Join Eliza in her Meanderings: When was the last time you walked along a salt water beach?
Atlantic Canada is blessed with loads of beaches. My walking route takes me to a variety.
Near me we have a beach akin to Peggy’s Cove with barren rock, and tide pools deep enough for kiddie swims and periwinkle foraging. Down the road there is a marshy beach noisy with seagulls squawking as they scoot past osprey on the hunt. The smell of decomposing seaweed on this beach is a bit sweet, most likely helped by the constant sea breeze. Next along is a full-on sand beach with tide pools, clam shells, scattered seaweeds and mounds of seaweed jammed into rocky patches. The beach is outlined with hard packed sand dunes, some with beach grass anchoring the sand soil.
When was the last time you took a walk on a saltwater beach?
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Slowly let it out and dream yourself back to that beach. Were you clambering over rocks or sinking in the sand? Did you pick up any clam shells, or sea glass?
There are usually lots of interesting rocks- different shapes, many amalgamations formed over ages of heat, cool and pressure and some rocks that look like they just do not belong here. You may find some basalt, identical to basalt from coastal Africa.
Bob, my partner, studied and worked in the field of geology. Walks along any ocean shore are slow. He makes note of the change in the contour of the beach due to wave action, and how storms have brought in or revealed more rocks split from adjoining continents when Pangea split.
If I am taking an energizing walk to Bear Cove Beach I usually walk alone.
This beach is a cobble beach on open ocean. At night you can hear the rocks scraping over one another. After a storm the beach looks noticeably changed. During our recent hurricanes giant boulders were tossed metres into woods beyond the shoreline. Seaweed was thrown into those woods as well which is great because it helps build up the soil that holds those trees in place.
The increasingly turbulent storms are eroding the shorelines at an alarming rate along all our coasts, including at Bear Cove. We have a ready window to the effects. It is interesting to see how Mother Nature heals after these blow-ups. Felled trees foster new life; trees bend and grow on an angle to weather the winds; mosses, ferns, grasses and small shrubs anchor existing soil putting down long roots; and bugs, worms and fungi support soil community. Scattered seaweeds add nutrient as they break down and build soil in the compromised areas. The uplands on Bear Cove can resist some of the heavy wave action because the tangle of deep roots created and nurtured by all this activity in the soil creates soil integrity, called tilth.
Let’s go back to your walk on the beach.
Take in another breath from your memory. Relive the feeling of the salt air on your skin. Different beaches have different smells, don’t they. The marsh beach down the road smells like the clam beaches from my childhood. Take another sniff from your memory. There may be an “oooh, yikes!”
What’s that smell you say!
Rotting seaweed surrounded by so many bugs. What if we call it decomposing seaweed, would you have a more positive view of it? And those bugs, they are the decomposers. They are not interested in humans. Their job is to break down the seaweed.
Once all those little bugs flying around get out it can be smelly. But you know when you see seaweed on the uplands you often see beach peas and sea grasses. Sometimes you’ll see small trees growing in there that hold onto the soil, a bit of interest for those of you who might live on the beach or have property near a beach? That’s the way to hold onto that beachfront as I noted on Bear Cove Beach.
In the olden days lighthouse keepers on the Atlantic grew staples in seaweed. There was no soil on those barren rocks but tossed seaweed, called wrack, gathered in pockets and occasionally piles. If the keepers had animals, they mixed that manure in with seaweed to build their gardens. They called the seaweed, sea manure or goềmon.
Bob has been putting seaweeds on his gardens in Bear Cove since 1973, transforming a lot of rocky patches into lush deep soil. He grows way more asparagus than a healthy family can absorb, although I never tire of my grilled cheese asparagus sandwiches for lunch breaks, May through July.
What’s the deal with seaweeds; why am I so passionate about them? I grew up in Nova Scotia just like in some of those tourism commercials. We swam, gathered cranberries, hopped over rocks, dug clams, popped beach peas and ate dulse. We covered our collected clams and periwinkles with seaweed for the drive back home. If we were cooking on the beach, we would put seaweed on top of our stash as the steamer lid.
When I moved to Bear Cove, I took a deeper interest in why so many locals put piles of that rotting seaweed on their gardens. Wow, I was impressed to see the difference between soils with seaweed and those without. Digging in those seaweed patches was just lovely, still lots of weeds but manageable. Starting a new garden near the coast was/is painful. There are just so many rocks and compacted soil. In Dartmouth where I grew up, the complaint was the hard packed clay. Glaciers pushed our prime soil to the Annapolis Valley. Gardeners here need to be tenacious. And maybe add seaweed.
Studies have shown that seaweed has at least 120 trace minerals beneficial to the human body and to our plants. Many of our trace minerals missing from Nova Scotia soils through glacial movement, human development practices and erosion are in seaweed. Boron is one of those minerals. Some farmers and gardeners add borax to soil on a schedule so that they can have enough for plant health.
Seaweed can offer a better solution. Add seaweed and your plants can access boron and other trace minerals as they need. There are enzymes in seaweed which assist in making nutrient already in the soil more available to your plants. As on the beach, seaweed fosters and supports a community of healthy soil activity in your garden. And to boot, if you apply fresh seaweed to your gardens you get added deep watering. Seaweeds are plants so they are full of fresh water. When you pile seaweed in your compost or on your garden bed you will benefit from a really deep watering. I like to see sheet composting of seaweed on fields in November through March. The soil below will be percolating with activity come Spring and fresh water will support some of the summer dry spells. What’s a gift from Mother Nature!
Beaches are not easily accessible these days. Even at Bear Cove we do not get to collecting seaweed for our own use that often. You do have to be available when the storm just came in and perhaps your work/life schedule just does not allow for a trip to the beach, Rubbermaid buckets in hand. Fortunately, there are several seaweed products available to get those trace minerals and nutrients into your gardens.
Liquid seaweed emulsions add a shot of fertilizer to any growing plant. Be sure to read the packages for strength and frequency of use. They can be very helpful in nurturing an ailing indoor plant, in particular. Seaweed flakes and kelp meal are popular for many indoor and outdoor gardeners. Again, they offer a boost of nutrient from a single source of seaweed-usually dried kelp- and give your plant a healthy boost. There are composts on the market which are mixtures of dried seaweeds, fish meal, animal manure and peat. These are of varying qualities, and like most sheep manures, some are mainly peat. Recently we have seen some new products in the garden market which combine dried seaweed with fungi. Some can be mixed into seed balls with compost and garden soil, then tossed into patchy garden areas. That’s a great way to revive gardens. Our seaweed product is simply seaweed carefully gathered from the beach, composted and hand screened into bags. Nothing added. It builds soil and soil community.
Our interest in using seaweed is to build and support gardens. The quality seaweed products like most I have mentioned work well together in building and maintaining that healthy soil, whether as a buffer from soil erosion or to create your dream garden.