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Feed Soil, Not Plants with Eddie Mordue
172 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, we sit down with Eddie Mordue a farmer, market gardener, and founder of Traditional Garden Growers to explore the foundations of truly healthy gardens: the soil.
We dive into the reality of modern gardening, from synthetic fertilisers and depleted soils to what’s really going on beneath our feet. Eddie shares his perspective from years of growing, and why working with natural systems is the key to long-term success.
We also talk about forgotten, traditional inputs including wool! and how materials that have been used for generations are finding their place again in modern gardens through innovations like Wooltiliser!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Step into the gardener's lodge with me, Michael Haw. Let's explore the fascinating worlds of gardening, nature and ecology through conversations with experts, thought leaders, passionate enthusiasts, and of course, some real good friends.
00:00:23
Speaker
All from the cozy heart of the lodge. Come on in.
Listener Questions: Seed Germination
00:00:28
Speaker
I actually thought I'd try something new this week before we dive into our interview. I receive questions quite a lot via my website or via Instagram um asking for garden related tips. And I think they're actually, a lot of them are beneficial to everyone and they certainly get me thinking. And so I thought I would share some with my listeners.
00:00:51
Speaker
So each week I will be answering a question or, um, a bit of listener feedback that is, presented to me. So this week's question is from Favid and he says, I'm really struggling with seed germination and plug plant growth this year with peat-free multipurpose compost.
00:01:11
Speaker
It seems very coarse and dries out on top, uh, but remains moist underneath. It appears that I'm not alone with this problem. And then he goes on to say, I've now ordered some specific seed raising mix compost. Is this the answer question mark? So Favid, yes, you are right. Essentially you do need a special seed mate, seed raising mix or seed raising compost. And the reason for that is, is that it's usually far more uniform in texture. It's a lot finer material and it ah enables quite nice contact with the seeds. Now you should still be getting some germination from a regular multipurpose compost or potting mix.
00:01:57
Speaker
but you'll have much greater when you have a more uniform and more layer a small and fine potting mix. A tip that I would recommend though, if you don't want to go out and waste money on a whole new composting mix is to get yourself a sieve, a garden sieve and sieve out some of those larger chunks and sieve it down until it is a nice fine mix, much like your special seed raising compost.
00:02:23
Speaker
That's basically the same thing. Most seed raising composts also though, do have enough nutrients in them to support the seedling growth past the first two cotyledons. That's the first two proper leaves that grow after the main shoot comes up. So that would be my answer. I would just sieve I would add in some homemade compost. If you're making your own compost that will certainly retain that moisture because when we're thinking about bagged products in general, bagged products are ah sterilized. They have been ah heat treated and there's not a lot of life going in there. So if you can add a little bit more life back into the soil and into your mix, you will have far better results.
00:03:05
Speaker
The other thing to think about is you're saying that it's drying out very quickly. You should have your seeds in a smaller enclosed environment so that it retains moisture while they're still germinating.
00:03:16
Speaker
Anyway, I guess that's my very first, are we going to call this? Ask Michael. I don't know. But if you want to ask me a question, head to the gardeners lodge.co.uk slash podcast. And there's a little form there and you can fill that in and you can ask me a question and I will endeavor to answer it on the next episode.
Introduction to Eddie Mordew and Wultelizer
00:03:33
Speaker
On with today's episode, I am speaking with a market gardener, a farmer, a innovator. His name is Eddie Mordew and he is the creator of Wultelizer.
00:03:46
Speaker
What is Walter Liza? Well, you'll have to listen to the episode to find out. And he's trying very hard to change the way not only home gardeners, but farmers of all scales think about their soil.
00:04:02
Speaker
I had ah such a good chat with him. We covered topics like soil health, feeding soil, not plants, the current state of market gardening and large scale farming and how that can be improved. Before we go any further, let's hear Eddie's six rapid fire questions.
00:04:21
Speaker
Are you ready? So is this one word answers? One word answers. Perfect. Okay. Favorite plant? Pear tree. Favorite way to connect with nature? Walking. What's the most beautiful garden or natural landscape that you've ever visited?
00:04:36
Speaker
Farm ed. Favorite garden tool or farm tool? Power harrow. If you could be one, would you be a plant or an animal? Animal. My dog.
00:04:46
Speaker
When you're stuck and looking for solid, reliable research on anything garden or plant related, where do you find the most trusted advice? RHS. My background, I grew up in very rural Oxfordshire, started working on farms, lambing when I was ah a kid.
Eddie's Journey and Soil Health Focus
00:05:06
Speaker
at about 14. Then got a bit of a taste for it, so decided to go to Harbour Adams University, where I studied agriculture there. Always had quite a passion for for soil health and soil science.
00:05:18
Speaker
And then that led me on to, after uni, i went contract farming. So driving tractors, all sorts, spraying and and that. And yeah, so then that led me on to the market gardening,
00:05:31
Speaker
I remember it was sort of like a, I wouldn't say an epiphany moment, but sort of a moment of where I did i no longer wanted to be involved in in large-scale agriculture. it was when I was in a spray shed where you keep it keep all the chemicals on the farm.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I remember going into the spray shed and you you look at the chemicals and they've all got warnings like, harmful to human health, harmful to the environment. People have to wear hazmat suits to put them on. i remember doing my spray spray tickets.
00:06:01
Speaker
It was all about the the health and safety around chemicals. ah But in the meantime, I was listening to a regenerative agriculture podcast in the tractor. so And I remember just looking at it thinking, wow, I i don't really want to be part of that anymore. yeah And then from there, I found an amazing farm. Do you know farm et Yes. Yeah, so farm ed, I went and that's where I learned horticulture. So luckily there was a lot of transition, there was a lot of overlap, sorry, between agriculture and horticulture. Definitely. But still, it's very, very, I guess, nuanced with lots and loads of different types of crop and different plant families and species that you have to contend with when you're in a market garden as opposed to when you're on a
00:06:46
Speaker
on a farm. So I did all my learning there and then bought the bought the knowledge from university and from farming and from market gardening back to the home farm which is my grandfather's where we've got 28 acres so it's only a small farm there's an ex-horse livery yard and we had we've still got the sheep um as much of a nuisance as they are but we love them really and uh and yeah took all that knowledge and brought it back and started to grow veg on our two acre market garden And so what was that knowledge that you kind of, i guess you you were listening to this regenerative farming podcast and you're sitting in your tractor, presumably spraying or something like that. yeah Yeah. And what was that little nugget of information that made you go, hang on, what, what am I doing here? And and what could you see almost like looking out of the cab in front of you that you thought could be better?
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, ah I guess looking out in front of the cab was just a monoculture, ah yeah a biological desert of you kill everything to keep that one thing alive. We were, well, we still do deplete the soils we with chemical fertilizers. So imagine a chemical fertilizer is is skipping the whole plant soil symbiosis.
00:08:08
Speaker
So it's it's plant available nutrients straight away, straight to the plant. for the plant to uptake. There's no exchange with the soil, the the the microbes, the bacteria, the fungi, when when you put a chemical fertilizer on. Imagine, I like to think of it as you're creating lazy plants.
00:08:27
Speaker
So the plants, they photosynthesize, produce their produces carbohydrates, then a lot of that goes back into the soil. There's this thing called exudates. So exudates are what feeds the soil microbes feed on, and in return,
00:08:42
Speaker
the microbes will then mine the soil almost and give nutrients back to that plant. So there's always that symbiotic relationship between the two, plant and soil. And when we talk about soil, talking about not just dirt, we're talking about the life within the soil. yeah And when you when you use a chemical fertilizer, you skip that process.
00:09:03
Speaker
Therefore, the plant will shut off its exudates and therefore the soil starves almost. It's interesting. i actually refer to kind of synthetic fertilizers as like junk food for plants. Exactly that. Yeah.
00:09:17
Speaker
And I think it's actually quite funny that you've gone and said that it's making lazy plants because it's sort of like how junk food makes us lazy. You know, we go out and get fast food or whatever and, and it's easy and it's simple and we sit on the couch and eat it Whereas yeah, it's it's a similar thing, isn't it?
00:09:32
Speaker
Exactly that. It's like couch potato. pardon Yeah. Exactly that. And, and, exactly that and and I guess that was what when I was listening to the regenerative agricultural podcasts and the best book I've ever read, Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.
Building Resilient Food Systems
00:09:47
Speaker
That's really what started my understanding of how we can care for our soil and what the actual impact of these chemicals are on on our soil. and As much as I'm slagging off chemicals, or from what for a better word, I still do understand, because I've got ties to the big, large-scale agricultural community, I still understand that there are there are times where it is necessary necessary necessary to spray or put a bit of nitrogen on or or something like that.
00:10:17
Speaker
Especially when a farm is transitioning from a conventional system to a regenerative organic system, that that transition period, it's almost like weaning off the the chemicals and the over-reliance. I like to think of it as antibiotics.
00:10:34
Speaker
We've just become too dependent on them. Yeah. So if you were to hold a healthy handful of soil, what would you see? Well, what you'd see is everyone says that healthy soil should look like chocolate cake. Yeah. You don' you don't want you don't want to try it.
00:10:51
Speaker
But what what's making it up is is, I don't know if you heard the quote, in a teaspoon of soil, there are are more living organisms in that teaspoon than there are people on the planet. So yeah in a healthy soil. So you'll be seeing, well, you won't see them because they're tiny, microbes, and fungi, so mycelium and mycorrhizal fungi.
00:11:13
Speaker
As well as your your larger organisms, like your worms, your beetles. At the moment on my farm, there's a lot of wireworm, which is not the worm you want to see, but we we see that in our soil.
00:11:25
Speaker
But yeah, you'll you'll you'll just see. And I think that there's a part of us, like human nature, you you even if you have no experience with soil whatsoever, there is a a feeling that you would get touching it and touching bad soil or poor soil.
00:11:41
Speaker
you'll definitely be able to tell the difference, even if you haven't even been on a farm before. If a gardener wanted one sign that their soil is healthy, what would they look for?
00:11:52
Speaker
Oh, that's a good one. One sign, a good indicator. A good indicator. Worms. would say worms. there there it's It's also the type of worm, and I'm no no worm expert by any means. Okay. But there are, I can't believe it's 20 or so. i Don't quote me on that.
00:12:10
Speaker
types of worms in in the in the UK. There are some which burrow up to a metre below the surface. There are some which have very, very short life cycle. But this number of worms, I would say, is it's a great indicator of your soil's healthy or doing the right thing.
00:12:28
Speaker
Do you have a sunny space in your garden that you just don't know what to do with? Well, I have a treat for you. A free perennial garden design that you can download right now.
00:12:40
Speaker
It's full of colour and year-round interest, and the best part is that it's pollinator and wildlife attracting. It's been designed with the yeah UK climate in mind, but I know I've got listeners across the globe. So if you're in the southern states of Australia or the northern part of the US, this is the design for you.
00:13:00
Speaker
You can download your free perennial garden design as well as my free Australian native garden design at the link in the description. And I think maybe we should loop back as well. And I suppose make the point that you were kind of getting to before that farming, you can understand why farmers are still kind of farming in a, I wouldn't say bad way, but in like a, in a somewhat destructive way because of the societal pressures of capitalism, you know, they need to produce a product that is uniform, that sits in a very tight constraints that
00:13:37
Speaker
so that they can sell it and make the most money. Because if they don't, then their product is going to be a lower grade. They're not going to make as much money. They're not going to be able to have enough money to kind of grow their farm and, or even sustain their farm, which I think is a big problem anyway. But um I just want to make that very clear, not anti-farming in that way. It's just the system that we're kind of and and trapped in.
00:13:58
Speaker
that And that is exactly the point that I'm trying to prove by doing what I'm doing. So for example, I don't want to tell people, anyone can tell someone how to do it.
00:14:10
Speaker
I want to use my farm, my fertilizers that I produce, I want to use them to show people that we can farm and Farm in them in a more environmentally friendly way. We don't have to rely on synthetic imports. and you're You're talking about capitalism here. You see the amount of synthetic chemicals made in a lab that we import.
00:14:33
Speaker
Whereas the reason I've chosen wool, obviously because there is a big surplus of of low quality. um There are thousands of tons of low quality and poor quality wool that is simply...
00:14:47
Speaker
not used there's some of it still staffs on farms not even sold and but years ago before big scale agriculture they used to use it in the farmhouse veg patch so you speak to the old older generation literally even our grandparents generation would be able to remember a time where you were using wool in your soil to increase the water holding capacity to feed the microbes and for for long-acting background nutrition So these materials are still within the country.
00:15:18
Speaker
They fall out of fashion, but maybe it's time to bring them back into fashion because they are sustainable and natural and ways at ways to care for your soil. You're talking about uniformity and and the system and having to provide for that system.
00:15:34
Speaker
And what we really should be talking about is is resilience, like having a resilient soil, but also a resilient food system. So i was at the NFU conference this last February and the title of the conference was Building Farm Resilience.
00:15:50
Speaker
Okay. And in my mind, I might be wrong, but in my mind, resilient food system is not one of big farms, monocultures um and heavily reliant on imported synthetic inputs in order to grow those crops. For me, resilience is is being adaptive and and small- enough to adapt to the changing climate or adapt your farming system to yeah to to the climate. To withstand pressures, I suppose. And I think, you know, one big one that is staring us in the face at the moment is obviously this war in Iran that has sent fertilizer prices skyrocketing. And so if we had a more circular system, something that was more localized yeah we would wouldn wouldn't be suffering those effects so much.
00:16:45
Speaker
exactly that
Local Food Production and Market Gardens
00:16:47
Speaker
Exactly that. And that's the but the point that I'm trying to share with the farm is we we supply the Oxford University with vegetables through the Oxfarm to Fork scheme, which is bringing local producers together, selling into almost almost a cooperative, but not quite, feeding local people. We also run a veg box scheme. For our local people and also supply local pubs and restaurants. And fantastic. That's but that's resilient to me. That's a circular resilient economy where me as the producer, I'm getting the full use of that pound. There's no supply chain that it's being swallowed up in.
00:17:24
Speaker
what i what i produce i get most most of the return on it because we're selling direct to customer yeah um and i understand that a lot of farms can't can't do that and you know it's it's a difficult one there but um for example if we had a market garden in every parish across the country think of the food resilience we could have there we won't be relying on these imports we won't be as much like of course we will And of course, there's time there's a place with big scale lack. But if you had a mosaic of market gardens across the country,
00:18:05
Speaker
think of the resilience that we could get for for from there completely and I guess it comes at multiple prongs really doesn't it it kind of has to be consumer change uh which I think you know obviously chefs and restaurants and things like that are more akin to having fresh locally grown food because they know the benefits of it but I think it's about even changing the mindsets of uh the people that live in the villages that you know it's not Tesco that's giving you the good nutrients it's No offense, Tesco, but it's um it is like local produce that's grown within the community that creates a little local economy and feeds people in a very healthy, nutrient-dense way. Exactly that. you You've summed it up in what I was trying to say. You've summed it up in one very good paragraph. And that it's exactly that.
00:18:58
Speaker
is that The nutrient density of food as well is is a massive, massive thing. Sorry, but're we're trying to understand through this project called the Griffin Project, Growing Real Food for Nutrition. It stands for.
00:19:09
Speaker
We're trying to link soil health to plant health to therefore human health. And if we can, it's going to be a 10 year project, but if we can do that, it's giving us real solid data to to, again, not tell people, but show people, actually, this is a much more sustainable way to to farm.
00:19:28
Speaker
It's creating healthier plants, therefore a healthy environment. And it's also of creating healthier humans. And what was bad to say about that? Well, exactly. Let's go back to your family farm, your grandfather's farm. It was a sheep farm. Is that right? Well, it it was a horse livery yard. okay and And then we we got sheep. But technically, I'm the first generation to actually farm it.
00:19:52
Speaker
Oh, okay. Interesting. So I guess maybe then my question won't apply as much, but was there, did you face some struggle between you and the older generation on farming practices or was everyone just gung-ho and and ready to get in and kind of create this farming utopia? it's, yeah, I guess so in in a way more of,
00:20:19
Speaker
you know, that it wasn't challenges. It was just more, a bit more Mickey taking. So sort of, okay a lot of my friends are big, big farms and, you know, big kits and, and, you know, proper old school farming. Yeah. And they always say, it well, how's your gardening going, Eddie? How's, how's this going? And it's sort of just like, like they were never naysayers. I would, I would say that some people were sort of couldn't understand it and think how on earth can you make,
00:20:48
Speaker
a living from growing vegetables on two acres. yeah So yeah, I think there was a bit of resistance there, but not really. I think most people were, when when when they got to understand it, and if they're farming if they were farmers coming from a farming family, that they would and they were came from my village, they would have been farming on much fewer acres than they are now, and then still making a profit.
00:21:14
Speaker
So you know it's it I like to think of it going back to almost how it was in, in the pre pre-war era. Yeah. You know, dig, dig for Britain in the nineteen forty s We were probably the most, don't quote me on this, we were probably the most self-sufficient we've ever been.
00:21:33
Speaker
We dug up every bit of, uh, every bit of ground in the UK to grow vegetables, to feed the war effort. Um, but then obviously post-war it became a game of efficiency. rip the hedgerows out, we need 100 acre fields because we've got mouths to feed and we've got to get back on our on our feet. So you can understand why it happened. We needed it needed efficiency.
00:21:58
Speaker
But that efficiency came at the cost to the environment and our biodiversity. But if we can get that back by having smaller market gardens In every parish or on every farm, almost. I'm a strong believer that every farm would at least have two acres of marginal land that they didn't really use or wasn't particularly productive for them. and If they could give that up to a market garden, you not only create rural jobs.
00:22:28
Speaker
You create more food within the economy and more food within the locality and then more money within the local economy as well. And it kind of balances out. You've got the big scale and the small scale hand in hand, both helping to increase the farm resilience and food security within England and the
Minimal Tillage and Soil Structure
00:22:51
Speaker
UK. Yeah.
00:22:52
Speaker
So what about the practicalities now? So let's talk about, so you've got this farm, which has been not really farmed particularly much, a few sheep, but what then did you do? So what did you initially do starting from the soil?
00:23:08
Speaker
So starting starting first, I had the the farm was pure pasture, which had obviously been grazed for with sheep and horses. So it was actually fairly healthy soil and still is quite a healthy soil.
00:23:20
Speaker
um And then basically to establish the market garden, yeah there's another market gardener in the village. He came and ploughed the field for me and made up our beds. So we run on, imagine an eight by 30 meter beds in a grid system.
00:23:38
Speaker
and interplanted with that are trees, so fruit trees, and then power harrowed it. What a power harrow is, is basically a machine that you drag behind the tractor and it spins really fast and it breaks up the soil, which and then it has a roller on the back which packs the soil down, so it creates almost like a billiard table.
00:24:00
Speaker
and no It was a really nice flat flat surface um to to then establish our our veg crop on. and But so obviously in order to in order to establish the market garden, and and you have to take a step back to and actually turn the soil, literally break new ground and yeah turn turn the soil and abuse it little bit, but for the great for the greater good.
00:24:26
Speaker
better good so then now are you more or less no dig we're i'd say we're min till so like minimum tillage so we we don't want to be disturbing the soil much at all yeah um obviously because we're building that structure and we want to keep that structure in the soil i have had a bit of a problem with the wireworm i mentioned earlier which um i'm having to cultivate that a bit to get rid of that okay but then i'm thinking you you've got to you've got to go hard now while you see the problem to give you time to recover and start building that soil health back. So we're we're sort of Min-Till. 2026 is upon us and I have limited spaces open for my garden coaching and consultation sessions.
00:25:09
Speaker
Whether you're looking for help with plant identification, advice on care and maintenance, or tips for improving your soil and plant nutrition, I'm here to help. As a garden designer, I'll help you think creatively about your outdoor space, offering tools and ideas to give you a fresh perspective on your garden projects.
00:25:30
Speaker
My coaching and consultation sessions can happen right in your garden if you live in the yeah UK or online if you're anywhere else in the world. My goal is to meet you where you are and support your unique garden journey.
00:25:45
Speaker
Whether you're just starting out, looking to refine your skills or simply need a second opinion or someone just to bounce ideas off, you have found your space.
00:25:56
Speaker
Head to the link in this episode description or shoot me an email at hello at thegardenerslodge.co.uk.
00:26:05
Speaker
Done your initial till and turned the soil over, which I guess for people who aren't so kind of into this space, basically that is what farmers on a big ag would do every crop rotation. They would just come through, rip it over, and that is supposed to create fertile soils. Yeah.
00:26:26
Speaker
It just doesn't. um So you've done that though. You've done that once. And then you now, what have you put in a lot of organic inputs? So like manures, composts, any biochar or anything like that?
00:26:41
Speaker
So i've I've used a lot of sheep's wool, obviously from from my pellets and the fertilizer I create. But I'm trying to get fertility in with green manures. I don't know if you know much about green manures.
00:26:54
Speaker
Tell us. So Green Mignonneux is basically... I'm trying to companion plant my cash crops in my, let let's take squash for an example. It's probably the best one.
00:27:08
Speaker
So with my squash, I'll plant my plants out, let them settle in for a couple of weeks. And then I'm trying to make new this year and I'm going to be establishing this thing called buckwheat. I don't know if you know buckwheat. Anyway, it's this, um it grows alongside the squash without competing with it too much.
00:27:29
Speaker
and But what that does is it keeps the whole soil shaded. Obviously, last last summer, I need to keep some shading on that soil. Yeah. um It also... living mulch. A living mulch. Exactly that. A living mulch. So imagine seeing a few of squash, but within, in between the squash and in the rows, about...
00:27:49
Speaker
so if it goes well about 30 centimeters high there'll be this lovely green living mulch underneath them to then to then obviously protect the soil from the heat ah but also protect our squash plants by keep shading that soil keeping the moisture in there but without competing with it too much um and so that's one example of how I'm going to be doing Do you then do a like chop and drop system where you'll cut that down and then let that kind of lay into the soil before it sets seed and break down and refeed the soil? Or are you going to use that as a crop as well? No, exactly that. So that's a chop and drop, um getting that fertility back into the soil.
00:28:34
Speaker
so that's So the buckwheat and the phacelia, I'll be using a buckwheat sort of phacelia mix on a lot of the beds while we we're in the growing season. But when it comes towards the the end of the growing season, around mid-September to late September, I'm trying something new again, where I'm going to be putting in oats, mustard, phacelia and buckwheat um to put my beds to sleep. Imagine imagine you're giving them a nice long rest for the winter.
00:29:05
Speaker
okay so I'm going to let that establish over the over the late autumn season. Once that's established, I'm just going to leave it until early spring where I'll come in with my topper.
00:29:18
Speaker
So I've got a flail topper, which will literally mulch it all down to the soil. And then that, again, will bear it act as a mulch that will then protect the soil and leave it to rot down.
00:29:30
Speaker
Then with my power harrow, like I explained earlier, we'll come in and just mix that into the soil along with some waltilizer. to then prep the soil for for that planting season.
Innovating with Wultelizer for Soil Enhancement
00:29:43
Speaker
Waltilizer, you've just dropped a name. yeah um I suppose this is where we tell people that you have ah created a product yeah um through your business. Is it just you that run the runs this business? ah the the other The better half runs it as well. Okay. Yeah, she's ah she's um on board with it too. Nice. And that's traditional garden growers. That's traditional garden growers.
00:30:11
Speaker
You've created few products, but probably I'd say your your premier product would be your Wultilizer. So that is pellets that are full of wool and other organic matter that home gardeners can use to ah feed their soil and replace kind of synthetic fertilizers.
00:30:30
Speaker
That's exactly it. Perfect. Some got very well, yeah. So that's our product that we've been working with the University of Reading to develop. We've we've used wool on the farm for for a long, long time. Anecdotally, we knew that it was brilliant for the soil. And then we were very fortunate to get a grant from UKRI, through UKRI from DEFRA.
00:30:56
Speaker
And the grant was aimed at Any farmer with an in innovative idea, come forward and let's see if it see if it goes. And we were very lucky that two years ago they said, yeah, this sounds good. And then we've been working with Reading to develop the wool pellet into Wultilizer, which is by adding digestate into there as well and getting the balance right.
00:31:20
Speaker
What's digestate? So digestate is the waste from anaerobic digestion. So that's renewable gas. So anaerobic digestion is where farmers will cut their crops when they're green.
00:31:35
Speaker
They'll put them into a digester. Imagine a big dome that's full of enzymes. those enzymes then break down that plant matter and release gas. And that's the renewable gas that goes into into the grid.
00:31:52
Speaker
But what's left from that is rotted down plant material, already degraded plant material, um which is absolute rocket fuel if you want to put it on your garden. and So a ah small small portion of that goes into waterlyzer to give it that balance.
00:32:09
Speaker
Lovely. I've seen the product and held it. It's a product that is almost, I guess, it looks like ah like a brown palette. almost looks like a chicken manure palette. Yeah. But it's obviously wool.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah. And ah we we mentioned it briefly before, but what are the benefits of using wool in the soil? So... the The real benefits we found that we can show as well through our research was it increases the water holding capacity of the soil.
00:32:38
Speaker
So imagine them as little sponges in the soil absorbing that moisture, locking it away. It also increases the microbial activity of the soil. So again, you're you're feeding the soil in order to feed the plant. We're not feeding the plant straight away.
00:32:54
Speaker
And it also increases gives background nutrition for the whole season so it's a slow release. The release is slow to break down. So you're getting all of those benefits from just the one material wool.
00:33:10
Speaker
They were the agronomic benefits but the the real discovery I think that we found from the research is that wool can be combined with any other amendment, spread be it seaweed, bone meal or something like that, to give you a more tailored or bespoke pellet depending on soil type. So that's what we're looking forward to in further research is to...
00:33:36
Speaker
play with the combination of amendments we can put into the pellet and then see what we can create that for a sandy soil, a heavy clay loam soil or yeah or loads different. So that's what we're we're trying to trying to play with. Or tomatoes.
00:33:53
Speaker
if If people buy their tomato, right, well, can we have a waterlizer tomato, right? Which is what we're yeah were we're aiming at. So using natural materials instead of synthetics, chemicals. So in the future, you kind of plan to have like a full range of um product that's kind of going to be available on the market that is completely eco-friendly, that is feeding the soil and building up beautiful, healthy soil as opposed to people having to,
00:34:22
Speaker
spray chemicals and use what is derived from the fossil fuel industry and the mining industry all over their soils. They can just use a beautiful palette that's been made in the UK. Yeah. and um yeah Yeah. There you go. And um feel good about themselves. Again, it's like that back to that circular economy kind of thing of like, we don't need to be outsourcing anything. We can, we've got it here. Yeah.
00:34:46
Speaker
See, that's the crazy thing, isn't it? Like it's here. It's in the UK and it's been around for years. And what what generally would happen with kind of low-grade wool at this currently?
00:34:59
Speaker
So a lot of things don't even send wool. It'll go on the muck heap or it'll go on the burning pile just because it it costs more to ship it, get it gone, than it does to but them the money they receive for it.
00:35:12
Speaker
But obviously we we need to share the sheep for welfare reasons, but it's just wasted pretty much. Solving two problems here. with that that that was That was the whole sort of premise of the the the business was to have traditional garden growers. We identified the problem with with the wool industry, like all of this wool, like thousands of tons of wool is just wasted.
00:35:34
Speaker
But then it has previously been used to fertilise soil. Well, why can't we do something about that? And and I understand that using wool is very...
00:35:48
Speaker
annoying if it's in a long, you know, imagine a long sheep fleece. It's really annoying. and i yeah I wanted to use wool in the market garden but after bit after learning about the benefits, but I really didn't want to be going around with a bloody wool sack and digging it in with a fork. So then we decided to pellet it.
00:36:07
Speaker
And then from pelleting it, we used it, then we researched it. And now we've found something that we think that we're using, which And it's almost the the time now that we want to share that with the public and gardeners alike, because essentially what we do is gardening, but just on a bigger scale.
00:36:26
Speaker
Is there enough wool that if we could turn almost every farm in the UK into a adopting products like yours, is there enough wool to be able to do that?
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, so so there are millions of kilos of wool produced in the yeah UK every year, and it has many different grades. I believe there's something like 200 grades of wool. oh We only take the poorest quality grade. So there are things called dags, um which come from the belly and the back of the sheep, which is unusable in in many textiles, and oddments, which is all the all the bits from the, that just fall off the fleece that gets swept up into a pile and just left. We, we take that. That's the wool that we are trying to add the value to. So your wool actually also has manure in it as well.
00:37:21
Speaker
It'd have flecks of it. Yeah. They they definitely have flecks of it in there. It's obviously predominantly wool, yeah well it it's it's greasier but but the but the most important, the really interesting thing about wool that I found from the, research was it's really high nitrogen we're running about 10 percent nitrogen and that's due to with the keratin but also it's really high in potassium and this is the one that interested me the reason it's high in potassium is because of this salt this sorry oil called swint in sheep's wool and that is basically imagine sheep's sweat that crystallizes in the wool
00:37:59
Speaker
And then forms but like these potassium crystals that then wow fertile then act soil fertilizer. So it actually has a proper MPK value then. It does. Yeah, it does. but and in And interestingly, the it's the micro elements as well yeah that it that it provides to the soil and therefore the plant. And it's packed full of oils, obviously keratin, that get released into the soil and give the plants the boron, the nickel, the calcium that they need as we need as humans. So we all know that we need calcium for our bones. We need all sorts of micro elements to keep us healthy. The plants need exactly the same.
00:38:44
Speaker
So wool degrading down actually provides that as well.
Gardening Techniques and Soil Health
00:38:50
Speaker
Well, that kind of brings me to my next point is like how people can implement some of these like benefits in their home gardens. I have a, I guess I come it from a slightly different perspective of coming from Australia where our soils are already very ancient or very, already very eroded and there's not a lot to them anyway. um and so...
00:39:12
Speaker
Gardening in Australia is really all about building up ah topsoil and soils. It takes a thousand years for one centimetre of topsoil to naturally grow or be produced or i don't know what the word would be used, be created. um yeah and And in Australia, so we are so used to using mulches and manures and plants going crazy with all that stuff just to get our soil to a place where you know it's it's workable for kind of regular gardening purposes or even you know agricultural purposes as well in market garden situations in Australia. But I think here, it struck me that moving here
00:39:54
Speaker
You see a lot more bare soil in people's gardens. Mulches aren't really used as much here. They're far more decorative, whereas in Australia it's necessity to be keeping moisture in the soils throughout the hot summers.
00:40:09
Speaker
And from what I'm gathering, looking at a lot of home gardeners' soil qualities when I'm in them, is that they can benefit benefit it from here completely as well. So using products like yours... using um composts, and I say compost meaning from a compost pile, not from a bag, and using wood chip mulches to help build up our soil and covering our soils for the warmer months and throughout the year. That'll break down and turn into lovely soil and the process all starts again. And I suppose you're doing that with with living mulches and like a chop and drop method.
00:40:44
Speaker
And i think a lot of home gardeners probably are not going to want to do that because it kind of wrecks the aesthetic, quote unquote, of of a space. um But what are some ideas that home gardeners can do and take away from your space that they can implement?
00:41:02
Speaker
Well, I had no idea about that. australia what you guys did out in Australia in terms of your market gardens. That sounds fascinating. So if I say one thing, go to Australia and learn. and Well, that's just not even market gardens. That's just regular gardening because your plants die like in summer. It's it's interesting because in summer it's, um,
00:41:25
Speaker
you're in survival mode for your like ornamental gardens, basically. It's hot. It's like, it just doesn't, it's not conducive to like non Australian native plants, which are used to that kind of climate, but you know, everything wilts, you get a bit of a hot wind to come through and everything is wilted and everything's dying. So we've got no choice. We've got to kind of treat the soil in a really um good way, I suppose. But yeah, sorry. i'm on a tangent. No, I love it. So would you say that the, the Australians are sort of, I would say further ahead.
00:41:55
Speaker
maybe further ahead of the way in terms of thinking like yeah i think about sort I was talking to Michael Marriott, who is a rose expert, and I don't remember if this actually made the cut in the episode, but he basically said that, yes, when it comes to, um like rose gardening, for example, Australia is far, uh, further ahead because we just naturally have to treat the soils better. yeah Um, now that's not to say that we don't use, that people aren't very heavy handed with chemical fertilizers. They definitely are. But just from a purely like water saving and like ah keeping water in the soil, wood chip and mulch are used in ah in a far more progressive way there. yeah um
00:42:40
Speaker
I would say in the home garden space, yeah, with the Australia is because it has to be further ahead. Yeah. The necessity is that is real. like would this There's a saying, is that necessity drives innovation or something. Yeah, that exactly. yeah i can't remember. That's fascinating.
00:42:59
Speaker
but yeah, it's um it's an interesting thing. And I even found it here, like because my natural inclination is like, put your soil million pounds down, so like your compost, your seaweeds, your manures, whatever you want to do, and then always...
00:43:15
Speaker
Dress with mulch, but here mulch is actually kind of a, like a premium product, it's either very, very, very expensive or um hard to come by if you don't know an arborist. yeah Yeah, exactly that. How can home gardeners take some of your tips from your space, your ah market garden and implement them into their garden?
00:43:36
Speaker
Using natural inputs for sure. is a great way, but also a massive change for me came from my mindset of we think about the soil, don't think about the plant.
00:43:48
Speaker
If we can shift our mindset into a way that we aren't gardening off or farming plants, we're farming the soil and gardening the soil. So if we can, I guess if we just shift our mindset towards soil rather than plants, the rest should follow.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. Feeding soil above feeding plants. Yeah, exactly. and the rest will follow. The the healthy plants will follow. Exactly. And and care care for the soil is is number one. Know your soil. Definitely know what soil type you have.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah. um Not to say that it can't be, is it's a limiting factor. i mean, yeah, in some cases it is a limiting factor, but but know your soil, feed it with natural inputs.
00:44:31
Speaker
and change ah change our mindset of thinking about soil, not plants, I guess would probably be my way. And living mulchers, definitely living mulchers. One of the things you said before, which I thought was a great sentiment, was it's so easy to lose topsoil and good soil, but very hard to build.
00:44:49
Speaker
I've got a stat that, you know, every minute we lose the equivalent of 30 football fields of fertile soil in the world. Wow. Which is kind of crazy to think about. there There are some people in the UK who believe that, I think they said 75 50 harvests left.
00:45:08
Speaker
Due to the soil erosion and soil degradation. Yeah. I think that's quite pessimistic. um I think that, you know, we're humans, we'll find a way way around it, but but it's still a very scary fact to think that the soil is could be our limiting factor in terms of feeding ourselves.
00:45:27
Speaker
What is next for you So you've got your business, the traditional garden growers, your Wiltaliser product. um Is it just to build and expand that while you're still market gardening? do you have any more projects up your sleeve?
00:45:43
Speaker
Yeah. So we've we've just applied for further funding um to take our findings from our initial research into Wiltaliser to the next level. So this will be us looking at different mixes that we can combine with wool to, like we said earlier about combining it with different amendments to create different types of soil input. And it's also, ah we're taking it to the farm level. So this is where it's called adopt funding.
00:46:12
Speaker
So where farmers will, and growers, mainly growers will adopt the innovation that we've come up with to then get it used in practice.
00:46:25
Speaker
On large scale? On larger scale, yeah. pa jeska yeah but I think I've got quite a lot in common with the the home gardener, which is why I wanted to tackle that market first. and and As a home gardener, we can have a massive impact on on our soil by using the correct inputs. I think there's status something like 4% of the UK's landmass is back gardens.
00:46:50
Speaker
Is it? Something like that. I'm not 100% sure.
00:46:55
Speaker
So, I mean, you can have a massive impact ah because 4% is a lot. it sounds like a little bit. It actually, in the grand scheme of things, is a lot. Well, exactly. And and and that 4%, if you get the soil right...
00:47:06
Speaker
And like we said, the rest should follow. Following on from that will be your your insects, your your pollinators, and then your birds. And then, and then the you know, the biodiversity just goes up the chain.
00:47:18
Speaker
Exactly. If home gardeners can care for their soil in ah in a pra in ah in ah an environmentally friendly way, then that's going to have a massive impact on on the biodiversity of the UK. And especially the in a way, the planet. if we're not import If we're not buying the chemicals that have been imported thousands of miles away um we're using stuff that's been produced and grown and made in the UK, then that's going to have a massive ecological footprint. It's even probably even bigger than Cairn Fusor, I don't know.
00:47:52
Speaker
Wow. No, that's fantastic. i um I'm glad someone's doing this work, to be honest, because i think it's super important. and i And I'm glad we actually got an opportunity to chat today.
00:48:03
Speaker
Where can people find you? So find us on our website, which is traditionalgardengrowers.co.uk. We're also on Instagram.
00:48:14
Speaker
One of our rams, Michael, his name Michael. He plays a big role on Instagram. So follow along for the tips from Michael.
00:48:25
Speaker
He's a good ram. And then and Facebook as well. Thank you very much, Eddie. It's been an absolute pleasure having on the show. Thank you thank you so much for having me. It's been great.
00:48:38
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today. If you like the show, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button. Tell a friend or two, or maybe even give the show a five-star rating and a review.
00:48:49
Speaker
If you want more Gardener's Lodge content, you can find our website, our Instagram and our TikTok in the show notes below this episode. The Gardener's Lodge podcast is a growing media production.