In theory if you grow crops on your raised beds or garden and take them away to consume without putting back artificial fertilizer, then you will deplete your soil and make it barren. That is what the agricultural world has been telling growers since the 1940s when they stated big time with artificial fertilizer.

So the question is, to my mind, what happen to the soil before artificial fertilizer came along to save us all? The answer to that lies in the soil.

The top soil (where your vegetables grow) holds vast reserves in all but the most infertile of soil. If we go further down into the soil we find that it holds more then half as much reserves and deep-rooting plants like herbs or trees feed on this and pull it up into the top bit of the soil.

The soil that is in your garden or raised bed is alive and full of vast amounts of essential elements including trace elements (which have the importance of vitamins) but like any living thing, the soil needs feeding.

If we look at nature and see how she herself does this, we will clearly understand the “system”.

Take a forest of hardwood trees, like oak, that have grown in the same place for centuries without the importation of fertilizer. What happens is that the tree grows leaves and then sheds them onto the forest floor where worms and tiny bugs work on the organic martial and pull it down into the soil turning the once green leaf into the essential elements that feed the huge tree.

There is no importation of any form of fertilizer what so ever. Well that is not entirely true. The odd bird will come alone or some animal will drop dung or perhaps die at the foot of the tree but that is the only import of outside ‘help’.

The turning of leaves into fertile soil takes time and if you are running a healthy garden this system of nature can be greatly speeding up without the use of any artificial fertilizer. The way to follow the wisdom of nature and feed your soil is to make compost.

You should look upon your compost heap as a great workshop ‘manned’ by countless millions of workers turning out humus and fibre for you soil. All you have to do is put into a heap all the organic material that you can get your hand on and then the microscopic soil workers in the heap will get to work breaking down the living tissues of the leaves and stems into compost which you then return to your raised bed or garden.