top of page
The Generation Soil Revolution Blog
Composting, Food Forests And Regeneration
Explore articles, how-tos, and Bristol case studies. From real-world composting wins to soil-first growing, every post helps you turn food waste into living soil and grow more with less.
New here? Sign up for the Soil Revolution Newsletter to receive your FREE beginner guides, then visit the Compost Clinic for tailored help.
Soil health and human health: what connects them?
There is growing evidence that the condition of our soils shapes food quality, microbial exposure, and long-term human resilience. At the same time, soil degradation and chronic health conditions are rising in parallel. This article explores how these patterns are connected through food systems and ecology, what the research supports, and why regeneration is about foundations rather than fixes.
Alex Montgomery
6 days ago5 min read
Gardens Are Infrastructure, Not a Hobby
Gardens are often treated as hobbies, but they quietly perform essential work in food systems. With around 78 per cent of UK adults having access to a garden and an estimated 25.8 million gardens across Britain, their collective impact is significant. This post reframes gardens as living infrastructure that builds soil, cycles nutrients, manages water and supports everyday food resilience.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 204 min read
Gardening Isn’t Radical. Disconnection Is
Gardening is often framed as a radical act. But for most of human history, growing food and caring for soil were simply part of everyday life. What’s unusual is not gardening itself, but how disconnected many of us now are from the systems that feed us. Gardening isn’t a protest. It’s a practical response to disconnection.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 124 min read
Why Living Systems Break When We Rush Them
Why living systems break when rushed. An essay on soil health, composting, burnout, and why resilience depends on time rather than speed.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 84 min read
What Medieval Bakers, Builders, and Clothes-Makers Understood That We’ve Forgotten
Modern life moves fast, but across food, buildings, clothing, and soil, medieval societies quietly solved problems we still struggle with today. Not through technology, but through time, materials, and living systems. What we’ve forgotten isn’t knowledge. It’s tempo.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 84 min read
Why Some Traditions Survive and Others Quietly Rot Away
Why do some traditions survive while others quietly disappear? From medieval feasts recorded in The Forme of Cury to fasting rituals found across cultures, this essay explores how food traditions were shaped by restraint, gratitude, and natural cycles. As modern life accelerates through supermarkets, ultra-processed foods, and constant consumption, we ask what was lost along the way, and what might be worth planting again in a truly regenerative food system.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 28, 20255 min read
Why We Ignore Soil... And What That Says About How We Value What Keeps Us Alive
Why do we ignore soil when it underpins our food, health, and survival? This personal essay examines soil education, the attention economy, and how soil degradation links to modern diets, chronic illness, and the way we value what keeps us alive.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 26, 20257 min read
Is Composting Food Waste Safe in the City?
Is composting food waste safe in the city? This guide explains how urban composting works, what makes compost safe, and how to compost responsibly in places like Bristol. Learn how to manage smells, pests, contamination, and when compost is ready to use, plus where to get practical support if you need help.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 24, 20254 min read
What the Bristol Living Compost Project Is Teaching Us About Letting Go of “Waste”
The Bristol Living Compost Project is challenging the idea that food waste is something to get rid of. By keeping nutrients local and turning food waste into living compost, the project shows how waste is a system outcome, not a material truth. This post explores how community composting in Bristol helps restore soil health, strengthen local food systems, and reconnect people with the cycles that sustain them.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 17, 20254 min read
Why Living Compost Starts With Listening, Not Fixing: Lessons From Bristol’s Soil
Living compost does not respond well to force. It responds to attention. In this post, we explore why the Bristol Living Compost Project focuses on listening before fixing, and what soil teaches us about patience, care, and regenerative practice. Drawing on lessons from composting in Bristol, the article shows how working with living systems leads to healthier soil, stronger communities, and more resilient local compost systems.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 17, 20254 min read
From Waste to Resource: Why Food Waste Policy Needs a Regenerative Shift
The UK’s food waste system is efficient, but not regenerative. In this thought-provoking piece, Generation Soil explores how local composting and soil regeneration could transform waste from a climate burden into a life-giving resource. It’s time for a food system that feeds both people and the planet.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20254 min read
How to Improve Urban Soil Health in Bristol
Healthy soil is the foundation of a thriving city. In Bristol, many gardens and green spaces sit on compacted or depleted ground, but with the right care, we can bring them back to life. Learn how to regenerate urban soil using living compost, biochar, and mulch, and discover how the Bristol Living Compost Project is turning local food waste into fertile ground that feeds people, plants, and community. Join the movement to grow Bristol from the ground up.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20253 min read
How Generation Soil Turns Food Waste Into Living Compost
At Generation Soil CIC, we turn Bristol’s food waste into living soil through a three-stage composting process: fermentation, in-vessel composting, and maturation. Each step builds microbial life, reduces waste, and regenerates urban soils. Learn how bokashi microbes, controlled composting, and natural maturation create compost that feeds your garden and the planet.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20254 min read
The Future of Soil: How Communities Can Lead Climate Adaptation
The future of climate adaptation begins in the soil beneath our feet. Across the UK, communities are turning waste into resilience by regenerating living soil, cutting carbon, and rebuilding connection. From Bristol’s composting hubs to neighbourhood food forests, local action is proving that the path to climate adaptation doesn’t start with policy, it starts with community.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20253 min read
The Secret Life of Waste: Inside the Bristol Living Compost Project
Food waste isn’t waste, it’s life waiting to return. The Bristol Living Compost Project transforms kitchen scraps into living compost that feeds the soil and cuts carbon. Using an innovative three-stage process, Generation Soil is building a citywide circular system that reconnects people to the land beneath them, proving that regeneration begins right where waste ends.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20253 min read
The Green Ages: Rethinking Our Relationship With Nature
Our relationship with nature has shifted across the centuries from extraction to exploitation, and now to regeneration. The Green Ages explores how each era shaped our environment, and why building living soil may define the next.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20253 min read
Why Local Food Systems Are Key to Sustainability
Local food systems do more than reduce food miles; they regenerate connection, resilience, and soil health. By supporting nearby growers, composting locally, and shortening supply chains, communities can reduce emissions and return nutrients to the land. Discover how relocalising food isn’t just sustainable; it’s essential for building a circular, climate-resilient economy rooted in place.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 20254 min read
Composting for Resilient Cities
Composting for resilient cities means rethinking waste as a living system. At Generation Soil, we’re turning Bristol’s food waste into fertile soil that strengthens local food systems, reduces emissions, and builds climate resilience. Learn how urban composting closes the loop between people, planet, and place and why the future of sustainable cities begins in the soil.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 6, 20253 min read
From Sewer to Soil: How Victorian Waste Systems Still Shape Urban Sustainability
Our urban waste systems were designed in the 1800s to fight disease, not to regenerate life. Today, that 19th-century logic still shapes how we deal with food and waste. At Generation Soil, we’re helping Bristol build the next waste revolution: turning what we throw away into living soil again.
Alex Montgomery
Nov 3, 20254 min read
From Surabaya to Bristol: What the UK Can Learn from Community Composting Success Stories
When it comes to tackling food waste, Surabaya, Indonesia, proved that big impact doesn’t need big tech. By empowering neighbourhoods to compost locally, the city cut landfill waste by 20% while improving soil and community wellbeing. Now, Bristol is taking inspiration with the Bristol Living Compost Project using bokashi composting and local hubs to turn food waste into living soil and resilience.
Alex Montgomery
Oct 25, 20254 min read
About Generation Soil CIC
Generation Soil is a Bristol-based non-profit turning food waste into living soil. Through the Bristol Living Compost Project, our workshops, and regenerative market gardens, we’re building a circular food system that keeps nutrients local and restores biodiversity across the city.
Every handful of compost we make begins as Bristol’s food scraps transformed through microbes, biochar, and community action. From households to schools and businesses, we help people connect with the soil beneath their feet and the food on their plates.
Explore More:
Bristol Living Compost Project
Together, we can turn Bristol’s food waste into fertile ground and grow a more resilient, regenerative future, one bucket at a time.
bottom of page