Eco-logic Books
The best place to find books on landcare, sustainable living, permaculture, good living, death, sheds that look like turtles, and other quintessential texts. Peter Andrews lovingly compiles this smorgasborg of goodies - why go anywhere else?
The Permaculture Association
The Permaculture Association is the hub of the Permaculture network in the UK. As good a place to start as any!
The Permaculture Magazine
The best source of information on what is happening in Permaculture in the UK. Contains course listings, articles, handy tips, and a good set of links.
Transition Culture
Visit only if you are prepared for a journey that starts today and will take you for the rest of your life. This is perhaps the most intriguing website of them all. . . Take a look at the realities of Climate Change and Peak Oil in the warm company of the Transition Movement who offer hope and heart in the form of a massive community response. For such challenges action must start with the individual but then build into grass roots commuinty action. Jump aboard.
The Willow Bank
This is Steve Pickup's willow catalogue site with more details of willow varieties, how, where, and when to plant willow.
Fruiting Bodies
Ragmans Lane has close links with this company who are pioneering the cultivation of medicinal and gourmet mushrooms in the UK. If you are interested in tintures of Shiitake, Reishi, or Trametes, check them out.
Wilderness Discovery
Bushcraft experiences in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean.
Elemental Solutions
Nick Grant runs elemental. If you are looking for advice on rainwater, greywater, septic water or anything remotely connected with it - go here. Its a good website, and worth a visit.
Seed Savers Network Australia
Jude and Michel Fanton run Seedsavers. They taught our 1996 permaculture course here at Ragmans, and co wrote the Seedsavers Handbook, published by eco-logic books in 1997.
Shift Bristol
Shift Bristol has been formed to support local sustainable community action with useful and innovative training.
Land Reaserch Associates
Land Research Associates specialises in all aspects of soil science, land quality and rural land use.
Our Approach to Soil Fertility and System Health ~ by Matt Dunwell
February 15th 2017 POSTED BY: Ragmans Farm
Ragmans Farm is a 60 acre organic farm
in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. We use farming practices that
regenerate the land, using
permaculture as a guiding design principle. Between the three
main enterprises at the farm – Ragmans Lane Farm, the Willow Bank and Ragmans
Market Garden, we provide employment for about 8 people.
Ragmans Lane Farm has eight acres of
organic apples and we make our own brand of apple juice. We also host a series of courses throughout the year on land related
issues.
A course led by Jairo Restrepo in 2015 introduced us to a new philosophy of system health, based on building
healthy soils. This had a profound
effect on the farm, and led us to set up a full time research post to develop
these principles for temperate climate agriculture. Our research manager, Juanfran Lopez, is half way into a three year programme and this blog is predominantly about his
work here at Ragmans.
Our research goal is to gain expertise in making soil
amendment preparations. We will then measure the effectiveness of these
biological techniques on system biology and mineral balance on plant-soil
health and growth. Over the last twelve months we have put in place a series of
soil and plant tests and taken baseline data.
We are testing for pH, salinity, conductivity, a wide
range of trace elements and also available nitrogen. In addition to this, we
are developing a high quality range of preparations and techniques such as
biofertilisers, aerobic teas, mineral chelations, mychorriza, chromatography,
lactic acid bacteria, and native microorganism reproduction among other
methods….
The objective of this practice is to reproduce the local
microbiology, as bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae and protozoa working in
a complete harmony in a healthy environmental system (forest, farm or even animal
and human system).
Whilst it is tempting to
try to produce a range of products for sale, we are wary of claims that certain
microbe mixes are ‘silver bullets’ to be used in the same way as chemical
fertilisers or herbicides.
We believe it is more important
to get a good understanding of the science behind this approach, and then for
farmers to tweak them into individual requirements or situations, thereby
having a positive impact on the farmer´s autonomy and viability and hopefully reaching
a broader scale.
An example of how we can work
through these preparations can be seen at Ragmans currently. We have in the past sampled our soils and
found them lacking in certain trace elements.
A conversation with any good soil lab will furnish you with the trace
elements needed, normally in the form of salts – magnesium sulphate etc. These
are supplied and put out onto the land with a spreader.
The addition of trace elements
in this way can be ineffective as both the soil and plant are looking for
elements in a bioactive form – ie easily digestible. For this reason sometimes
the addition of trace elements can be disruptive and almost always there is
waste.
When we make biofertiliser on
the farm we build a biologically active system using fresh cow manure that has
the gut flora and fauna of a ruminant. To this we add various ingredients –
including molasses, yeast, native microbes from the forest soil. A ferment takes place into which we can
place trace elements in minute quantities over a period of three or four
months. These minerals are cycled
through countless generations of microbes becoming more and more biologically
available.
When the preparation is ready
we spray onto the leaves and soil thereby feeding the system through the plants
that in turn will feed soil microbes with essential micro nutrients.
This is a basic example of our
approach as taught by Jairo Restrepo. We are only beginning to understand the
potential of natural agriculture, and there is very little knowledge at all of
this work in temperate systems.
We are also running a six day
course with Jairo at Ragmans from June 29
th to July 4
th 2017. Jairo's book 'The ABC of Organic Agriculture' is now available in English from our
on-line shop.
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