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Hands in the Soil - Jordan from The Shed Organics
115 Plays17 days ago
Jordan Alexander from the Shed Organics, has a passion for sharing horticultural Knowledge. Today he tells us all about his key steps to building healthy soil and growing healthy plants!
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Transcript
Introduction to The Gardener's Lodge Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Step into the Gardener's Lodge with me, Michael Hoare. Let's explore the fascinating world of gardening, nature and ecology through conversations with experts, thought leaders, passionate enthusiasts, and of course, some real good friends, all from the cozy heart of the lodge.
00:00:25
Speaker
Come on in.
00:00:28
Speaker
The Gardener's Lodge podcast is created on the traditional lands of the Darug and Gundungara people in the Blue Mountains. We pay respect to all First Nations elders, past and present.
00:00:40
Speaker
G'day and welcome to the show.
Meet Jordan Alexander
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, my guest is Jordan Alexander from The Shed Organics. Now, Jordan is of course, a gardener, duh, but he's also an educator, a so public speaker, and an advocate. He is also a podcaster. hosting the Shed Organics Podcast, of which I've been a guest on, we have a lot in common.
00:01:01
Speaker
We both kind of come from the world of creative industries and felt a bit disillusioned in that world and have found our space in
The Importance of Healthy Soil
00:01:09
Speaker
gardening. The reason I wanted to chat with Jordan today is because he is all about healthy soil.
00:01:16
Speaker
He comes from a productive gardening space, but all of his tips to do with soil directly relate to any form of gardening you're doing, whether ornamental, productive, or native like me.
00:01:28
Speaker
His tips for soil health, building healthy soil, building biodiversity in your soil, are translatable. I love this episode. It's dense with information and dense with really practical tips that you can translate into your garden.
00:01:42
Speaker
Now before we hit right into the conversation, I've got your six rapid fire questions so that you can get to know Jordan just that little bit better. Jordan, are ready?
00:01:52
Speaker
Ready. Favorite plant? Comfrey, because it's amazing. You can use it for so many different things. Medicinal, it's so good for the soil. It's wonderful. Comfrey is amazing. Favorite way to connect with nature?
00:02:05
Speaker
Just to to be out in my garden, honestly. um Just being around the plants, seeing all of the insects, just being involved. What's the most beautiful garden or natural landscape that you've visited?
00:02:19
Speaker
Oh, New Zealand, because and i lived in New Zealand for a long time and a lot of New Zealand is untouched and it's just so gorgeous. The smells that you get, this just rich soil and beautiful, healthy plants, especially when it's a little bit cooler.
00:02:34
Speaker
Oh, it's just, I love it. Favorite garden tool? Garden tool. Ooh, um, my hands. Good answer. I've been waiting for someone to say that. Yes. My hands. i don't use too many tools to be honest. Like, yes. Okay. You need some, but my hands.
00:02:49
Speaker
If you could be one, a plant or an animal. That stumped me, Michael. Maybe and maybe an animal. Do I have to give you the exact animal? What should I or i would be an animal because- you can if you want, but no. I like to roam. I like to move around. Even though the plants, you know, they have a wonderful life. I would love to move around.
00:03:08
Speaker
So, animal is what I would choose. Maybe a bird. That would be amazing. Oh, yeah. Flying. Yeah. yeah Good one. Okay. This is a tricky one.
Nature's Role in Soil Creation
00:03:17
Speaker
When you're looking to research anything, where do you go for the most sound and reliable information?
00:03:23
Speaker
Great question. ah Usually i have trusted sources that I'll go to. So I'll have a few different people that I know and I follow on certain social media things. I won't go to a AI chat GPT type situation because it's led me astray before and it's not...
00:03:42
Speaker
I go to ah social media. Maybe YouTube is probably the one because I can see people. They often present it in a way that has a lot of visuals. I'm a visual person. So YouTube is really good. I have trusted people that I'll go to and they know what they're talking about and I'll try and trust them as much as I can.
00:04:00
Speaker
This is a super basic one. What is healthy soil? Healthy soil. Okay. Healthy soil is something... You know, we think about our health a lot, right? We think about what goes into our body, what makes us a thriving human being, a thriving individual.
00:04:21
Speaker
And something that's really important that I'm finding at the moment, especially in sort of modern day health, is the microbiome in our gut, right? Yeah. We're talking about... getting a diverse range of foods that we eat.
00:04:36
Speaker
We're doing exercise, we're getting sunlight, we're sleeping properly. We're doing all the things that we need to do to maintain ourselves as a healthy individual. Now, the same goes for soil, although you're not going to see the soil jumping on the bench press.
00:04:50
Speaker
We need healthy components to our soil as well. All right. So healthy nutrition is a massive one and stimulating that microbiome in the
Fungi and Mycelium in Soil Health
00:05:01
Speaker
soil.
00:05:01
Speaker
It's almost an exact replica of what goes on inside our gut, which is really interesting. right. So healthy soil looks like, when you peel it back, thriving ecosystem. You've got many, many moving things in there. You might be seeing some worms, some insects and bugs going around, some little soil mites going in there.
00:05:22
Speaker
You want to have the appropriate amount of moisture that's in there. because we don't want a really sopping wet soil, because that's no good for anybody. Or you also, vice versa, you don't want a really dry soil.
00:05:34
Speaker
Unless we're talking about maybe houseplants, where you were mentioning keeping keeping them on the drier side slightly. Yes. Exactly. But healthy soil, Michael, is something that we can cultivate ourselves. We can assist in this.
00:05:51
Speaker
But essentially what we're trying to do is replicate what nature is doing on its own. Nature is very good at generating healthy soil on its own.
00:06:03
Speaker
So us as custodians of the land and ones that are there to to look after it and to do our bit, We can come in and, I guess, help out to fill the gaps where certain things might be lacking. so so So, what is that process then that nature does to create healthy soil on its own?
00:06:25
Speaker
Right. Good question. One thing that I will mention is that if we're trying to do... any kind of gardening on any kind of scale, we we're still trying to replicate this natural cycle.
00:06:38
Speaker
Okay. So bear in mind, this does work for everything, but let me point you to maybe a ah forest situation, a bushland, okay, where it's completely left to its own devices.
00:06:52
Speaker
We've got the trees that will drop their leaves, They'll have animals, birds, possums, things like this, and their droppings fall down. Insects, we've got, obviously, when animals die as well and insects die, they're all falling down to this leaf litter layer on the ground.
00:07:12
Speaker
All right. It's creating this beautiful mulch layer on top of the soil. Leaves, organic matter galore. Okay. And then what's happening is underneath that, we're getting our awesome worms and our microbes, our bacteria,
00:07:26
Speaker
that are coming up underneath that mulch layer and breaking it down. They're turning that into plant available nutrients, something that our plants are now able to uptake really, really easily from the root zone.
00:07:41
Speaker
Now, that cycle is perpetual. It's self-feeding, okay? So, often we see, for example, a fruiting plant. Let's just use something nice and simple like a citrus, okay?
00:07:54
Speaker
Everything that's contained in that citrus tree, in the fruits, in the leaves, in the in the stems and everything, when that falls
Nutrient Recycling in Plants
00:08:02
Speaker
back down, it actually contains... the exact nutrients that that tree then needs to produce more of itself.
00:08:13
Speaker
So then it's falling down on top of this layer, being broken down into a plant available form over time, and then refeeding itself to be able to produce more of itself and perpetually continue that feeding cycle.
00:08:30
Speaker
It's incredible. What role does fungi play in this process? That's a great question too. Fungus is a very, very misunderstood and also sometimes,
00:08:42
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um I guess it's forgotten often. yeah So, underneath the ground, we have networks of these mycelium.
00:08:53
Speaker
And mycelium, for those who aren't aware, is the actual body of the fungus. This is the network and all those little strands that get sent out.
00:09:04
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We might have seen some mycelium take over certain things in your garden. You might see these little white hair like strands sort of working their way across the organic matter.
00:09:16
Speaker
And what that's doing is creating a network, not only of communication, but of shared resources as well. We often talk about mushrooms and fungus as the ones that we see that pop out of the ground and you see that beautiful fruiting body that comes up, sometimes nice and colored ones that we can eat, sometimes ones that we shouldn't eat.
00:09:35
Speaker
But these ones are the fruiting body. So this is the the end result. The main organism itself is underneath the ground. And these networks are communicating not only with each other, the mycelial networks themselves, but the root systems too.
00:09:52
Speaker
So our plant roots, especially with something like mycorrhizal fungi, which I'm a huge fan of using on any scale, okay? These create this beautiful relationship between themselves and the plant roots where they share resources,
00:10:10
Speaker
okay I won't go too much into the exact science behind it today, but the transfer of shared resources, so the plant providing certain things like sugars to the mycelium and then the mycelium being able to pull certain nutrients from other parts of the soil, often kilometers away, which is really interesting, to then give that back to the root.
00:10:33
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So having a really healthy fungal network underneath the soil is going to really benefit not only the plants themselves, but the entire ecosystem that it's all connected to as a whole.
00:10:47
Speaker
So you promote a no-till approach to your
No-Till Gardening and Soil Preservation
00:10:50
Speaker
gardening. Is that so that you don't disturb that soil? Correct. Absolutely. the The one thing i I point to is that you don't see anyone going through into our bushlands and digging up the soil.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yes, we do have certain animals that go in there and they might scratch it up, um you know, our birds, for example. And so you do have these animals that disturb the top layer of the soil somewhat, but we're certainly not going in there and digging down to turn over the entire thing.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not sure if you've come across or your listeners have come across ah Dr. Elaine Ingham. She talks about the ah soil food web. Okay. And what this is, is that beautiful balance and connected communication system between all of the microorganisms that are in the soil, our fungus as well that we just spoke about, the bacteria, the microbes, the worms.
00:11:48
Speaker
They're creating all of these channels and they're creating all of this beautiful... um I guess, way of breaking down that mulch layer and bringing it down into the soil. And when we go in there and we dig up all of those beautifully made networks, we're disturbing that communication system and we're disrupting the natural system that's going on.
00:12:10
Speaker
So we're trying to leave it alone as much as we can and mimic that forest floor type scenario. Taking this out of the forest then and putting it into your garden,
00:12:21
Speaker
What are some of the inputs that you use to build healthy soil?
Building Soil Biodiversity with Cover Crops
00:12:26
Speaker
Great question. One thing that I love to use is cover crops. Okay.
00:12:34
Speaker
Typically, you would hear about a cover crop used in a farming situation where yeah in between ah farmer's normal, regular cash crops, for example, they might be sowing a certain cover crop. Usually, it's only one.
00:12:48
Speaker
So, you might have a field of barley grass or something like this. And they'll just sow this whole field full of barley grass, let it grow up. And then often they might come through and what's called chop and drop or they're crimping where they're basically breaking the stems and flattening it down.
00:13:06
Speaker
They might even just come and mow it if they've got a big industrial mower or something like this. What this cover crop is designed to do is go in there and create a little bit of disturbance in the soil naturally.
00:13:22
Speaker
All right. We're using those deep root systems from the grasses. Okay. We've got things like brassicas where they're sending this deep tap root down into the soil, which is breaking apart some of that compaction in there.
00:13:37
Speaker
We're having nitrogen fixing species as well that might be bringing some atmospheric nitrogen down and fixing it into the soil. Like your legumes and things like that. Correct. Absolutely.
00:13:48
Speaker
And all of these different things are providing a purpose of growing something in that soil. We're adding organic matter. We're covering the soil. So it's actually got something living in it and it's not just bare soil for an empty season.
00:14:03
Speaker
And we're actually building organic matter and building the moisture, building a mulch layer if we're chopping and dropping and things like this. So, for example, I've got a 15 seed blend of cover crop that I've developed.
00:14:22
Speaker
You know, it's it's nothing crazy. It's 15 different... seeds that provide different purposes. We've got our legumes, as you mentioned, for nitrogen fixing.
00:14:33
Speaker
We've got some of our root vegetables. I like love to use a daikon radish because that has a nice, big, solid taproot. We've got things like clover, and okay which is our nitrogen fixes.
00:14:45
Speaker
We've got grasses. We've got mustard, all of these types of things. okay We've even got some millet. I love millet. That's a really, really good one. Vetch is great.
00:14:56
Speaker
yeah All of these things are working together in a diverse way. And now I cannot for the life of me bring their name back in the right moment, but there are certain ah scientists that have proven that more than 12 seeds in a cover crop mix provides enough diversity, especially if we're working in those different categories for those different purposes of legumes and deep tap roots, et cetera.
00:15:24
Speaker
that that diversity is actually key to introducing all of these diverse microbes, because the diverse microbes come from the different species, different microbes to different species in the different root zones.
00:15:38
Speaker
And we're bringing in and introducing this beautiful diversity. I'm going to use that word a lot today, Michael, but beautiful diversity. right And it's going to come in and provide us with absolutely everything we need to beautifully enrich that soil in between our crops.
00:15:58
Speaker
Okay. One thing to mention is that you can also use this with your main crop. So currently I've got a 50, 60 liter container that I'm growing an eggplant in, which believe it or not, in May here, I can still grow the eggplant, which is amazing.
00:16:18
Speaker
You're in Southeast Queensland, aren't you? Correct. Yes. And so a little bit warmer and and I've got it in the greenhouse. So it's providing a little bit extra warmth as well. Yeah. But what I did was I sowed my cover crop seeds into this bag, let them grow up a little bit.
00:16:34
Speaker
And then I sort of flattened them down and planted my eggplant seedling just so it's a little bit taller than what was previously in there in the cover crop. And as that eggplant grows up and grows to be taller, all of this cover crop underneath kind of grows in where it can, fills in the gaps and stays as a supplementary crop.
00:16:58
Speaker
Particularly, we use things like clover in this instance. I love to use clover with tomatoes. It's a really, really good one because they're fixing that nitrogen that our tomatoes absolutely love.
00:17:09
Speaker
This comes from the same type of thinking that we're using in the three sisters method, if you've ever heard of that. So, yes, that's where we grow corn. We have our peas, our nitrogen fixes that grow up the corn and okay So these types of relationships work really, really well. And you can use this cover crop growing in and filling as a sort of living mulch.
00:17:31
Speaker
So it's protecting the soil from any sort of drying out. okay It's covering it so that we're we're not getting any moisture loss and things like this. It's providing that mulch.
00:17:42
Speaker
And we can also keep chopping and dropping, which is another massive thing for cover crops. We're using that organic matter. to really fill that top layer and create that mulch layer ah like we see out in nature in our forests and things like this.
00:17:58
Speaker
Really useful one, cover crop. It's one of my absolute favorites. You actually sell that on your website, don't you? Correct. I do. Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. I'm not a huge person to be pushing all of my products because I'd love people to be able to go and source this themselves and find...
Container Soil Building Techniques
00:18:14
Speaker
joy in putting together their own mix. It doesn't have to be buying it from somebody else, but I do like to make it nice and simple for people. If you don't have the time, if you don't have the resource, then of course you can come and jump on and grab yourself the blend.
00:18:30
Speaker
So you were just mentioning about growing in containers, which generally people do when they're a little bit limited on space. I find like I can never have a bigger garden, if you know what I mean. Like I can always expand and expand and expand. Me too. But um so I've never...
00:18:45
Speaker
delve terribly much into like growing veggies in containers, but I know that the soils that you'd bring in or purchase from big box stores is often generally not organic.
00:18:57
Speaker
It is effectively sterile. Yeah. So do you use those products yourself? no short answer. i did in the past. And honestly, it's still perfectly okay to use them from time to time. Although I encourage people to try and build their own soil, which is really interesting thought. People think building soil, you know, but do I have to compost for months and months and months?
00:19:25
Speaker
Yes. Composting is great. Another one great one for building healthy soil. But from for example, my soil recipe is very, very simple. Okay.
00:19:36
Speaker
We've got three components to it. The first component is our aeration. So with soil, we need some form of aeration. Otherwise, it's going to just become super compact and nothing is going to be able to penetrate it.
00:19:51
Speaker
Much like we see with our clay-based soils in Queensland often. Yeah. So aeration for me, there's so many things you can use. Something that's really good. It depends also on if you're growing in containers, you want something that you might be able to move around that doesn't have a huge amount of weight.
00:20:10
Speaker
So, something like scoria, which is this volcanic rock, yeah I love. But if you've got a whole container with 30% scoria, it's very heavy.
00:20:21
Speaker
yeah So, that's why people use things like perlite or vermiculite because it's this puffed, almost rice bubble type situation And it's very light and it's easy transport. It's volcanic glass, isn't it?
00:20:33
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. And these things are really, really good. The one thing I will say about perlite, for example, is that it does tend to bring itself up to the soil surface. So, if you've ever used a mix with perlite in it it tends to work its way up. And then you've got this beautiful white layer of perlite on top and none in in there as well.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yes. Choose that wisely. One thing I will use is pumice. and Okay. I originally lived in New Zealand for 10 years. Okay. And I used to love going down to the lakes and finding these gorgeous pumice stones that you could, you know, they're huge and they're very light. They're very porous.
00:21:12
Speaker
They're light and fluffy. You can buy yourself some pumice in various different sizes. And that's a really good one for providing that aeration without having it too heavy.
00:21:24
Speaker
so that's i use pumice quite a lot in my indoor plant mix. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you would have found that it's not too heavy either. No, it's perfect. It's actually the perfect weight because it's not ah like your perlite that does float to the or make its way to the top of the soil. It actually does stay within the soil. So, yes I actually prefer it as a product.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, same here. Same here. One thing I'll also use in that 30% aeration is something like rice hulls. Okay, rice hulls you can get from your ah brewery places, shops, okay, where they're, you know, selling for brewing beer and things like this. Okay, not somewhere I frequent anyway, but I go in there and you can buy these enormous bags of rice hulls.
00:22:08
Speaker
Rice hulls are really good for silica, and okay? Okay. The silica is similar to what you might get out of bamboo as well. The silica is really good for building this nice, strong, healthy,
00:22:22
Speaker
growth that is actually got this, how would you put it? Nice, rigid sort of form. It holds its shape beautifully and it's nice and strong. It's not going to flop over and be all weak.
00:22:36
Speaker
So that's where our our silica comes in. And slowly those rice hulls will break down in the soil. So okay I do use it. And it often can be a good mulch as well to be using as well because that breaks down into the soil and you're not going to lose the actual aeration content in the soil.
00:22:55
Speaker
But that's one that I really like to use as well. But primarily pumice. So that's our first part. All right. 30% pumice. puice Secondly, we have what I would call our base.
00:23:07
Speaker
All right. And now there's two different things that I use for the base or have used. Previously, it was peat moss.
00:23:19
Speaker
Okay. Now, peat moss, although we can get it, doesn't seem to be, from my current humble opinion, sourced very well. oh Unfortunately,
00:23:32
Speaker
The way that it's sourced isn't all that environmentally friendly. so Because it takes thousands of years to grow in these bogs, right? Correct. yeah And then it takes, you know, a second to dig it out and then use it.
00:23:46
Speaker
So it's damaging ah massive ecosystems. Yes, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So that's why I tend to say, look, I did use it. But for these reasons now that I'm more educated, I'm switching to something like a Cocoa Pete.
00:24:02
Speaker
So yeah coconut husk, something like that. All right. Now, this one is really good. It's something that provides most of the consistency in our soil. The structure.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yes, that's probably a better word. So structure in our soil. That's exactly right. So we've got our structure, our 30% of our cocoa. We've got 30% of our aeration.
00:24:27
Speaker
And then the final part is our beautiful nutrient dense compost or worm castings. Now,
Native Australian Garden Design
00:24:35
Speaker
if you have ah wonderful compost that you've developed on your own, that's something that you can use.
00:24:41
Speaker
Okay. Super easy. You know exactly what's in it. You know that it's healthy and balanced and that's great. But I encourage you as well to include worm castings in this. You can even go for a full 30% of worm castings.
00:24:56
Speaker
Although what I do like about using compost is that often that we've got different sized compost particles, I guess, where you've got organic matter that's going to break down slowly over time and provide a little bit more structure, little bit more iteration as well, and then that break down slowly over time. So it's a bit more of a slow release version, I would say.
00:25:19
Speaker
So then we've got our three parts, okay? I'm going to get those onto ah a tarp or nice and spread it all out or a big tub or something like that, depending on how much you're doing. and get in there with your hands and mix it around.
00:25:32
Speaker
Break up all the little parts, get in there. You've got to be part of it. You've got to enjoy your soil and and get in there and and give it some love, all right? Hey, if you like native plants as much as I do, I have a special treat for you.
00:25:46
Speaker
I've created a free Australian native garden design or planting palette. What it is, is a collection of beautiful Australian native plants that are very adaptable to all different climates within Australia. So if you're stuck with what to plant in your native garden, download your free Australian native garden design.
00:26:04
Speaker
The free download also comes with a bunch of extra information on the steps you'll need to make it flourish. If that sounds like something that you'd like to take advantage of, the link to the free download is in the show notes below this episode.
00:26:17
Speaker
Check it out.
00:26:21
Speaker
What I do add is my number one blend. Okay. The number one blend, again, is nothing crazy special.
Ocean-Based Soil Amendments
00:26:32
Speaker
But what I've done is bring together a whole bunch of organic amendments that do wonders for our soil.
00:26:39
Speaker
Again, we're trying to mimic what happens in nature. Okay. We're trying to mimic things that... break down and come from nature and feed our soil different things.
00:26:52
Speaker
Okay. I love to use ocean ingredients. The ocean is full of rich minerals. It's beautiful. Okay. Something I use is crustacean meal, fish bone meal.
00:27:08
Speaker
All right. Kelp. Okay. These things are powerhouses of nutrition, each for their own reason. All right. But these types of things we're bringing in in balance with something like malted barley, which is a sprouted seed. Remember, our seeds contain the most absolute potential. They have the potential for an entire tree contained in that seed.
00:27:34
Speaker
So, if you just sprout it and you kickstart that journey towards becoming an amazing tree, all of that potential that we've just sprouted then goes into our soil.
00:27:46
Speaker
And it's everything that we need. The enzymes that come with it. It's beautiful. So, you sprout it but then stop the tree actually... Yes, that's what malted barley is. So malted barley is a ah sprouted seed, essentially.
00:27:58
Speaker
um You can use a sprouted seed tea. This is a totally different subject, but ah yeah something where you might slightly sprout. ah Like, ah for instance, I use wheatgrass often um just because it's nice and cheap, readily available. You can sprout the wheatgrass seed until you see that little tail sticking out.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yep. Then I'll blitz them up in Nutribullet, add a little bit of rainwater, and that becomes my ah sprouted seed tea full of enzymes. Really, really good fertilizer.
00:28:28
Speaker
It's wonderful. Okay. Oh, interesting. Yes. So that's why malted barley is included in the mix. All right. We also have things like neem cake or neem seed meal.
00:28:40
Speaker
all right. Neem is a really hot topic in this country because it's not exactly approved for our food use. So spraying neem and things like this, i would do with caution. I would do your own research because even though I'm in the neem camp, there can be a little bit of debate between whether neem's safe or not.
00:29:02
Speaker
So I would, that's definitely a conversation for another time, but i would I would do your own research and diligently make your own wise decision based on all different information.
00:29:13
Speaker
I too am in the name camp. Beautiful. Beautiful. yeah yeah um I mean, it's one of those things like as a food product, it's... it's an interesting one because if you've ever sprayed it, I don't know, I certainly, and you're not wearing proper PPE, you certainly can feel it.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yes. um But, you know, it's also traditionally used from, I can't exactly remember where it is, but it's used as a toothbrush. they and People used to use it as to clean their teeth, right?
00:29:44
Speaker
So it has a history of, I guess consumption, but yeah. Anyway, sorry, back on track. No, no, that's okay. That's a really good point to make because you're right. It has been used for thousands of years. So that's why I say, look, just do your own research, but that's name.
Enhancing Soil with Rock Minerals
00:29:59
Speaker
So that's, that's another one. Um, some more ingredients that I use in this blend, something like oyster shell flour. Okay. A really good source of calcium carbonate.
00:30:07
Speaker
We're just adding in all of these different things that are providing certain nutrients. Okay. Now this blend is a balanced blend and it's a slow release blend. So we've got but crushed up oyster shells, which are going to slowly break down in the soil.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah. Now, another part of this mix is our rock minerals, something that's often forgotten. Deep down in the earth, we have the bedrock and we have our minerals that are really deep down in the earth.
00:30:40
Speaker
Now, they are essential for a healthy soil as well for their own reasons. So, something that I use quite often in this blend is volcanic-based rock basalt rock dusts.
00:30:55
Speaker
Okay. These things, volcanic areas seem to be really, really healthy. Yeah. They produce really fertile soil. So why not bring some of that into our garden as well?
00:31:09
Speaker
So these rock dusts, soft rock phosphate, basalt rock dust, these types of things, we're including these in the blend because they, again, provide some structure. They provide some minerals that are going to break down and all of this type of thing.
00:31:24
Speaker
Now, when I'm mixing, we mix some of this into the soil, okay? Depending on how much you're using of soil depends on how much of the blend you're going to use. And we mix this all around and that's going to again, provide us some slow release nutrients and fill all the gaps that we might have been missing in our compost or our worm castings and things like this.
00:31:46
Speaker
Now, that's pretty much it.
Microbes and Soil Nutrient Availability
00:31:49
Speaker
But... One thing I will mention, it's really, really important to focus on our microbes. We spoke earlier about the microbiome of our gut, the microbiome of our soil.
00:32:00
Speaker
Now, if you don't have the right microbes in your soil that will eat rocks, then you're not going to get that release of phosphorus.
00:32:11
Speaker
I was talking to a wonderful gentleman yesterday, actually on my podcast, talking about fermentation and the reason why we use ferments. And these ferments are breeding some beautiful microbes that will go into the soil and they will break down those rock minerals and all of the the organic amendments for that matter.
00:32:31
Speaker
And it releases, for example, in the rocks, the phosphorus that we might need and unlocks it, makes it bioavailable. So these microbes are crucial. You're going to get a lot in your compost. you're going to get a lot in your worm castings, especially if they're a really high quality source.
00:32:48
Speaker
but we need to remember that microbes are the key. So when I've created this soil, I've built it all up and quite often you'll add a little bit of moisture to make sure the moisture content is all right.
00:33:01
Speaker
There's a really good way of testing moisture is if you can grab a hold of the soil and squeeze it into a ball and then it maintains its structure Without squeezing out any liquid. So you don't want to squeeze it and have any drops of water come out.
00:33:18
Speaker
But you want to squeeze it and have it hold a nice structure. And then you can easily just break it up apart again with your hands. You'll find with that mix, that those ratios of 30-30-30, you're going to get that. Especially if you've got the right amount of moisture.
00:33:33
Speaker
So this is something that I will focus on is getting the right moisture content. But something you can do as I was saying, is add some of these microbes in. So if you have a ferment or if you have some form of biological that you can add, some people use a fish hydrolysate, another ocean ingredient, a really, really good one, or a kelp.
00:33:56
Speaker
These things can add in some of those gorgeous microbes. And you're sort of doing a soil drench, essentially, and bringing in all of these gorgeous things into the soil straight away.
00:34:08
Speaker
And I would let it sit for a bit, just let it cook, essentially. And this is often where you can throw in some cover crops, see what germinates, and then, you know, get the cycle, get something growing in there, and then you're ready to rock. You've seriously got a great foundation to start growing anything in there.
00:34:27
Speaker
Fantastic. You can go and source all of these things yourself. And depending on where you are in the world may depend on where you can find these amendments because yeah I've sourced everything as locally as possible.
00:34:41
Speaker
For example, the, um, the basalt rock dust, the volcanic rock dust comes from Mount Sylvia in Queensland here. So it's okay really, really close by. um,
00:34:53
Speaker
Having, you know, we touched on this in in our episode, having local ingredients means they're locally adapted. They're more... in tune with the environment that you're then going to be
Revitalizing Sterile Soils
00:35:05
Speaker
growing in.
00:35:06
Speaker
And going back to what you said about those ones that you can buy from the hardware store. Yes. I know myself. I get very lazy and just go, oh my God, just get me a bag of something and yeah I'll sort it out later.
00:35:20
Speaker
So how do you actually bring that soil to life? Well, that's interesting because I'm doing that currently at the moment. I did an experiment. Well, I'm doing a long-term experiment with chilies where I've got three pots of the most basic potting soil you could possibly imagine. You know, I'm not going to throw the brand under the bus, but it's a very, very simple, simple potting mix. Okay. The most basic you can get.
00:35:47
Speaker
Now, it actually has warnings on the bag about how hazardous this can be. And organic material and potting soil shouldn't be hazardous. It should be full of beautiful things that can help us in our health.
00:36:01
Speaker
But I've put these in three different pots and I'm testing fertilizers. I'm testing my number one blend. I'm testing a basic NPK synthetic fertilizer that you can also buy.
00:36:12
Speaker
Same brand from the hardware store or the garden center. And then i was testing one that had absolutely no fertilizer in it whatsoever. yeah And there's no prizes for guessing which one died first because the one that had no food died almost instantly.
00:36:31
Speaker
All right. And so as you mentioned, even though it might be sterile, these soils might contain still some of our synthetic pesticides and herbicides, our roundup that we find in nearly everything these days.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah. And there's nothing, there's no microbes or there's no life in that soil to be able to combat that or mitigate any of those issues. And
Fertilizer Experiments on Chili Plants
00:36:56
Speaker
What I found really, really interesting is that a lot of people were sort of a little bit flabbergasted and they thought, why did it die so quickly?
00:37:06
Speaker
And I like to use the nice simple analogy of when you have a child or when you have a pet, they need food and water. All right. So do our plants. And people forget that.
00:37:18
Speaker
They think that I can just throw a plant in there and just leave it alone and just go, um don't need to feed that. It's just a plant. It's already in this. It's in soil. It's got water. It's fine.
00:37:28
Speaker
But if you don't feed it, then it's not going to be able to grow. And there was nothing in that soil. It was completely devoid of any nutrients. Yeah. Well, most of the time that soil is not even a real soil. It's very fine bark.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah and And I've highlighted before about how our green waste system is often where this all comes from.
00:37:55
Speaker
So our green waste that we take to the tip and is then taken up and mulched and broken down is then sold back to us in these bags through these companies.
00:38:07
Speaker
Like everybody throws the kitchen sink into these greenway systems. Like there's nails and things in here. There's roundup galore. And then it's sent back and processed and often sterilized, as you pointed out.
00:38:22
Speaker
But these these things still linger in that soil. So we're ending up with this pretty devoid soil. Now, I'm getting to your question. I'm going round in circles, but we're getting to the question. Here here we're going to build this soil back. And this is what I'm doing with that third container, the one that died first.
00:38:38
Speaker
Okay, so we lost our chili seedling. No worries at all. Now it gives us a perfect opportunity to show you, okay, now we have this completely dead devoid soil or dirt as I like to refer to it. It's not a soil, it's dirt.
00:38:52
Speaker
When we want to bring some life back to it, we're going to start introducing all of these things that we were just talking about before with the healthy soil. Okay. So first things first, okay, I added a little bit of worm castings, compost, and the number one blend, a balanced organic nutrient blend, something like this.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. You can also find, you know, various different things, fertilizers and and things, but as long as it's organic, then usually we're pretty good to go. This is when we want to get some things living in the soil. This is where cover crop comes in.
00:39:28
Speaker
So we're throwing these seeds in, we're getting them to germinate, hopefully in with a little bit of worm castings or something like this. So it's got some of those nutrients and life and biology right there at the seed.
00:39:40
Speaker
So it's able to actually germinate. if you've got If you're trying to germinate straight into that soil, you'll probably find that it's not going to do so well. You're not going to get a huge amount. So thats this is why to boost it, to kickstart it, we want to add a little bit of compost to worm castings.
00:39:56
Speaker
Now, then I'm doing foliar feeds with our liquid nutrients, our ferments, our fish hydrolysate. We're adding this in. We're slowly bringing that life up.
00:40:10
Speaker
And now... When we're talking about these cover crops, actually posted a reel literally yesterday of that exact pot with the cover crop in it. And right now it's probably, let's just say 10 to 20 centimeters average of height.
00:40:27
Speaker
Now you could come along and chop and drop that and put it back on the soil and allow it to start breaking down and plant some more things in it and go and go and go.
00:40:36
Speaker
What is really interesting is as we spoke about with that seed, when it's got that beautiful potential initially, where the seed, when it's first germinated, has everything it needs to become this beautiful plant.
00:40:50
Speaker
The closer to that, that it is, the more nutrient dense it is. So this is why we see microgreens as something that's really, really healthy. It's this very small sprout that contains a lot Now, when the plant is allowed to grow up and increase its organic matter, its size, then we're almost spreading out those nutrients throughout all of that organic matter. So you might often be getting similar amount if you ate the entire plant, but we're not doing that. We want to
00:41:29
Speaker
Basically capture those beautiful nutrients. So you could just flatten it down and put those back in the soil and go again and go again. What I like to do is let it grow up a little bit so we've got a bit more organic matter so that when we chop and drop it, we've actually got a decent mulch layer going. Yeah.
00:41:45
Speaker
mulch is so important for so many reasons keeping them the moisture in there bringing some organic matter that's going to break down and feed the soil eventually protecting it from the sun from drying out all of these types of things so having a a breakdown of all of that organic matter that you're getting free mulch over and over again
Organic vs. Synthetic Fertilizers
00:42:04
Speaker
we're coming in and we're taking off that top layer we're leaving the roots intact and because some of them will grow back and some of those roots will break down in the soil, aerate the soil and create more food.
00:42:18
Speaker
So this is something that I'm doing with this one at the moment. I'm allowing this diverse cover crop to grow up. I'm adding in the microbes, giving them a place for them to live and thrive and then providing some organic matter to start building that soil.
00:42:32
Speaker
So I'm gonna continue to do that, Michael, over and over again. More and more cover crop until I can see a bit of life in there. Enough for me to go, look, I think this is ready to start planting something into.
00:42:44
Speaker
And then I'm going to give it a go and rock and roll. Nice. And then moving on to your, I guess, middle chili plant that you've used an MPK synthetic fertilizer with. Yes.
00:42:57
Speaker
Obviously, you've not used a nice, you've used that same soil, haven't you? Yes. Yes. All the same soil. So you've got crap soil and then you're feeding with synthetic fertilizers, which will do the job, but...
00:43:12
Speaker
You're feeding the plant directly. I always like to think of NPK, like synthetic fertilizers, as like junk food for plants. Yes, that's a really good analogy. You're not feeding them anything good. You're just sort of like pumping just what they need in, you know, just what they need, nothing extra. So I kind of...
00:43:30
Speaker
find that yes, you get a beautiful looking plant, but the nutrient density within the produce is pretty null and void.
00:43:43
Speaker
How are you finding the look of your plants between your first pot with your organic mix and the MPK fertilizer pot? Now, between few visits from my friend, the possum, that's come in and and annihilated most of the foliage on those two plants.
00:44:02
Speaker
ah Classic. um Exactly. i've What I've noticed is that initially right out the gate, the basic NPK fired off, was very dark green, had lots of green foliage. That nitrogen that comes in, that synthetic nitrogen, is being hit straight into that plant.
00:44:21
Speaker
yeah Some people go, oh, that's that's beautiful. That's wonderful. Okay. But what we're not doing is we're not feeding the soil. We're not building an ecosystem in the soil.
00:44:35
Speaker
We're building, well, it's essentially, as you say, like the junk food. It's um it's almost like we're giving them- We're shortcutting the system. Yes. We're giving supplements instead of real food.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah. we We're giving them something that goes straight into the system without having to go through the natural processes of being broken down in the soil or in our gut, for example.
00:45:00
Speaker
Yeah. Another good example that we might think of with our food is that when you have fruit, for example, it's got some beautiful fiber content, right?
00:45:11
Speaker
If you eat a banana normally, that goes into our gut and the microbes take their time to break down the fiber to access all of those nutrients.
00:45:24
Speaker
Now, versus if you throw it in a smoothie and you blitz it all up, We're totally destroying the natural structure and the fiber that's in there. And those microbes don't have to do anything to work.
00:45:36
Speaker
And they don't, the ones that specifically break down that fiber aren't there. They're not needed. So same as in our soil, if we're putting in a rock dust that needs these microbes to break it down, to make it bioavailable,
00:45:55
Speaker
If we're putting something in that's a synthetic based phosphorus that's a liquid form, we're totally bypassing that and there's no need for those microbes in the soil.
00:46:05
Speaker
So we're not going to build a healthy living soil ecosystem. So when you run out of that particular nutrient, then there's none in the soil and there's nothing that can make it available in the soil.
00:46:17
Speaker
So that's why you have to keep feeding and keep feeding and keep feeding. And that's why we see with our monocrop agriculture, our big farms with use of synthetics, that they're depleting the soil because there's no life in it.
00:46:30
Speaker
We're just feeding them direct the most purest form of bioavailable synthetic versions of these nutrients. And there's there's nothing in the soil that gets built up to to be able to break these things down and go through those natural cycles.
00:46:46
Speaker
And this feels like a great place to stop this episode.
Conclusion and Teaser for Next Episode
00:46:50
Speaker
I'd like to thank Jordan for his time. I've actually split our chat into two distinct episodes. This one was all about soil. The next one is all about integrated pest management.
00:47:00
Speaker
Now, you can find Jordan at his website, theshedorganics.com.au and you can watch his weekly YouTube videos on his YouTube channel, The Shed Organics, as well as find him on almost every social media platform, he tells me.
00:47:18
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 five-star rating and a review.
00:47:29
Speaker
If you want more gardeners lodge content, you can find our website, our Instagram and our Tik Tok in the show notes below this episode. The gardeners lodge podcast is a growing media production.