about
(13:10):
the exudate.
So it's a.
Typically, a plant only usesmaybe half to two-thirds of what
it produces in terms of foodfor its own benefit.
The rest it pushes out throughthe roots to feed soil organisms
and exchange those that sugareffectively for other minerals
that it needs.
So it's, it's desperatelytrying to encourage all of these
(13:32):
soil organisms to come and livearound its roots so that they
can all live and breed andexchange all of these um, all of
these nutrients and and a treewill be there permanently.
Um, so, so often we'll put in agreen manure crop, and that you
know we'll do that job a bit,but then we dig it in, um, and
we disturb the soil and we breakup all of that habitat.
(13:54):
And one of the things that'sparticularly beneficial about
planting trees is you create thehabitat for fungi.
So fungi typically hate beingdisturbed.
They don't like being dug, theydon't like being sprayed, they
don't like anything, they justlike to be left alone under the
tree.
And basically, as soon as youplant a tree, then you're not
doing anything under it, youknow.
(14:15):
Typically you leave it becauseotherwise you're going to damage
the tree roots.
So you're creating this perfecthabitat for fungi and then the
fungi is able to transportnutrients from further away.
So, whereas a lot of the thingslike bacteria and nematodes and
you know, those other littlecreatures that are living
immediately around the roots,they're relatively immobile.
(14:36):
They can move around a littlebit, most of them, but and
obviously things like worms cantravel a bit more, but they
won't be traveling 50 meters or100 meters.
Whereas fungi hyphae can growwell I mean, the biggest one is
whatever, five miles wide, isn'tit, you know, but typically
they can all link up with eachother and they feed into roots,
and that's how trees talk toeach other often is through
(14:57):
these fungal networks.
So the more you can create bitsof your garden that are
undisturbed and linked to otherbits, then that's going to be
beneficial to the soil health.
And bear in mind also, the treesare kind of constantly
producing leaves, droppingleaves, building soil, organic
matter, building soil.
So as long as your tree isn'tso vigorous and big that it's
(15:25):
out competing everything, soclearly there are going to be
situations where you can't growstuff under a big oak or
something.
Yeah, um.
But but if you get the balanceright and you understand how the
dynamics work, then you canreally work at your advantage
yeah, and I presume your yourwood, your book on the wood chip
handbook.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That's sort of fallen into the same category, like
because on the face of it you'rethinking how can you write a
full book about wood chip?
Not the first person to haveasked me that, but I suppose
it's when you start to get into,you know what is happening with
(16:04):
the fungal activity in the soil, that you can branch this out,
and I guess that's what'shappened.
I haven't seen this book, somaybe tell us a little bit about
it, and is it the kind of seguethat we think it is here?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And what got me into wood chipactually was was planting trees
initially.
So so alongside the work I doat the soil association, I work,
uh, for helen browning on herfarm.
So helen's the chief exec ofthe soil association but she
also has a 1500 acre farm inwiltshire, um, and I sort of
manage her agroforestry plantingfor it, and we were using a lot
(16:43):
of wood chip to mulch andbasically the more mulch I put
on, the better it was and thequicker the trees established.
And and then it sort ofcoincided with with being
involved in a few other projectsone with the organic research
center and, um, ian tolhursttolly, looking at, uh, ramiel
wood chip and spreading ramielwood chip.
(17:04):
So, spreading ramial wood chip,so that's the kind of the small
stuff, the stuff from branchesless than seven centimetres in
diameter, and spreading that onsoil and seeing the effect.
And then we also ran aninnovative farmers field lab
looking at wood chip compost forpropagation.
So suddenly all these sort ofstuff was coming up going god,
wood chips more than justspreading on paths, yeah, um, so
(17:28):
so that got me reallyinterested.
And then, and then one of theother things I've started
looking at.
So so, unless you want just togrow fruit trees which are great
, obviously I love fruit treesbut once you get into you know
bigger settings and farmsettings not everybody wants to
grow fruit trees but but sort ofuh, older, that sort of thing
(17:49):
where you maintain the height ofyour trees by coppicing on a
two, three, four, whatever youknow year cycle, um, and, and so
(18:13):
you're not, uh, you, you reducethe risk basically of having
this massive tree, that's,that's sucking out nutrients and
competing with your crops by bycontrolling it, the height of
it.
And then, if you start doingthat, you go what am I going to
do with all of this materialthat I'm getting from this
coppice thing?
And so then you start goingwell, actually, yes, you can
chip it and then use it for allof these other things around the
(18:34):
garden.
That's really useful.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, and so in that scenario because I'm just
thinking from an agroforestrypoint of view here you were
saying you spread wood chips onthe land.
So obviously you know, in agarden setting, as you mentioned
, we've all seen it in thefootpaths and there's the
obvious benefit there.
You know you do see themycelium building up and you
know it is adding.
(18:58):
Over time it breaks down andthat becomes nutrients and so on
.
So in that setting we allunderstand the benefits of it.
Are you saying that you knowthe likes of these chips would
be spread on the land, as ingrazing pastures, or is it just
in food production beds or is it?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
You can do it anywhere really.
So the idea with this isbecause the smaller wood has a
higher ratio of uh nutrients,nitrogen and other and other
nutrients and amino acids andthings to carbon.
So old wood typically is mostlycarbon, you know.
The young wood has got morebark and bark is where all the
(19:39):
sort of exciting stuff is in thetree.
So so you, you reduce the riskof nitrogen locking by using the
young wood and the idea is thatyou can spread it straight on
the soil.
So either I mean tolly typicallydoes it on his green manure
phase of his rotation, whichreduces, you know, any
particular risk of locking up.
(20:00):
But but actually it doesn'tseem to be much risk if it's
really young, um, and it's, andit's not like a mulch, it's like
a sprinkling um, so it's.
So it's a, it's a soilamendment, it's almost like a
soil health amendment.
So rather than thinking of itas a as a mulch or as a
fertilizer, it's more a sort ofhealth booster really and
(20:23):
particularly helps with fungalpopulations and pushing the sort
of fungi-bacterial ratio a bitmore towards the fungi.
So that's the concept really.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
But yeah, and you're spreading that fresh or is it
composted for a period of time?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
first, so the ramial, in theory you can just compost
fresh and we're certainlylooking.
So Helen's farm is is mainly alivestock farm.
There's not really muchhorticulture there, but but
we're looking at potentiallycoppicing some of it and just
literally spreading it from thewood chipper out into the
pasture.
(20:58):
Um, you know, maybe if it endsup a bit too piled up we might
have to run over it with sometines or something.
But, um, yeah, you couldpotentially do that.
But equally, you can compost itas well.
And I would certainly say ifyou've got older wood chip from
bigger branches, I wouldrecommend probably composting it
before you add it.
And certainly if you're growingstuff that's got really shallow
(21:24):
roots or it's a really youngplant, then I would definitely
recommend composting it and andcertainly not digging in,
because that's when you get someof the problems.
Um, but for, no dig beds.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
If you use really nice composted wood chip, it's,
it's great, works really wellyeah and so and it technically
in in a scenario like that, thenif you're using this really
young, really small chippings,you can do like a chop and drop
effect, so you're doing the samething as chop and drop you're
(21:54):
you're putting it straight ontoyour beds in a thin enough layer
?
I guess that you're not.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You're not putting a big layer of it well, it again,
it depends on what you're doing.
So so I mean, I actually that'sexactly what I've been doing
this morning in my garden isI've pruned, pruning a shrub, uh
and yeah, just laying itactually quite thickly
underneath that shrub, becausethat's going to be fine.
If I was about to plant out mylittle vegetable seedlings there
(22:19):
, then I'd want it a lot thinneror or I'd compost it.
So it's a little.
It depends a little bit on whatyou've got growing there.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
That's the wood chip handbook.
Silver horticulture I knowwe've talked a little bit about
it but it's and it's somethingthat's used or used relatively,
I suppose, across.
I've seen it going back 30years ago in horticultural
(22:48):
college.
It was used to a certain extentbut I don't think it was.
It was more from the point ofview of wind barrier than you
know.
They certainly weren't thinkingabout it from a soil health
point of view or from any otherpoint of view at that point in
time.
But it was.
You know it was starting tobecome popular.
Have you seen, you know, aswitch in the last few years to
(23:09):
more silver?
Silver horticulture, strokeagroforestry I think it's
starting.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I mean, I guess one of the things I hadn't really
realized when I started all ofthis was it's an ancient,
ancient system.
Really, it's probably how westarted farming, and in parts of
the world like South Americaand Southeast Asia, it's still
the norm for a lot ofhorticultural crops, and so I
think, certainly in the UK andIreland, I guess as well, you
(23:39):
know, it's just something we'veforgotten about and we're
rediscovering it, um, and, andwe know, I guess, a bit more
about the science of why itworks as well, which is, which
is nice, um, but it's yeah, andand there's a there, there are a
few pioneering growers thathave been doing it for a while,
(23:59):
people like alan scofield, um,ian tolhurst, martin brag down
in in devon, um, the you know,the wakelands, uh, agroforestry
over in suffolk.
So there's, there's people thathave been trying it for
probably 20, 30 years, butthey're relatively few.
But I think in the lastcertainly three, four years,
(24:21):
there's been increasing interest.
I think.
And certainly, you know, andyand I wrote the book mainly
because when we were developingsystems, we just couldn't find
any information.
So we thought, well, probablyother people would find this
useful as well, and Andy alwayssays I wish I'd had this book
when I started designing mine.
I'd have done it alldifferently.
So is he farming himself now?
(24:49):
Yeah, so he's.
He's a grower at uh Abbey HomeFarm near Cirencester, which, uh
, I can't now remember exactlyhow many acres he's on, but he's
got about two acres of glassand polytunnel and then I think
about another 15 acres of fieldveg and stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, um, so yeah, and he's using a silver, silver
horticulture system and what heis, yeah, what trees is he using
?
Is it a combination of nuttrees, fruit trees?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
yeah, so, fruit, some nuts and some coppice those
would be his main ones again.
You know, in a way, like Italked about earlier, it's about
, uh, he doesn't want really bigtrees.
Uh, they've they.
He supplies into.
They have this incredible farmshop on their site which
basically supplies everything.
They do pretty much everythingon the farm dairy poultry, eggs,
(25:35):
you know they, they have theirown uh, bakery, just about
everything, um so.
So here's all of his um, fruitand veg goes through the shop,
um, so that's his main driver,and they were buying in apples.
So I thought, well, you know,definitely we should be growing
more apples, um so so.
But equally, you know, hewanted, uh, you know,
potentially to cut bean polesand pea sticks.
(25:57):
And you know, one of the thingswe talk about is how, how you
can become more self-sufficient,and you know whether you're a
gardener or a professionalgrower.
If you look at the things thatyou're buying in to make your
garden work, actually a lot ofthem you could be growing
yourself.
Yeah, um, you know, even in arelatively small garden, um, you
(26:17):
can be growing some of thisstuff.
Um so, things like, you know,wood chip to make propagation
compost, or, you know, even ifyou just had one hazel coppice
in the corner of your garden,you know that could provide
quite a lot.
So it's thinking about thinkingabout sort of what you're
spending money on, I guess, andwhether there's a tree that will
, that will save you money bydoing it yourself yeah, hazel.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
The hazel, as you know, as as plant supports and
so on, is is brilliant.
I've, um, I've used willow alittle bit, but obviously it
starts to regrow again, sothat's not always exactly that's
not always ideal, but, um, yeah, hazel.
Hazel is a really good one, andyou mentioned wood chip compost
(27:04):
for propagating and this isobviously one that's quite,
quite a hot topic over the lastnumber of years because we've
gone away.
Here in ireland we're stillusing peat um in a propagation
and I think it's pretty muchgone in the uk at this stage yes
, yes, it's definitely on itsway out.
(27:25):
But I suppose the biggestchallenge for peat-free has
always been from the point ofview of sowing seeds.
It's to get those EC levelsstable enough to safely and
consistently germinate seeds andgrow on seedlings.
That's that.
That's been the challenge.
What, what's the?
(27:46):
How do you make a germinationcompost, seed sowing compost
with, with woodchip?
How, what's that process?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
well, in theory it's very simple.
So you literally compost it foranything between 18 months and
three years, um, and sieve itand then add something like a
bit of perlite or vermiculite orbiochar, so something that just
sort of helps a little bit withthe, with the drainage, um, and
(28:12):
certainly the trial we did withtolly uh, we sowed leeks and,
uh, cabbage I think I'm sayingcabbage, now I can't remember it
was lettuce, but anyway, wesowed leeks and cabbage I think
I'm saying cabbage, now I can'tremember if it was lettuce, but
anyway and it was comparedagainst the sort of leading
peat-based commercial compostand they basically performed the
same and in fact the leeks wereeven slightly healthier in the
(28:36):
field, although we're not quitesure why.
So that was kind of impressive.
And it is literally he pileswood chip that he gets from tree
surgeons in a windrow, he addsa bit of his packhouse waste, a
bit of the old sort of vegcuttings and all of that.
He turns it a couple of timesover the year and then he sieves
(28:57):
.
Then he takes that, takes a bitof it and sort of composts it
further for another six, 12months and then sieves it and
that's it and it seems to work.
Now, we haven't obviouslytested it on every crop, and
what you're using for thefeedstock, I'm sure will have
some bearing on the quality, onthe quality, um, but it does
(29:24):
seem that, uh, you know, if youleave it to compost long enough,
then some of those variableswill even out.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Um, so it just seems to be.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's all about time, then it's yeah, but but the
process is simple.
I mean, I I think you couldliterally fill a.
You know, fill some plasticbags with wood chip, leave them
in the corner of your garden forthree years and then come back
and sieve them, and it would.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I think it would work yeah yeah, um so yeah, because
that's that is the biggestdownfall of peat-free compost.
To be fair, it's.
It's just either inconsistentor poor germination, you know,
because the obviously the eclevels are just not stable,
whereas something like wood chipthat has been given that period
of whatever three years is,yeah, it's going to be again.
(30:05):
It's going to be like whatyou'll find on a on a florist
for a forest floor if youscratch back the surface.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's going to be that type of a yeah, and I think I
think one of the main problemsfor a lot of the commercial
people free brands is they'vegot this time pressure, they've
got to keep things moving andthey can't make any money if
they have it sitting around toolong composting and so they rush
the process to get stuff tomarket um, and so, as you say, a
lot of it isn't really suitableand some of it's not even
(30:32):
suitable for putting on, but butI think that is, I think it's
getting better and that you knowthere are an increasing number
of um brands that are deliveringmuch better.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, no, it is improving.
Yeah, and funny here probablythe leading one, the leading
brand here, has quite apercentage of Cocoa Cire in it
and I really have my doubts onthat, considering that we live
in ireland and like the thesustainability or the
(31:06):
eco-friendliness of that whenit's come from the other side of
the world.
It might make sense if you'requite close by to its source,
but I'm not so sure here.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I really do question cairn in compost here, anyway,
for sure yeah, well, yeah, and Ithink if you can make it from
something that you can grow, youknow where you are.
That definitely makes moresense to me.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, you mentioned soil healthand as part of what you were
saying there, you you chattedabout adding biochar.
So I know soil health issomething you talk a lot about
and it's something that's quiteyou know.
I would regularly cover soilhealth and related topics on the
podcast and again would call itthe cornerstone of growing food
(31:51):
particularly, and pretty muchany gardening is.
The cornerstone is your soil,what you know when we come on to
the soil association in aminute.
But how do you go aboutbuilding a healthy soil in your
opinion?
So you mentioned biochar, youmentioned spreading wood chip,
any other kind of good tips forbuilding soil health?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's mainly about reducing the amount you do to it
, to do as little as you can,which is why no dig systems work
and they're challengingcommercially to to get enough
material and they're quite laborintensive.
But in a garden situation, youknow, I mostly I would recommend
(32:33):
no dig.
When I, when I started 30 yearsago, there were still people
double digging and I, even atthe time when I really didn't
know that very much at all, Ithought this just seems like
madness.
Why?
Why are we doing this?
It's invented just by someonewho wants to, you know, dig, but
anyway.
So so I think I think reducingthe amount you you do to a soil
(32:54):
is obviously crucial.
Keeping it covered at all times, ideally with something living,
is also, you know, reallyimportant.
And building soil, organicmatter, so that you know whether
that's compost, composted woodchip, but you know, building up
the, not just the percentage oforganic matter in your soil, and
(33:20):
that will you know.
So most soils will have a limitto what.
You can do that and then stillmaintain a balance.
But you can also build thedepth of your soil by increasing
that biological activity, and alot of the carbon is part of a
cycle.
So it's not necessarily sittingthere doing nothing, it's sort
of in and out, but the moreactive generally, the more
(33:41):
active your soil is, thehealthier it's.
It's sort of in and out, butthe but the more active
generally, the more active yoursoil is, the healthier it's
going to be um, and the biocharis interesting.
I mean, I'm, I'm not, uh, abiochar evangelist.
I would say, um, but I am, I am, I've done a few bits of trials
with it and I am reallyinterested and I think it's got
some real potential uh,particularly in um, in really
(34:04):
light sandy soils and in tunnelsand glass houses and pots where
you get quite a wide extreme oftemperature and moisture.
So it helps, it really helps toact as a buffer, um, because
it's it's effectively like thissponge it holds, holds on to
water and nutrients, so it makesthe most efficient use of what
you've got.
(34:25):
There's also a theory that a lotof plants have evolved to
respond to the presence ofcharcoal.
So if you've got a forest fire,the things that grow quickest
are the ones that are going tobe successful.
So there's a theory thatthey're, uh, naturally evolved
to grow more quickly whenthere's charcoal in the soil.
(34:47):
And that my first, I guess whatfirst got me interested in.
I did a, just a trial on my ownwith biochar.
It was a coir based compostactually, but some of it had
biochar in and some of it didn't, and all of the trays that had
biochar in germinated a dayearlier and were greener.
Well, um, and you look at it,just go, wow, I can see the
(35:08):
difference.
Now that didn't necessarilymean they grew any better once I
planted them out, but but Ijust thought, wow, there's
something in that, so.
So that got me interested.
I've since done quite a lot oftrials and and certainly where
we've used it at Helen's in thefertile heavy clay I've seen
actually no benefit at all.
Particularly I don't think it'sdone any harm and I'm sure it's
(35:29):
sequestered some carbon inthere.
But from a sort of crop andsoil health point of view I'm
not sure we've benefited muchand obviously there's a cost to
it.
But I think, yeah, I thinkthere are situations where it
can can help and and certainlyyou know, I know there are
advocates out there that believeit's sort of a massive
(35:52):
potential just in terms ofdrawing carbon out of the
atmosphere and sequestering itlong term in the soil.
I guess I'm nervous aboutunintended consequences with
some of that stuff where we goyeah, let's throw lots of
biochar in the soil and then,you know, we don't really know
what it'll do in all situations,probably.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Um, but yeah and there is a lot of.
You know, here in irelandthere's, there's a huge bio
biochar facility after beingbuilt and they're able to
produce huge amounts of materialand and you know they're.
They're talking about differentapplications for that now at
this stage and so there is yeah,there's a lot of talk about
(36:31):
biochar at the moment.
From my perspective, I haveused biochar in not a very
scientific way but in created,no, a new no dig garden a couple
of years ago and all the bedsgot an application of biochar
produced here in ireland and drkaren o'hallan and she
inoculates it with beneficialbacteria.
(36:51):
So it's a little bit of asouped up biochar, for want of a
better word.
And on applying it to all bedsum, sorry, not all beds, because
I was trying to see was theredifferences?
Um, by applying it on on thebeds in year one.
So all these were were newlycreated no dig beds and there
was no obvious difference inyear one, uh, with the you know
(37:15):
in the setup year.
But there was definitelybenefits, obvious benefits in
year two and year three, whereyou're only putting the really
light layer of compost in thefurther years, and I thought
there was an obvious benefitthere, twofold better growth,
without a doubt, on the bedswith biochar, but healthier
(37:37):
plants.
They just looked a little bitgreenerer, slightly more
vigorous on the ones that were,that were that where the biochar
was applied.
So I've since I've since put iton all beds.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
But it wasn't obvious initially, but after year two,
year three, it was quite clear,quite clear yeah, and I think, I
mean, I think systems, soilsystems take a while to react to
any change, which is why, yeah,long term trials and
observations are so crucial,because things happen slowly, or
(38:10):
you know, or then surprisingly,five years down the line or
something.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And the Silo Association, so obviously a
hugely trusted body in the UKand here in Ireland as well.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou know for people that don't
know, tell us a little bit aboutthe association, what it does,
what its you know.
Its mission statement is, Iguess.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, so we're a charity.
We were founded in 1946 by agroup of scientists, farmers and
health workers, so the sort ofcentral mission, in a way, has
always been to promote andsupport that link between
healthy soil, healthy plants,healthy animals, healthy people
(38:54):
and a healthy planet.
In the 70s we were one of theorganizations that helped to
develop the organic standardsand we set up at that time a
certifying body as well.
So we own a certificationcompany, which is how a lot of
people know us, and we certifyorganic farms and businesses.
(39:16):
We also help to set up FSC, thetimber mark, so we certify that
worldwide, and then some otherethical standards as well.
So we do that.
And then we do own anothercompany now, which is Soil
Association Exchange, which wasset up four or five years ago, I
(39:38):
think, which the aim of that isto help farmers to monitor and
benchmark their environmentaland social outputs and then
potentially to tap into fundingto help support it.
I don't work for either of thosecompanies.
I work for the charity.
I work in our farming and landuse team, work in our um farming
(40:06):
and land use team, um, and whatwe do is, uh, quite broad um,
but primarily it's, uh, it'saround things like supporting
farmers to, um, I mean, Isometimes I don't think this is
the official way we talk aboutit anymore, but I quite like it
as a way of describing it.
So so we work with, uh, farmers, our existing organic licensees
, we, we work with them to helpthem you know farm even better
or to access new markets orwhatever you know around that to
(40:29):
sort of help them.
We work with farmers toencourage them to certify as
organic.
So obviously we believe organiccertification is one, one way
to benefit our charitable aims.
So we would like to see moreorganic licensees, whether
that's with the Soil Associationor other licensing bodies.
(40:50):
And then we also nowincreasingly work with farmers
to make them sort of in invertedcommas more organic.
So we know that a lot offarmers will never want to be
certified organic and that'sfine.
But actually a lot of them noware interested in things like
cover crops and rotations andbuilding soil, organic matter
(41:13):
and particularly my area ofagroforestry.
You know, I would say I workmostly with farmers that are not
certified organic, which Iquite enjoy.
Enjoy.
To be honest, I don't enjoy, uh, what's the word?
So silos, I think.
I think we all benefit much morefrom talking to each other and
learning from each other um, andthen and then we also do as
(41:37):
well as the work with farm.
So we run things like we runevents.
We've got a ag forestry showcoming up, for instance, in
september, which would be, uh,you know, great if any of your
listeners wants to come over touh, to england and visit um.
But but we, you know, we runevents, we run webinars, we
produce fact sheets, we we visitfarms, we talk to people on
telephone and emails, all ofthat sort of stuff.
(41:57):
We then also work, uh in policy.
So we do have a policy team,but a lot of the people in my
team, so there's something like23 people now in our farming and
land use team.
So we've got a really widerange of expertise sort of
really around all farming andforestry um.
So so we help to support ourpolicy team, um to influence uh
(42:21):
where we can, to influencegovernment policy, and that
would be sort of across the, thefour devolved nations in the uk
, um and uh.
And then we also get involvedin some of the campaigning work
that the charity does um the.
I mean there is there's always alittle bit of a tension with
with some of our work, becausewe have a lot of um public
(42:43):
members, um who are who tend topush hard for change, and then
we have a lot of farmer memberswho, while they're all very up
for change, it just takes a bitlonger sometimes, and so our
campaigning team are oftentrying to sort of push a more
radical message and then, sortof, our team is going have you
(43:06):
thought about how that's goingto go down with the farmers?
So that's quite interesting.
You know, go down with thefarmers, so that's, that's quite
interesting.
Um, and I guess then the finalbit, which I get less involved
in, is we have quite a big umfood, uh strand of work.
So do a lot of work withschools, um, hospitals and
things like that, um looking at,uh, supporting how to change
diet and eating habits andthings like that.
(43:27):
So so, yeah, quite wide range.
We're an unusual organizationthat we we span sort of pretty
much everything which, as I said, it does create tensions but it
also, I think, gives us anunusual perspective on things.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
You know, we're not, we are an environmental
organization, but we're also afarming organization and we're a
campaigning organization andwe're a food, so we do a lot of
different stuff um which throwsits challenges, but it's quite
exciting to work within, so yeah, I could imagine the challenges
, but I guess it's also it'salso probably, you know, a good
(44:02):
angle because, as you rightlysaid, the, the people who are
campaigning, typically the, thepublic, are pushing for certain
outcomes and certain bans andcertain changes, and on the on
the backside of that, then youhave farming farmers who are
running a business, have to makea living and change, as you
(44:26):
rightly said, is, is and can beslow, because they have to, they
have to need, they have to knowthat this change is not going
to impact the bottom line.
That's essentially it um andand so.
But you're in a unique, uniqueposition in that you can
navigate those two, those twokind of different pillars well,
(44:46):
I hope so.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
I'm not sure we always get it right, but I mean,
actually, the pete discussionis a classic case of that where,
as an, as as an organization,we're, you know, we're right
behind a ban and we, you know, Iwould say we've been over the
decades, we've probably been oneof the most proactive voices in
reducing and removing peat.
We've got to make sure thatthere are the products out there
(45:11):
in sufficient quality andquantity that when our
commercial growers use them,they're not losing an entire
crop because that's theirlivelihood down the drain.
So we can't do it at such speedthat people go out of business.
But equally, if you don't do itfast enough, then nothing ever
gets done.
But equally, if you don't do itfast enough, then nothing ever
(45:32):
gets done.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, no, like here in Ireland, I think it's that's
we've a strong tradition andheritage in peat in lots of ways
.
You know, going to the bog tocut turf is is a you know, was a
big thing here in Ireland.
It's probably less so now, butit is still still here.
And, you know, a couple ofyears ago it was the clamor to,
(45:56):
to, to ban peat products fromfrom growing and while it's very
hard to argue with that, theproducts just weren't there to,
you know, to replace themessentially today or tomorrow.
And and as I said earlier thatone of the products that was
being touted as being, you know,know, being a replacement was
coir, and I just don't get thatPersonally.
(46:18):
I think it is, you know,probably if you're right beside
it at its source, it makes sense, but not when you're, you know,
on the other side of the world.
in my opinion, so, it's always atricky one.
Yeah, and yeah, it's a.
It's always a tricky one yeahand yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
There's no point replacing one environmentally
damaging product with anotherone.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Is this yeah, yeah, yeah, and we we have some kind
of strange scenarios now wherethere's less harvesting going on
on the island of ireland butthere's still a lot of peat
coming in from other regions,and so while, so while we could
say that we're not harvesting asmuch peat for horticulture,
there's still probably as muchbeing used Right, so outsourced
(46:59):
it.
It's just coming from somewhereelse and I don't think that's
that's certainly not the rightapproach either.
So it's always a tricky one.
Final question you mentionedearlier on you were chatting
about food and how that was oneof your biggest concerns going
forward.
Believe that you knowregenerative, uh, organic
(47:34):
farming can sort of take up thecapacity that that's required?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think it's the only way we're going to do it,
because I think the othersystems will fail.
There were some of them alreadyfailing, um, and it's always
the problem with the sort of bigconventional farming system is
it works really well wheneverything's right.
So if you get a great year withjust the right amount of rain,
(48:03):
just the right amount of sun, um, and you, you know you can get
out in the right time and plantthe crops and and harvest them,
then you'll get really bigyields.
But when anything goes wrong,the systems are vulnerable.
So if you get a drought, theydon't grow.
If you get flooded, they don'tgrow.
If you get a hurricane, theydon't grow, whereas systems that
are lower yielding but moreresilient will typically will
(48:28):
deliver most years.
So you get this.
There's been research looking atoverall yield and profitability
of systems and a sort ofhigh-yielding intensive system,
high-input system.
You'll have higher highs butyou'll have lower lows and the
(48:49):
risk of doing it is thereforehigher.
To get those higher yields youneed to be spending a lot of
money, whereas a low input orsustainable, you know, looking
for that sort of maximalsustainable output is to me,
makes a lot more sense, andcertainly in mixed vegetable
(49:11):
systems.
I think we're quite vulnerableto some of this stuff and I
think we have to be protectingit.
So for me, a big part of it isabout resilience and we are
going.
You know, we're already seeingdisruption in some of the supply
chains.
I think.
You know I'm a very optimisticperson by nature, but I think
(49:32):
we're we've only just begun tosee the tip of some of the the
problems that we're going to get, and actually ireland and the
uk are quite well placed wherewe're.
You know we're going to seeprobably a lot of wind and maybe
a lot of rain at certain times,but but actually we're not
probably going to be hit asbadly as a lot of places, um, so
(49:55):
so I think we need to prepareourselves, I guess, and prepare
our systems to be able to dothat.
Um, and I think there's there'scertainly I was reading
recently there's a meta-analysisof horticultural agroforestry
systems.
I think they reviewed somethinglike 277 studies that had been
(50:16):
done and, if I remember right,245 of them showed increased
productivity, typically 20 or30% more productive, but some of
them were sort of one and ahalf times as, two times as
productive, um, and so I thinkwe know this stuff works, but it
(50:37):
is a bit complex and you've gotto get your head around the
design of it, um, but there's noquestion that it works and, to
me, if we're gonna, if we aregoing to continue to produce
good quantity, a good qualityfood, we have to, we have to
look at it.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
So yeah, for sure, and it's definitely gaining
traction here.
There's a lot of peopleadapting principles you know
those type principles and yeah,it's.
It's something that'sdefinitely growing in popular
popularity and yeah, hopefullywe'll continue to do so.
So, yeah, it's uh been a reallyinteresting chat.
(51:11):
There's loads, uh, there'sloads there.
We could still probably talkfor another few hours.
You know, there's differentavenues, different potential
things we could talk about, butit's yeah, it's been a really
interesting chat.
Uh, where can people find you?
I know all your books prettymuch online, but I you have your
own website, so uh, yeah, so uh, ben raskinuk is the website.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Uh, obviously, solid association's got a great
website with lots of resources.
Um, and I think my details areon there as well.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I'm on, you know all the instagram, blue sky,
facebook, bloody blah all ofthat stuff so yeah, no, ben,
it's been really interestingchat, loads there, as I said
that there's lots more we couldwe could talk about.
So, uh, yeah, really reallyinteresting chat and thank you
very much for coming on.
Master, my garden podcastpleasure.
(52:01):
Thanks, I've really enjoyed itso that's been this week's
episode.
A huge thanks to ben for comingon.
Yeah, there's so much there youcould.
You could get into the owners.
There's such obvious benefitswith incorporating, you know,
with incorporating trees intoyour garden, setting into your
market garden, if that's whatyou're doing from a gardener's
(52:22):
perspective which I know many ofyou you are the soil health is
a huge one.
So we've spoke about it before,but I think you can clearly see
that that soil health is whatit's all about.
If you have good health, thenyou're going to have good crops,
you're going to grow good fruitand vegetables for your family.
So, yeah, really interestingchat and that's been this week's
episode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time, happy gardening,
(52:42):
thank you.
how's it going everybody, and welcome to
episode 267 of astromagardenpodcasts.
Now, this week's episode is oneI've been looking forward to
for a while, so it's, um, yeah,glad to be joined this week by
ben raskin, who's head ofagroforestry with the silo
association.
He's also the author of manybooks I'd probably find out that
number quite soon and there'sbooks like the, the wood chip
(00:34):
handbook, uh, silva horticulture, there's books on agroforestry
and so much more.
Obviously the silo associationas well.
We can chat a bit about that.
So that's going to be reallyinteresting.
Quite a trusted body you know inin the uk and ireland and, as I
say, there's loads of kind ofpotential avenues here.
We're going to center theepisode, I guess, around silva
horticulture, which is theincorporation of trees into
(00:56):
crops, and where that willbecome relevant, I suppose, in
the garden situation is in thelikes of food forests, which are
starting to become popular, andI suppose there's a bit of a
lack of understanding of foodforests and how they operate.
But, you know,silvohorticulture is going to be
kind of a similar vein, sowe'll get some insight into it.
Soil health, I know, is alsosomething that Ben is quite, you
(01:19):
know, quite a strong advocatefor so, again, something that we
talk about a lot on the podcast.
So, yeah, there's loads ofpotential avenues here and, ben,
you're very, very welcome tomaster my garden podcast hi,
john, thanks so much for havingme on yeah, it's.
Uh, it does as I said.
There's loads, loads ofpotential avenues.
Um, you have many books out.
I wasn't quite sure the figurethere seems to be a lot is.
(01:40):
Do you know that figure offhand or?
Uh, eight eight books eight andit's everything from like your.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Your most recent one, if correct me if I'm wrong, is
the wood chip handbook no, themost recent is the silver
horticulture one that I co-wrotewith andy dibbon okay, who, if
you haven't yet had on, I wouldrecommend getting him on,
because he's amazing as wellright so yeah, so my, my
background is is horticulture,so I was a veg grower for 12
years or so, um, and they sayit's only in the last probably
(02:12):
10-15 years that I've started tofocus more on the trees and the
agroforestry stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So yeah, and when you say you're a vegetable grower,
like what kind of scale was itor what kind of format were you
growing in?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
so a range but sort of up to about 10 acres.
12 acres, that was sort of thebiggest I was growing um, but I
started I ran a walled garden umin sussex for a while um, I
worked for horticultural collegeup in north wales um, so yeah,
a few few bits and pieces sosmall it's small to medium scale
selling into, you know, boxschemes, farm shops, a bit of
(02:46):
wholesale, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, interesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but
you've always grown organically.
Am I right in saying that?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah Well, actually the walled garden, my very first
job, despite my best efforts.
We weren't quite organic.
They couldn't stop spraying thepaths.
But paths run fast, stepharts,we weren't quite organic.
They couldn't.
They couldn't stop spraying thepaths.
But apart from that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So so that's kind of your.
Your grounding in horticultureis that sort of uh, organic
ethos and so on, and I did see avideo on on your instagram
profile earlier of you were sortof given a not not a history,
but you were saying that youcame from organic horticulture
and then you transitioned intosilva horticulture and the
(03:28):
incorporation of trees into thatand that's, I suppose, what
we're going to mostly center theepisode on, but we will talk
about other things like soilhealth and so on.
So maybe give us a little bitof the story from you know the
the organic market garden stylethat you were grown and to where
you started to incorporate, orwhy you started to incorporate
(03:48):
trees into your practice orwhere you started to see those
benefits.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I guess, like probably most gardeners, most
growers, I'd always had sometrees as part of the mix.
So you know, I'd always hadsome apple trees, some fruit
trees and I loved you know, Ialways loved working with them.
Pruning is is probably one ofmy favorite gardening tasks.
I really enjoy the, the, thesort of slightly meditational
(04:13):
state of it and but you know,you still got to think about it
a little bit and it's quitecreative.
But I hadn't really, I think,considered what the trees were
doing to the system.
I'd seen them in isolation, andit was probably about 15 years
ago, when I first came acrossthe concept of agroforestry and
started looking a bit more at,sort of, I guess, all the
(04:34):
benefits that trees bring, bothto the world at wide and to the
garden or the field itself, thatI started to investigate this
and I mean, god, it's massivetopic.
So I'm still so ignorant, youknow, it's so one of the classic
(04:55):
things of the more you learn,the more you realize quite a
little.
You know, yeah, um, but it,yeah, it's extraordinary and
we're we're scratching thesurface and and I guess the
other big driver for me isaround you know how we cope with
climate change, the mitigationto some extent through, you know
, carbon sequestration, all ofthat stuff.
But actually, more urgently forme is just how we keep
(05:18):
producing food in the face ofreally uncertain climate, in the
face of really uncertainclimate, and and trees buffer us
at both extremes of hot, cold,windy, wet.
You know, all of that stuffthey help to, they help to keep
us going, I guess.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Um, so yeah, that's, that's what's driving me really
yeah, I I said that this episodewill be will be kind of linked
I I covered an episode a coupleof weeks ago, so we've three
week here in ireland coming up,which is it's a quite an
important it's when this podcastgoes live.
It's actually the week thatthis podcast goes live and I was
at a conference a couple ofweeks ago and henrik showman was
(05:55):
was there chatting about treesand the urban environment and
you know the, the cooling effectand the attenuation of water
and all of those things and itwas really interesting.
And from a gardening stroke,market garden stroke,
agriculture perspective, there'shuge benefit in trees and I
(06:16):
guess, like, as you said, it's ahuge and complex topic and we
won't necessarily get into toomuch of the technical data.
But what is the benefits oftrees in the garden d?
And it's funny because I live ona farm here and if I was only
walking through the fields theother day and we have quite
(06:37):
mature hedgerows and the fieldsare quite yellow at this time
not yellow but they're.
They're not as green as theywill, as they will be once the
temperatures rise in a few weekstime, but all along under the
trees is just lush, it lookslush and there's that element of
it.
Then, in times when we getlittle periods of drought, which
(06:58):
we are getting with a littlebit more frequency again, if you
look under the trees, rightdirectly under the tree, might
be a little bit burnt, but in,if you look under the trees,
right directly under the tree,might be a little bit burnt, but
in that root zone area it seemsto be the grass is is greener
than it is in the fields.
So there's clearly you knowthis is my very basic
(07:19):
information on it but thereclearly is a benefit in having
trees plants in that root zone.
So what exactly is happeningthere?
Why am I seeing that?
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So I think there's a few things we can talk about.
So there's the soil, which isone thing, there's the shade and
the effect that interceptingsunlight has on crops, and
there's the shelter, and thenthere's also the influence that
the trees have on water movement.
So so maybe, if we start with,let's start with the shelter,
(07:58):
maybe, and and the fact that ifyou're in the shelter of a tree,
you're typically four or fivedegrees warmer than if you're in
open ground.
So immediately you've raisedthe temperature throughout your
main growing season assumingit's a deciduous tree You've
raised that temperature by fouror five degrees.
Now that might give you I don'tknow a couple of weeks each end
(08:21):
of the season, potentially Idon't know, a couple of weeks
each end of the season,potentially.
And particularly, what it doesis it helps to warm up the soil
a little bit early on so you canget stuff out earlier.
But the other thing it does isit prevents physical damage.
So particularly stuff likesquash, for instance, which is
really susceptible to wind inthose early phases of
(08:42):
establishment where they mightjust get blown about.
In an open field where they'resheltered, they can get away
quickly and grow.
So you can have a significantimpact on both length of season
and yield, potentially, if youget it right.
Um, and even stuff.
Andy talks about um.
So, andy, I co-wrote the book,the silver horticulture book
(09:03):
with.
He talks about, uh, the damagethat happens to a lot of leafy
crops.
So for him you know, one of hisbig markets are, you know,
chards, lettuce, spinach, all ofthat sort of stuff, and if he
gets a nasty wind across it canshred the whole crop.
So, although in theory it'sstill edible, actually it's
unsalable.
(09:23):
So, although in theory it'sstill edible, actually it's
unsalable.
So for him it's a reallyimportant part of protecting it.
You know the physical bit ofthe crop as well.
So that's shelter.
So then the shade.
So I guess we've got a bit ofan assumption maybe in our heads
that we need full sun for ourvegetable crops.
You know it's sort of in ourmind.
(09:43):
We think, yeah, it's just getout in the field, aren't they
with full sun.
But actually most, or a lot ofvegetable crops don't need or
want full sun, and theyparticularly don't want full sun
when it's 35 degrees, which weare now getting sort of fairly
regularly.
So, particularly leafy crops,they can make do with maybe two
to four hours of sunlight a dayand they can be in semi-shade
(10:06):
the rest of the time andactually things like lettuce
really like being in the shadein in the hot summers.
So so, re-evaluating in a waywhat your crop needs in terms of
sun, but then also thinkingabout how the the sun moves
across the sky and where theshade is falling at different
(10:26):
times a day and at differenttimes a year, you can start to
be quite clever about how youplan your rotations and how near
to the tree you put them.
So something like, uh, garlic,for instance, you could plant
almost under the tree becauseit's quite shallow rooted and
it's done most of its growing bythe time the tree's coming into
leaf, whereas other stuff youknow, tomatoes or sweet corn or
(10:49):
something you'd want furtheraway, where it is going to get
full sun.
So yeah, so you can, sort ofyou can play around a little bit
like that.
I mean, the water is probably abit more obvious, you know it,
when you've got tree roots thatare breaking up the soil and the
helping infiltration and all ofthat stuff, then it, you know,
just allows you to dry out morequickly.
(11:10):
So again, particularly in earlyspring, if the soil is a bit
damp.
If you can get it dry a bitquickly you can get, you know,
maybe a couple of weeks extraseason, but also just it stops
it getting clogged and wet andclaggy.
So particularly if you've gotheavy sores it can really help
um sorry, go on yeah yeah, soand they're.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
They're the sort of, I suppose, what you'd call the
the obvious, the obvious ones,and I guess there is some
benefits.
Um, I've had jeff lawnfels onthe podcast in the past and he
he has spoke about, you know,bacteria transfer and root
exudates and and and so on andof which I don't understand.
I'm not.
I'm not a scientist, but I dounderstand when there's benefit
(11:53):
in something and you can see itand but I don't understand
what's actually happening there.
But clearly there is.
There is benefit because if youlook, you know, in a, in a
forest, in a forest or in a, anedible forest setting, you're
getting really, really goodplant health typically, you're
(12:14):
getting your crops do extremelywell, less disease and so on.
So there's, there's somethinghappening there around that as
well.
Are you up to sort of elaborateon that or is that the sort of
no?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
no, absolutely well, I mean, it is a mind-fooling one
say I'm certainly I am, I'm nosort of scientist either, but
but there's, you know, we knowthat diverse systems are more
productive.
Monocultures are, you know,they're efficient from a, from a
human labor point of view, butthat's about it.
They don't work.
They don't work as asself-sustaining natural systems.
(12:47):
So the more diversity we caninclude, the better.
Which goes back to into yourintroductory point about the
forest, food forests, and youknow, those multi-layered things
which in in a garden you cancertainly create.
When we're, when we're, growing.
Commercially it's harder to dothat because you've still got to
get machinery in and sort of,you know, make a living.
But the um, I guess what'shappening your your point about
(13:10):
the exudate.
So it's a.
Typically, a plant only usesmaybe half to two-thirds of what
it produces in terms of foodfor its own benefit.
The rest it pushes out throughthe roots to feed soil organisms
and exchange those that sugareffectively for other minerals
that it needs.
So it's, it's desperatelytrying to encourage all of these
(13:32):
soil organisms to come and livearound its roots so that they
can all live and breed andexchange all of these um, all of
these nutrients and and a treewill be there permanently.
Um, so, so often we'll put in agreen manure crop, and that you
know we'll do that job a bit,but then we dig it in, um, and
we disturb the soil and we breakup all of that habitat.
(13:54):
And one of the things that'sparticularly beneficial about
planting trees is you create thehabitat for fungi.
So fungi typically hate beingdisturbed.
They don't like being dug, theydon't like being sprayed, they
don't like anything, they justlike to be left alone under the
tree.
And basically, as soon as youplant a tree, then you're not
doing anything under it, youknow.
(14:15):
Typically you leave it becauseotherwise you're going to damage
the tree roots.
So you're creating this perfecthabitat for fungi and then the
fungi is able to transportnutrients from further away.
So, whereas a lot of the thingslike bacteria and nematodes and
you know, those other littlecreatures that are living
immediately around the roots,they're relatively immobile.
(14:36):
They can move around a littlebit, most of them, but and
obviously things like worms cantravel a bit more, but they
won't be traveling 50 meters or100 meters.
Whereas fungi hyphae can growwell I mean, the biggest one is
whatever, five miles wide, isn'tit, you know, but typically
they can all link up with eachother and they feed into roots,
and that's how trees talk toeach other often is through
(14:57):
these fungal networks.
So the more you can create bitsof your garden that are
undisturbed and linked to otherbits, then that's going to be
beneficial to the soil health.
And bear in mind also, the treesare kind of constantly
producing leaves, droppingleaves, building soil, organic
matter, building soil.
So as long as your tree isn'tso vigorous and big that it's
(15:25):
out competing everything, soclearly there are going to be
situations where you can't growstuff under a big oak or
something.
Yeah, um.
But but if you get the balanceright and you understand how the
dynamics work, then you canreally work at your advantage
yeah, and I presume your yourwood, your book on the wood chip
handbook.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
That's sort of fallen into the same category, like
because on the face of it you'rethinking how can you write a
full book about wood chip?
Not the first person to haveasked me that, but I suppose
it's when you start to get into,you know what is happening with
(16:04):
the fungal activity in the soil, that you can branch this out,
and I guess that's what'shappened.
I haven't seen this book, somaybe tell us a little bit about
it, and is it the kind of seguethat we think it is here?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And what got me into wood chipactually was was planting trees
initially.
So so alongside the work I doat the soil association, I work,
uh, for helen browning on herfarm.
So helen's the chief exec ofthe soil association but she
also has a 1500 acre farm inwiltshire, um, and I sort of
manage her agroforestry plantingfor it, and we were using a lot
(16:43):
of wood chip to mulch andbasically the more mulch I put
on, the better it was and thequicker the trees established.
And and then it sort ofcoincided with with being
involved in a few other projectsone with the organic research
center and, um, ian tolhursttolly, looking at, uh, ramiel
wood chip and spreading ramielwood chip.
(17:04):
So, spreading ramial wood chip,so that's the kind of the small
stuff, the stuff from branchesless than seven centimetres in
diameter, and spreading that onsoil and seeing the effect.
And then we also ran aninnovative farmers field lab
looking at wood chip compost forpropagation.
So suddenly all these sort ofstuff was coming up going god,
wood chips more than justspreading on paths, yeah, um, so
(17:28):
so that got me reallyinterested.
And then, and then one of theother things I've started
looking at.
So so, unless you want just togrow fruit trees which are great
, obviously I love fruit treesbut once you get into you know
bigger settings and farmsettings not everybody wants to
grow fruit trees but but sort ofuh, older, that sort of thing
(17:49):
where you maintain the height ofyour trees by coppicing on a
two, three, four, whatever youknow year cycle, um, and, and so
(18:13):
you're not, uh, you, you reducethe risk basically of having
this massive tree, that's,that's sucking out nutrients and
competing with your crops by bycontrolling it, the height of
it.
And then, if you start doingthat, you go what am I going to
do with all of this materialthat I'm getting from this
coppice thing?
And so then you start goingwell, actually, yes, you can
chip it and then use it for allof these other things around the
(18:34):
garden.
That's really useful.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, and so in that scenario because I'm just
thinking from an agroforestrypoint of view here you were
saying you spread wood chips onthe land.
So obviously you know, in agarden setting, as you mentioned
, we've all seen it in thefootpaths and there's the
obvious benefit there.
You know you do see themycelium building up and you
know it is adding.
(18:58):
Over time it breaks down andthat becomes nutrients and so on
.
So in that setting we allunderstand the benefits of it.
Are you saying that you knowthe likes of these chips would
be spread on the land, as ingrazing pastures, or is it just
in food production beds or is it?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
You can do it anywhere really.
So the idea with this isbecause the smaller wood has a
higher ratio of uh nutrients,nitrogen and other and other
nutrients and amino acids andthings to carbon.
So old wood typically is mostlycarbon, you know.
The young wood has got morebark and bark is where all the
(19:39):
sort of exciting stuff is in thetree.
So so you, you reduce the riskof nitrogen locking by using the
young wood and the idea is thatyou can spread it straight on
the soil.
So either I mean tolly typicallydoes it on his green manure
phase of his rotation, whichreduces, you know, any
particular risk of locking up.
(20:00):
But but actually it doesn'tseem to be much risk if it's
really young, um, and it's, andit's not like a mulch, it's like
a sprinkling um, so it's.
So it's a, it's a soilamendment, it's almost like a
soil health amendment.
So rather than thinking of itas a as a mulch or as a
fertilizer, it's more a sort ofhealth booster really and
(20:23):
particularly helps with fungalpopulations and pushing the sort
of fungi-bacterial ratio a bitmore towards the fungi.
So that's the concept really.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
But yeah, and you're spreading that fresh or is it
composted for a period of time?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
first, so the ramial, in theory you can just compost
fresh and we're certainlylooking.
So Helen's farm is is mainly alivestock farm.
There's not really muchhorticulture there, but but
we're looking at potentiallycoppicing some of it and just
literally spreading it from thewood chipper out into the
pasture.
(20:58):
Um, you know, maybe if it endsup a bit too piled up we might
have to run over it with sometines or something.
But, um, yeah, you couldpotentially do that.
But equally, you can compost itas well.
And I would certainly say ifyou've got older wood chip from
bigger branches, I wouldrecommend probably composting it
before you add it.
And certainly if you're growingstuff that's got really shallow
(21:24):
roots or it's a really youngplant, then I would definitely
recommend composting it and andcertainly not digging in,
because that's when you get someof the problems.
Um, but for, no dig beds.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
If you use really nice composted wood chip, it's,
it's great, works really wellyeah and so and it technically
in in a scenario like that, thenif you're using this really
young, really small chippings,you can do like a chop and drop
effect, so you're doing the samething as chop and drop you're
(21:54):
you're putting it straight ontoyour beds in a thin enough layer
?
I guess that you're not.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You're not putting a big layer of it well, it again,
it depends on what you're doing.
So so I mean, I actually that'sexactly what I've been doing
this morning in my garden isI've pruned, pruning a shrub, uh
and yeah, just laying itactually quite thickly
underneath that shrub, becausethat's going to be fine.
If I was about to plant out mylittle vegetable seedlings there
(22:19):
, then I'd want it a lot thinneror or I'd compost it.
So it's a little.
It depends a little bit on whatyou've got growing there.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
That's the wood chip handbook.
Silver horticulture I knowwe've talked a little bit about
it but it's and it's somethingthat's used or used relatively,
I suppose, across.
I've seen it going back 30years ago in horticultural
(22:48):
college.
It was used to a certain extentbut I don't think it was.
It was more from the point ofview of wind barrier than you
know.
They certainly weren't thinkingabout it from a soil health
point of view or from any otherpoint of view at that point in
time.
But it was.
You know it was starting tobecome popular.
Have you seen, you know, aswitch in the last few years to
(23:09):
more silver?
Silver horticulture, strokeagroforestry I think it's
starting.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I mean, I guess one of the things I hadn't really
realized when I started all ofthis was it's an ancient,
ancient system.
Really, it's probably how westarted farming, and in parts of
the world like South Americaand Southeast Asia, it's still
the norm for a lot ofhorticultural crops, and so I
think, certainly in the UK andIreland, I guess as well, you
(23:39):
know, it's just something we'veforgotten about and we're
rediscovering it, um, and, andwe know, I guess, a bit more
about the science of why itworks as well, which is, which
is nice, um, but it's yeah, andand there's a there, there are a
few pioneering growers thathave been doing it for a while,
(23:59):
people like alan scofield, um,ian tolhurst, martin brag down
in in devon, um, the you know,the wakelands, uh, agroforestry
over in suffolk.
So there's, there's people thathave been trying it for
probably 20, 30 years, butthey're relatively few.
But I think in the lastcertainly three, four years,
(24:21):
there's been increasing interest.
I think.
And certainly, you know, andyand I wrote the book mainly
because when we were developingsystems, we just couldn't find
any information.
So we thought, well, probablyother people would find this
useful as well, and Andy alwayssays I wish I'd had this book
when I started designing mine.
I'd have done it alldifferently.
So is he farming himself now?
(24:49):
Yeah, so he's.
He's a grower at uh Abbey HomeFarm near Cirencester, which, uh
, I can't now remember exactlyhow many acres he's on, but he's
got about two acres of glassand polytunnel and then I think
about another 15 acres of fieldveg and stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So, um, so yeah, and he's using a silver, silver
horticulture system and what heis, yeah, what trees is he using
?
Is it a combination of nuttrees, fruit trees?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
yeah, so, fruit, some nuts and some coppice those
would be his main ones again.
You know, in a way, like Italked about earlier, it's about
, uh, he doesn't want really bigtrees.
Uh, they've they.
He supplies into.
They have this incredible farmshop on their site which
basically supplies everything.
They do pretty much everythingon the farm dairy poultry, eggs,
(25:35):
you know they, they have theirown uh, bakery, just about
everything, um so.
So here's all of his um, fruitand veg goes through the shop,
um, so that's his main driver,and they were buying in apples.
So I thought, well, you know,definitely we should be growing
more apples, um so so.
But equally, you know, hewanted, uh, you know,
potentially to cut bean polesand pea sticks.
(25:57):
And you know, one of the thingswe talk about is how, how you
can become more self-sufficient,and you know whether you're a
gardener or a professionalgrower.
If you look at the things thatyou're buying in to make your
garden work, actually a lot ofthem you could be growing
yourself.
Yeah, um, you know, even in arelatively small garden, um, you
(26:17):
can be growing some of thisstuff.
Um so, things like, you know,wood chip to make propagation
compost, or, you know, even ifyou just had one hazel coppice
in the corner of your garden,you know that could provide
quite a lot.
So it's thinking about thinkingabout sort of what you're
spending money on, I guess, andwhether there's a tree that will
, that will save you money bydoing it yourself yeah, hazel.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
The hazel, as you know, as as plant supports and
so on, is is brilliant.
I've, um, I've used willow alittle bit, but obviously it
starts to regrow again, sothat's not always exactly that's
not always ideal, but, um, yeah, hazel.
Hazel is a really good one, andyou mentioned wood chip compost
(27:04):
for propagating and this isobviously one that's quite,
quite a hot topic over the lastnumber of years because we've
gone away.
Here in ireland we're stillusing peat um in a propagation
and I think it's pretty muchgone in the uk at this stage yes
, yes, it's definitely on itsway out.
(27:25):
But I suppose the biggestchallenge for peat-free has
always been from the point ofview of sowing seeds.
It's to get those EC levelsstable enough to safely and
consistently germinate seeds andgrow on seedlings.
That's that.
That's been the challenge.
What, what's the?
(27:46):
How do you make a germinationcompost, seed sowing compost
with, with woodchip?
How, what's that process?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
well, in theory it's very simple.
So you literally compost it foranything between 18 months and
three years, um, and sieve itand then add something like a
bit of perlite or vermiculite orbiochar, so something that just
sort of helps a little bit withthe, with the drainage, um, and
(28:12):
certainly the trial we did withtolly uh, we sowed leeks and,
uh, cabbage I think I'm sayingcabbage, now I can't remember it
was lettuce, but anyway, wesowed leeks and cabbage I think
I'm saying cabbage, now I can'tremember if it was lettuce, but
anyway and it was comparedagainst the sort of leading
peat-based commercial compostand they basically performed the
same and in fact the leeks wereeven slightly healthier in the
(28:36):
field, although we're not quitesure why.
So that was kind of impressive.
And it is literally he pileswood chip that he gets from tree
surgeons in a windrow, he addsa bit of his packhouse waste, a
bit of the old sort of vegcuttings and all of that.
He turns it a couple of timesover the year and then he sieves
(28:57):
.
Then he takes that, takes a bitof it and sort of composts it
further for another six, 12months and then sieves it and
that's it and it seems to work.
Now, we haven't obviouslytested it on every crop, and
what you're using for thefeedstock, I'm sure will have
some bearing on the quality, onthe quality, um, but it does
(29:24):
seem that, uh, you know, if youleave it to compost long enough,
then some of those variableswill even out.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Um, so it just seems to be.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's all about time, then it's yeah, but but the
process is simple.
I mean, I I think you couldliterally fill a.
You know, fill some plasticbags with wood chip, leave them
in the corner of your garden forthree years and then come back
and sieve them, and it would.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I think it would work yeah yeah, um so yeah, because
that's that is the biggestdownfall of peat-free compost.
To be fair, it's.
It's just either inconsistentor poor germination, you know,
because the obviously the eclevels are just not stable,
whereas something like wood chipthat has been given that period
of whatever three years is,yeah, it's going to be again.
(30:05):
It's going to be like whatyou'll find on a on a florist
for a forest floor if youscratch back the surface.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's going to be that type of a yeah, and I think I
think one of the main problemsfor a lot of the commercial
people free brands is they'vegot this time pressure, they've
got to keep things moving andthey can't make any money if
they have it sitting around toolong composting and so they rush
the process to get stuff tomarket um, and so, as you say, a
lot of it isn't really suitableand some of it's not even
(30:32):
suitable for putting on, but butI think that is, I think it's
getting better and that you knowthere are an increasing number
of um brands that are deliveringmuch better.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, no, it is improving.
Yeah, and funny here probablythe leading one, the leading
brand here, has quite apercentage of Cocoa Cire in it
and I really have my doubts onthat, considering that we live
in ireland and like the thesustainability or the
(31:06):
eco-friendliness of that whenit's come from the other side of
the world.
It might make sense if you'requite close by to its source,
but I'm not so sure here.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I really do question cairn in compost here, anyway,
for sure yeah, well, yeah, and Ithink if you can make it from
something that you can grow, youknow where you are.
That definitely makes moresense to me.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah for sure.
Yeah, you mentioned soil healthand as part of what you were
saying there, you you chattedabout adding biochar.
So I know soil health issomething you talk a lot about
and it's something that's quiteyou know.
I would regularly cover soilhealth and related topics on the
podcast and again would call itthe cornerstone of growing food
(31:51):
particularly, and pretty muchany gardening is.
The cornerstone is your soil,what you know when we come on to
the soil association in aminute.
But how do you go aboutbuilding a healthy soil in your
opinion?
So you mentioned biochar, youmentioned spreading wood chip,
any other kind of good tips forbuilding soil health?
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's mainly about reducing the amount you do to it
, to do as little as you can,which is why no dig systems work
and they're challengingcommercially to to get enough
material and they're quite laborintensive.
But in a garden situation, youknow, I mostly I would recommend
(32:33):
no dig.
When I, when I started 30 yearsago, there were still people
double digging and I, even atthe time when I really didn't
know that very much at all, Ithought this just seems like
madness.
Why?
Why are we doing this?
It's invented just by someonewho wants to, you know, dig, but
anyway.
So so I think I think reducingthe amount you you do to a soil
(32:54):
is obviously crucial.
Keeping it covered at all times, ideally with something living,
is also, you know, reallyimportant.
And building soil, organicmatter, so that you know whether
that's compost, composted woodchip, but you know, building up
the, not just the percentage oforganic matter in your soil, and
(33:20):
that will you know.
So most soils will have a limitto what.
You can do that and then stillmaintain a balance.
But you can also build thedepth of your soil by increasing
that biological activity, and alot of the carbon is part of a
cycle.
So it's not necessarily sittingthere doing nothing, it's sort
of in and out, but the moreactive generally, the more
(33:41):
active your soil is, thehealthier it's.
It's sort of in and out, butthe but the more active
generally, the more active yoursoil is, the healthier it's
going to be um, and the biocharis interesting.
I mean, I'm, I'm not, uh, abiochar evangelist.
I would say, um, but I am, I am, I've done a few bits of trials
with it and I am reallyinterested and I think it's got
some real potential uh,particularly in um, in really
(34:04):
light sandy soils and in tunnelsand glass houses and pots where
you get quite a wide extreme oftemperature and moisture.
So it helps, it really helps toact as a buffer, um, because
it's it's effectively like thissponge it holds, holds on to
water and nutrients, so it makesthe most efficient use of what
you've got.
(34:25):
There's also a theory that a lotof plants have evolved to
respond to the presence ofcharcoal.
So if you've got a forest fire,the things that grow quickest
are the ones that are going tobe successful.
So there's a theory thatthey're, uh, naturally evolved
to grow more quickly whenthere's charcoal in the soil.
(34:47):
And that my first, I guess whatfirst got me interested in.
I did a, just a trial on my ownwith biochar.
It was a coir based compostactually, but some of it had
biochar in and some of it didn't, and all of the trays that had
biochar in germinated a dayearlier and were greener.
Well, um, and you look at it,just go, wow, I can see the
(35:08):
difference.
Now that didn't necessarilymean they grew any better once I
planted them out, but but Ijust thought, wow, there's
something in that, so.
So that got me interested.
I've since done quite a lot oftrials and and certainly where
we've used it at Helen's in thefertile heavy clay I've seen
actually no benefit at all.
Particularly I don't think it'sdone any harm and I'm sure it's
(35:29):
sequestered some carbon inthere.
But from a sort of crop andsoil health point of view I'm
not sure we've benefited muchand obviously there's a cost to
it.
But I think, yeah, I thinkthere are situations where it
can can help and and certainlyyou know, I know there are
advocates out there that believeit's sort of a massive
(35:52):
potential just in terms ofdrawing carbon out of the
atmosphere and sequestering itlong term in the soil.
I guess I'm nervous aboutunintended consequences with
some of that stuff where we goyeah, let's throw lots of
biochar in the soil and then,you know, we don't really know
what it'll do in all situations,probably.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Um, but yeah and there is a lot of.
You know, here in irelandthere's, there's a huge bio
biochar facility after beingbuilt and they're able to
produce huge amounts of materialand and you know they're.
They're talking about differentapplications for that now at
this stage and so there is yeah,there's a lot of talk about
(36:31):
biochar at the moment.
From my perspective, I haveused biochar in not a very
scientific way but in created,no, a new no dig garden a couple
of years ago and all the bedsgot an application of biochar
produced here in ireland and drkaren o'hallan and she
inoculates it with beneficialbacteria.
(36:51):
So it's a little bit of asouped up biochar, for want of a
better word.
And on applying it to all bedsum, sorry, not all beds, because
I was trying to see was theredifferences?
Um, by applying it on on thebeds in year one.
So all these were were newlycreated no dig beds and there
was no obvious difference inyear one, uh, with the you know
(37:15):
in the setup year.
But there was definitelybenefits, obvious benefits in
year two and year three, whereyou're only putting the really
light layer of compost in thefurther years, and I thought
there was an obvious benefitthere, twofold better growth,
without a doubt, on the bedswith biochar, but healthier
(37:37):
plants.
They just looked a little bitgreenerer, slightly more
vigorous on the ones that were,that were that where the biochar
was applied.
So I've since I've since put iton all beds.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
But it wasn't obvious initially, but after year two,
year three, it was quite clear,quite clear yeah, and I think, I
mean, I think systems, soilsystems take a while to react to
any change, which is why, yeah,long term trials and
observations are so crucial,because things happen slowly, or
(38:10):
you know, or then surprisingly,five years down the line or
something.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
And the Silo Association, so obviously a
hugely trusted body in the UKand here in Ireland as well.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou know for people that don't
know, tell us a little bit aboutthe association, what it does,
what its you know.
Its mission statement is, Iguess.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, so we're a charity.
We were founded in 1946 by agroup of scientists, farmers and
health workers, so the sort ofcentral mission, in a way, has
always been to promote andsupport that link between
healthy soil, healthy plants,healthy animals, healthy people
(38:54):
and a healthy planet.
In the 70s we were one of theorganizations that helped to
develop the organic standardsand we set up at that time a
certifying body as well.
So we own a certificationcompany, which is how a lot of
people know us, and we certifyorganic farms and businesses.
(39:16):
We also help to set up FSC, thetimber mark, so we certify that
worldwide, and then some otherethical standards as well.
So we do that.
And then we do own anothercompany now, which is Soil
Association Exchange, which wasset up four or five years ago, I
(39:38):
think, which the aim of that isto help farmers to monitor and
benchmark their environmentaland social outputs and then
potentially to tap into fundingto help support it.
I don't work for either of thosecompanies.
I work for the charity.
I work in our farming and landuse team, work in our um farming
(40:06):
and land use team, um, and whatwe do is, uh, quite broad um,
but primarily it's, uh, it'saround things like supporting
farmers to, um, I mean, Isometimes I don't think this is
the official way we talk aboutit anymore, but I quite like it
as a way of describing it.
So so we work with, uh, farmers, our existing organic licensees
, we, we work with them to helpthem you know farm even better
or to access new markets orwhatever you know around that to
(40:29):
sort of help them.
We work with farmers toencourage them to certify as
organic.
So obviously we believe organiccertification is one, one way
to benefit our charitable aims.
So we would like to see moreorganic licensees, whether
that's with the Soil Associationor other licensing bodies.
(40:50):
And then we also nowincreasingly work with farmers
to make them sort of in invertedcommas more organic.
So we know that a lot offarmers will never want to be
certified organic and that'sfine.
But actually a lot of them noware interested in things like
cover crops and rotations andbuilding soil, organic matter
(41:13):
and particularly my area ofagroforestry.
You know, I would say I workmostly with farmers that are not
certified organic, which Iquite enjoy.
Enjoy.
To be honest, I don't enjoy, uh, what's the word?
So silos, I think.
I think we all benefit much morefrom talking to each other and
learning from each other um, andthen and then we also do as
(41:37):
well as the work with farm.
So we run things like we runevents.
We've got a ag forestry showcoming up, for instance, in
september, which would be, uh,you know, great if any of your
listeners wants to come over touh, to england and visit um.
But but we, you know, we runevents, we run webinars, we
produce fact sheets, we we visitfarms, we talk to people on
telephone and emails, all ofthat sort of stuff.
(41:57):
We then also work, uh in policy.
So we do have a policy team,but a lot of the people in my
team, so there's something like23 people now in our farming and
land use team.
So we've got a really widerange of expertise sort of
really around all farming andforestry um.
So so we help to support ourpolicy team, um to influence uh
(42:21):
where we can, to influencegovernment policy, and that
would be sort of across the, thefour devolved nations in the uk
, um and uh.
And then we also get involvedin some of the campaigning work
that the charity does um the.
I mean there is there's always alittle bit of a tension with
with some of our work, becausewe have a lot of um public
(42:43):
members, um who are who tend topush hard for change, and then
we have a lot of farmer memberswho, while they're all very up
for change, it just takes a bitlonger sometimes, and so our
campaigning team are oftentrying to sort of push a more
radical message and then, sortof, our team is going have you
(43:06):
thought about how that's goingto go down with the farmers?
So that's quite interesting.
You know, go down with thefarmers, so that's, that's quite
interesting.
Um, and I guess then the finalbit, which I get less involved
in, is we have quite a big umfood, uh strand of work.
So do a lot of work withschools, um, hospitals and
things like that, um looking at,uh, supporting how to change
diet and eating habits andthings like that.
(43:27):
So so, yeah, quite wide range.
We're an unusual organizationthat we we span sort of pretty
much everything which, as I said, it does create tensions but it
also, I think, gives us anunusual perspective on things.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
You know, we're not, we are an environmental
organization, but we're also afarming organization and we're a
campaigning organization andwe're a food, so we do a lot of
different stuff um which throwsits challenges, but it's quite
exciting to work within, so yeah, I could imagine the challenges
, but I guess it's also it'salso probably, you know, a good
(44:02):
angle because, as you rightlysaid, the, the people who are
campaigning, typically the, thepublic, are pushing for certain
outcomes and certain bans andcertain changes, and on the on
the backside of that, then youhave farming farmers who are
running a business, have to makea living and change, as you
(44:26):
rightly said, is, is and can beslow, because they have to, they
have to need, they have to knowthat this change is not going
to impact the bottom line.
That's essentially it um andand so.
But you're in a unique, uniqueposition in that you can
navigate those two, those twokind of different pillars well,
(44:46):
I hope so.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
I'm not sure we always get it right, but I mean,
actually, the pete discussionis a classic case of that where,
as an, as as an organization,we're, you know, we're right
behind a ban and we, you know, Iwould say we've been over the
decades, we've probably been oneof the most proactive voices in
reducing and removing peat.
We've got to make sure thatthere are the products out there
(45:11):
in sufficient quality andquantity that when our
commercial growers use them,they're not losing an entire
crop because that's theirlivelihood down the drain.
So we can't do it at such speedthat people go out of business.
But equally, if you don't do itfast enough, then nothing ever
gets done.
But equally, if you don't do itfast enough, then nothing ever
(45:32):
gets done.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Yeah, no, like here in Ireland, I think it's that's
we've a strong tradition andheritage in peat in lots of ways
.
You know, going to the bog tocut turf is is a you know, was a
big thing here in Ireland.
It's probably less so now, butit is still still here.
And, you know, a couple ofyears ago it was the clamor to,
(45:56):
to, to ban peat products fromfrom growing and while it's very
hard to argue with that, theproducts just weren't there to,
you know, to replace themessentially today or tomorrow.
And and as I said earlier thatone of the products that was
being touted as being, you know,know, being a replacement was
coir, and I just don't get thatPersonally.
(46:18):
I think it is, you know,probably if you're right beside
it at its source, it makes sense, but not when you're, you know,
on the other side of the world.
in my opinion, so, it's always atricky one.
Yeah, and yeah, it's a.
It's always a tricky one yeahand yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
There's no point replacing one environmentally
damaging product with anotherone.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Is this yeah, yeah, yeah, and we we have some kind
of strange scenarios now wherethere's less harvesting going on
on the island of ireland butthere's still a lot of peat
coming in from other regions,and so while, so while we could
say that we're not harvesting asmuch peat for horticulture,
there's still probably as muchbeing used Right, so outsourced
(46:59):
it.
It's just coming from somewhereelse and I don't think that's
that's certainly not the rightapproach either.
So it's always a tricky one.
Final question you mentionedearlier on you were chatting
about food and how that was oneof your biggest concerns going
forward.
Believe that you knowregenerative, uh, organic
(47:34):
farming can sort of take up thecapacity that that's required?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think it's the only way we're going to do it,
because I think the othersystems will fail.
There were some of them alreadyfailing, um, and it's always
the problem with the sort of bigconventional farming system is
it works really well wheneverything's right.
So if you get a great year withjust the right amount of rain,
(48:03):
just the right amount of sun, um, and you, you know you can get
out in the right time and plantthe crops and and harvest them,
then you'll get really bigyields.
But when anything goes wrong,the systems are vulnerable.
So if you get a drought, theydon't grow.
If you get flooded, they don'tgrow.
If you get a hurricane, theydon't grow, whereas systems that
are lower yielding but moreresilient will typically will
(48:28):
deliver most years.
So you get this.
There's been research looking atoverall yield and profitability
of systems and a sort ofhigh-yielding intensive system,
high-input system.
You'll have higher highs butyou'll have lower lows and the
(48:49):
risk of doing it is thereforehigher.
To get those higher yields youneed to be spending a lot of
money, whereas a low input orsustainable, you know, looking
for that sort of maximalsustainable output is to me,
makes a lot more sense, andcertainly in mixed vegetable
(49:11):
systems.
I think we're quite vulnerableto some of this stuff and I
think we have to be protectingit.
So for me, a big part of it isabout resilience and we are
going.
You know, we're already seeingdisruption in some of the supply
chains.
I think.
You know I'm a very optimisticperson by nature, but I think
(49:32):
we're we've only just begun tosee the tip of some of the the
problems that we're going to get, and actually ireland and the
uk are quite well placed wherewe're.
You know we're going to seeprobably a lot of wind and maybe
a lot of rain at certain times,but but actually we're not
probably going to be hit asbadly as a lot of places, um, so
(49:55):
so I think we need to prepareourselves, I guess, and prepare
our systems to be able to dothat.
Um, and I think there's there'scertainly I was reading
recently there's a meta-analysisof horticultural agroforestry
systems.
I think they reviewed somethinglike 277 studies that had been
(50:16):
done and, if I remember right,245 of them showed increased
productivity, typically 20 or30% more productive, but some of
them were sort of one and ahalf times as, two times as
productive, um, and so I thinkwe know this stuff works, but it
(50:37):
is a bit complex and you've gotto get your head around the
design of it, um, but there's noquestion that it works and, to
me, if we're gonna, if we aregoing to continue to produce
good quantity, a good qualityfood, we have to, we have to
look at it.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
So yeah, for sure, and it's definitely gaining
traction here.
There's a lot of peopleadapting principles you know
those type principles and yeah,it's.
It's something that'sdefinitely growing in popular
popularity and yeah, hopefullywe'll continue to do so.
So, yeah, it's uh been a reallyinteresting chat.
(51:11):
There's loads, uh, there'sloads there.
We could still probably talkfor another few hours.
You know, there's differentavenues, different potential
things we could talk about, butit's yeah, it's been a really
interesting chat.
Uh, where can people find you?
I know all your books prettymuch online, but I you have your
own website, so uh, yeah, so uh, ben raskinuk is the website.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Uh, obviously, solid association's got a great
website with lots of resources.
Um, and I think my details areon there as well.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
I'm on, you know all the instagram, blue sky,
facebook, bloody blah all ofthat stuff so yeah, no, ben,
it's been really interestingchat, loads there, as I said
that there's lots more we couldwe could talk about.
So, uh, yeah, really reallyinteresting chat and thank you
very much for coming on.
Master, my garden podcastpleasure.
(52:01):
Thanks, I've really enjoyed itso that's been this week's
episode.
A huge thanks to ben for comingon.
Yeah, there's so much there youcould.
You could get into the owners.
There's such obvious benefitswith incorporating, you know,
with incorporating trees intoyour garden, setting into your
market garden, if that's whatyou're doing from a gardener's
(52:22):
perspective which I know many ofyou you are the soil health is
a huge one.
So we've spoke about it before,but I think you can clearly see
that that soil health is whatit's all about.
If you have good health, thenyou're going to have good crops,
you're going to grow good fruitand vegetables for your family.
So, yeah, really interestingchat and that's been this week's
episode.
Thanks for listening and untilthe next time, happy gardening,
(52:42):
thank you.
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