Regenerative Farming Starts With Rich Compost

“Sometimes this place is more like a lab than a farm,” says Andrew Couzens, co-founder of Terra Flora. “We’re always experimenting, learning, changing, discovering what works to boost the soil.”

Andrew and his partner Jane founded Terra Flora in 2019. The name combines their passion for composting and soil health (terra) and bountiful produce and flowers (flora). While Jane grows pesticide-free flowers, makes wedding arrangements, and oversees veggie production, Andrew’s obsession is with microbe farming: producing biology as an artisan, choosing the slow and deliberate path of working at nature’s time scale building life and nutrients in the soil to grow amazing food.

Composting with red wriggler worms is the foundation of Andrew’s operation. He teaches composting workshops, develops compost and natural fertilizers, all in order to steward the soil into a healthy microbiome that supports abundant life.

“Compost or manure worms, like the red wriggler, are the last guys on the production line before compost is actually soil… they quite literally poop soil!” Andrew says. “After everything else has broken down the organic matter in compost, it’s the compost worm who does that final sift so it’s real soil. A lot of composting operations have not introduced these worms – and it’s simply not great compost unless it’s been through the gut and butt of the humble compost worm.”

With their vegetable beds and greenhouses rich with worm casings and compost, they grow incredible tomatoes, peppers, flowers, and intense garlic using regenerative practices like companion planting.

“The chives deter squirrels, rabbits, deer, and a whole host of insect pests like aphids, rust flies, Japanese beetles, slugs, and loopers from stealing our crops,” says Jane, pointing out plump hot peppers. “Before we’d get nibbles and now they stay away.” Jane explains that rodents and birds don’t like chives, but they love hot peppers – they don’t have the same heat receptors in their mouths that humans do so they munch away, unaffected. Plus the chive flowers attract predatory insects like lacewings and ladybugs.

“We plant basil to eat and harvest, but some of it we plant just for their flowers,” says Andrew. “They attract predatory insects that eat up aphids, or other bugs that try to take our crops.”

Andrew first became interested in permaculture – agriculture that mimics the patterns and relationships found in natural ecosystems – when he discovered that food grown this way made his body feel good. After a lifetime of gut issues, he finally found food that made his whole being feel nourished and content. Eating regeneratively grown produce has been pivotal for his health.

“It’s like Hippocrates says,” Andrew explains. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

“Alliums are my favourite,” he says, speaking of garlic and more from the onion family. “Both for growing, and for my body. My body needs garlic.”

His affection for garlic shows when you take in the flavour – sharp, biting, and pungent in a good way, it’s so much stronger than a grocery store bulb. Even their dehydrated garlic is a shock to the tastebuds (we at the Honest Farmer each nibbled a tiny amount and it filled our mouths with heat).

We stock Terra Flora garlic as bulbs and dried, and we are huge fans of his worm castings, natural soil amendments, and compost. If you’re starting on a regenerative gardening journey, Terra Flora resources are a great place to start with transforming your own soil’s health.

You cannot have healthy food without healthy soil, so by focusing on the soil, you get great nutrient-rich, delicious food with a long shelf life that reaches its genetic potential.