Autumn Soil Care: Preparing Your Garden for the Next Growing Season
Our Growing Season Begins in Autumn— the season of digestion.
This is the time when finished crops and summer green manures are returned to the soil, compost piles are built, and this season’s seed is cleaned and stored. It is also a time for reflection. We evaluate the past season and turn our attention back to the foundation of everything we grow: our soil.
The beginning of vibrant plant health lies in the soil
and Autumn is the best time to begin caring for it.
Our soil — its health, biological activity, and the dynamic diversity it houses — underpins all of our growing endeavours. The pursuit of healthy, living soil occupies much of our observation and thought.
What first drew us to biodynamics was the clarity of this statement:
The Australian Demeter Bio-Dynamic Method of Agriculture, produces healthy, living, structured soil. Healthy plants, animals and humans are a result.
Autumn is the time to look closely at your soil — to support it, renew it and protect it before winter.
WHAT IS SOIL
Organic matter, a vast community of living organisms, trace minerals, and the relationships between them and plants are all housed within living soil.
Plants sustain and proliferate living soil, just as living soil sustains and creates healthy, nutrient-rich plants.
A true soil profile — organic matter, topsoil, subsoil and parent rock — functions as a living community with photosynthesising plants. It is this exchange that distinguishes soil from dirt.
We believe soil holds a wealth of trace minerals, waiting to be brought into relationship with the right biology so they become accessible to plants.
We also believe — and soil science increasingly confirms — that there can be too much of a good thing. Even compost can contain “forever chemicals,” and excessive application can create imbalance or damage waterways.
You can layer materials that resemble soil, but can they replicate humus — the living habitat where fungi, bacteria and countless organisms meet and interact with plant roots?
Life begets life, and health begets health.
Nature functions through reciprocity — enlivened soil and intelligent plant growth working together.
The Australian Demeter Bio-dynamic method supports and strengthens this relationship. It is a practical system of observation and action. One of the best ways to begin is by attending a biodynamic field day.
AT TRANSITION FARM
These principles are not abstract — they are expressed in the everyday work of the farm.
At Transition Farm, autumn is a time of preparation — strengthening soil foundations for the season ahead.
IMPROVE SOIL COMPACTION
Even on our sandy dune soils, compaction can occur.
Oxygen is essential for soil life so when soil becomes compacted, we gently open it using a broadfork or subsoil tine. This allows oxygen, water and plant roots to move more freely through the profile.
From here, biology and roots continue the work.
Deep-rooted green manures such as daikon, lucerne (alfalfa) and rye grass help break compaction and rebuild structure from within.
MINERAL AND/OR MANURE ADDITIONS
Autumn is also the time to add minerals and manures ahead of a cover crop.
The earth, with its transformative capacity, and living plants together help integrate these inputs into the humus layer where they become available to future crops.
We apply additions before sowing the green manure, ensuring they are gradually incorporated through the soil profile rather than remaining at the surface.
A vigorous cover crop also acts as a catch crop, holding water-soluble nutrients in place during heavy rainfall, protecting waterways while building fertility.
Through winter, this green manure feeds and shelters soil life. As spring light returns, it resumes growth, reactivating biology and preparing the system for planting.
If soil needs are uncertain, soil testing can offer useful insight. While inherently chemical in nature, it can still reveal relationships and imbalances when interpreted carefully.
Plant health is not defined by N-P-K alone, but by access to a wide spectrum of balanced minerals. For this reason, interpretation matters more than raw numbers. And always, biology remains the foundation of living soil.
Slow-release minerals - such as rock phosphate - also play a valuable long-term role in building soil health.
SOW GREEN MANURES
A diverse mix of legumes, grains, medics and flowers - GREEN MANURE or COVER CROP - creates a living environment for soil organisms — insects, invertebrates, bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi. These are the architects of fertility, and with diversity they build abundance for future crops.
Green manure crops are one of the most important elements of our system. In many ways, they are the food for everything that follows.
We build humus through green manuring, using prepared biodynamic preparation 500 and incorporating crops with care to protect soil structure. In this way, we build what Alex Podolinsky described as a “bank” in the soil — a reserve of fertility held for future use.
Plants use sunlight not only to grow themselves, but to feed the life beneath them. A thriving green manure crop drives this exchange through the season, then carries the soil through winter dormancy.
As light returns in late winter and spring, photosynthesis resumes, soil biology reawakens, and the system is prepared for planting.
A simple winter green manure mix may include field peas, vetch, oats, clover, fava beans and rye grass, though many variations are possible. Individual components are available through feed stores. Green manures remain one of the most powerful tools for building living soil.
MAKE COMPOST
With abundant organic material available in autumn, this is also the season for compost. Alongside in-field systems, we build one main compost heap each year used in our seed propagation mix.
This compost draws from the whole farm — finished crops, grass, wood chips, seed residues, straw, manure, rock dust, lime and organic household waste. These materials are blended, kept moist, and combined with biodynamic compost preparations.
We see the compost heap as a microcosm of the farm itself — a concentrated expression of its living biology. In propagation, it helps establish plant–soil relationships from the moment seeds germinate.
In this way, compost is not simply a soil input, but a starting point for biological relationship — shaping plant health from the very beginning of their life cycle. This is a topic in itself, and is often demonstrated at Australian Demeter Biodynamic field days.
WHY FOCUS ON SOIL
Ultimately, plants grown in living soil are more resilient, more pest and disease resistant, and produce food with greater flavour, nutrient density and yield. When we support soil biology, plants thrive without constant correction or intervention.
For this reason, nurturing soil now is the most important preparation for the coming growing season.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
For those wishing to explore further, there are a number of useful resources available.
The Australian Demeter Bio-Dynamic Association offers books and DVD’s, and
EcoFarming Daily include practical articles on composting and soil health. One is Keys To Composting For Increased Soil Health
Soil testing services can provide useful insights when interpreted within a broader biological understanding of soil. Here are two suggestions:
Some recommended reading includes:
- Biodynamics: Agriculture of the Future — Alex Podolinsky
- Mycorrhizal Planet — Michael Phillips
- The New Organic Grower — Eliot Coleman
- NOFA Guide: Crop Rotation and Cover Cropping — Seth Kroeck
There is a wide and growing body of knowledge around living soil, and we encourage continuing to explore, observe and share what you learn.