The Soil Web

Earth keeping right here on your doorstep using creative and EASY composting methods PLUS the secret to THE best blooms...

“The Best Time To Plant a Tree Was 30 Years Ago, and the Second Best Time is now”

Hi everyone!

How are you?

I wanted to update you on a creative garden project my husband David Venus and I have been working on this Spring/ Summer. I’m curious, do you have some outside space to call your own?

Our allotment garden - July ‘23

Our project is called The Soil Web and it’s all about soil, making soil using worm hotels and observing the bio-diversity of soil! It’s been on my vision board for YEARS but I wasn’t sure what form it would take… (More on that for my members here)

When I was small I was in our back garden ALL the time, I would take my toys out there, we had ponds, swings and so many flowers and a cute little house to play in. It was really magical. I’ve tried to re-create some of this for the kids but living on a terrace is exciting and there’s much more for the kids beyond the gate… so the gardens here…well they are more for us grown ups I think… for those moments where you have a moment… to observe, to see, to come back to ourselves a little…

Back in March, we were successful with some funding to explore NEW ways of composting to recycle our fruit/ veg scraps and partner with our local community.

The project was part-born out of David having to pivot his work to better manage his health and our growing enthusiasm for gardening and green spaces and their impact on our wellbeing.

Illustrated by Trina Dalziel

Making Soil

There are so many ways to make soil at home.

David is a qualified permaculture design expert and I’ve been fascinated to learn more about garden systems and bio-diversity over the last few years. David trained when L was just a baby up at Tap O North homestead in Scotland.

I have a different filter and truth be told it’s taken me all the time of living here to be more ‘at one’ with the worms, cleaning out the chickens and better understanding my role as earth keeper here. I didn’t make time to understand things really until the pandemic hit. Alot of our abundance of apples would rot, my garden centre plants would die, I’d miss the best days to pick the raspberries, I made the jam from the plums and it went mouldy - honestly I didn’t have a clue. The change, the real change - realising this IS my work. Nothing ‘out there’ is more important than this…

Working from the ground up - I knew we could make a difference making our own soil.

When I did my research ¹ earlier in the year, folks told me they were worried about composting attracting vermin or compost heaps smelling bad. They told me “my space isn’t big enough for compost” or “I tried it once but it went sludgey”

I heard from folks who don’t compost but would like to, are nervous to start and people who are seasoned composters! The one thing most composters have in common is they have/ make time to do it… in the fast paced world we’re in composting MAKES you slow down - that’s why I do it. That’s where the magic lives, that’s where I hear my soul whispers and my deep knowing about the harder things.

Ok… but how does it work?

Keen to make composting easy and acessible for all as part of The Soil Web, we now use ONLY bokashi, worm hotels and a slow heap and have made many experiments to figure this all out over the last 10 years.

Dave has been living with post covid fatigue since our daughter Luna was born so our up-level here, was to figure out the easiest way to have our gardens work for us and to share that knowledge with you to inspire your gardens and community too.

I hope the short clip below plays - this is our front garden space. As you can see, it’s not large but it’s large enough for two worm hotels and a toddler who wants to break free…

(Video - subpod nestled in a raised bed in our front garden also acts as a handy seat too - I took this clip before we planted the bedder. It’s a LIVE photo - do you use those - very handy to look back on)

It’s all science

David has written numerous detailed articles on our process and research but to simplify it I’d say - ANYONE can use a Subpod worm hotel to recycle their waste and (bonus) keep your garden tidy and feed your soil… I wrote to Subpod and they gave me a discount code for you guys to use too. 🥰 You can even use one if you’ve only got a terrace or a balcony… and GROW plants out of it - it’s just BRILL.

subpod.co.uk/creativelyconscious

10% discount code to be used at checkout; CREATIVELYCONSCIOUS 

Here’s what you need to do if you want to set up your own worm hotel composting system using Subpod;

• Draw out your garden or shared space and work out WHERE is going to be best for you to position your worm hotel… think about ‘popping out’ with scraps in winter and make it easy for yourself. Remember I put all our weeds, ripped up cardboard, tea, coffee and fruit/ veg scraps in there. A worm can eat its own weight in food waste every day and the population doubles every 90 days AND they are constantly getting bigger.

• Order your tiger worms and Subpod composting system. (Ships from US, UK and Australia). Don’t forget the discount code above or you might even get a better one if you sign up directly.

• Fix it up in position - takes about an hour to build.

• Decide on a counter top/ under the sink system for collecting fruit/ veg scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags and egg shells. We use these ones but you can just use an old ice cream tub or similar.

• Decide on how much cardboard you’ll recycle and rip this up as it arrives in your home to add in to your Subpod - the worms use it to bed into.

• Make it part of your daily routine. Before Subpod I never went near any of our worm hotels or compost systems - it was very much Dave’s thing. Now I love to pop our with our caddy of waste and do a spot of weeding and pop it all in. It’s a mindful moment in my day and the kids join in too.

Vermin proof and ingenious sunken design - sits in your flower bed and nourishes soil from the inside out. The worms can get in and out if they want to.

If you want more detail, more videos, more methods of composting we have a Soil Web TOOL KIT detailing all of the ways we compost - sign up for updates here.

How are you composting at home, what are your quiet ambitions with it all?

I’ve found there’s quite a bit of regret and shame with composting and honestly if I can do it you can too - it’s just like a big fun science experiment that helps save the planet. 🌝 🌎

Why not club together with some neighbours or your local school or community hub and start a subpod or worm composting system? Yes there’s an investment up-front but honestly it’s worth every penny after all you can’t put a price on health.

Thanks for geeking out with me on my Soil Project, I’d love to know if you have questions, concerns, thoughts as I continue to build the toolkit and the retreats here for you.

Have a beautiful Saturday ahead!

Claire x

Life in FULL bloom... flowers are all this season...

PS - Here’s our YouTube video playlist with more video content on Subpod and our other adventures in composting and bio-diversity here at home on the Northumberland coast. I promised you my secret to the best blooms and worm tea is it! We don’t use any other fertiliser here - just waste from our chickens and worm tea. 🦄

We plan to start offering in person education sessions and retreats so if you’re local, do drop us a line or sign up to the toolkit if you’re interested we’d love to share our knowledge and our beautiful gardens with you.

With thanks to our funders and supporters; Creative UK via North of the Tyne Combined Authority, Rural Design Innovation Centre, Rook Matthew Sawyer Estate Agent, Subpod and Lisa at The Running Fox, Shilbottle.

1. You are welcome to fill in my google research form if you’d like to…