Managing microbes in your soil.

Conventional gardening is an input driven system. The accepted wisdom is to apply an unbalanced fertiliser to an unbalanced soil to help sustain a state of imbalance, which will then require constant chemical intervention. This serves no one except the chemical companies.

Success in gardening is more knowledge driven than input driven. Once we accept that there is a direct relationship between nutrition and pest and disease pressure, then we can look to the causes rather than just treating symptoms.

Pride, satisfaction, purpose and passion is what makes gardening a pleasure. Gardening with nature is exciting, and rewarding.  It is simply fascinating!

The most basic requirement for a healthy garden is to have healthy soil.  Healthy HUMUS! If organic carbon (humus) is declining then your garden and its plants will struggle as well.

So what is organic matter, this humus? Soil tests measure organic matter, and a rough organic carbon equivalent is derived by dividing the organic matter figure by 1.7.  In actual fact, the organic matter, as measured on most soil tests, is actually a combination of three different materials – raw organic matter, effective humus and stable humus.

Raw organic matter consists of plant or crop residues, manures and a variety of decomposing  organisms. It has a valuable function and it provides food for microorganisms  but it can create nitrogen lock-ups, as the nitrogen is tied up as protein in the bodies of the microbes doing the work.

Effective humus is the next stage in the decomposition process. This material contains a large percentage of fulvic acid. It is a dark brown, colloidal material which increases cation exchange capacity and reduces the loss of leachable anions. Effective humus provides nutrients to microbes  as it decomposes and it is a storehouse of beneficial microbial metabolites including hormones, vitamins and antibiotic substances. At this point though, it is not a stable habitat for microorganisms.

Stable humus is the completed product. It consists mostly of long-chained humic acids or humans bonded to clay particles. It is now a homogenous material which is resistant to chemical action. The dark brown colour improves heat retention by the seed and it acts like a carbon filter, protecting plants and microbes (and eventually humans) from toxic substances. Stable humus provides long-term nutrient storage and it is the principal of microbial habitat. 

Link : Life Force Home Range 

Sunday in my Garden

The winter weight gain has been creeping onto areas of my body that are already evident enough, so I decided that as today was such a glorious winter day I would work in the garden and enjoy the sunshine and hopefully the exercise! The day is so glorious that it feels like spring and from the way some of the trees are sprouting they must feel that it is spring too!

No better way to get exercise than carrying watering cans around the garden! I made a mix of 1 tablespoon of Instant Humus and 7 litres of water. Carrying a7 litres of water is a great weight exercise, and cheaper than a gym membership! If we are going to have an early spring then no better time to increase the moisture and nutrient retention in our soil!

I can never describe the wonderful feelings and emotions that I feel when I use organic products to nurture my garden. For one, I know that I am using a mineral rich humic acid derived from ancient plant matter! I gifted myself an extra thrill by mixing it all in with a stick pruned from one of our trees. For those who know me, they will be aware that I love a good stick, and this is a great stick to use to stir things!

By the time I had watered the shady south eastern part of the garden, I had developed quite a “dewy” appearance as they describe honest sweat in those old romance books! As usual I finished with a lovely cup a tea, and a sense of having accomplished something that really mattered, unlike a lot of other things I did today!

Good Soil Bugs – Make them feel at home, and make it good enough to eat!

Often referred to as the soil food web, a healthy, living soil will be teeming with microbes, both beneficial and pathogenic (infective; able to cause disease). Including species of bacteria, fungi, algae, nematodes, protozoa, arthropods and earthworms, soil microbes are all vital in maintaining a healthy soil structure.

Often we’ll hear of a garden that is receiving the best of everything but still not thriving, something is just not right. The problem could be lack of beneficial soil microbes. How can this happen?

There are a number of reasons for a lack of microbes including indiscriminate use of fungicides, biocides, herbicides, nematicides or fumigated landscape soils and high salt fertilisers.

Microbe brewing is one way to overcome these problems and is easier than beer brewing. In just 24 hours, in ideal conditions you can brew billions of microbes that will help bring your soils to life!

As with all garden inputs, wear gloves and a breathing mask to ensure you don’t breathe the microbes into your lungs.

Once you have brewed and applied your microbes help create a comfy microbe home with regular composting, add minerals like Soft Rock phosphate and feeding the soils with kelp, fish, aloe, molasses, humic acid and fulvic acid. 

Sulphur (S) – Soil Health and Your Health

Soil: Sulphur is essential for our detoxification systems and in a world with 74,000 registered chemicals we need all the sulphur we can get! Sulphur is stored in humus, so in soils with low organic matter we need to add sulphur each season.

Cow manure contains good levels of sulphur, but luxury levels of sulphur can be obtained from other natural products. If you have a heavy clay soil then gypsum should be used. It is the sulphur component of this material that bonds with the soil tightening minerals to create leachable compounds. You will also be delivering good levels of sulphur to your garden.

In Plants and Pets: Sulphur imparts flavour to fruit and vegetables and it is the main component of strong smelling onions and garlic. It is sulphur that makes members of the allium family so protective for our health.

Two essential amino acids are sulphur dependant and this mineral offers a big boost to all root crops (particularly potatoes).

Your pets will also benefit from sulphur. One of the most effective treatments for ticks and fleas involves a raw egg and a tablespoon of coconut oil fed to the dog each day (eggs are an excellent source of sulphur). Alternatively, you can feed dogs elemental sulphur every two or three days at rates of half a teaspoon for small dogs and a whole teaspoon for a large dog. You don’t need to poison your dog with toxic chemicals to prevent parasites!

Link: Nutri-Store Gold

Retaining moisture in your garden

Moisture retention is becoming more important as the cost of water increases and the availability decreases.  Climate change is likely to exacerbate these issues. Building humus in the soil becomes the most rewarding strategy to reduce moisture loss.

Humus improves soil structure and seriously increases your moisture holding capacity, If you can increase the humus levels by just 1% then every square metre of the soil can now retain 17 litres more water.

Composting is an excellent way to build humus, but you might also consider green manure crops whenever there is a chance. When green manure is dug back into the soil, the organisms convert the organic matter into humus. My strategy is to use Instant Humus, to encourage humus production.Yes, it is a product we sell, but it works so well! 

The most successful commercial composting system in the world is called CMC composting and it has some important lessons for the home gardener as well. It has been found that the addition of  10% clay has proven to produce a form of stable humus that can continue offering benefits for up to 35 years!

If you can’t access a friable clay, then you might add some soil or Soft Rock Phosphate.

Feed the Soil and Feed the Plant, or Soil good enough to eat!

After you have addressed mineral balance with lime or dolomite and a complete fertiliser, then it is time to fee the soil life and feed the plant. Mineral update is determined by mineral imbalance and soil microbes.

The best way to build soil microbes is with a champagne food source and/or compost. You may be quite content with the response from balancing and feeding the soil but if you are keen to achieve exceptional, problem-free growth, then you might also consider foliar feeding the plant.

Foliar feeding is a direct route into the plant, which bypasses any problems in the soil. Stomata are tiny little mouths on the underside of plant leaves, which are actually designed to capture carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and for moisture transpiration. Stomata are, in effect, the gateway between the outside and the inside of the plant and when nutrients are supplied to the leaf and enter via the stomata it is actually 12 times more efficient than applying those nutrients to the soil.  Apart from this increased efficiency , there are other reasons to foliar feed. Soil-based lockups where too much of one mineral antagonises the uptake of another are common and foliar feeding bypasses these lockups and delivers directly to the plant.

Some plants will respond better to a soil application of liquid minerals while others prefer foliar applications.

How nutrients are stored in the soil

Soils consist of clay, humus, silt and sand. It is the clay and humus that store the soil’s minerals. They do this by forming tiny particles called colloids that are electrically charged.

Clay and humus are negatively charged, but humus also has some positive charges. Minerals are therefore either negatively or positively charged. Minerals that are positively charged are named cations. The negatively charged minerals are known as anions (no, not onions, anions!).

Cations are attracted to the negatively charged clay colloid and they can also stick to the humus colloid. However, anions can only be stored on the positively charged humus colloid.

This means that if there is no humus in the soil, then anions like nitrogen, sulphur and boron will not be easily stored and will in fact leach readily. Sandy soils contain very little clay or humus so that there is very little storage capacity. That is why sandy soil needs such regular fertilising.

The mineral storage capacity of a soil is vitally important to the nourishment of your garden plants. Such soils require a complete fertiliser and soil conditioner where multiple ingredients have been composted in a high carbon base. 

My vegetable garden: my ultimate wellness tool

My vegetable garden is my ultimate wellness tool.

Access to nutrient dense, chemical free food which can be consumed within minutes of harvest is not only incredibly beneficial to our health, but also nurtures our spirit and mental well being. We can spend a lifetime building financial security and making plans for the good life, but if we don’t enjoy good physical and mental health it is all for nothing.

Additionally, nothing can compare with the forgotten flavours and extended shelf life linked to the “champagne food” that we can produce in our very own backyards.

Honestly, one of the greatest joys I have in my life is working in my garden. I can leave the stress of the world on the other side of the fence while I work with the good earth.

Sorry if I sound like an evangelist, but I am a true believer in home food production for a number of reasons, and not just for the health benefits.

• Food security is very topical these days and a home garden, no matter what size, is one form of self reliance. Additionally, we have all experienced rising food prices recently, especially since the floods earlier this year, and the home vegetable plot is one way to combat the increasing pressures on the food budget.

• The family that gardens together grows together! Introduce your children to gardening and you will have gifted them a lifetime of pleasure and well being, not to mention a healthy lifestyle that includes good food, exercise and sunshine! Our own children have very fond memories of working in the garden with their grandparents and that is something precious that no one can ever take from them.

• Building the levels of organic material (humus!) in your own backyard can be an important personal contribution to combat global warming. A 1% increase represents 20 tonnes per hectare of carbon dioxide that is now stored in the soil, rather than in the atmosphere!

• Every 1% of organic matter we build in our soil equates to an increased water holding capacity of 17 litres per square metre. Better humus is the secret to drought proofing our gardens and reducing our water consumption. Now is the time to prepare for the next drought!