Home | The Soil Farm

It's All about the Biology...

When Soil is healthy, it is packed full of microbes. These microbes live in symbiosis with the plants. The plants feed the microbes sugars and the microbes feed the plants minerals and nutrients.

Through the use of chemicals and industrial farming practises, much of our Soil has been stripped of its biology and has turned to dirt. Plants growing in dirt need constant synthetic inputs to ensure survival, they lack nutrient density, they are susceptible to disease and with a lack of underground biodiversity, there is a lack of above ground biodiversity too. Not only this but the dirt cannot hold water and it loses valuable soil carbon into the atmosphere as atmospheric CO2.

Healthy Soil sees an increase in:

/ Water retention
/ Biodiversity
/ Crop yield and resilience
/ Carbon Sequestration

Just as nature designed…

Composting Solutions and Consultancy

We trial and test different composting systems to find practical, effective solutions that we can help implement into existing landscape management, all the while focussing on regenerating Soil biology, reducing input costs and creating a positive impact on the plants that are grown.

Specialist Composting

Our specialist compost has very precise, measured inputs ensuring that the Soil Food Web microbes have an environment to thrive in. The resultant material is used on wider landscape projects to restore soil biology, increasing biodiversity, crop yield and nutrition, water table quality and sequestering carbon.

We work at any scale, from gardens to orchards, creating bespoke solutions for any landscape.

Waste Streams

We work with our Compost partners to collect our compost ingredients, including pre-plate food waste, cardboard, shredded paper, green waste, brewers mash, coffee grounds, tea leaves and woodchip, ready for our composting processes.

By processing these waste streams into Compost, we are keeping a valuable resource on island and using it to benefit our landscapes.

Become a Compost Partner

Chickens

Our chickens get fed from the food waste we collect. They love the diversity and eat the bits they want, leaving the bits they don’t and mixing it up with a layer of woodchip or cardboard. This is the start of one of our composting processes.

As well as a fresh, diverse diet, our chickens have huge areas of greenery to roam searching out bugs and grubs, finding shade amongst the trees and producing us tasty, nutritious eggs, available on our hedge veg stall. Find us here

You can also experience the joy of chicken keeping, on a temporary basis to assist with ground management, for the season, year round or to try before you buy. We have a selection of Chicken tractors and coops which are proving very popular.

Rent a flock Eggs

Worm Farm

Some of our compost heads off into our worm farm, where our legions of tiger worms turn it into beautiful, rich and microbially dense castings; an excellent natural fertiliser for any plant. We provide castings in convenient 1kg bags for topping up house plants or sprinkling into outdoor pots, we also provide 20kg bags for top dressing borders, beds and lawns, with bulk quantities also available by request. Check our hedge veg stall for the 1kg bags and contact us if you’d like more.

Hedge veg Contact us

Awareness & Education

We believe that Soil health needs to be talked about! Whether it be simple conversations, talks in schools or bringing a world class Soil Scientist to the island, we are here to spread the word.

Shop @ The Soil Farm

Aside from the communication and advocacy of soil health and composting, and producing our own products, we see a great need to supply trusted, well sourced products that can support gardeners, growers and farmers in their quest for healthier landscapes.

We have partnered with a small number of companies that offer these products so that we can get them into the Guernsey market.

To place an order and arrange delivery, email [email protected]

Cardboard Chips

REMIN Volcanic Rock Dust

Rootgrow™ Mycorrhizal Fungi

Eggs

Worm Castings

Cover Crop Seed

Taste is everything

25th March 2021

To achieve a nutritionally dense and flavourful tomato, rather than just a juicy red looking one, and to ward off pests and diseases in the process, the tomato plant needs access to a wide range of minerals. It gets these from the soil.

Where is all the food?

17th March 2021

If lockdown has clarified one thing for us, it has been the importance of fresh and clean locally produced food.

Artificial Grass: devastatingly convenient

30th June 2020

It is easy to lose sight of the critical function of our domestic land, our front and back gardens, our hedges and borders, as in isolation they seem insignificant. Collectively however, they make up a very significant parcel of land and for our wildlife, above and below ground, they provide critical safe havens and corridors for life to continue in the face of ever increasing development.

We Work To Regenerate Soil