This article is taken from the November 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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To protest the steady influx of Americanisms into British English is to fight a losing battle. Back in 1935, Alistair Cooke announced that “Every Englishman listening to me now unconsciously uses 30 or 40 Americanisms a day”.

In his book That’s the Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of the English Language, Matthew Engel writes that we’re now using more like 300 or 400 of them. By 2120, he suggests, Americanisms will have completely absorbed the English language. Bummer, right?

What I really can’t stand is “dirt” in place of soil

All the same, there is one bit of US lingo against whose import I’m prepared to wave any numbers of placards. I don’t mean the infernally grating “off of” or “gotten”, nor the slippery bit of verbiage that is “reach out to” when what you mean is contact, often with pushy intent. No, what I really can’t stand is “dirt” in place of soil.

It’s just a word, you may say, but words are important, especially when we’re talking about something that is as vital to life on earth as water, air and sunlight, and when according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, one-third of the world’s supply has already been degraded.

Dirt is filth, something to be washed away; soil is the material in which, one way or another, all our sustenance is rooted. Treat it like dirt, and we’re all doomed.

Soil also happens to be magnificent, when you stop to think about it. It links us to deep time, its formation an ongoing process that stretches back millions of years. Just 5mm of topsoil — the most productive layer — can take more than a century to form by natural processes such as the weathering of rocks and the decaying of plants and animals.

It’s certainly busy down there: a quarter of all known species reside in the soil, and that’s without counting the vastly more numerous subterranean life forms that remain unknown to us. A teaspoon of the stuff can contain more micro-organisms than there are humans in the world; some of those micro-organisms have already yielded potent antibiotics, and many more likely lie waiting to be discovered.

The aim is to add structure and nutrients, and the best way to do this is with lashings of garden compost

And yet when we gardeners get down on our knees, it’s not to gasp in awe at the miraculous capacities of soil, it’s to devote our attention to what emerges from it. Even at this time of year, when summer’s bounty has long since withered to expose its bareness, we rarely pay it as much attention as we ought.

If you’re after dazzling results next summer, it’s not too late to begin trying to restore your soil. The aim is to add structure and nutrients, and the best way to do this is with lashings of garden compost, well-rotted manure or leaf mould. All of these materials will release nutrients and stimulate essential micro-organisms.

I usually sow some green manure, too, and this year scattered crimson clover seeds where the spuds had grown — admittedly as much for the plant’s tufty red flowers as for its nitrogen-boosting, weed-suppressing properties (you’re supposed to dig it in before it gets to that stage but I can never resist leaving a strip).

I’m also sowing field beans, which are like a smaller, tougher-skinned broad bean. They are just as tasty if you pick them young though if you want to add goodness to your soil, you must cut them down before they flower.

Among soil’s many marvels is its ability to sequester carbon. Of course, digging releases that carbon into the air, so if you’re looking for an excuse to hang up your spade, there’s never been a better moment to try the no-dig method. Arch-advocate Charles Dowding insists there’s no need to actually incorporate compost or manure — you need only spread it over the surface of the soil like a mulch and let nature do the rest.

As ever, worms are your ally here: they’ll do the hard work for you and pull the organic matter in. A dressing of 2.5 to 5cm of well-rotted manure or compost will disappear within a few months if your soil is hungry, writes Dowding in his primer Organic Gardening: The Natural No-Dig Way, leaving soil that looks a little darker and more friable thanks to crumbly, humus-rich worm casts.

You say dirt, I say soil, but if anyone still needs persuading of the importance of lavishing more care on the ground beneath our feet, then remember this: a synonym on both sides of the Atlantic is earth, our planet’s very name.