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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.
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What Actually Happens to Your Food Waste
Most food waste disappears. This post makes the loop visible, from bokashi buckets to in-vessel composting and curing, then back into Bristol soil as living compost.
Alex Montgomery
6 days ago3 min read
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
What People Learn by Composting Together
People often assume composting is something you understand first and then do. In reality, learning happens through shared practice. This post explores what people learn by composting together, from confidence and sensory awareness to systems understanding. It shows how participation creates lasting knowledge that doesn’t rely on rules or perfection.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 203 min read
Composting Is Participation, Not Waste Disposal
Composting is often framed as a task to get right, which can make it feel stressful or moral. This post reframes composting as participation rather than waste disposal. It explores how community-scale systems reduce anxiety, allow imperfect contribution and help people understand compost as a living process rather than a technical test.
Alex Montgomery
Jan 203 min read
What Happens When Food Waste Stays Local
Most food waste disappears. It leaves kitchens, cafés and workplaces in sealed bins and is taken somewhere else. Processing happens out of sight. Outcomes are abstract. Responsibility feels distant. This distance shapes how we think about food waste. When we cannot see where it goes, it becomes easy to treat it as something removed rather than transformed. Keeping food waste local changes that relationship. From Disposal to Nutrient Flow Food waste is not inert. It contains
Alex Montgomery
Jan 203 min read
A Week Inside a Community Compost System
Community composting is often described in simple terms. Food waste goes in. Compost comes out. But between those two points is a system of care, timing and attention that is rarely seen. This post follows a typical week inside Generation Soil’s community compost system, showing what actually happens to food waste when it stays local and is composted at human scale. Not as a step-by-step manual, but as a way of making the work visible. Day 1: Collection, bucket swaps, and arr
Alex Montgomery
Jan 185 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
How to Boost Biodiversity in Urban Gardens in Bristol
Urban gardens can play a powerful role in restoring biodiversity. This guide explores how Bristol gardeners can support wildlife, soil health, and resilience using compost and regenerative practices.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 30, 20255 min read
How Soil Saved My Health (and Why It Can Save Yours)
I didn’t come to soil through gardening. I came to soil because my health was unravelling. Fatigue, anxiety, digestive issues, brain fog. The kind of symptoms that don’t show up neatly on blood tests but quietly shrink your world. Like many people, I tried to fix myself through willpower, productivity hacks, and supplements. None of it stuck. What eventually changed everything wasn’t a pill or a protocol. It was soil. Soil health is closely linked to human health. Contact wit
Alex Montgomery
Dec 30, 20254 min read
Bristol Food Waste: The Hidden Truth (and a Better Way)
Food waste in Bristol isn’t just a disposal problem. It’s lost soil fertility. This article explores where food waste really goes, why nutrients leave the city, and how local composting offers a regenerative alternative that keeps soil alive.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 30, 20256 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 to Do if Your Compost Attracts Pests in an Urban Garden
If your compost is attracting pests, it can feel worrying, especially in an urban garden. Pests are usually drawn to exposed food waste or unbalanced compost, not composting itself. This guide explains why pests appear, how to prevent them, and what to do if they’re already present, with practical advice for composting safely in urban gardens like Bristol.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 24, 20253 min read
Why Your Compost Isn’t Breaking Down and What to Do About It
If your compost isn’t breaking down, it can feel frustrating, especially when you’re trying to do the right thing. Slow composting doesn’t mean composting has failed. In this guide, we explain the most common reasons compost stalls, how to rebalance food waste and carbon materials, and what to do to get compost breaking down again in urban gardens like Bristol.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 24, 20253 min read
Compost smells bad? How to fix common composting problems in Bristol
If your compost smells bad, it’s usually a sign that something in the composting process needs adjusting, not that composting has failed. In this guide, we explain why compost smells in urban gardens, what different odours mean, and how to fix common composting problems in Bristol using simple, practical steps.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 24, 20253 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
Listening to Soil: How Bioacoustics Reveals the Hidden Life Underground
Soil isn’t silent — it’s alive with sound. The emerging science of soil bioacoustics allows us to hear the vibrations of worms, microbes, and fungi beneath our feet. At Generation Soil, we’re using this technology to explore how healthy soils “sing,” connecting composting, regeneration, and climate action in Bristol and beyond. Listen closer, the earth is speaking, and it’s full of life.
Alex Montgomery
Dec 16, 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
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.
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