How healthy is the soil in Flemish gardens? That is the question posed by the region's rural association Rural Guilds (Landelijke Gilden) in its latest campaign. To find the answer, it calls on people to bury their underpants in their gardens.
In a move that might seem only to degrade soil quality, Rural Guilds explains that its latest campaign "UNDERpants UNDERGROUND" can help understand soil life and quality in Flemish gardens.
The thinking is that the faster the garments degrade, the healthier the soil is as this will be an indicator of the concentration of worms, fungi and bacteria, which work together to ensure that plants can grow well. Therefore, the "hungrier" the soil, the healthier.
Underpants in soil??
As part of this home experiment, people have been called on to bury white underpants – or another piece of fabric but only if it is 100% cotton. The carbon content of the material is food for the small creatures that live underground. They should be buried in a shallow pit, about 10 cm deep and re-covered with the scooped-out soil.
"Soil creatures, fungi, bacteria and so many more organisms work together to digest dead plant material into nutrients for growing plants. For them, cotton pants are a feast," the organisation stated.
"After two months, you can dig up the pants again," said Marleen Van der Velden, an employee at Rural Guilds. "The more is gone from the pants, the more critters have done their job and the better off your soil is."
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If only some elastic and seams remain, this means the garden's soil is "full of life, with earthworms, insects, fungi, bacteria that have feasted on the cotton." However, if the pants are still partly or completely intact, this could mean the garden could still use some help to make the soil even more vibrant and fertile.
The organisation gives several tips on its website to improve soil life, from putting a layer of compost between plants and leaving leaves on the ground where possible to planting as many different plants in your garden as possible and keeping soil covered in the winter.
