HealthySoil-mission
HealthySoil.uk is my attempt to fix soil. (Those of you following my history might appreciate the reverse word play!). It is a knowledge hub for public good, not a commercial site. It explains what healthy soil actually is, what damages it, and how gardeners, farmers, councils and compost producers can rebuild it – regardless of their soil management practice.
Over many years focused on compost and soil products, I’ve learnt that soil health is not a single product problem. It is a systems problem — how compost is made, how organic matter is stabilised, how biochar interacts with humus, and how soil management choices shape outcomes.
Introduction
Healthy soil & our food
Soil sits at the heart of everything we grow, whether in agricultural farming, horticultural vegetables or home gardening.
Healthy soil and Climate change
Soils are the world’s second-largest carbon sink — bigger than the atmosphere and all vegetation combined, and second only to the oceans. Estimates suggest soil holds roughly 2,300 Gt of carbon, which means even small percentage changes (up or down) have major climate consequences.
The core issue
Most soils are losing carbon each year through erosion, over-cultivation, oxidation, poor compost quality, and a lack of stable organic inputs. Conventional composting and fertiliser-driven systems replace nutrients but have no (or very limited) impact on rebuilding long-lived soil carbon.
How to increase soil carbon
The pathway is increasingly well understood:
- Increase stable inputs (biochar, humus-rich compost, no woody fractions).
- Reduce losses (minimise tillage, avoid bare soils, reduce compaction).
- Boost biology (microbial activity, mycorrhizae, better soil structure).
- Shift compost standards (toward materials that build persistent carbon, not short-lived organic matter).
Together, these changes improve the soil’s long-term carbon sink. This is where the Healthy Soil project fits.
I’ve worked across composting, biochar, and soil science, and I’ve seen the development of “competing camps” claiming their way is the way. I believe collectively, we underestimate what a healthy soil system needs, and we underestimate what we can do to repair and or maintain it.
What the site will cover
Scope note
This post introduces the purpose and motivation behind the HealthySoil project. It does not define technical soil properties, biological mechanisms, or management prescriptions.
Formal definitions, system boundaries, and evidence-bounded explanations of soil behaviour are set out separately within the HealthySoil Canonical framework and its associated reference pages.
When launched, HealthySoil.co.uk will publish a structured knowledge base including:
- What healthy topsoil actually is — the living, biologically active 15–30 cm that supports nearly all land plants, and why ignoring it is one of the biggest strategic mistakes in UK land management.
- How to diagnose soil condition — simple markers of good vs poor soil (colour, structure, texture, smell, infiltration) and how to interpret them.
- Soil management best practice made simple — how biology-driven (organic, Soil food web) and more conventional NPK chemical/fertiliser soil systems can be managed to rebuild and maintain essential long-term soil carbon.
- Standards and quality — from BS3882 to PAS100, the practical realities that go beyond standards, including biology, contaminants and sustainable sourcing.
Until the site launches, this page acts as a marker. Once the full resource is live, the link will appear here.