Digging the dirt on soil
“Soil is the most biodiverse ecosystem on the planet with more living things in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are humans on earth.”
When Matthew Evans hiked in a forest, he would focus on the beauty above ground. He would search for platypus in rivers, identify bird calls and breathe in the silence of the trees. “But, these days,” says the celebrity chef and farmer, “I’m entranced by what lies beneath. By soil.”
Matthew — best known for his SBS Food TV series Gourmet Farmer — is the first to admit soil has an “image problem”. Neither pretty nor poetic, dirt is generally considered “dull”. But having penned his most recent book, Soil: The Incredible Story of What Keeps The Earth, and Us,, the father-of-one has become a convert to the brown stuff, and argues that far from being commonplace, soil is actually miraculous.
