African dark earths store between 200 and 300 percent more organic carbon than other soils, reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases, as well as 2 to 26 times the amount of pyrogenic carbon than regular soil, a carbon compound that persists longer in the soil and contributes to fertility and climate mitigation. West African farmers continue to produce and use dark earth today. The elders in the community measure the age of their town by the depth of the black soil, since every farmer in every generation participated in its creation.6
Compost is exceedingly easy to make if you use a passive, slow-composting method. It has only two categories of ingredients, “greens” and “browns.” The greens are nitrogen-rich materials, such as fresh weeds, grass clippings, food waste, and manure. The browns are carbon-rich materials, such as dry leaves, newspaper, cardboard, hay, straw, and wood chips. Essentially, a compost pile is a receptacle into which you put alternating layers of browns and greens, with an occasional optional splash of wood ash and water. You may also sprinkle a little rock phosphate on your pile to reduce nitrogen loss. The microbes do all the work of decomposition if you are patient. Our compost pile comprises four shipping pallets tied together with twine. We put down a layer of small sticks or stalks at the bottom for airflow. We then add garden weeds or kitchen scraps (including vegetables, fruits, breads, meat, bones, and oil) one bucket at a time. Note that in urban areas, you may want to exclude meat and oil so as not to attract rodents. We keep a pile of leaves and straw nearby so that we can cover each deposit of kitchen scraps. This keeps flies and odors down while adding the necessary carbon to achieve decomposition. Once our pile is full, we cap it with a generous layer of browns and let it rest for three to six months. For those who want to speed up decomposition, you can turn your pile over after one month to add oxygen and stimulate the growth of aerobic bacteria. In the interim we start a new pile. At the end of the resting period, the pile is finished compost and can be applied directly to soil as a topdressing. We don’t mind the occasional eggshell or bone shard, so we don’t sift our compost. If you would like a finer finished product, you can sift the rough compost through a wire mesh and throw the undecomposed items back into an active compost pile. Good finished compost has crumbly texture, dark color, and earthy smell; it teems with living organisms like worms and beetles.
The forest offers an even simpler composting model in the natural decomposition process on its floor. The forest deposits leaves and debris on the ground and microbes eat that detritus from below, forming new soil in the process. We mimic this type of “sheet composting” on our farm on the pathways between the beds. When the weather is hot and dry, we throw crop debris and weeds without seedheads right into the pathways while we work. (During cool, rainy weather weeds go in the compost pile to prevent them from re-rooting.) Over the course of the season this debris decomposes. We then shovel a 1-inch (2.5 cm) layer of pathway soil into the beds each fall, transferring that compost to the planting area.
Whatever your composting method, consider adding the following types of organic matter, depending on what is locally available and free:
Animal bones, innards7
Animal manure (livestock, not cats and dogs)
Autumn leaves
Grass clippings (no chemical spray)
Hay (only if hot-composting so that seeds will be killed)
Kitchen and table scraps
Pond muck
Straw
Weeds (not gone to seed, propagated by tubers, or otherwise invasive)
Wood ash
Wood chips
Youth build a compost bin out of pallets at Soul Fire Farm.
Many permaculture blogs would have you believe that more ambitious farmers make biochar rather than compost out of their organic debris. Biochar is the result of low-temperature controlled burning of wood and plant material, in a process called pyrolysis. Essentially, you dig a trench, place debris into the trench, set it on fire, and, once the smoke turns grayish blue, dampen the fire by covering it with about an inch of soil. The debris then smolders into charcoal chunks. This may seem similar to the process used to make African dark earth or Amazonian terra preta, but recent research shows that there are crucial differences. Making charcoal releases a substantial amount of carbon dioxide into the air, consumes vital oxygen, and drives deforestation. African dark earth is made through a process more like sheet composting, where waste ash from cooking fires is combined with other organic matter.8 We do not recommend harvesting wood or other materials from nature just to burn them. Please only use ash if you already burn wood for cooking or campfires.
A balance of green and brown materials encourages healthy decomposition in the compost pile.
Soil Ecology
Soil comprises five ingredients: minerals, water, organic matter, air, and microorganisms. While microbial life makes up only 1 percent of the volume of soil, it is essential to soil’s capacity to support plants. It is what makes soil alive. A common estimate is that 1 teaspoon of soil holds over 20,000 organisms, such as algae, fungi, actinomycetes, and other bacteria.9 These organisms are decomposers of organic matter, consuming detritus, water, and air, and recycling it into nutrient-rich humus. Some specialized microbes, like nitrogen-fixing bacteria, have symbiotic relationships with plants that allow them to sequester nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to an organic usable form. Other specialists, like mycorrhizal fungi, provide plant roots with water and minerals in exchange for sugars, made possible by their intricate web of hyphae spread wide throughout the soil matrix. I often reflect on these mutualisms in awe and wonder why we as humans struggle to collaborate when our nonhuman siblings combine superpowers to turn air into soil and dissolve rocks into plant food. We need to take a metaphorical seat and pay attention.
Children from the Black Lives Matter Toronto Freedom School took a field trip to a greenhouse on Six Nations Indigenous reserve, where they held worms, observed beehives, and learned about indigenous plants. Photo by Adabu Jefwa.
UPLIFT
Cleopatra’s Worms
While there is some debate as to whether Cleopatra’s regard for earthworms is legend or historical fact, many scholars believe that she declared the animal sacred. Recognizing the earthworm’s contributions to Egyptian agriculture, Cleopatra (69–30 BCE) decreed that no one, not even farmers, was allowed to touch an earthworm for fear of offending the deity of fertility. Egyptians were not permitted to remove a single earthworm from the land of Egypt, and certain priests devoted their full-time study to the habits of earthworms.
We now know that earthworm casts are the highest grade of organic fertilizer yet analyzed by science. Along with making soil nutrients available, additional minerals from the worm’s body are added to the castings. According to a study by the USDA in 1949, the great fertility of the Nile River Valley was the result of the activity of earthworms. The researchers found the worm castings from a six-month period to weigh almost 120 tons per acre (44 MT/ha), approximately 10 times the amount of castings on soils in Europe and the US.10 In addition to caring for worms in the soil, ancient Egyptians also practiced composting by piling organic waste and spreading the decayed product on their soil.11
Soil wants to be alive, so the question is not how to add life to the soil, but how not to destroy it. Soil life is compromised by tillage and turning of the soil, leaving bare dirt exposed to the elements; by additions of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; and by lack of water. Simply using the no-till systems described in the last chapter will invite microbial life and earthworms to take up residence on your farm. Additionally, you can “inoculate” your farm with native soil life by gathering partially decomposed autumn leaves from a healthy forest in your area and spreading them as mulch over your farm. Soil biota cling to these mineral-rich leaves and will likely make a new home on your land.12
Collecting leaves from a healthy forest is one way to inoculate your soil with beneficial microbes and add organic matter. Photo by Jonah Vitale-Wolff.
; Additionally, there is a low-tech method for giving soil and plants a boost of fast-acting beneficial microorganisms during the season. Our dear friends, elder Black farmers Demalda and Rufus Newsome of Newsome Community Farms, Tulsa, Oklahoma, shared with us their recipe for compost tea. In essence, compost tea is “a barrel of water, compost, and leaves that turns the color of piss, then we spray it to nourish the plant and run insects off.”13 Their compost tea recipe is as follows:
Fill a 5-gallon (20 L) bucket (or larger) with tap water. If the water is chlorinated, allow it to sit uncovered for 24 hours for the chlorine to evaporate.
Aerate the water for a couple of hours before adding the compost. This can be accomplished using a compost tea aerator or any air stone designed for aquariums. At the time of writing, prices for aerators were generally around $25. Aeration increases the oxygen level in the water, which is essential for growing the desirable bacteria.
The ratio of compost:water should be around 1:10. Measure out the desired amount of rich compost, either kitchen compost, vermicompost (worm castings), or the upper soil layer of the forest floor.
Transfer the compost into a nylon sock or pantyhose. Tie it off and submerge in the water like a tea bag. Suspend the nylon from a stick so that it is not resting on the bottom of the bucket.
Continue to aerate the bucket of water for another 48 hours, keeping the operation in a shaded area between 60° and 80°F (16–27° C). When finished the tea should have a brownish yellow color.
Apply within five hours using a watering can or sprayer, while the microbes are still alive.14 Compost tea can be applied to the soil or as a foliar spray directly to plant leaves. It adds microorganisms to the soil, provides nutrients and minerals, and increases pest resistance.
Similar to compost tea, “purins” are liquid fertilizers derived from the fermentation of organic materials. To make a purin, mix about 2 pounds (1 kg) of healthy, freshly picked and chopped plants into a plastic bucket with about 3 gallons (12 L) of water. Comfrey, borage, alfalfa, clover, and yarrow are ideal plants for making purins due to their high nutrient accumulation, but almost any healthy plant can work. Keep the bucket of chopped plants and water covered and in the shade. Stir the mixture well two times per day. Funky smells will develop and then subside after two to three days. The fermentation will be finished in 7 to 21 days when bubbles no longer float to the surface during stirring. Strain out the solids and store the purin in the dark in a sealed container. To use, dilute the purin with irrigation water to 10 to 20 percent concentration.
Cover Crops
If you pause in stillness, you can hear the honeybees dancing on the buckwheat crop all the way on the other side of the field. They busy themselves converting this meadow of nectar into honey sweetness and make stops at our vegetable and fruit crops on their way home. We planted the buckwheat to suppress weeds and pasture grass on the newly opened areas on the farm. Buckwheat is fast growing with a thick root system that outcompetes its neighbors. It produces enticing flowers that encourage pollinators to spend more time on your farm helping your crops reproduce. Buckwheat also has a beautiful, geometric, pyramid-shaped seed that is satisfying to hold and broadcast over the soil.
Buckwheat is just one of the plant allies that we partner with to feed our soil. Cover crops are plants that we grow not to feed the human community, but rather to alchemize air into soil nutrients, stabilize aggregates, and enhance soil health. At Soul Fire Farm we also use rye, oats, peas, bell beans, vetch, soybeans, sorghum sudangrass, sunn hemp, triticale, and clover as cover crops. In doing so, we pay homage to ancestor George Washington Carver, who was an early champion of the use of leguminous cover crops to fix nitrogen. He understood that the pink-colored nodules growing out of the roots of beans and peanuts were natural nitrogen factories that should be intentionally cultivated by land stewards.
Compost tea and fermented purins are liquid fertilizers made from natural, organic materials. Photo by Neshima Vitale-Penniman.
We generally use cover crops in three ways: to prepare new land for cultivation, at the end of the season to restore soil over the winter, and as an understory to crops during the growing season. Here is a list of our favorite cover crops with their benefits and growing requirements.15
Buckwheat
Buckwheat is an annual that establishes quickly, and therefore is useful for weed suppression and the preparation of new growing areas. It can tolerate low-fertility soils and scavenges phosphorus and calcium, making these nutrients available for subsequent crops. It attracts beneficial insects, such as parasitic wasps, ladybugs, hoverflies, and honeybees.
Buckwheat is a useful cover crop to attract pollinators, suppress weeds, and add organic matter to the soil. Photo by Neshima Vitale-Penniman.
In the Northeast, buckwheat is broadcast at 70 pounds per acre (13 kg/ha) in June or July. Buckwheat does not tolerate hard soil, flooding, or frost. Once the field has turned white with flowers, mow it down to prevent seeds from forming and resprouting. It is best to mow in the afternoon, when the honeybees have left off collecting the nectar. Buckwheat is a winter-killed cover crop, meaning that it will die during cold weather.
Red Clover
Red clover, a perennial, fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, suppresses weeds, and breaks up compacted soil with its taproots. It attracts lady beetles, green lacewings, and hoverflies, all predators of aphids. Since its seedlings are slow growing, it benefits from being planted with a small grain as a “nurse crop” to help it along. Red clover prefers cool weather conditions and tolerates compacted and wet soils. In the Northeast broadcast at 10 pounds per acre (2 kg/ha) anytime from February until September. Clover can be overseeded into fall crops that are still maturing as a way to suppress weeds and enrich the soil. Clover can also be frost-seeded in late winter when the ground is freezing and thawing. The clover seed will work its way into the soil and germinate when the soil temperatures rise over 50°F (10°C). Clover survives the winter and is useful in preparing new growing areas. To plant with a nurse crop, mix two parts annual ryegrass with one part medium red clover and sow at 20 to 25 pounds per acre (3.5 to 4.5 kg/ha).
Dutch White Clover
Perennial white clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, while maintaining a lower profile than red clover. It is very tolerant of wet conditions. We also use white clover as an understory for long-season brassicas in pathways between beds, a controversial practice. Some farmers shy away from planting understory cover crops because they can be slow to establish, retain moisture, limit airflow for disease control, and compete with crop roots. Note that white clover can be a host for root rot diseases, such as pythium and rhizoctonia, so it’s best not to plant it with or right before other legumes. Broadcast at 7 to 14 pounds per acre (1.25 to 2.5 kg/ha).
Hairy Vetch and Rye
An annual, hairy vetch is one of the best nitrogen fixers and is good at weed suppression and improving soil texture. It does not tolerate compacted soil, but is comfortable with a wide range of pH. Plant in late August to September in the Northeast with a nurse crop of rye (another annual), sowing 20 to 30 pounds per acre (3.5 to 5.5 kg/ha) of hairy vetch with 70 pounds per acre of rye or oats (13 kg/ha). The vetch will overwinter, and most of the nitrogen fixing will happen in May of the following year. Vetch can get out of control as a weed if you let it go to seed, so it is best to mow it and incorporate it mechanically by early June. You can also roll and crimp fall-planted rye and plant directly into it the following spring, even in hand-scale farms.
UPLIFT
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver (born c. 1864) was a pioneer in regenerative agriculture, one of the first agricultural scientists in the United States to advocate for the use of leguminous cover crops, nutrient-rich mulching, and diversified horticulture. Carver was dedicated to the regeneration of depleted southern soils and turned to legumes, such as cowpeas and peanuts, as a means to fix nitrogen and replenish the soil. He believed that the cowpea, a c
rop indigenous to Africa, was indispensable in a crop rotation, noting that a soil’s “deficiency in nitrogen can be made up almost wholly by keeping the legumes, or pod bearing plants, growing on the soil as much as possible.”
In addition to promoting cover cropping, Carver experimented with and advocated for compost manuring to address the deficiencies of the Cotton Belt soils. In 1902 he spoke at the annual convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations about his use of swamp muck, forest leaves, and pine straw to fortify soils. He believed that the forest was a “natural fertilizer factory” containing trees, grasses, and debris that produced “countless tons of the finest kind of manure, rich in potash, phosphates, nitrogen, and humus.” Carver sought to persuade farmers to dedicate their autumn and winter to the collection of organic matter. He advised farmers to dedicate every spare moment to raking leaves, gathering rich earth from the woods, piling up muck from swamps, and hauling it to the land to be plowed under.
Carver believed that “unkindness to anything means an injustice done to that thing,” a conviction that extended to both people and soil. A farmer whose soil produced less every year was being unkind to it in some way, and neglecting proper care. His belief in the moral imperative to care for soil was expressed in the Bible verses he invoked while teaching farmers, such as Proverbs 13:23: “Much food is in the tillage [fallow ground] of the poor; but that is destroyed for want of judgment.” He would go on to explain how they should be taking advantage of “fallow ground” by gathering edible wild fruits and vegetables, feeding potato and pea vines for livestock, and gathering the abundant fertilizers rotting in the swamps and forests of Macon County.16
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