Project 31

Project 31 · Bed 31 soil-health overhaul

Project 31

The Bed 31 soil-health overhaul at the Goderich Community Garden — improving soil and food production, and teaching soil and plant basics along the way.

  • Goderich, Ontario, Canada
  • Garden running since about 2020
  • Status: October 10, 2026 — thick cover of peas and grasses through the woodchips

Why this bed

Through the season, some beds sat bare. Bare soil was the problem we wanted to face first.

Raised wooden Bed 31 on September 12, 2026, showing mostly dark soil with only a few small plants before the full overhaul.
Bed 31 early on overhaul day (Sep 12, 2026) — mostly open soil before cover and mulch went on.

Bare soil asks a lot of a bed

It dries out. It can blow or wash. Soil life gets little to eat or hide in. Over time, structure suffers — and next year’s plants have a harder home.

Cover and mulch help

Living cover and woodchip mulch shade the surface, hold moisture, and feed the web of life under our feet. Bed 31 is a first working example of shifting from “empty bed between crops” to “covered and alive while we rest the bed for winter.”

What went on the bed

Five steps, in order, on Bed 31. Diversity is the point — in plants and in biology.

Thin layer of living compost

A thin layer of our roughly two-year, biologically focused compost and ferments. The aim is energy capture and living diversity — not a thick dump of “dirt.”

Bed 31 with the Goderich Community Garden Learn Share Grow sign, dark moist soil, and a few early green seedlings.

Small amounts of biochar and malted barley

Biochar as a long-lived home for microbes and a place that can hold nutrients. Malted barley as a gentle food to wake biology. Used lightly — helpers, not the whole story.

Open hand holding irregular black biochar chunks above a blue bucket.

Winter-kill cover crop broadcast

Barley, oats, peas, and daikon radish. Chosen to grow into the cool season, then die back with winter cold — so spring planting is not fighting a tough permanent cover.

Seed bag tag from Courtney Grain and Seed for a forage cereal mixture of oats, barley, and peas.

Woodchips, preconditioned

Woodchips soaked ahead of time in water, compost extract, and liquids so they start “alive,” hold moisture, and release nutrients more steadily as they break down.

Black tub filled with light tan woodchips sitting on grass, ready for mulching.

Liquid biology

SquidJuice, PNSB (purple non-sulfur bacteria), and BioBrew Foundation — our DIY culture of beneficial microbes: lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and PNSB. Applied to help the mulch and soil stay moist and biologically active as the cover gets going.

Grey jug of Seaborn Organics Squid Juice, a squid-based plant nutrient, sitting in a truck bed.
Blue bin opened to show malted barley, a light granular material, with a white scoop.
Malted barley.
Glass jug about two-thirds full of deep reddish-brown PNSB culture on a truck bed.
PNSB culture brought to the garden on Sep 12.
Bed 31 with a mound of woodchips down the center, garden sign in place, and a trowel on the wooden edge.
Woodchips going onto Bed 31 during the overhaul.

Photo timeline

Same bed, from overhaul day through October 10, with Bed 23 alongside.

Bed 31 fully covered in fresh woodchip mulch with the Goderich Community Garden sign and the number 31 on the wooden frame, September 12, 2026. September 12, 2026

Overhaul day

Compost, amendments, cover seed, preconditioned woodchips, and liquids all went on. Bed 31 finished the day under a fresh mulch layer.

Close view of Bed 31 labeled 31, with many thin green shoots emerging through light woodchip mulch, September 18, 2026. September 18, 2026

Shoots through the chips

Green shoots — the winter-kill cover — poking through the woodchips across the bed.

Low-angle close-up of many young green cover-crop shoots growing through woodchips, with fence and trees beyond. September 18, 2026

Close-up of the cover

Young cover pushing through mulch.

A single young cereal seedling with a green blade and fine white roots held in an open palm. September 18, 2026

One shoot and its roots

One young shoot and its roots — living roots are part of how soil gets fed.

Bed 31 with denser bright green cover crop growing through woodchip mulch, garden sign partly visible, September 26, 2026. September 26, 2026

Cover filling in

Fuller, more even green cover across Bed 31. First bed overhaul complete; cover crop emerging through the mulch.

Bed 31 on October 2, 2026, with a thick mix of grass-like cover and pea leaves growing through woodchips, and the Goderich Community Garden sign in the bed. October 2, 2026

Thick cover

Grasses and pea-like leaves have filled in through the woodchips. The garden sign is still in the bed.

Bed 23 on October 2, 2026, with spent tomato vines, cages, and fruit lying on the mulch. October 2, 2026

Bed 23: tomatoes

Bed 23, spent tomato vines and fruit on the mulch.

Pepper plants still growing in Bed 32 on October 2, 2026. October 2, 2026

Bed 32: peppers

Bed 32, peppers still growing.

Bed 23, with tomato cages and spent vines over woodchip mulch and the number 23 marked on the wooden frame, October 10, 2026. October 10, 2026

Bed 23

Bed 23, with tomato cages and spent vines over the woodchips.

A hand holding a sample of dry soil from Bed 23, October 10, 2026. October 10, 2026

Bed 23 soil

A handful of Bed 23 soil, which looked dry and oxidized compared with Bed 31.

Bed 31 with a thick green cover of peas and cereal grasses coming up through the woodchips, the Goderich Community Garden sign behind it and 31 on the wooden frame, October 10, 2026. October 10, 2026

Bed 31

Bed 31, with a thick cover of peas and cereal grasses coming up through the woodchips.

A hand holding dark soil mixed with woodchip pieces from Bed 31, with the cover crop behind, October 10, 2026. October 10, 2026

Bed 31 soil

A handful of Bed 31 soil, darker and mixed with woodchip pieces.

What this is not

This is a first step and an ongoing practice — not one application forever.

Not a one-time treatment

One pass of compost and seed does not permanently fix a bed. Soil health is built over seasons. Biology still needs food and habitat later.

Winter-kill is on purpose

The cover grows now, then softens with winter cold. That builds biomass and roots without leaving a permanent lawn we have to fight in spring.

Diversity hedges risk

Mixed cover (grasses, pea, deep-rooted radish) and mixed biology (compost, ferments, PNSB) mean no single weak link has to carry the whole bed.

We are still learning

Watch Bed 31 through winter and into spring planting. Adjust timing, rates, and how we talk about this from what we see here.

What’s next

Ideas we, as the committee, are reviewing — nothing is decided yet.

Looking at · not done yet

These are the next steps we, as the committee, are looking at. None of them are done yet.

  • Install a small in-bed composting system, not in yet. The plan is a compost hole: terracotta field-tile cylinders with terracotta dish lids. One tile in the center of a small bed, two tiles in a longer bed. Weeds and plant material pulled from the bed go inside, break down, and feed that bed through the season.
  • Get a few more bed trials running this fall into winter.
  • Share education material that explains soil health and plant health in the beds.