Gardening Isn’t Radical. Disconnection Is
- Alex Montgomery
- Jan 12
- 4 min read
Gardening is often described as a radical act.
A form of resistance. A statement. A lifestyle choice.
But for most of human history, growing food and caring for soil were not radical at all. They were normal. Embedded in daily life. Unremarkable in the best possible way.
What is radical is how far removed many of us now are from the systems that feed us.
Food appears without soil. Waste disappears without consequence. Seasons flatten into availability. The work of decomposition, fertility and care is hidden somewhere else.
In that context, gardening can look like an outlier. Something niche. Optional. Political.
It isn’t.
Gardening is not a protest against the food system. It is a practical response to disconnection.
Disconnection Is the Abnormal Condition
In the UK, most people no longer encounter soil as part of everyday life.
Food arrives clean, packaged and abstracted from the land that produced it. Food waste is sealed away and removed, often within hours. Nutrients leave neighbourhoods and do not return.
This is not a failure of individual values or awareness.
It is the outcome of a system designed for distance.
Centralised supply chains, industrial processing and waste infrastructure have been built to prioritise speed, scale and efficiency. They succeed at those aims. But they also create a condition where soil becomes invisible, decomposition becomes something to avoid, food feels disconnected from place, and responsibility is outsourced.
Over time, this shapes what feels normal.
Now, not knowing where food comes from is normal.
Not handling food waste is normal.
Not seeing soil as anything other than 'just dirt' is normal.
That normality is historically unusual.
Why Gardening Feels “Radical” Now
When people describe gardening as radical, they are usually responding to contrast rather than intention.
Gardening reintroduces things modern systems have removed from view: time, mess, decay, seasonal limits, bodily work and uncertainty.
It asks people to slow down, pay attention and accept outcomes that are not fully controllable.
In a system optimised for convenience, that can feel disruptive.
But disruption is not the goal.
Reconnection is.
Gardening brings food production back into ordinary space. It makes soil visible again. It restores feedback between care and outcome.
Plants respond. Soil changes. Success and failure are tangible.
This is not ideology. It is material reality.
From Hobby to Infrastructure
Gardening is often framed as a hobby.
Something people do for pleasure, relaxation or personal wellbeing.
Those benefits are real. But they are not the whole story.
Gardens quietly perform essential work.
They absorb and store carbon in soil. They manage water through living ground. They cycle nutrients locally. They produce food outside industrial supply chains. They build skills, confidence and shared practical knowledge.
These are infrastructural functions.
They support food systems, soil health and community resilience whether or not they are formally recognised.
When gardening is treated as optional or fringe, that work becomes undervalued.
When it is seen as normal, it becomes legible.
The Role of Compost in Reconnection
Compost sits at the centre of this shift.
It makes a simple truth unavoidable: food does not end when we stop eating it.
Through decomposition, food waste becomes soil. Nutrients return to living systems. Fertility is rebuilt rather than extracted.
In large-scale systems, this process is often distant and abstracted. Food waste is collected, processed elsewhere and converted into outputs that are rarely seen by the people who generated it.
Community composting changes that relationship.
When food waste stays local, people can see where it goes. Soil becomes a shared concern. Learning happens through participation. Responsibility becomes collective rather than moral.
Composting stops being about disposal and starts being about contribution.
Gardening as a Normal Response
Seen this way, gardening is not a radical departure from modern life.
It is a repair.
A way of closing loops that have been stretched too far. A way of bringing soil, food and waste back into relationship.
This does not require everyone to grow all their own food. It does not depend on purity, perfection or scale.
It depends on participation.
Small gardens, shared spaces, balconies, allotments and community plots all matter. So do compost systems that return nutrients to those soils.
Each one reduces distance. Each one makes the system more visible.
What Generation Soil Is Doing Here
Generation Soil works at community scale to keep nutrients local.
Food waste is collected, composted carefully and returned to soils within the same city. Gardens, allotments and community spaces receive living compost made from material they recognise.
The aim is not to replace existing waste infrastructure.
It is to complement it by rebuilding soil relationships at human scale.
Gardening, composting and soil care are treated as normal, shared practices. Not as radical statements.
Reconnection, Not Revolution
Gardening looks radical only because disconnection has become widespread.
When soil, food and waste are removed from everyday experience, any attempt to bring them back can appear political or extreme.
But the work itself is simple.
Care for soil.
Return nutrients.
Pay attention to what grows.
None of this is new.
It is how food systems have worked for most of human history.
Relearning it is not a revolution.
It is a reconnection.
If you want to take part locally, the Bristol Living Compost Project is the simplest way in.
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