Pulling out roots should be citable offense. Unless you have an invasive plant, it counter-productive. If I need a smooth seed bed, I just put down compost next to or on top of the cut down row.
You have just earned the wrath of many fertilizer companies! You talk sense and by imparting your experiences, you have had helped us save huge amount of money. Gardening or farming is so simple. Do not complicate it, businessmen!
@JonP_4-31inf The fertilizer is in salt forms, if you mulch farms then they would save a lot of money and not kill off the microbes over time. The mulch helps protect the soil from uv and crazy levels of oxygen. Modern tilling is going to be a disaster for future generations. Having vast monoculture is dumb. Feeding people has become a slave to time restraints and produces the people you see.
4 years ago our new vegetable garden started with cardboard, 150mm wood chips and 50 mm compost. Our paths were 200 mm wood chips later. This year we dug up the paths and harvested 300 mm worm dense black soil. This was applied to all garden beds. Paths were then filled up with 300mm wood chips . Our paths are our compost bins . Our house hold waste is put in a a raised bed. After 6 months this has become the most productive worm farm. No bought products, no bought worms.
After playing several of your videos, I don't think I need to hear what other garden channels have to say. I've been gardening for 50 years and you've taught me things I didn't know. Great information. Thank you for holding this space for us to learn.
I bought the book LET IT ROT years ago. I remember it saying that adding starter to compost was a waste. It said to mix a little soil to it and the microbes needed would be there. This video seems to confirm that.
I've never tried it but if I were to try it I would drizzle molasses over newly introduced fresh organic matter that I want to breakdown relatively faster?
@@summertime2433It will increase the breakdown of the molases but won't have a noticable effect on the rest of the pile as it's bioavailability is slower. I'd add earthworms to speed up the process and leave the bottom a little open so more can join the party.
My tomatoes grow like crazy in a soil comprised of worm castings, fall leaves and compost that are filled with earthworms. That’s how I judge good quality soil now, how many earthworms in a handful of garden soil. 😊
Wvey week, I get 5 big bags of discarded produce from a local grocery collection to tons of leaves and coffee grounds .spread it over my garden in winter .I love seeing that black dirt 😊😊😊😊
I own a Cesspool Company and a Microbial Culture company that breaks down and digests waste and organic matter in the Septic System.I am very big on trees and plants for past fifteen years and what I have learned is that the Trees closest to the leaching pools are more than four times the width and height as those further away.So the by product of the septic Tank treatment is the nutrients feeding the tree and the companies that sell the microbial soil additive are correct but are missing the middle part of that nutrient process.
Adding things randomly and hoping that it has a desired effect reminds me of how they introduced so many invasive species in an attempt to solve some problem without understanding the ramifications of their actions.
I don’t think there’s any other TH-cam channel that packs so much useful information into the same timeframe. Thanks for keeping my supply list for 2024 nice and short!
Well he’s written several books and won an award for his work seems like he knows what he’s talking about it. 😂I learn so much from him. Lots of us do❤
No-Till Growers is also good. He farms for a living so he's doing something right. He practices regenerative agriculture. One thing I learned from that channel is if you want to know what's in the soil, you have to actually look at it, with a microscope and know what different things look like. THEN you can make things like compost teas which do work because you actually LOOK at what's in the tea before applying it. In other words you are validating that what you think you did is indeed what you actually did when making that tea. For a backyard farmer this is probably too much effort unless you're practicing to become a farmer for a living.
@@johndoh5182 Compost tea is a bunch of BS. No market gardener here I've ever met makes or uses it here in Eastern Ontario that wants to make a living. Nor do they do any other magical practices, like putting skulls in their soil, or anything like that. Science and not mysticism is useful in agricultural systems. Edit: th-cam.com/video/4F5uOXhDoB8/w-d-xo.html
@@johndoh5182 And he taught me that if you don't do that the best option is to use compost material as it slows the rate of nutrient release and increases the microbe boosts longevity.
I have permanent rows + paths, and I mulch all winter and part of summer, and I use irrigation to prevent drought in the rows. My soil has improved a lot - I can take a bamboo stake and push it down about a foot in the rows, and in the paths I can push it down about an inch
I garden in sand in the high desert of NM. The biggest help for my garden has been fertilizer (nitrogen and iron,) mushroom compost, and woodchip mulch. We also chop and drop, trying to keep all organic materials we produce.
I’m in the same state and conditions. In our soil, the organic matter either disintegrated years ago, floated away or blew away. The guy before me scraped the lot bare for 10 years. I have great geology and very little biology. But I’m working on that slowly. I’m disabled and old so I’m bound to go slow. This morning I made 100+ seed balls with sorghum, clover and oats to repopulate the soil with roots that can tolerate arid conditions. And I’m covering as much soil as possible with wood chips. I’m gonna breed my own biology!
If you are using chemical fertilizers you are helping and hurting yourself at the same time. As long as you're using natural things to give you that nitrogen and iron you're doing the best you can. Using chemical fertilizers will kill living things in that soil which is a downside and that's where you're hurting yourself if you are. With that sandy soil you have the same issue as FL growers. What they do if they want to be 100% organic certified is first bring in a certain amount of organic material (many tons) that they will compost, and then they will work that down into the soil, and yes this means adding a LOT of material, and then plant cover crops to allow that worked area to get broken down more which also means the bacterial life is growing, and then I believe the next year they can use that land, and do the typical thing of always having plants or cover crops growing in the soil, and when you're growing crops to have good compost worked around the plants on the top of the soil. Then add whatever additives a soil test might tell you that you need something, and in your case depending on what you're growing that may still mean nitrogen and iron.
Doesn't work for typical tropical forests where the soil is very poor due to heavy rain. But in this conditions where plants thrive exceptionally, shouldn't the soil be very rich because of all the feeding through root exudates?
@@created.black.soil. I think the problem is the rich vegatative matter minerals are washed away and so soil nutrients reduce greatly. Wait until you see what happens to the cleared rainforests areas - they will likely be desserts in 10 years time.
There's one thing that backyard farmers may want to buy, AFTER fixing their soil AND if this is missing because of how poor the soil was and how much people were dumping chemicals in their yards, and that's worms that are appropriate for that area. They can speed up that transfer and conversion of organic material to usable elements when applying compost around the plants and the worms will speed up the process of working that down into the soil after they break it down more and poop it out.
Thank you sir! This is exactly what I tell my friends who wonder how I “fertilize” my garden. Decades spent on studying micro-algae, and cyanobacterial ecosystems taught me to feed the soil. I tell them grow earthworms in your garden, feed them. The ecosystem will develop and the transition from hard sandy clay to a rich loam will happen. I visit the dumpsters near Starbucks, collect hundreds of pounds of used coffee grounds, plus recycled plant stalks, clean grass clippings, leaves, twigs and wood chips. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers!
I guess that explains why my garden does so well, even though I don't fertilize. I mulch as much as possible & add compost and all sorts of organic matter. 😊
I recently read, Soil Science, and it was quite eye opening, and I’ve been a gardener for 40 years. I currently have about 300 sq feet of raised beds and containers. My soil is very good, and my vegetable production is pretty good in spite of just barely getting enough sunlight due to trees on either side of my yard. I compost my grass clippings and leaves, and top off my beds every season with new compost, but I also add both organic and some synthetic fertilizers, plus lime, gypsum, sulfur, crushed oyster shells, and alfalfa pellets.
I keep a 30 gallon barrel constantly digesting plant matter throughout the year. Not much happens in the winter but every spring I empty out the sludge and put it in the compost or mulch the beds. I just keep feeding the barrel with weeds or other organic matter. It smells awful but the plants like a taste of the liquid. And the beds love the sludge. I’m gonna continue. My garden seems happy and I just built a mushroom bed out there.
I just cut weeds down to a reasonable level, and throw them back down on the ground. Considering my (2 acre) garden started off as one-third bare rock, the rest worn to thin turf by sheep (it's a corner of what used to be an extensive pasture), I think I've done well to build up enough soil in which to grow bulbs, perennials, bushes and (in some places) some fairly considerable sized trees. Chop and drop, no-mow ever, planting whatever could survive in thin soils, collecting some leaves that flow down the stream on my property, adding vegetable kitchen scraps, and doing my best to introduce new fungi species to the garden for 21 years has built soil faster than it would do if left strictly to nature. Chop and drop with weeds meant developing a different mindset about my concept of weeds. It was difficult, since I worked as a professional gardener, went to horticultural college for 4 years, and had the dislike for weeds drummed into me quite a bit. But when I left my job to raise a family, I began to look at those weeds differently, learning to treasure those powers of easy regeneration, and using them as a source of organic material that builds soil. Only later did I discover that all these pernicious weeds have an ability to sequester specific minerals and nutrients, bring them to the surface in their roots, which can then be redistributed to target plants in the form of chop and drop. So, I'm not trying to get rid of Common Hemlock, thistles, bracken, dandelion or Rosebay Willow Herb any more. I 'harvest' them as persistent green manures. When I started viewing these plants as actual 'crops,' it seemed to completely overturn my views on gardening, and relieved a lot of stress at the same time. I only draw the line at brambles (they spread too quickly and secretly in a garden this size), and should Japanese Knotweed or Giant Hemlock find it's way here, there again, they will be removed entirely. I only made a compost tea once, the smell was enough to call it a day on that experiment. And I don't think it did the garden any more favours than chopping and dropping.
I have a stream bordering my garden, and as there's a riparian woodland along its whole length, it gets choked with leaves. When I first moved to the property, you simply couldn't go down to this stream in January, because the rotting heaps of leaves would kick off so much methane, it would make me dizzy. But since I started pulling out great quantities of leaves to mulch some little areas in my garden, the methane cloud has gone, the garden soil is much improved, and there's an improvement in the stream's ecosystem too. There are now little fresh water shrimps, which brings in different types of dipper birds. There's even been a number of herons - I suppose because now there are more amphibians by the stream. I always thought that leaving Nature to herself was always best in every situation. But as we have messed about with the landscape so much, even some natural features cannot cope with 'excess.' In the case of this stream, I discovered that part of this excess comes from the fact that in 3 places upstream - cattle and sheep have access to the water, their added manure and urine tipping the balance. But taking out a lot of leaves has helped tip that balance back the other way a little, those leaves still helping with land restoration elsewhere.
@@Debbie-henri Nope. "... natural features " don't really exist anymore. Especially in Europe and Asia, but also in Africa and the Americas, humans have worked over most areas of the world. North America was clearcut from its natural wood cover several times, even before Columbus. And if we had the natural forest in Central Europe, the land would be far less diverse and there would be far fewer species than there are right now. White Europeans have lived with nature in an excellent state of balance during the Middle Ages, but pollution during the early industrial age was a bad thing. These days, the balance has tipped back and people are doing too little in nature and there are actually some plants & animals that follow humans into the cities in order to survive.
@@Debbie-henri Only you can prevent forest fires! What does that really mean? You're saying "we have messed with the landscapes much" -- what does that mean? Is it always man's fault? Allegedly man is the worst for the earth but are we? DON'T BLAME => Be Lame = you're lame if all you ever do is be-lame man. No matter what NATURE ALWAYS WINS!!! Smokey the bear be-lamed man for ALL the forest fires so lightning NEVER started a forest fire ever?
@@donaldduck830 BULLSHIT -- that's what 'they' tell you to feel guilty! Can you do anything about any of that alleged destruction of nature? Did YOU do the destruction? It's true about man not being in nature enough but when we're told we're the 'plague' to the earth it's no wonder. Forget about anything 'they' tell you about our ancestors destroying the earth ... nothing you can do about it anyways -- it's done and NATURE ALWAYS WINS.
I’ve learned so much from your channel! I have a neurological disorder and sometimes have flare ups where I have constant tremors… I have listened to your channel for countless hours ❤
You should research into Carnivore Diet which will help you avoid flare ups. The irony is eating plants that are healthy can have high amount of secondary metabolites that poison your body. So you shall totally avoid plants. The concept that flareups are not caused by single meal or single food but cumulative effect of unhealthy diet over many days has to be learnt.
@@otivaeey I actually do keto because of that… I’ve thought about doing carnivore for a while to see if it helps. I have a husband and 3 teenagers so it’s hard to cook just for me. My husband does keto with me sometimes though. I had a seizure Monday morning and ended up in the hospital. So if there’s any time to try it now would be it! Thanks so much!
I see, FYI keto means vegetables are allowed and low carbohydrates. Carnivore diet (no leafy vegetables allowed) is the only diet in mind that aims to cure diseases. Keto is for body slimming mainly. To carnivores, curing seizures is very attainable, just as other common diseases like glaucoma, diabetes, gout, knee/hip replacement, psoriasis, mental health etc. Carnivore diet encircles around 4 ingredients only: Meats, eggs, salt and water. The low toxin list I mentioned is for lesser strict ketovore diet as you have had already stopped the flareups and immune attacks. To make carnivore easier, you can try according to Dr Saladino's low toxin list includes pumpkins, banana, avocado, apple, orange, pineapple etc. You can Google it. Thank you.
Best information on the interwebs about gardening is on your channel. While there is a great deal of noise, there are few voices. Robert you are one of the few clear, common sense voices.
After watching & reading numerous presentations on CEC & micro-organisms, an agronomist gave a simple explanation as to what launches the active sequence of microbes assisting in the chemical transformation of locked-up soil minerals into plant available minerals. While it's true microbes need food (organic matter), plant exudates provided by new roots are what awakens dormant microbes which then feast & excrete enormous amounts of H+ ions material which bonds with the (weak) H- charged soil colloids (unless majority sand.) The H+ (microbes poop) are acidic cations & easily break the alkaline anions in the immediate soil colloid rhizosphere making minerals available. Good roots are the key to a good start.
Yeah the reality is there are two forms of research going on in academia, one based on chemicals and funded by chemical companies and the other based of learning lessons from the failures of using chemicals which has led to REAL scientific research into regenerative agriculture in recent times, where a lot of the learning for regenerative agriculture happened outside the world of college but is now researched in different colleges which is a good thing.
Excellent info! I am an old new gardener and have been building gardens (up to about 3600 sq ft now). I have been all over the interwebs looking for actual good information and here we are. Throughout life i am always amazed and reminded that KISS is always the best answer to most problems. You reiterate this point very well. Still learning and live it! Thank you!
What a concept add oganic material to feed the microbes that feeds the plant and cover with mulch. Rotate your crops to get differient microbe mix...Add a top layer of Alfalfa mash if you can't compost.
I am in Florida with sandy soil, I have been working on my soil for three years, organic matter is the key. I make my own compost and drop leaves, expired veggie plants right back to the top of the soil. I have black soil now. I do not buy microbes in a bag, you just confirmed my thoughts. Thank you, very informative.
I make a light tea from nettles and year after year i get a wonderful harvest. For the most part though my compost makes the soil conditioner and the tea provides a lil extra nitrogen and minerals which i water in during the early part of the plants growth. During early flowering stage i don't add any tea but i do add potassium in the form of sundried organic banana skins which break down over the flowering stage. Can't complain. 😁 cool vid.
Good thoughts. I started a good sized vegetable garden from scratch almost 3 years ago. I was immediately challenged with needing 30+ yards of good compost! That’s rather a lot! A local organic dairy sells awesome compost at $112/yard. Expensive right? Then to till or not till is an issue. Not tilling suggests that huge quantity of great compost over the top of thick sod. I opted for several things with good apparent success. 1. I learned how to make 6-8 yard piles of my own compost. My ideal recipe: 15%: I got very fresh cow poop from the local organic dairy. $50/yard, but they are generous. Cow manure is best for hotter compost because they’re ruminants with more stomachs with more bacteria. I’ve seen it get up to 160F. 130F minimum is needed to kill pathogens and weed seeds. 30% wood chips (I’m in a forested area so they are available and I invested in a serious chipper for my small tractor 🚜). 20% brown (carbon) plant materials. Organic rice straw is good. Include spent coffee grounds from local coffee shops. 25% green plant waste. Alfalfa is useful but it can usually contain roundup or other herbicides (bad). Check it. The remainder is biochar, around 10%. 2. Since I’m 70 and don’t want to wait 5-10 years to go no-till I tilled up the thick sod with my tractor and tiller. Then I tilled in the organic material from the sod, as much compost as I could make and as much as I could afford. As a comment, the soils and compost was VERY nitrogen heavy. So this year I’m tilling in bone meal for “P” and Langbeinite for “K”. So I opted for a balance focused on getting the most possible compost into the soil as quickly as possible with the least physical hard labor on my 70-year old body. So far that has worked well but there are fine-tunings for each season. This year I have to deal with the massive weeds that also enjoy the better soil, so I’m trying weed fabric around perennials like berries and organic rice straw everywhere else.
Coffee grounds aren't a 'brown'. They're super heavy in nitrogen, making them a 'green'. Your system is working...so it's all good. I just wanted to correct that one discrepancy for anyone reading.
I have been gardening for 45 years and every garden TH-cam channel I have looked at either sticks to kindergarden level topics or annoy me with errors. This was a very impressive video on this topic. Subscribed. 🥰🥰🥰🇨🇦
There are a few of us gardening veterans here, I've noticed. I started as a conventional, professional gardener - mow the living daylights out of every lawn, use chemical fertilisers, gouge every weed out of everywhere. Now, I'm No-Mow-Ever (for past 21 years), chop and drop from my perennial weeds (having learned how to value them instead of hate them), compost every kitchen scrap, no chemicals here thank you, plant native species among my food plants, added fungi species each year, collect extra leaves (from non-sprayed sources), and make brash heaps (it's longer term composting, yes; but the soil you get from naturally rotted sticks is on another level).
You've simplified an already simple process for me. I have really heavy clay soil, it's currently rather waterlogged. This is a new garden at an old property and I know it's had a lot added to it in the past. I spent last year clearing the plot and made enough compost to cover my four beds over winter. It's full of worms and I'm not digging it over. I already have several plants I overwintered, they're suffering a bit from wind, but otherwise doing fine. I suspected it was probably full of microbes already. I do have some nettle tea and comfrey tea brewing, but I'm not convinced it has made much difference. So I shall just carry on making compost and planting things out. As you rightly say, you stick plants in the ground and they grow. Thank you, it's nice to watch an expert gardening video to be told I'm basically on the right track!
Ad 30cm or 12 inches of Ramial Wood chips. Wait 1 year. Then plant into the ground. Moving aside the woo hip where you want to plant. … you will find that the wood-chips- is less than 12 inches 15 cm deep and below this will be rich aerates soil full of worms….. you will have the most abundant cro- ever and your clay soil will be a benefit as it is the most amazing source of micronutrients and minerals
My mother had a terrible clay soil garden, than nasty grey blue stuff left after the estate was built. A keen gardener all the same, and this back in the days when you simply could not buy wood chips, nor did she have money to spend on bags of compost, she just kept planting, sowing packets of hardy annuals, putting scraps in a compost container, and doing a bit of chop and drop. Eventually, she did get the sort of soil she really wanted, to the point she had a good sized bullace tree growing in the garden.
Excellent vid-doc - science for the layman, brilliant! And my own experience tallies very closely with your narrative. Gardening can be astonishingly simple.
I would add that given everything we don't and possibly will never know about microbes, it's likely beneficial to shoot for high diversity. I say this based on presentations about the Johnson-Su bioreactor, which is a method of composting with air columns and watering (but not turning) where they tested and found leaving it for a year resulted in a wide variety of microbe species in abundant numbers compared to lesser amounts of time resulting in dominance by relatively fewer species, with the resulting compost apparently having extreme positive effects on crop yields at very low application rates (as an extract or top dress). I also have seared into my brain the fact that living plant roots increase organic matter in the soil five times as fast as depositing organic matter on the soil surface (leaves in the forest, mulch, etc.). See presentations by Dr. Christine Jones about that.
This guy is right, he is dead on about the more diversity of plants and grass you grow around your crop. You have more available sugar for different microbes to break down different enzymes and you will have more defense against pests. But he is denouncing actual doctors and soil scientists... Dr. Elaine Ingham has a soil food web school where you look at soil samples under a microscope and you keep actually adding compost tea until you get the numbers up to what they should be. I cultivate IMO in Korean Natural Farming and JMS in JADAM... This video is also denouncing that. I will also say he's right. For example, when it comes to the apple tree dropping its fruit in the fall, that's when you actually fertilize.. But because we harvest most of the fruit, you're taking away the nutrition for itself. Dr.
@@xx7101 I'm not sure it's 90% (we've only identified a small fraction of microbes anyway) but true, since I wrote that comment I've heard John Kempf make that point several times, and I believe Dan Kittredge of Bionutrient Food Association has said he doesn't apply compost at all in his vegetable garden, just (oversimplifying) rock dust and targeted foliar feeding (maybe sometimes of compost tea, I don't recall exactly).
@@jaymartin85 His content seems aimed for the layman gardener so he's giving straight forward advice. A farmer would be accessing the necessary professionals to test soil whereas the average youtuber isn't managing a farm, in my experience.
I'm Portuguese enjoying this video and the comes the futebol field and South Korea 🇰🇷 vs. Portugal 🇵🇹, it is always nice to see the flag of my tiny little lovely country 😊
I went through so many phases based on TH-cam living soil videos, including compost tea. After a decade of intense gardening (just a very large garden), I've found that laying good compost, always leaving the plant roots in the ground, and not tilling have been most beneficial. Plant root structure is the key, so if you start indoors like I do, make sure you use soil blocks that air-prune, and get them in the ground before the roots spread to other blocks or coil in your container. You don't want coiled or damaged roots. Direct sowing is best but comes with other complications. Most of not all root issues from indoor growing can be mitigated by proper timing and care. Don't overcomplicate it, and don't go spending a fortune on soil potions.
This is a great video. Just wanted to add some nuance from my experience as an environmental engineer. We use microbes all the time to degrade contaminants in soil and water. In fact, we sometimes inject molasses or lactate (in milk) to increase microbial activity! This is often done to spur initial growth of microbial populations. After that it is good to use an "extended release" compound like compost to give a sustained food source for the microbes. Some microbes also metabolize and transform inorganic nutrients, but the main focus for gardening is the organic metabolizers. You mentioned soil being composed of roughly 25% air...this is sometimes the case. Porosity of soil varies with sandy soils generally 35% pore space and uncompacted clay or silty soils closer to 50%. Compaction reduces this an additional 15% or so. This pore space can accomodate either air or liquids (hopefully just clean water, no oils). So when your soil is saturated it is completely full of water and the air is expelled. This is why its good to have well draining soil that still remains moist--aerobic microbes (those that use oxygen to metabolize food like we do) need oxygen! Microbes close to your garden are generally aerobic. Anaerobic microbes exist more frequently in groundwater where there is very little dissolved oxygen and no gaseous oxygen. They might be more useful for trees with deep roots. You can compost anaerobically, but generally you should prefer aerobic (oxygenated) composting by turning your compost pile and keeping it moist but not saturated. Thanks for the great video and cheers!
Well, my brother, I have been so blessed by your videos, I think this one has blessed my socks clean off! I had a good gut, feeling that all of those high dollar products were not so high dollar. Thanks again and may you continue to be blessed in your work. I will continue to share your wonderful videos. If you get a chance, read Genesis 1:10- 11. thanks again for your wonderful wisdom. your schooling has blessed me a great deal.
This is excellent! I've heard of these "cures" before but you explained why they aren't long-term solutions. Makes SO much more sense now. Thanks for this!
I would love to see a discussion between this guy and Dr. Elaine Ingham. They are on the same page except she is a huge proponent of brewing compost tea. She has traveled the world and conducted many studies. They are both very intelligent and convincing. Would be interesting to hear them hash it out.
Well...she makes money of selling courses of her niche. The very much in fashion "regenerative agro" kind of thing, wich is full of pseudo scientific post mordern withcraft, like compostea
She doesn't do the compost tea for the nutrients, but to add diversity of microorganisms into the soil. This works particularly well in soils that have been sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life. Also, it can work great as a topical application to prevent disease.
We agree on some basics and disagree on a lot of things. 1) She has conducted no published studies since grad school, although she claims to have done a lot. 2) I disagree with most of your ideas about microbe ID with microscopes, F:B ratios, solving weed problems by growing the right microbes - as do most scientists. www.gardenmyths.com/fungal-to-bacterial-ratios/
"sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life" - that is virtually impossible. Even terrible soils are full of thousands of microbe species.
I very much appreciate the information, I have grown small tomato plants in the past. This year I decided to buy both soil amendment NPK fertilizer, bone meal worm casting and two kinds of organic water soluble fertilizer. Now I have tomatoe trees. I suppose you could argue that my soil was bad, but for the small space that I have, I am definitely going with fertilizer until I have the space to do a more comprehensive composting system and until I have a larger garden space.
Hello,thank you for the soil and plant information you provide on your youtube channel and blogs.I follow it with interest and recommend it to my friends.We request Turkisch subtitles for your videos.Greetings from Istanbul.
That was the best video I’ve watched in a long time. I knew mulching and compost was the only thing we need. Like Mother Nature. Decay creates life. My new favorite TH-camr.
Wow love it. I do basically this on our large food forest. I simply didn’t buy anything because I was too tight. But I thought just putting heaps of mulch is basically solving all my problems.👍👍👍👍
Very helpful info. I am planting trees on my acre of land. It is sand and small percentage of clay. Information that I have I need so much stuff that will cost me money that I don't have. I just plant it, have plenty of water and will use the mulch they produce. I can't even afford to buy mulch around here. I think it will be successful.
Sounds like you have the same sort of garden I used to have it my previous property (dig down 5 inches and it was pure yellow sand), always thirsty, and I had to adapt to growing mainly coastal plants. Fortunately, a lot of coastal plants have good deep tap roots to find their nutrients and provide anchorage, and some of these are only too happy to provide plenty of chop and drop to help build organic matter. I'm in Scotland, so local plants useful for this are Sea Radish and Sea Kale, both edibles (only too obviously). But there's also Sea Buckthorn (evil thorns, but the most nutritious - if sharpest - berries, with a concentrated orange juice taste. Great Vitamin C source btw. A bit invasive if you let it get out of hand, but can be managed easily if you put regular time into your garden.
This video does a great job explaining how important it is to boost microbe counts for healthier soil! I've been experimenting with a product called BionicSoil, and I've seen some really positive changes. When I paired it with a cover crop, I noticed a big difference in how the roots interacted with the soil-just like what you mentioned about exudates supporting microbial life. The overall health and vibrancy of my soil and plants have noticeably improved. If you're looking into ways to enhance your soil's microbial activity, it's definitely something worth considering.
Great video. Regarding the compost tea, I agree that it is pretty low in nutrients by the time most people use it as feed. Still though, I would think that's better than just throwing away your weeds assuming you don't want to leave them on the ground
I THOUGHT that I knew a lot about gargening. I would brag, "I have a green thumb." I also have an open mind. I was mistaken.... I now live in Thailand. I have 0.75 acres of clay soil.... I also have a bottomless supply of compostable matterial.... rice straw, buffalo manure, leaves, grasses, and household scraps. I am going to become a COMPOSTER ! Then I'm going to distubute my well composed material/soil evenly around my fruit trees and gardens with plenty of moisture retaining mulch. Healthy soil makes for healthy plants..... I think my green thumb is about to get a lot greener. Plus.... Turning mulch is great exercise and will keep me young. Thank you. I tapped the thumbs up button to feed the algorithm monsters.
I have been adding compost and chicken manure every season for more than a decade. The soil is getting better and better. My plants thrive without any pesticide and fertilizers.
I love the video! Thank you!! I would argue that “tea” is good for plants if you don’t have enough compost to go to a large area. Compost would be better but the tea is something that most people can use to help their plants in between times where they don’t have compost.
Thank you, its nice to hear you telling it the way it is. Strange how whenever Money is involved, that lies tend to follow ! The old way of farming from the 1960s, gave microbs a chance to work. The soil was fed manure, late autumn or early spring, which gave the microbs and the soil time to adjust before sowing. We only grew one crop per year, as opposed to, the two or three crops per year that they force today. Thanks again, it looks like we are going back to healthier growing.
When I tell you that I’ve listened to every theory under the Sun.. I mean it! Lordy. I’m just trying to get a handle on the Theory of “Dirt Science” And all I’ve really learned is that most “experts” seem to be regurgitating what the other channels are perpetuating.. most of it send ludicrous. Your down to earth approach really makes sense. Like Nature does it! Thank You
Many thanks young guy. Your video is so generous and helpful. It gives us the fundamentals of gardening in the simplest way. We need this kind of video to change the agriculture in the world, and in poorest countries, like Subsaharian Africa A fan in West Africa, a country called Senegal
I mulch my garden with grass clippings the entire season. In the fall I take all my leaves and cover the garden with them. It seems to work good for me.
Absolutely love your science based, no-bs approach. Would be very interested to hear your thoughts on friendly microbes as a means to control problems (e.g bacillus subtilis/trichoderma as "fungicide"). Thank you for your top quality videos - they are gems!
I just simply love the simplicity of your findings. Add orgnic matter, mulch and plant things. God has created an incredibly complex system which can be effectively utilised by the simplest of people. Just love it! Thank you for blessing us with the bernefits of your studies and experience.
I have learned so much since stumbling upon your channel. I have bought a couple of books and as a result, I am rethinking my gardens. I started a few of thing years ago and put black plastic down. I know I know. Well, this summer I have gone through and ripped out most. It had a good 4-6 inches of mulch/compost on top. Here is my question: The soil under the plastic is hard and very compacted. Will it fix itself over time? Or do I do what you say not to and break it up between the plants?
Thanks again for a common sense understanding of all this, good stuff! Maybe it should be called uncommon sense, because it seems to lacking all around us!
When you harvest, leave the roots in the soil if you can. This feeds the microbes and helps aerate the soil as the roots decompose.
Pulling out roots should be citable offense. Unless you have an invasive plant, it counter-productive. If I need a smooth seed bed, I just put down compost next to or on top of the cut down row.
The new plant roots will use the preformed conduits of those old or decayed roots, saving energy and time as well.
Good points
@@andresamplonius315dang thanks
Is there any information on what happens when we apply Double Nickel fungicide to control Pytophra aka Root Rot, what does it do to good bacteria
You have just earned the wrath of many fertilizer companies! You talk sense and by imparting your experiences, you have had helped us save huge amount of money. Gardening or farming is so simple. Do not complicate it, businessmen!
Every farmer uses synthetic ferts. If they didn't the world would have starved a hundred years ago or so.
@JonP_4-31inf
The fertilizer is in salt forms, if you mulch farms then they would save a lot of money and not kill off the microbes over time.
The mulch helps protect the soil from uv and crazy levels of oxygen.
Modern tilling is going to be a disaster for future generations.
Having vast monoculture is dumb.
Feeding people has become a slave to time restraints and produces the people you see.
@@JonP_4-31inf
Stop grinding up the soil and find a way to mulch.
Have alternative rows bands of crops.
Way more profit.
@@JonP_4-31infdid you study AG. at Trump University of fraud?
4 years ago our new vegetable garden started with cardboard, 150mm wood chips and 50 mm compost. Our paths were 200 mm wood chips later. This year we dug up the paths and harvested 300 mm worm dense black soil. This was applied to all garden beds. Paths were then filled up with 300mm wood chips . Our paths are our compost bins . Our house hold waste is put in a a raised bed. After 6 months this has become the most productive worm farm. No bought products, no bought worms.
After playing several of your videos, I don't think I need to hear what other garden channels have to say. I've been gardening for 50 years and you've taught me things I didn't know. Great information. Thank you for holding this space for us to learn.
Wow, thanks
@@Gardenfundamentals1 Same here. I'm done searching.
Have you ever checked out “self sufficient me” ? He’s also a brilliant one to follow!
Does the same hold true for soulless gardening in containers? Just include compost in the mix, hydrate & mulch?
I agree,I have his soil book and about to purchase the rest of series.Hes one of the legit real Mccoy
I bought the book LET IT ROT years ago. I remember it saying that adding starter to compost was a waste. It said to mix a little soil to it and the microbes needed would be there. This video seems to confirm that.
I was just thinking the same thing!
I think the starters were to generate heat too.
In a compost pile, office paper, I.e. cellulose breaks down quickly, increasing temperature.
@@chrisdaniels3929urea
Adding molasses is like organising a party and inviting friends. They will leave once the drinks are over
😆 true
I've never tried it but if I were to try it I would drizzle molasses over newly introduced fresh organic matter that I want to breakdown relatively faster?
@@summertime2433It will increase the breakdown of the molases but won't have a noticable effect on the rest of the pile as it's bioavailability is slower. I'd add earthworms to speed up the process and leave the bottom a little open so more can join the party.
My tomatoes grow like crazy in a soil comprised of worm castings, fall leaves and compost that are filled with earthworms. That’s how I judge good quality soil now, how many earthworms in a handful of garden soil. 😊
Yes that's it
Wvey week, I get 5 big bags of discarded produce from a local grocery collection to tons of leaves and coffee grounds .spread it over my garden in winter .I love seeing that black dirt 😊😊😊😊
I own a Cesspool Company and a Microbial Culture company that breaks down and digests waste and organic matter in the Septic System.I am very big on trees and plants for past fifteen years and what I have learned is that the Trees closest to the leaching pools are more than four times the width and height as those further away.So the by product of the septic Tank treatment is the nutrients feeding the tree and the companies that sell the microbial soil additive are correct but are missing the middle part of that nutrient process.
Adding things randomly and hoping that it has a desired effect reminds me of how they introduced so many invasive species in an attempt to solve some problem without understanding the ramifications of their actions.
Read "The New Wild" by Fred Pearce
You can find so much diversity in natives there's no need to go outside of that 😊
I don’t think there’s any other TH-cam channel that packs so much useful information into the same timeframe. Thanks for keeping my supply list for 2024 nice and short!
Well he’s written several books and won an award for his work seems like he knows what he’s talking about it. 😂I learn so much from him. Lots of us do❤
Thank you.
No-Till Growers is also good. He farms for a living so he's doing something right. He practices regenerative agriculture.
One thing I learned from that channel is if you want to know what's in the soil, you have to actually look at it, with a microscope and know what different things look like.
THEN you can make things like compost teas which do work because you actually LOOK at what's in the tea before applying it. In other words you are validating that what you think you did is indeed what you actually did when making that tea.
For a backyard farmer this is probably too much effort unless you're practicing to become a farmer for a living.
@@johndoh5182 Compost tea is a bunch of BS. No market gardener here I've ever met makes or uses it here in Eastern Ontario that wants to make a living. Nor do they do any other magical practices, like putting skulls in their soil, or anything like that. Science and not mysticism is useful in agricultural systems.
Edit: th-cam.com/video/4F5uOXhDoB8/w-d-xo.html
@@johndoh5182 And he taught me that if you don't do that the best option is to use compost material as it slows the rate of nutrient release and increases the microbe boosts longevity.
I have permanent rows + paths, and I mulch all winter and part of summer, and I use irrigation to prevent drought in the rows. My soil has improved a lot - I can take a bamboo stake and push it down about a foot in the rows, and in the paths I can push it down about an inch
I garden in sand in the high desert of NM. The biggest help for my garden has been fertilizer (nitrogen and iron,) mushroom compost, and woodchip mulch. We also chop and drop, trying to keep all organic materials we produce.
Keep going, produce wonderful soil for your next generation to inherit.
Adding organic matter to sandy soil is key. Primarily sandy soil has almost no negative charge for cation exchange capacity.
I’m in the same state and conditions. In our soil, the organic matter either disintegrated years ago, floated away or blew away. The guy before me scraped the lot bare for 10 years. I have great geology and very little biology. But I’m working on that slowly. I’m disabled and old so I’m bound to go slow. This morning I made 100+ seed balls with sorghum, clover and oats to repopulate the soil with roots that can tolerate arid conditions. And I’m covering as much soil as possible with wood chips. I’m gonna breed my own biology!
If you are using chemical fertilizers you are helping and hurting yourself at the same time. As long as you're using natural things to give you that nitrogen and iron you're doing the best you can.
Using chemical fertilizers will kill living things in that soil which is a downside and that's where you're hurting yourself if you are.
With that sandy soil you have the same issue as FL growers. What they do if they want to be 100% organic certified is first bring in a certain amount of organic material (many tons) that they will compost, and then they will work that down into the soil, and yes this means adding a LOT of material, and then plant cover crops to allow that worked area to get broken down more which also means the bacterial life is growing, and then I believe the next year they can use that land, and do the typical thing of always having plants or cover crops growing in the soil, and when you're growing crops to have good compost worked around the plants on the top of the soil. Then add whatever additives a soil test might tell you that you need something, and in your case depending on what you're growing that may still mean nitrogen and iron.
I live in NM.
Gardening for 25 years here.
Best thing is to
Compost
Fish or kelp
Black tea
Pine shavings
Plant root exudates feed microbes - always have plants growing and your soil will turn into black gold
That's what any regenerative ag farmer will tell you, and they're correct.
Exactly, and I agree!
Doesn't work for typical tropical forests where the soil is very poor due to heavy rain. But in this conditions where plants thrive exceptionally, shouldn't the soil be very rich because of all the feeding through root exudates?
So the place completely overgrown with vegetation has poor soil ? Seems like the metric for soil quality should be questioned…
@@created.black.soil. I think the problem is the rich vegatative matter minerals are washed away and so soil nutrients reduce greatly. Wait until you see what happens to the cleared rainforests areas - they will likely be desserts in 10 years time.
Thank you - I bought all these extra stuff to improve my soil & now your way is simplex& a lot cheaper ..
There's one thing that backyard farmers may want to buy, AFTER fixing their soil AND if this is missing because of how poor the soil was and how much people were dumping chemicals in their yards, and that's worms that are appropriate for that area. They can speed up that transfer and conversion of organic material to usable elements when applying compost around the plants and the worms will speed up the process of working that down into the soil after they break it down more and poop it out.
Thank you sir! This is exactly what I tell my friends who wonder how I “fertilize” my garden. Decades spent on studying micro-algae, and cyanobacterial ecosystems taught me to feed the soil. I tell them grow earthworms in your garden, feed them. The ecosystem will develop and the transition from hard sandy clay to a rich loam will happen. I visit the dumpsters near Starbucks, collect hundreds of pounds of used coffee grounds, plus recycled plant stalks, clean grass clippings, leaves, twigs and wood chips. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers!
i doubt the starbucks coffee grounds are organic.
Heck yeah! You Go! I'm also following your methods 😊
I guess that explains why my garden does so well, even though I don't fertilize. I mulch as much as possible & add compost and all sorts of organic matter. 😊
That is fertilizer.
@@lksf9820EXACTLY 😂. It's just that we're conditioned not to think so
Add your urine to it as well.
I thank you for being THE reasonable voice on this subject!
I recently read, Soil Science, and it was quite eye opening, and I’ve been a gardener for 40 years. I currently have about 300 sq feet of raised beds and containers. My soil is very good, and my vegetable production is pretty good in spite of just barely getting enough sunlight due to trees on either side of my yard. I compost my grass clippings and leaves, and top off my beds every season with new compost, but I also add both organic and some synthetic fertilizers, plus lime, gypsum, sulfur, crushed oyster shells, and alfalfa pellets.
I keep a 30 gallon barrel constantly digesting plant matter throughout the year. Not much happens in the winter but every spring I empty out the sludge and put it in the compost or mulch the beds. I just keep feeding the barrel with weeds or other organic matter. It smells awful but the plants like a taste of the liquid. And the beds love the sludge. I’m gonna continue. My garden seems happy and I just built a mushroom bed out there.
"but the plants like a taste of the liquid" - how do you know?
Add a little soil or compost and the smell will be less.
Does the barrel have water in it ?
Because Smell Is the product of microbe activity and microbe and Plant live in sybiosis.@@Gardenfundamentals1
I just cut weeds down to a reasonable level, and throw them back down on the ground.
Considering my (2 acre) garden started off as one-third bare rock, the rest worn to thin turf by sheep (it's a corner of what used to be an extensive pasture), I think I've done well to build up enough soil in which to grow bulbs, perennials, bushes and (in some places) some fairly considerable sized trees.
Chop and drop, no-mow ever, planting whatever could survive in thin soils, collecting some leaves that flow down the stream on my property, adding vegetable kitchen scraps, and doing my best to introduce new fungi species to the garden for 21 years has built soil faster than it would do if left strictly to nature.
Chop and drop with weeds meant developing a different mindset about my concept of weeds. It was difficult, since I worked as a professional gardener, went to horticultural college for 4 years, and had the dislike for weeds drummed into me quite a bit.
But when I left my job to raise a family, I began to look at those weeds differently, learning to treasure those powers of easy regeneration, and using them as a source of organic material that builds soil. Only later did I discover that all these pernicious weeds have an ability to sequester specific minerals and nutrients, bring them to the surface in their roots, which can then be redistributed to target plants in the form of chop and drop.
So, I'm not trying to get rid of Common Hemlock, thistles, bracken, dandelion or Rosebay Willow Herb any more. I 'harvest' them as persistent green manures. When I started viewing these plants as actual 'crops,' it seemed to completely overturn my views on gardening, and relieved a lot of stress at the same time.
I only draw the line at brambles (they spread too quickly and secretly in a garden this size), and should Japanese Knotweed or Giant Hemlock find it's way here, there again, they will be removed entirely.
I only made a compost tea once, the smell was enough to call it a day on that experiment. And I don't think it did the garden any more favours than chopping and dropping.
The value in these videos is that the content is scientifically based. I highly recommend his books.
Thank you, for making this video.
Like he said in a nutshell, compost is a game changer for gardening/farming! I’ve seen the power of leaves in my flower beds and annual vegetables.
I have a stream bordering my garden, and as there's a riparian woodland along its whole length, it gets choked with leaves.
When I first moved to the property, you simply couldn't go down to this stream in January, because the rotting heaps of leaves would kick off so much methane, it would make me dizzy.
But since I started pulling out great quantities of leaves to mulch some little areas in my garden, the methane cloud has gone, the garden soil is much improved, and there's an improvement in the stream's ecosystem too.
There are now little fresh water shrimps, which brings in different types of dipper birds. There's even been a number of herons - I suppose because now there are more amphibians by the stream.
I always thought that leaving Nature to herself was always best in every situation. But as we have messed about with the landscape so much, even some natural features cannot cope with 'excess.'
In the case of this stream, I discovered that part of this excess comes from the fact that in 3 places upstream - cattle and sheep have access to the water, their added manure and urine tipping the balance. But taking out a lot of leaves has helped tip that balance back the other way a little, those leaves still helping with land restoration elsewhere.
@@Debbie-henri Nope. "... natural features " don't really exist anymore. Especially in Europe and Asia, but also in Africa and the Americas, humans have worked over most areas of the world. North America was clearcut from its natural wood cover several times, even before Columbus.
And if we had the natural forest in Central Europe, the land would be far less diverse and there would be far fewer species than there are right now. White Europeans have lived with nature in an excellent state of balance during the Middle Ages, but pollution during the early industrial age was a bad thing. These days, the balance has tipped back and people are doing too little in nature and there are actually some plants & animals that follow humans into the cities in order to survive.
@@Debbie-henri Only you can prevent forest fires! What does that really mean? You're saying "we have messed with the landscapes much" -- what does that mean? Is it always man's fault? Allegedly man is the worst for the earth but are we? DON'T BLAME => Be Lame = you're lame if all you ever do is be-lame man.
No matter what NATURE ALWAYS WINS!!!
Smokey the bear be-lamed man for ALL the forest fires so lightning NEVER started a forest fire ever?
@@donaldduck830 BULLSHIT -- that's what 'they' tell you to feel guilty! Can you do anything about any of that alleged destruction of nature? Did YOU do the destruction?
It's true about man not being in nature enough but when we're told we're the 'plague' to the earth it's no wonder. Forget about anything 'they' tell you about our ancestors destroying the earth ... nothing you can do about it anyways -- it's done and NATURE ALWAYS WINS.
I’ve learned so much from your channel! I have a neurological disorder and sometimes have flare ups where I have constant tremors… I have listened to your channel for countless hours ❤
Me too. Godspeed fellow gardener.
You should research into Carnivore Diet which will help you avoid flare ups. The irony is eating plants that are healthy can have high amount of secondary metabolites that poison your body. So you shall totally avoid plants.
The concept that flareups are not caused by single meal or single food but cumulative effect of unhealthy diet over many days has to be learnt.
@@otivaeey I actually do keto because of that… I’ve thought about doing carnivore for a while to see if it helps. I have a husband and 3 teenagers so it’s hard to cook just for me. My husband does keto with me sometimes though. I had a seizure Monday morning and ended up in the hospital. So if there’s any time to try it now would be it! Thanks so much!
I see, FYI keto means vegetables are allowed and low carbohydrates. Carnivore diet (no leafy vegetables allowed) is the only diet in mind that aims to cure diseases. Keto is for body slimming mainly. To carnivores, curing seizures is very attainable, just as other common diseases like glaucoma, diabetes, gout, knee/hip replacement, psoriasis, mental health etc.
Carnivore diet encircles around 4 ingredients only: Meats, eggs, salt and water. The low toxin list I mentioned is for lesser strict ketovore diet as you have had already stopped the flareups and immune attacks.
To make carnivore easier, you can try according to Dr Saladino's low toxin list includes pumpkins, banana, avocado, apple, orange, pineapple etc. You can Google it. Thank you.
This is very clear talk.
Gardening can be as simple as that. Love your Chanel. Thanks a million ❤
I’ve been watching his videos all day long and I just absolutely love this guy. He is so knowledgeable.
Best information on the interwebs about gardening is on your channel. While there is a great deal of noise, there are few voices. Robert you are one of the few clear, common sense voices.
This is my #1 garden YT. Thank you for your knowledge and honesty.
After watching & reading numerous presentations on CEC & micro-organisms, an agronomist gave a simple explanation as to what launches the active sequence of microbes assisting in the chemical transformation of locked-up soil minerals into plant available minerals. While it's true microbes need food (organic matter), plant exudates provided by new roots are what awakens dormant microbes which then feast & excrete enormous amounts of H+ ions material which bonds with the (weak) H- charged soil colloids (unless majority sand.)
The H+ (microbes poop) are acidic cations & easily break the alkaline anions in the immediate soil colloid rhizosphere making minerals available.
Good roots are the key to a good start.
Yeah the reality is there are two forms of research going on in academia, one based on chemicals and funded by chemical companies and the other based of learning lessons from the failures of using chemicals which has led to REAL scientific research into regenerative agriculture in recent times, where a lot of the learning for regenerative agriculture happened outside the world of college but is now researched in different colleges which is a good thing.
Glue.
This chap is a guru … spot on
Excellent info!
I am an old new gardener and have been building gardens (up to about 3600 sq ft now). I have been all over the interwebs looking for actual good information and here we are.
Throughout life i am always amazed and reminded that KISS is always the best answer to most problems. You reiterate this point very well.
Still learning and live it! Thank you!
What a concept add oganic material to feed the microbes that feeds the plant and cover with mulch. Rotate your crops to get differient microbe mix...Add a top layer of Alfalfa mash if you can't compost.
Just another fact-filled brilliant video... thank you, Mr. Pavlis. Also love your books and my garden continues to prove you right in all respects.
Many thanks!
I am in Florida with sandy soil, I have been working on my soil for three years, organic matter is the key. I make my own compost and drop leaves, expired veggie plants right back to the top of the soil. I have black soil now. I do not buy microbes in a bag, you just confirmed my thoughts. Thank you, very informative.
Thanks for a vivid description on microbes and its symbiotic relationship with the plants
I make a light tea from nettles and year after year i get a wonderful harvest. For the most part though my compost makes the soil conditioner and the tea provides a lil extra nitrogen and minerals which i water in during the early part of the plants growth. During early flowering stage i don't add any tea but i do add potassium in the form of sundried organic banana skins which break down over the flowering stage. Can't complain. 😁 cool vid.
Grow Jadam microbes from soil under an old tree near by or your compost. Very easy and effective.
Korean Natural Farming...works for me..
I haven’t even started your video but the comments speak volumes. Totally subbing.
Finished…. Thanks so much for saving me time and money. I appreciate this video!
Good thoughts.
I started a good sized vegetable garden from scratch almost 3 years ago. I was immediately challenged with needing 30+ yards of good compost! That’s rather a lot! A local organic dairy sells awesome compost at $112/yard. Expensive right?
Then to till or not till is an issue. Not tilling suggests that huge quantity of great compost over the top of thick sod.
I opted for several things with good apparent success.
1. I learned how to make 6-8 yard piles of my own compost. My ideal recipe:
15%: I got very fresh cow poop from the local organic dairy. $50/yard, but they are generous. Cow manure is best for hotter compost because they’re ruminants with more stomachs with more bacteria. I’ve seen it get up to 160F. 130F minimum is needed to kill pathogens and weed seeds.
30% wood chips (I’m in a forested area so they are available and I invested in a serious chipper for my small tractor 🚜).
20% brown (carbon) plant materials. Organic rice straw is good. Include spent coffee grounds from local coffee shops.
25% green plant waste. Alfalfa is useful but it can usually contain roundup or other herbicides (bad). Check it.
The remainder is biochar, around 10%.
2. Since I’m 70 and don’t want to wait 5-10 years to go no-till I tilled up the thick sod with my tractor and tiller.
Then I tilled in the organic material from the sod, as much compost as I could make and as much as I could afford. As a comment, the soils and compost was VERY nitrogen heavy. So this year I’m tilling in bone meal for “P” and Langbeinite for “K”.
So I opted for a balance focused on getting the most possible compost into the soil as quickly as possible with the least physical hard labor on my 70-year old body. So far that has worked well but there are fine-tunings for each season. This year I have to deal with the massive weeds that also enjoy the better soil, so I’m trying weed fabric around perennials like berries and organic rice straw everywhere else.
Coffee grounds aren't a 'brown'. They're super heavy in nitrogen, making them a 'green'. Your system is working...so it's all good. I just wanted to correct that one discrepancy for anyone reading.
I have been gardening for 45 years and every garden TH-cam channel I have looked at either sticks to kindergarden level topics or annoy me with errors.
This was a very impressive video on this topic.
Subscribed.
🥰🥰🥰🇨🇦
There are a few of us gardening veterans here, I've noticed. I started as a conventional, professional gardener - mow the living daylights out of every lawn, use chemical fertilisers, gouge every weed out of everywhere.
Now, I'm No-Mow-Ever (for past 21 years), chop and drop from my perennial weeds (having learned how to value them instead of hate them), compost every kitchen scrap, no chemicals here thank you, plant native species among my food plants, added fungi species each year, collect extra leaves (from non-sprayed sources), and make brash heaps (it's longer term composting, yes; but the soil you get from naturally rotted sticks is on another level).
Thank you very much for making and sharing this video! You answered a lot of my doubts!
Greetings from sunny Italy
My neighbours love me! I collect all their garden 'waste'. Their trash is my treasure and my little patch is the envy of the neighbourhood.
Great lesson! You save us time, labor & money while teaching us to get better results and vigorous growth! Woo Hoo; that's fantastic!!! 😊
You've simplified an already simple process for me. I have really heavy clay soil, it's currently rather waterlogged. This is a new garden at an old property and I know it's had a lot added to it in the past. I spent last year clearing the plot and made enough compost to cover my four beds over winter. It's full of worms and I'm not digging it over. I already have several plants I overwintered, they're suffering a bit from wind, but otherwise doing fine. I suspected it was probably full of microbes already. I do have some nettle tea and comfrey tea brewing, but I'm not convinced it has made much difference. So I shall just carry on making compost and planting things out. As you rightly say, you stick plants in the ground and they grow. Thank you, it's nice to watch an expert gardening video to be told I'm basically on the right track!
Ad 30cm or 12 inches of Ramial Wood chips. Wait 1 year. Then plant into the ground. Moving aside the woo hip where you want to plant. … you will find that the wood-chips- is less than 12 inches 15 cm deep and below this will be rich aerates soil full of worms….. you will have the most abundant cro- ever and your clay soil will be a benefit as it is the most amazing source of micronutrients and minerals
@@DJ-uk5mm I wasn't asking for your woo hip advice! 🤣😁🙃
My mother had a terrible clay soil garden, than nasty grey blue stuff left after the estate was built.
A keen gardener all the same, and this back in the days when you simply could not buy wood chips, nor did she have money to spend on bags of compost, she just kept planting, sowing packets of hardy annuals, putting scraps in a compost container, and doing a bit of chop and drop. Eventually, she did get the sort of soil she really wanted, to the point she had a good sized bullace tree growing in the garden.
Excellent vid-doc - science for the layman, brilliant! And my own experience tallies very closely with your narrative. Gardening can be astonishingly simple.
very smart man, we must share this knowledge
I would add that given everything we don't and possibly will never know about microbes, it's likely beneficial to shoot for high diversity. I say this based on presentations about the Johnson-Su bioreactor, which is a method of composting with air columns and watering (but not turning) where they tested and found leaving it for a year resulted in a wide variety of microbe species in abundant numbers compared to lesser amounts of time resulting in dominance by relatively fewer species, with the resulting compost apparently having extreme positive effects on crop yields at very low application rates (as an extract or top dress). I also have seared into my brain the fact that living plant roots increase organic matter in the soil five times as fast as depositing organic matter on the soil surface (leaves in the forest, mulch, etc.). See presentations by Dr. Christine Jones about that.
This guy is right, he is dead on about the more diversity of plants and grass you grow around your crop. You have more available sugar for different microbes to break down different enzymes and you will have more defense against pests.
But he is denouncing actual doctors and soil scientists... Dr. Elaine Ingham has a soil food web school where you look at soil samples under a microscope and you keep actually adding compost tea until you get the numbers up to what they should be.
I cultivate IMO in Korean Natural Farming and JMS in JADAM... This video is also denouncing that.
I will also say he's right. For example, when it comes to the apple tree dropping its fruit in the fall, that's when you actually fertilize.. But because we harvest most of the fruit, you're taking away the nutrition for itself.
Dr.
90% of soil microbes will be absent from any compost because compost does not contain living plants
@@xx7101 I'm not sure it's 90% (we've only identified a small fraction of microbes anyway) but true, since I wrote that comment I've heard John Kempf make that point several times, and I believe Dan Kittredge of Bionutrient Food Association has said he doesn't apply compost at all in his vegetable garden, just (oversimplifying) rock dust and targeted foliar feeding (maybe sometimes of compost tea, I don't recall exactly).
@@jaymartin85 His content seems aimed for the layman gardener so he's giving straight forward advice. A farmer would be accessing the necessary professionals to test soil whereas the average youtuber isn't managing a farm, in my experience.
Thank you for the information about soil and micobes sir, its good and make me understand sir god bless you sir
Holy Crap. Who knew?! Now I do. Thank you kind sir!
Very clear explanation .
Sir, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge .
I am from Sri Lanka .
Great presentation and de bunking of "products" to add to soil!!
I'm Portuguese enjoying this video and the comes the futebol field and South Korea 🇰🇷 vs. Portugal 🇵🇹, it is always nice to see the flag of my tiny little lovely country 😊
Read the book over the winter when I was in the crapper so this vid was a good reminder. Of the the book of course.
I love your enthusiasm for making better soil. I am preoccupied with removing the recent invasive weed. bacteria needs will have to wait.
New to gardening here and boy did you open up my understanding greatly. Wow.
I went through so many phases based on TH-cam living soil videos, including compost tea. After a decade of intense gardening (just a very large garden), I've found that laying good compost, always leaving the plant roots in the ground, and not tilling have been most beneficial. Plant root structure is the key, so if you start indoors like I do, make sure you use soil blocks that air-prune, and get them in the ground before the roots spread to other blocks or coil in your container. You don't want coiled or damaged roots. Direct sowing is best but comes with other complications. Most of not all root issues from indoor growing can be mitigated by proper timing and care. Don't overcomplicate it, and don't go spending a fortune on soil potions.
This is a great video. Just wanted to add some nuance from my experience as an environmental engineer. We use microbes all the time to degrade contaminants in soil and water. In fact, we sometimes inject molasses or lactate (in milk) to increase microbial activity! This is often done to spur initial growth of microbial populations. After that it is good to use an "extended release" compound like compost to give a sustained food source for the microbes. Some microbes also metabolize and transform inorganic nutrients, but the main focus for gardening is the organic metabolizers.
You mentioned soil being composed of roughly 25% air...this is sometimes the case. Porosity of soil varies with sandy soils generally 35% pore space and uncompacted clay or silty soils closer to 50%. Compaction reduces this an additional 15% or so. This pore space can accomodate either air or liquids (hopefully just clean water, no oils). So when your soil is saturated it is completely full of water and the air is expelled. This is why its good to have well draining soil that still remains moist--aerobic microbes (those that use oxygen to metabolize food like we do) need oxygen! Microbes close to your garden are generally aerobic. Anaerobic microbes exist more frequently in groundwater where there is very little dissolved oxygen and no gaseous oxygen. They might be more useful for trees with deep roots. You can compost anaerobically, but generally you should prefer aerobic (oxygenated) composting by turning your compost pile and keeping it moist but not saturated.
Thanks for the great video and cheers!
This is like going to college for gardening. Excellent explanation.
Well, my brother, I have been so blessed by your videos, I think this one has blessed my socks clean off! I had a good gut, feeling that all of those high dollar products were not so high dollar. Thanks again and may you continue to be blessed in your work. I will continue to share your wonderful videos.
If you get a chance, read Genesis 1:10- 11. thanks again for your wonderful wisdom. your schooling has blessed me a great deal.
This is excellent! I've heard of these "cures" before but you explained why they aren't long-term solutions. Makes SO much more sense now. Thanks for this!
True information is power
I used ACT in the garden and it works. Especially on transplants.
The genius of common sense and logic. Thank you sir
Glad i found this channel finally! I now have hope!
I would love to see a discussion between this guy and Dr. Elaine Ingham. They are on the same page except she is a huge proponent of brewing compost tea. She has traveled the world and conducted many studies. They are both very intelligent and convincing. Would be interesting to hear them hash it out.
Well...she makes money of selling courses of her niche. The very much in fashion "regenerative agro" kind of thing, wich is full of pseudo scientific post mordern withcraft, like compostea
Yeah I’d love to see her response to this video
She doesn't do the compost tea for the nutrients, but to add diversity of microorganisms into the soil. This works particularly well in soils that have been sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life. Also, it can work great as a topical application to prevent disease.
We agree on some basics and disagree on a lot of things.
1) She has conducted no published studies since grad school, although she claims to have done a lot.
2) I disagree with most of your ideas about microbe ID with microscopes, F:B ratios, solving weed problems by growing the right microbes - as do most scientists.
www.gardenmyths.com/fungal-to-bacterial-ratios/
"sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life" - that is virtually impossible. Even terrible soils are full of thousands of microbe species.
I very much appreciate the information, I have grown small tomato plants in the past. This year I decided to buy both soil amendment NPK fertilizer, bone meal worm casting and two kinds of organic water soluble fertilizer. Now I have tomatoe trees. I suppose you could argue that my soil was bad, but for the small space that I have, I am definitely going with fertilizer until I have the space to do a more comprehensive composting system and until I have a larger garden space.
The best talk on soil maintenance I have ever heard.
So I’ll stick with chop and drop and composting instead of fermenting sounds like a winner to me.
Hello,thank you for the soil and plant information you provide on your youtube channel and blogs.I follow it with interest and recommend it to my friends.We request Turkisch subtitles for your videos.Greetings from Istanbul.
His science is pretty spot on..
That was the best video I’ve watched in a long time. I knew mulching and compost was the only thing we need. Like Mother Nature. Decay creates life. My new favorite TH-camr.
Wow love it. I do basically this on our large food forest. I simply didn’t buy anything because I was too tight. But I thought just putting heaps of mulch is basically solving all my problems.👍👍👍👍
THANK You for sharing your knowledge = fascinating.
Very helpful info. I am planting trees on my acre of land. It is sand and small percentage of clay. Information that I have I need so much stuff that will cost me money that I don't have. I just plant it, have plenty of water and will use the mulch they produce. I can't even afford to buy mulch around here. I think it will be successful.
Sounds like you have the same sort of garden I used to have it my previous property (dig down 5 inches and it was pure yellow sand), always thirsty, and I had to adapt to growing mainly coastal plants.
Fortunately, a lot of coastal plants have good deep tap roots to find their nutrients and provide anchorage, and some of these are only too happy to provide plenty of chop and drop to help build organic matter.
I'm in Scotland, so local plants useful for this are Sea Radish and Sea Kale, both edibles (only too obviously). But there's also Sea Buckthorn (evil thorns, but the most nutritious - if sharpest - berries, with a concentrated orange juice taste. Great Vitamin C source btw. A bit invasive if you let it get out of hand, but can be managed easily if you put regular time into your garden.
This video does a great job explaining how important it is to boost microbe counts for healthier soil! I've been experimenting with a product called BionicSoil, and I've seen some really positive changes. When I paired it with a cover crop, I noticed a big difference in how the roots interacted with the soil-just like what you mentioned about exudates supporting microbial life. The overall health and vibrancy of my soil and plants have noticeably improved. If you're looking into ways to enhance your soil's microbial activity, it's definitely something worth considering.
Great video. Regarding the compost tea, I agree that it is pretty low in nutrients by the time most people use it as feed. Still though, I would think that's better than just throwing away your weeds assuming you don't want to leave them on the ground
I THOUGHT that I knew a lot about gargening. I would brag, "I have a green thumb."
I also have an open mind. I was mistaken....
I now live in Thailand. I have 0.75 acres of clay soil.... I also have a bottomless supply of compostable matterial.... rice straw, buffalo manure, leaves, grasses, and household scraps.
I am going to become a COMPOSTER !
Then I'm going to distubute my well composed material/soil evenly around my fruit trees and gardens with plenty of moisture retaining mulch. Healthy soil makes for healthy plants.....
I think my green thumb is about to get a lot greener. Plus.... Turning mulch is great exercise and will keep me young.
Thank you.
I tapped the thumbs up button to feed the algorithm monsters.
I use 4ft wide on contour mounds for air flow,card board a straw,bio char.
Amazing. Thank you for your knowledge.
Will zeolite and activated charcoal increase aeration and water retention to aid the microbes?
good video there goes half of what i was wasting money on thank you
I have been adding compost and chicken manure every season for more than a decade. The soil is getting better and better. My plants thrive without any pesticide and fertilizers.
I love the video! Thank you!!
I would argue that “tea” is good for plants if you don’t have enough compost to go to a large area. Compost would be better but the tea is something that most people can use to help their plants in between times where they don’t have compost.
You can also grow mushrooms. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the microbes. So you can get two harvest and improve your soil at the same time.
Good material, love the science approach since I am a biology/cemistry major. Would love to hear how this applies to container gardening.
Thank you, its nice to hear you telling it the way it is. Strange how whenever Money is involved, that lies tend to follow !
The old way of farming from the 1960s, gave microbs a chance to work. The soil was fed manure, late autumn or early spring, which gave the microbs and the soil time to adjust before sowing.
We only grew one crop per year, as opposed to, the two or three crops per year that they force today.
Thanks again, it looks like we are going back to healthier growing.
I don’t know why I believe this guy over most everybody else? I just do.
God bless you sir
When I tell you that I’ve listened to every theory under the Sun.. I mean it! Lordy. I’m just trying to get a handle on the Theory of “Dirt Science” And all I’ve really learned is that most “experts” seem to be regurgitating what the other channels are perpetuating.. most of it send ludicrous. Your down to earth approach really makes sense. Like Nature does it! Thank You
Many thanks young guy.
Your video is so generous and helpful. It gives us the fundamentals of gardening in the simplest way.
We need this kind of video to change the agriculture in the world, and in poorest countries, like Subsaharian Africa
A fan in West Africa, a country called Senegal
I mulch my garden with grass clippings the entire season. In the fall I take all my leaves and cover the garden with them. It seems to work good for me.
Can you go more into detail on potted plants? That's all I can do in my apartment and my balcony.
Thank you and I just purchased your book
Absolutely love your science based, no-bs approach. Would be very interested to hear your thoughts on friendly microbes as a means to control problems (e.g bacillus subtilis/trichoderma as "fungicide"). Thank you for your top quality videos - they are gems!
I just simply love the simplicity of your findings. Add orgnic matter, mulch and plant things.
God has created an incredibly complex system which can be effectively utilised by the simplest of people.
Just love it!
Thank you for blessing us with the bernefits of your studies and experience.
I have learned so much since stumbling upon your channel. I have bought a couple of books and as a result, I am rethinking my gardens. I started a few of thing years ago and put black plastic down. I know I know. Well, this summer I have gone through and ripped out most. It had a good 4-6 inches of mulch/compost on top. Here is my question: The soil under the plastic is hard and very compacted. Will it fix itself over time? Or do I do what you say not to and break it up between the plants?
Thanks again for a common sense understanding of all this, good stuff! Maybe it should be called uncommon sense, because it seems to lacking all around us!
Thank you
thanks for bringing us the truth