How planting your pants can help boost soil health
Gardeners are being urged to ‘plant their pants’ as the first day of spring draws near. The season of optimism officially starts on March 20 and this year the Country Trust is asking gardeners to help test the health of their soil by digging a hole and planting a pair of their cotton pants!
Healthy soil will break down or degrade cotton more quickly than soil with low levels of microbial life, so if you’re left with just the elastic, it’s a good sign that your soil is active and healthy. Jill Attenborough, CEO of the Country Trust, said: “We all depend on soil for our existence but as Leonardo Da Vinci said 500 years ago, ‘We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot’. The response to Plant Your Pants last year exceeded all our expectations, and we can’t wait to get the nation planting pants again.”
And here at AG we are encouraging our readers and their families to sign up as partici-pants (sorry!) of the campaign and let us know how you get on. Simply bury a pair of cotton pants in a corner of your garden, allotment, patio container or window box, then dig them up eight weeks later to see what’s left of them.
The Country Trust is an educational charity that aims to build connections between disadvantaged children and the land via hand-on fun and learning. Last year, 23,000 youngsters took part in activities organised by the Trust, learning about the importance of healthy soil and its importance regarding what we eat and the availability of fresh foods.
Tom Fairfax, an organic farmer in Northumberland who hosts Country Trust Farm Discovery school visits and is a Plant Your Pants campaign champion, said: “Healthy soil is teeming with life, much of which can’t be seen by the naked eye, so getting our hands in the soil and seeing the way it acts on a pair of cotton pants is a brilliant way to experience its magic.
“We have ignored the soil for too long and this has had a negative impact, not only on the environment, but also the quality of the food grown in it and our health. We all have a role to play in improving our soil, all we have to do is open our senses to the ground around us and listen to what it has to tell us.”
You can find out more about Plant your Pants and sign up to the campaign for free at countrytrust.org.uk/plantyourpants
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