Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #66 - Thriving Edible Food Gardens | Craig Castree

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#66 - Thriving Edible Food Gardens | Craig Castree · The Shed Organics Show

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Shared
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Organics show. My name is Jordan and I am
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joined by the incredible Craig Castry today.
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Craig is a horticulturalist and author and an educator of over
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45 years experience. Plenty of years spending time
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helping people, spreading the message, and he's developed
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quite a following now and has built so much trust with his
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audience in sharing reliable and important information about
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gardening, but also soil health, something that we connected on
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very much. So the importance of soil health
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and how that stems up all the way through all of our our
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health, our animals health, the plant health and planetary
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health in general. Such an incredible conversation,
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so much information. Then if you've got your
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notebooks, make sure you get them out.
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But otherwise, please enjoy this conversation with the absolutely
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incredible and wonderful Craig Castri.
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I've been a follower of yours actually on Facebook for quite a
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while, which has been really awesome for me to see the
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content that you've been putting out.
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I've learnt a lot, not only just, you know, how to grow
1:35
things or just the, the simple things and tips and tricks, but
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also a greater understanding of how to view the soil as well.
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And as well seeing your amazing T-shirts that you're wearing as
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well today. I love your T-shirt, different
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T-shirts that you have on. It's just so brilliant, mate.
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Can you just tell me why the move into soil as the primary
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sort of thing that you like to teach that your motto is kind of
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like a summary of something like we're not just feeding plants or
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we're not feeding plants, we're actually feeding the soil.
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So do you mind going into that? Why you're why you're going into
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soil? No dramas at all.
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Look, I mean, I'm my background as a horticulturist, I started
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out life working in wholesale plant farms, retail nursery
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outlets, and I worked on orchards.
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And you know, and wherever I've, I've lived, I've always grown as
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much of my own food as I possibly can.
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But primarily you use the things you were taught.
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And we were taught feed plants, fertilizer or the cultural
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college. And that was a big thing.
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And of course, when they get pest and disease, they need to
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use the appropriate surprise. So I sort of moved away from
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that because I got very, very sick of smelling the
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insecticides and the fund. And in fact, I nearly got fired
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from one job for refusing to use systemic sprays and particularly
3:11
glyphosate. Wow.
3:13
So, you know, they, they, he basically sort of held it over
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and he said you don't do this mate, it's going to cost you a
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job. I said, well, so do it.
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I'm going to stand where I, where I, I believe I want to
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stand and I'm not, I'm just simply not going to use it.
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So, and to this day, I have never ever sprayed any roundup
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or 0 or any of that sort of stuff.
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So and I've, so I slowly but surely moved away from
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chemicals. And when I shifted out of home
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and set up my first edible garden, which was never an
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intended thing, but that's how it happened.
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I mean, my then wife decided that she didn't want to see
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vegetable garden. I said to her, so I hadn't known
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that I wouldn't have asked you to marry me.
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And the whole reason for me to exist is to grow some of my own
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food, you know. So I had to find clever ways of
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fitting in the edibles in amongst the ornamentals and, you
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know, the bluestone border edge with the miniature roses and the
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edible garden was born. And when we became pregnant with
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our first child, the last thing I wanted to do was to be using
4:19
any chemicals anywhere. So that really started me off on
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a, you know, a slow journey, but nonetheless of composting and so
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forth. But I really didn't truly
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understand the journey I was about to embark on until about 5
4:33
years ago, where when we were locked down through COVID.
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I look like as you, as you already where I offer a lot of
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advice on a daily basis and people depend on my information
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on how to never go through the garden.
4:47
So that's, it's not a burden, but it's that weighs heavy on me
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because I want to make sure that whatever I give out in terms of
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advice is correct, true, and as up to date as it possibly can
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be. So I'm always researching.
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I'm always looking to see what trends have changed and so
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forth. And I happen to overhear through
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a podcast, a woman say these words every book written on soil
5:15
for the last 100 years. You might as well burn for all
5:18
the good they are. They're wrong.
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And I went, this woman is crazy. I mean, that can't be, I mean,
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come on, you know, I, I've studied soil, you know, and, and
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so look, that sent me down a rabbit hole.
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And I, I watched this particular podcast to its end.
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By the way, her name is Doctor Christine Jones.
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She is a world renowned soil ecologist who recently retired
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sadly but nonetheless the work that she has done has really set
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the ground rules amongst others. Obviously, you know the belated
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the the recently passed away Elaine Ingham.
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Yeah, definitely. You know, so I mean, these are
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pioneers in this in this space. And it's so look, I followed
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down this path and I pretty well realized in a very short space
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of time that all I had learned about soil was wrong.
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We had misunderstood what we stand on.
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We know more about outer space than what we what we stand true.
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It's pointed crazy really when you think about it.
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We only still know this is a new frontier.
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Let me tell you, there are no experts in this space and I
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don't very much that there ever will be.
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We still only know less than 2% of the microbiology in soil and
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how it functions and how that plays out with, you know, living
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plant roots. So when I found that out, I, I
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started to, you know, as the same and I, I went down that
6:47
rabbit hole and wrote a book. Yeah.
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This called the soil is not a dirty word as a result, because
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it was such important information that I had to get
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out there to, for, for others to, to understand this.
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You know, because when you realize that we've only got
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somewhere around about 60 years of topsoil left, we only use
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about 3% of the Earth's surface to grow our food.
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You know, whilst that's not going to matter to me in 60
7:13
years, it's going to matter to each and every one of my 11
7:15
grandchildren. Absolutely.
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And their kids beyond them. So I mean whilst, and we only
7:20
ever do better when we know better.
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So and, and look at the outset, there is no right or wrong in
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any of this. You know, if you use the
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traditional methods, it's not wrong.
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It's just you're going to get different outcomes and they are
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hugely different. Yeah.
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And that's the reality. And, and it's not only hugely
7:37
different for the soil, but it's everything that around it.
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And it all starts with that microbiology without it, you
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know, Ray Archuleta over in the States makes a classic
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statement. And I love it because, he said
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without biology, it's just geology.
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I like that. You know, think about the moon.
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There is no biology there. And it's lots of rock and dust
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and dirt, but there ain't, there's no life without it.
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It's just geology. And what we think we should do
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is to gradually deplete that biology over time.
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And you know, when we colonized Australia, the early explorers
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took back 41 soil samples back to the UK and they analysed them
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for carbon content, humorous levels.
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I came back in that 41 soil samples somewhere between 5 and
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37% carbon. Wow.
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Made mention of how spongy the soil was when they walked across
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it I. Bet.
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And today and globally we're down to 1.5% and here in
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Australia we are less than 1%. And it's no wonder why we get
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huge floods, particularly in the food bowl regions in southern
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Queensland and northern NSW and down here in Victoria from time
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to time and dust storms, you know, we're still getting them
8:57
globally. You know some some countries
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biggest commodity is their soil, their top soil.
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Yeah, true. So that's the sad factor where
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we're at. So I now concentrate every
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waking moment on how do I without, you know, making it
9:14
wrong for some people and right for others.
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And so I don't want to, I don't want to delineate, I don't want
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to, you know, polarise this. It's really about explaining
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what the outcomes are. You know, there are no right or
9:26
wrong, there's just different outcomes.
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So the outcomes of looking after soft eating soil, not plants, is
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that you get it better health, The planet gets better health.
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We suck down more carbon, we get less floods, et cetera and we
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build nutrient dense food and that's not something we hear a
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lot about. We hear about organic and we
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hear about SNAP frozen and we hear about fresh and but nothing
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about nutrient density. And that's what we've been
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missing in all of this. On the other side of the fence,
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we deplete the carbon. Plants can only take up
9:56
somewhere between 10 and 40% of fertilizer applied in the year
10:00
of application, which means that you're going to lose most of
10:04
that when it does run off your soil because the soil's lost its
10:06
water holding capacity. Yeah.
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Runs it into our drains, rivers, creeks and streams, and
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ultimately into our oceans. We've got 500 oceanic dead zones
10:14
now. Yeah.
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You know, so this isn't just what might happen.
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It is happening and has happened.
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We can reverse this, we can pull it back.
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Yeah. But we've got to, like I said,
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we've got to, we've got to think differently.
10:27
And it's, it's putting that cap on and throw away what we've
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learnt traditionally is the hardest thing to do.
10:34
And, you know, five years ago, it took me every brain cell not
10:38
to feed plants, even though it was organic fertilizer.
10:41
Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's just
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goes against everything that I knew, even though I'm still
10:47
using compost and was then. But you know, whenever I put a
10:51
plant in the ground, it was like quarter, depending upon the size
10:55
of the plant, it would be 1/4 or half or a whole handful of
10:58
something like a dynamic lifter around this, the plant.
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And, and that's just craziness that you know, when you, when
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you understand particularly nitrogen, every second breath,
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every breath we take is, is made-up of 78% nitrogen.
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And provided we've got uncompact soil, that atmospheric air makes
11:17
its way down into the soil. And since time began, think
11:21
about the Amazon rainforest microbes have been soluble
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drawing that nitrogen down and making it available.
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The plants there is 34,000 tons of nitrogen free over the every
11:32
acre of land. So while we've ever applied
11:34
nitrogen anywhere is quite ridiculous when you think about
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it. So it's really about, and I
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guess, and I don't want to say it's regenerative and I, whilst
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I've coined the phrase regen edible gardening, which is what
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I, I guess it moves more toward because it, you know, growing
11:51
plants full stop in an edible garden, whether they be
11:54
ornamental companionships or, or, you know, edibles, it
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regenerates soil at the same time.
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Whereas when you grow a vegetable garden, the reality is
12:05
that it degenerates the soil, it degrades the soil.
12:08
You put everything in the competition for food, water and
12:10
light. You know, you deplete the
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microbes the minute you start applying fertilizers, they stop
12:15
feeding microbes and then they're not drawing down that
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carbon, you know, so it's, it has a negative effect.
12:20
So that's why I say that there's, you're still going to
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get a plant at the other that you can put on a plate.
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But the difference is the, the, the, the comparisons of nutrient
12:29
dense on the one hand and nutrient deplete on the other.
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And you know, there's some work being done now on this term
12:36
nutrient density by the I can't think of the name of the
12:43
association, but it's over in the States again.
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I listened to him last night, as a matter of fact.
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Anyway, look, so it's the IT might be the bio Nutrient
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association. Oh yeah, I know.
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There's a guy called Dan Kittredge.
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That's him. That's him.
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Dan Kittredge. Yeah, he's amazingly doing some
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great work on that kind of stuff.
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So they were talking about the huge amounts of carrots that,
13:06
that that they've drawn from to get a handle on what is nutrient
13:11
dense, You know, what, what, what, what is comparisons.
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And the differences were huge. The one grown regeneratively
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well, And when I say regenerative, it was the highest
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nutritionally dense plant had 40 times more nutrition than the
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the others. So you have to add 40 carrots to
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get the, the one you know. So that's so.
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And in the research that I did, or should I say the study of the
13:36
research I did to put that book together, I came across quite a
13:41
lot of information that just blew my mind.
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We are eating twice the amount of meat, three times the amount
13:48
of fruit and four to five times the amount of vegetables to get
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the same nutrition from food grown and produced in 1940.
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So what's happened is that post Second World War we had heaps
13:59
and heaps of NPK, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus leftover
14:03
from making bombs. I mean, it's a highly volatile
14:05
substance and we stabilize it by putting salt in it so it becomes
14:10
soluble. So the plants will take it up.
14:12
And of course it stops us from blowing ourselves up as we
14:15
broadcast around the garden. So, and in reality, when you do
14:21
that, you know, obviously the knock on effect as a Zodiac
14:24
comes a very different in comparison to going down the
14:27
path of mimicking nature. And I guess that is really in a
14:32
nutshell, what regenerative edible gardening is all about.
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It's about bio mimicry. It's about mimicking nature as
14:40
best you possibly can. And and Mother Nature doesn't
14:44
use nitrogen anywhere. No, we're taking these tools,
14:49
aren't we from, from nature and just observing how it's done and
14:53
then using those tools to our advantage to speed something up,
14:57
direct it down a certain pathway, grow us some some food.
15:02
One thing that, well, first of all, I deeply connect with all
15:06
of that because it is so important.
15:08
It is the fundamental part of what provides us our health
15:14
through the produce that we eat, the animals that we eat, all of
15:16
this, that animals health, the planet health.
15:19
It's so incredibly, inexplicably linked.
15:24
So then when you, when you speak about this Regen edible
15:27
gardening, I know obviously like you this, we're doing edible
15:34
gardening in a way that is improving the soil, it's
15:36
improving the planet. We're not just extracting
15:39
resources and things like this, as you mentioned, like the
15:42
chemical agriculture is we're applying more and more
15:45
fertilizer for less and less result and more and more pest
15:48
pressure as well. So in this region edible
15:54
gardening method that you've sort of been working on, you
15:58
mentioned like how if you just say planted a whole garden bed
16:03
full of one particular vegetable, even say, say corn,
16:06
for example, because that's a heavy feeder, it's extracting a
16:09
lot from the garden. And then we're coming back and
16:13
we're applying compost. We're applying all of these
16:16
things, cover crops or chop and drop and all of that sort of
16:20
thing. What techniques are are you
16:24
promoting around this to help with this regenerative way of
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bringing soil health app? So I guess you know, you, you
16:34
kind of got to understand how plants and microbes exist
16:37
together and, and how they what, what is the symbiotic
16:42
relationship between the two? And of course it's a liquid
16:46
carbon pathway. There are many pathways, but
16:48
liquid carbon pathway is the quickest way to draw down carbon
16:52
soil and it's the quickest path that plants and microbes take
16:56
up. So plants with photosynthesis
16:58
make complex sugars, carbohydrates, starches,
17:03
whatever you want to call them. But it's basically a
17:06
photosynthetic substance that is their food.
17:10
I mean it's and, and some of that carbon gets turned into
17:14
leaves and stems and roots and into lignin, into timber.
17:17
And they make about 40% more than they need through this
17:20
process. And likes in the afternoon,
17:24
through a process called translocation, they translate
17:26
that, translocate that excess and they feed out microbes.
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Now the root zone of the plant called now the rhizosphere, not
17:35
the root zone because it's populated with microbes and
17:39
there are vast amounts and we still only know roughly 2%, less
17:44
than 2% of what they are and what their functional roles are.
17:48
But the plant is actually summoning the microbes that need
17:52
something from. And of course, they need
17:54
something from the whole periodic table.
17:56
Pretty well, minute amounts, you know, some are macro nutrients,
18:00
some are micronutrients and so forth.
18:01
But no one, no, no, no less important than another without
18:05
these miniscule amounts, you know, two or three parts per
18:09
million of boron. Yeah, you don't have that.
18:11
Then it shuts down some pathways that the plants now can't build
18:15
proper proteins. Yeah, that's right.
18:16
When they make these incomplete proteins, that's where we get
18:20
our trouble because the we need that to get to build these
18:26
secondary metabolites that our gut microbiome digests and
18:30
makes, and it separates what's good from what's bad and keeps
18:33
us. So when you disconnect the
18:35
plants by feeding fertilizers, the plant stops translocating
18:41
and making those sugars available to the microbes
18:44
because they've got this now solubilised fertilizer they've
18:48
got to take up because it's in quite a lot of it's been applied
18:53
in in, in excess because like I said before, they only take up
18:56
10 to 40% of what was applied in a year in through application.
19:01
And they need some of this stuff on a daily basis, but in very
19:04
small amounts. Of course, once they can't take
19:07
it up, it then becomes locked up in soil or unavailable.
19:11
There needs to be some microbial intervention in the soil that we
19:15
didn't really understand. You know, plants don't just sit
19:18
there drinking up what's in the soil.
19:20
That's not how it happens. I mean, not yet.
19:22
Sure, they can solubilize some of the stuff, but they rely
19:25
heavily on this symbiotic relationship between the
19:27
microbes, the fungi, and the bacteria and so forth to
19:30
actually solubilize these minerals and make them available
19:33
in the amounts that they need, as they need it.
19:35
Exactly, Yeah. And, and, and some of these
19:37
things are way out of their roots.
19:39
So I mean, how does it get the zinc that's 300 metres away, you
19:42
know, So through biochemical signalling, and this is the
19:45
thing that we didn't really understand, they are signalling
19:48
to those microbes. And in actual fact, they're
19:50
lacing those that that that photosynthetic sugar, those
19:54
complex sugars that they feed out through their roots called
19:58
exudates. And these exudates are often
20:00
laced in. For instance, let's let's take
20:02
you to the Amazon rainforest and and a blueberry.
20:05
Yeah. Right, not the common blueberry
20:08
today, but the original blueberry or or one of they need
20:13
a really acidic pH. So this is to give you an idea
20:18
of how powerful is microbes are. They change pH and the soil and,
20:24
and you know, we've been there applying heaps and heaps of
20:28
sulphur, which is very slow to act.
20:29
And we often get it wire on the plant laces the exudates with
20:35
sulphur, sulphur enticing exudates to entice the sulphur
20:40
solubilizing microbes to its root system.
20:42
It continues to feed and summon these, these microbes that have
20:47
this sulphur ability and until that soil gets down to 4.5.
20:52
And when it does, they stop when it gets a little bit out of
20:55
whack and they pull them back in again and it can.
20:58
So what they did was they, they, they, they did some, some tests,
21:03
they, they, they, they went out and they inspected what was
21:06
going on and they took soil samples from these dotted
21:10
blueberries here and there. And they were all sitting
21:12
somewhere around about 4.5 point up to 4.7.
21:16
Look, the other parts that were within a meter or so were six
21:19
point fives and sevens And so, and the minute they went back
21:24
near a rhizo, the rhizosphere of another blueberry, sure enough
21:27
was standing in the 4.5 range. And if you think about it in
21:30
nature, that's always been the case.
21:33
I mean, you know, so we've never ever, we, we pay a lot of
21:37
attention to pH. What we really should be paying
21:41
attention to is getting the soil back to functioning.
21:44
So. That can take place and that's
21:46
really what that bio mimicry is all about.
21:49
It's about feeding those microbes that organic matter
21:53
down through the soil, including the soil food web of insects,
21:55
because they all play a part. They do.
21:58
You know, I, I coined the phrase with, with a lot of the
22:01
workshops that I run. So, you know, but cows, for
22:03
instance, or ruminants don't back up to a tomato and take a
22:07
dump. And even if they did, it would
22:10
be some time before that plant could take up.
22:14
It needs to sit there and it slowly but surely starts to
22:17
decompose. And the, the, you know, the dung
22:20
beetles move in and they start and break it down and they start
22:22
to break that down into smaller pieces.
22:24
And so it goes down through, even down through the soil mites
22:28
and eventually it comes to the microbes and the microbes
22:30
solubilizing material and make that available and extract out
22:34
of it. They do the digestion for the
22:36
plants. They make it available the
22:39
plants in the amount that the plants are summoning.
22:41
So your role really, or our role is to mimic nature by that very
22:46
process of providing that cow manure.
22:47
But I put that into the compost, put cow manure around the plant.
22:53
That's a very slow process. And in nature, that wouldn't
22:57
happen. True.
22:59
You know, for instance, I still use occasional bit of blood and
23:01
bone, but I only put it in the compost.
23:04
Yeah. Because in nature, blood and
23:06
bone would be a natural thing because birds fall off their
23:10
perch and die on the floor. True.
23:12
So do animals. And eventually it decomposes
23:14
that there goes your blood and bone, you know, So it does
23:17
happen, but it's it gets decomposed.
23:20
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd encourage people
23:24
to have a forest floor not too thick and keep that forest floor
23:30
in a constant state of decomposition by making the most
23:34
diverse compost you possibly can.
23:36
Put absolutely everything you can get into it into it.
23:39
And I, I have sort some of that stuff and then I go and get
23:42
biochar. I don't have the time to make
23:44
it. Yeah, I'll use Pasteur and sugar
23:47
cane Moss and all these. So then I make sure they're
23:49
organic because you don't want anything that's had any instance
23:53
of glyphosate in it because you know, bad effect on and so not
23:58
the list of which the worm population, you know, an
24:00
application of glyphosate will knock over 50% of the worm
24:04
population within 24 hours of application.
24:07
So that's something that that's, you know, we've got to really
24:12
stay away from whilst, you know, that shuts down some pathways in
24:16
plants that we desperately need. They make non essential amino
24:19
acids through this pathway and use glyphosate and that shuts
24:22
that down. It's called the chicamate
24:24
pathway. Chicamate.
24:25
That's right, yeah. So, so, and when we consume
24:28
those plants, we don't get it either, you know, and this is
24:31
one of the reasons why we might be living longer lives, but we
24:34
aren't living the healthier ones.
24:36
You know, that that's the reality.
24:38
I mean, our hospitals are brimming full of people that
24:42
shouldn't be in there. And I suspect that it's because
24:44
you're not simply getting the nutrition that they need to.
24:48
And of course, we're missing out on the micro flora that goes
24:51
with these plants that you know what I mean, The, the, the, the
24:57
medical professions and the soil microbiologist and I guess the,
25:02
the, the soil ecologist all need to sit down together and have a
25:06
bit of a conversation because it stands out to make you get soil
25:11
wrong. You get absolutely everything
25:14
else wrong because it starts with that microbiology.
25:18
Hey, guys, really quickly jumping in.
25:20
I just want to remind you, if you are not subscribed to this
25:23
show, that is the number one thing that you can do to show me
25:26
your support. So if you're finding value from
25:28
this conversation and you're deeply engaged, I would love you
25:31
to hit the follow or subscribe button.
25:33
All right, back to the show. And the two is related.
25:36
Healthy soil equals healthy humans and it also help happens
25:40
to be a healthy planet. And when you get this right and
25:45
and it's taken me a little while to get my head round all of
25:47
this, but and to simplify it and make it available in simplistic
25:51
terms so that people understand that you're not giving him a
25:54
science lesson every time they they go to get out into the
25:57
garden. It's just a simple thing.
25:59
You know, it's it's a case of and I think that that's
26:02
something else that's happened with over complicated gardening.
26:06
Don't have to walk into one of these great big hardware chains
26:09
and go down the garden aisle with your shopping trolley and
26:11
it's like there's any wonder people, you know are a bit
26:16
bewildered. I mean my God.
26:18
Yeah, I totally. I, I say this, I mean, if you
26:21
find yourself bewildered by what of all these products you need
26:24
to be putting in your shopping trolley, smack your hand and get
26:27
out of it. You don't need most of that
26:29
stuff. You know, you might need a bio
26:30
stimulator of some sort and you may need some, you know, some,
26:34
some bio active mulching and they do sell some of that.
26:37
And you might need a bag of really good quality compost.
26:40
Don't buy the cheap stuff that's way too high in alkaline.
26:43
Yeah, but that's about all you're going to need.
26:46
And then get out of there, hightail it.
26:49
All that other stuff is going to get you in the soil and anything
26:51
you grow in it into heaps of trouble.
26:53
Yeah, and not the least of which it's going to have a down play
26:56
on your health over time. And I mean, this is the other
27:00
thing, the cumulative effect of what we eat on a daily basis.
27:04
And when we're sending our kids to school with, you know, breads
27:08
that have got 22 ingredients in the bloody stuff, you know, and
27:12
then we're filling it up with false calories, you know, of,
27:17
you know, a lettuce. I mean, this is the other thing.
27:19
By growing some of your own food, forget how it's grown per
27:22
SE. I mean, you're better off to try
27:23
and grow it nutriently dense. Yeah, but you lose 85% of the
27:28
nutritional payload of a lettuce within 18 hours of it being
27:31
picked. Yeah, and there's no way that
27:33
you're eating that within 18 hours on the supermarket.
27:36
Absolutely not. You know Snowpoos are 6050%
27:39
within six hours, corns A gobsmaker 40% within 20 minutes.
27:44
Wow, I didn't realize it was that quick.
27:46
Yeah, I mean, what? My God, Yeah.
27:49
It's incredible. You know what I mean?
27:50
We're look, I, I use a refractometer on a daily basis.
27:54
Yeah. I'm out there checking to see
27:56
where, how I'm travelling as far as I, you know, as a focus.
28:01
Levels. And stuff, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
28:02
Measuring what? What is the dissolved solids and
28:05
and minerals running in that plant SAP?
28:07
I mean sure, I use it on fruit before I pick, but it's more
28:11
important to me as a guide as to what's going on in the garden,
28:15
you know? So I'll be often if we get a few
28:18
overcast as I'm out there with fulvic acid.
28:21
Yeah. Giving that a spray over the
28:22
leaves, you know, I mean, I've learned, you know, even with
28:26
deficiencies in plants, I mean, we can use this knowledge to our
28:29
advantage because lemon tree is a prime example.
28:32
I mean, how many times, how many questions I've had about lemon
28:35
trees over the years? I mean, I would be a millionaire
28:38
if I got a dollar of requested. I sure, you know, it's
28:41
incredible. But inherently they have very
28:44
shallow root systems and supposedly they don't like, you
28:50
know, competition. So I mean, I've thrown that all
28:53
out the window. I I tell people, make sure you
28:56
plant underneath lemon trees. Yeah.
28:58
I'll come back to that Natick. But what happens is that over
29:01
time, heavy metals, things like lead, iron, zinc, molybdenum,
29:07
those settle out of their reach. So now they start and display
29:12
deficiencies in their leaves. They get greening by nation or
29:15
yellowing by nation, or they might get blotches and so forth.
29:18
And of course, like when I was told, you use the deficiency
29:22
chart, as every horticulturist will tell you, and we can tell
29:27
roughly what in a ballpark fashion what the soil is
29:32
deficient. And that's what we were thought.
29:33
The soil's missing this. Well, no, it's not.
29:36
No, when you do a full profile soil test, everything's there.
29:40
Yeah. It's just some of it's unlocked,
29:42
locked up or unavailable. That's not and our role really
29:45
is to understand what is the limiting factor of that.
29:50
It's there. How do I get that unlocked?
29:52
So in the meantime, the plant is still deficient.
29:56
So you can use a carbon based bio stimulus something.
30:01
So that might that's for argument's sake.
30:03
So it might be a a vermiculture liquid.
30:07
Yep, and you can now dissolve some trace minerals in that.
30:11
Yeah. And if you pick a humid Diola
30:14
stomata, that's the pores of the leaves are open.
30:17
Yeah, especially early in the morning.
30:19
Yeah, very, very, very quickly. And you give that plant exactly
30:23
what it needs, while that buys you time, gives the plant what
30:27
it needs to unlock what's going on in Sol, and it's generally
30:30
compaction. Yeah, there's nothing what
30:32
happens above or below soil with that air.
30:35
I mean, hold your breath for four or five minutes and see how
30:38
you go. They're no different.
30:40
I mean, they can't function without oxygen, you know, so, so
30:44
that, that that's the scenario. So and it's so populating around
30:50
the citrus tree with a very shallow root system with
30:53
particularly some of the bioaccumulators.
30:56
So these can be the long, deep taprooted words, things like
30:59
comfrey and borage and those I mean, even I wouldn't put a
31:02
mower in there because it would grow and interfere with but but
31:07
you sort of see what I'm talking about.
31:08
I mean, yeah, each things tap the clay table and pull up a lot
31:11
of these heavy mineral, the metals and minerals the the the
31:15
the lemon tree is unable to get. It's telling you that on the on
31:20
its deficiencies in the leaves. So if you've got these plants
31:23
populated around the the the drip line of the lemon tree,
31:27
happy days, because the mycorrhizal network will make
31:30
these available to the lemon tree as it needs it.
31:34
That's what that's how this works.
31:36
And that's why in nature, nothing grows in monoculture
31:39
crops. It is all about diversity.
31:42
You only have to look at how plants are dispersed in terms of
31:44
seeds. Yeah.
31:46
And all of these, you know, wind dispersal, bird dispersal,
31:49
animal water dispersal, even fire.
31:52
Sometimes you get to have a fire through a forest before you come
31:54
and germinate. But melt the waxy coats off
31:57
these, you know, Acacia leaves, Acacia seeds and Banksy's and so
32:01
forth, you know, So this is this is what happens in nature, you
32:04
know, and for good reason. So that you get diversity, you
32:09
know, So it's, it's to do away with this traditional thinking
32:13
of getting back lots and lots of diversity.
32:15
And now we've come to understand and I have at least, you know,
32:19
it's very easy when you go down the path of growing a lot of
32:22
your own food. And, and look, I live on a 500
32:25
square meter block in the West of Melbourne and we're in a
32:29
really bad dry belt. We have a small set of hills
32:33
called the Yu Yang's and they sort of separate us from the the
32:38
regional West. And as the weather comes, which
32:41
is where we predominantly get most of our weather from.
32:44
And we're look, I'm only about 5 kilometres from the coast.
32:47
Yeah. We're 18% of the food bowl of
32:50
Victoria here. So we've got huge market down
32:52
there. So, so the weather comes along
32:56
and hits these these hills and they're not mountains by any
32:59
stretch, but the, you know, the hills insane for a fairway and
33:02
it splits the weather and, and Werribee, where I live is in the
33:06
shadow of those hills and it then joins and and it's and it
33:10
hugs the coast. So Werribee S only 5 KS from
33:13
where I am, gets about 150 mill more rainfall than I get.
33:18
It's incredible. And it's no no no surprise as to
33:21
why the market gardens did well then.
33:23
In. Terms of the rain and then it
33:25
joins up about 15 kilometres from where I live and they get
33:29
the rain and it continues on down east.
33:33
So I've had to concentrate heavily on building back that
33:37
humus. Yeah, now I can honestly say
33:40
that, you know, from really hard compact soil, I now walk on
33:45
spongy soil. Yeah, amazing.
33:48
Usually full of I've got to be careful some that's oh geez,
33:51
that's it feels like I'm going to go into it.
33:53
You know, it's incredibly good when that happens.
33:56
And I plant very densely. It's full of and I've just
34:01
started to go down the path of lots and lots of medicinal
34:05
plants. Thank you.
34:08
Yeah, look, I've now got about 40 odd different types.
34:14
Beautiful. You know, from St.
34:18
John's walk to Mullen to and I've even got Black Mullen.
34:24
I've got one out there at the moment that's headed up second
34:27
here. It's got a flower spike on the
34:29
top of what would be approaching 1.5 meters high, but it's going
34:33
to make its way easy up to 2 meters no problem.
34:36
And it's huge. So, but, but I've got things
34:41
like meadowsweet and ladies mantle and you know, there's,
34:47
but these perennial plants are uniquely placed and surrounded
34:52
by annuals because the annual plants we put in our plate, by
34:57
and large, generally put a lot of their energies and, and
35:01
resources that we have in soil and from the microbes into the
35:05
top part of the plaque. Because they're, they're short
35:07
term, some only four, six weeks, you know, like bok choys and so
35:12
forth and lettuces. And whereas the perennials are
35:15
there long term and they're drawing down more of that carbon
35:20
and pumping it down into the soil and helping build that
35:22
humus level back up. Of course, provided we're not
35:24
turning soil over. That's something or perhaps we
35:27
should revisit because these, some of those principles help
35:31
with all of this. So.
35:34
So I'm now doing that and but I'm, I'm using and it could be
35:37
perennials, could be culinary herbs.
35:39
Yeah, true ages and the raspberries, even though some of
35:42
those are medicinal anyway. But but I've gone down the path
35:45
because I think we've forgotten about medicinals too.
35:49
And we call them complementary medicine or nothing.
35:54
Could be. I mean, what's happened is
35:56
pharmaceutical companies have been able to find the active
35:58
ingredient in this stuff, put it in a pill, and now it just
36:03
treats the symptom, whereas those medicinals in their
36:07
entirety in the way they were meant to be used, actually goes
36:11
to work toward the cause. Yeah, very true.
36:14
And, and it's, and it's a bit, and we're very good at treating
36:16
symptoms. Let me tell you, because through
36:19
this, these traditional methods, you know, we get a pest or a
36:21
disease on a plant and we assume that it's that's that's the
36:26
problem, but it's actually not the problem.
36:28
The problem is a non functioning soil.
36:31
And that's it? That's it's giving off the
36:33
signal, isn't it? Have you?
36:35
Are you familiar with Doctor Philip Callahan's work?
36:38
No. He's he.
36:40
He basically popularized the term that insects picking up
36:46
infrared signals from the yeah, yeah.
36:48
Yeah, I know that. Yeah, so he he's the gentleman
36:51
Richlander. So they.
36:52
They actually get a yeah, yeah, they get an infrared signal from
36:55
a hybrids plant or a lowbridge plant.
36:56
So I've got a really good example of that because we had a
37:00
huge cabbage white butterfly plague here in Victoria about 18
37:05
months ago. Like I could walk out the
37:06
backyard and I could normally breathe them in.
37:08
They were that thick, which there was just literally
37:11
thousands of them. I thought, wow, wow.
37:14
And I had quite a lot of recipes about, you know, so I mean,
37:17
they're like a magnet. Yeah.
37:18
Oh, it's actually got fairly poor eyesight.
37:21
So particularly when you've got a row of things and when they
37:23
see things recognized by a lip shape and then you, you pretty
37:26
well got the neon signs out. So, you know, don't do that.
37:30
I mean, so that they don't grow like that.
37:32
So. So I had some 5 foot tall
37:36
Brussels sprouts that I had burn harvesting and I've been taking
37:39
off the loop, but I had a beautiful big tuft of of
37:43
magnificent grey green, really healthily.
37:45
It's not a mark on them. And and I remember looking when
37:49
I walked out the back with these cabbage white butterflies.
37:51
These things look like white lollipops and I thought that'll
37:55
be the end of them for sure. Anyway, I don't spray.
37:59
I'm a beekeeper. I've got a beehive here so.
38:02
Yeah, amazing. You know, so I I just did do not
38:04
spray. So as a result, I remembered a a
38:08
few weeks later, so the time to pick some more Brussels, you
38:12
know, so because they'd started to fill out and I looked at the
38:15
top of the plants and reminded myself of the white lollipops
38:18
and went, there's not a mark on these plants.
38:21
Wow, a mark. And I started looking around all
38:24
the other brassicas and I thought.
38:27
There's. Plague.
38:29
I mean, what? So I went straight down to the
38:30
garage, grabbed the refractometer and it was, that
38:33
was that day forward that I started to use it every day
38:37
because that tells me a lot about what's going on.
38:39
So I took the reading. 16 bricks.
38:42
Wow. To give you an idea, at 8
38:45
bricks, acres are a thing of the past.
38:47
At 9 bricks, Harlequin bugs and the SAP suck because white fly
38:51
thrips acres, so they're gone. At 11 bricks cabbage white
38:57
butterfly, goodbye, never to be seen again. 12 bricks
39:00
grasshoppers, 13 bricks locusts. And that's about once you're
39:05
into that 12 bricks range, you pretty well insect and disease
39:09
proof. Now why does that work?
39:12
So insects do not have a pancreas.
39:15
They cannot digest complex sugars.
39:18
So when I say complex sugars, because when you fertilize
39:22
plants, the the they don't get from the microbes what they're
39:26
meant. And the plants then can't make
39:29
proper proteins. They make incomplete proteins,
39:32
which means that the sugars inside those those plants are
39:37
now not complex. Yeah.
39:39
And the bricks level's lower, and when they drop into those
39:43
ranges at 8 bricks, now you're open to Eiffords.
39:45
Yeah. And when you drop down below 9,
39:47
now you. Do you see where this goes?
39:50
Yes, exactly right. So, and believe it or not, 12
39:53
bricks is where food is produced.
39:56
Now I when I learned this, I went straight down the
39:58
supermarket. I was eyeing off a beautiful big
40:01
cause lettuce in the backyard. I'm the cook in the family.
40:04
So I spotted this cause and I thought, right, you're coming
40:08
out today, Caesar salad tonight. OK, so I went, I thought, you
40:13
know what, I'm going to test what I grow versus what I would
40:16
buy. I would buy unless, I mean,
40:19
unless I have to go and get paper towels at all or paper and
40:22
that sort of stuff. That's.
40:25
That's the only reason I go to a supermarket and when I do it's
40:28
generally only yeah a local 1 or don't go to the big three.
40:35
So I independently, you know. So anyway, so I buy a cause and
40:40
I brought bring it home. I got a garlic press and
40:42
squeezed out some juice, took the reading and I got 2 bricks.
40:46
Well, that's pretty low. Wow.
40:49
So yeah, so I went and and pulled off 1 leaf off my cod
40:53
lettuce and immediately started to leak out that white Milky SAP
40:56
at the bottom. Yeah, put that on the lens.
40:58
Took a reading. 16 bricks. I went.
41:01
Oh my God. Yeah.
41:04
This was a wake up call. I'm thinking, you know, so if
41:06
I'm not growing it, I'm buying it.
41:08
And that's where people are. And then I started thinking
41:10
about my book and the research. Four to five times the amount of
41:15
vegetables to get the same nutrition.
41:17
I went, wow, this is what we've been doing to ourself on a
41:20
compounding basis of relying on others to produce our food this
41:24
way, making incomplete proteins, insect pest and disease
41:29
pressure, now applying herbicides and fungicides and
41:33
pesticides. I mean, you know how we ever
41:36
thought growing food with chemicals was going to have good
41:40
outcomes. It's a bit beyond me.
41:42
And I mean, it just doesn't, and we're still doing it.
41:44
Yeah, even though we know. Yeah, well, we, we don't know
41:49
most people if you went to the supermarket.
41:51
True, most people don't know, yeah, but I mean, that's the
41:54
problem. The authorities that should be
41:56
have the the data on this and should be referring to this
41:59
data. Oh, they've got it.
42:00
They've, they've got it. They.
42:01
Just they know, yeah. That that's the.
42:03
Problem And as you mentioned, like we're going out there and,
42:06
and you know, right back to the start of the conversation you
42:09
mentioned about having kids and how that really, you know, nails
42:15
like the importance of why we need to connect with our food
42:18
and the importance of nutrient density.
42:20
We're sending these kids out with, you know, fake food,
42:24
essentially that's not meeting their nutritional requirements.
42:27
Yeah, it's food like substance. Yeah, exactly.
42:30
And then on top of that, there's more and more toxins in the
42:33
world. So we're putting more and more
42:34
stress on the, the individual themselves.
42:36
Anyway, I, I'm definitely, you know, learning about bricks and
42:42
how that related to nutrient density was such a, an eye
42:44
opener for me as well. And I'm actually, I was right in
42:48
the process of harvesting Chili's off a side by side
42:52
experiment. I've been running on my YouTube
42:54
showing a basic MPK fertilizer that you can buy from the the
42:58
big hardware stores versus an organic fertilizer and compost
43:03
and amendments and all of these different things and microbes
43:07
and trying to show the difference.
43:08
I've got double the yield on the organic living soil version, but
43:15
at the moment I can't. Like I'm unable to afford
43:19
testing because it's quite expensive for a lots of
43:21
different chili plants in between.
43:23
But I can point to research that shows even just the taste of it,
43:27
the flavour is so much better. All of these things are just
43:31
pointing to the fact that your body knows that it's better for
43:34
it. OK, really quickly, just one
43:36
more thing. I have just launched an exciting
43:40
new group. Jordan's Soil Society is a place
43:43
where you can come and learn more about the soil beneath your
43:46
feet. We're going in depth into what
43:49
makes living soil, what makes good, healthy plants, and
43:53
ultimately what leads to better health for us as individuals.
43:57
So if you want to learn more about joining my Soil Society,
44:00
hit the link at the top of the description below and you can
44:02
come and find out. All right.
44:04
Thanks for listening back to the show.
44:06
You know, we've, we, we were all born with a refractometer.
44:09
Yeah. It's your tongue, Yeah.
44:10
And it is populated with so many sensory nerve ends that they are
44:19
able to pick up Tyson flavours far beyond anything of our
44:23
comprehension. And.
44:25
And for good reason, because when you eat nutrient dense and
44:30
you can only get nutrient dense food grown with biology when
44:34
it's functioning and when it's highly nutritionally dense, you
44:37
want more of it. But you can't eat very much of
44:40
it because it now sends signals to your GLP 1 hormone in your
44:45
brain, the satiety hormones, to say, hey, I've had enough
44:48
nutrition, I'm full. Yeah, but you don't.
44:51
You continually eat these false calories to try and fulfil the
44:55
urge of wanting to feel full and you never get there, which is
44:59
one of the reasons why we have the obesity crisis that we.
45:02
Have. One of the other things that
45:04
we've come to understand is that biology equals flavonoids.
45:08
Flavonoids equals flavour. That's why what you've just
45:12
said. I mean anyone that's ever grown
45:13
a home grown tomato and bought 1 already knows the difference.
45:17
But you want to take it to the next level.
45:19
Get on the board with the biology.
45:22
Stop feeding plants and start feeding soil and get that
45:26
function back in building the carbon.
45:28
Oh my God, if you think you've tasted a tomato before, just
45:31
wait until you get one of these. It's just next level.
45:35
It really is. And I, I urge anyone you know
45:38
that that comes to listen to this podcast, get on board with
45:41
it. It's not.
45:42
You don't need a vegetable garden to grow food.
45:45
Front yard, backyard. If you saw my place, you'd go.
45:49
How long has that been going on? You know, I say to people, cut
45:52
off the weed. Don't pull it out because you
45:55
obliterate the soil microbiome. These are important.
45:59
Seed weeds are pioneer species. If you cause any land
46:03
disturbance, land slip, erosion, or turn soil over, guess what
46:08
grows that you've disturbed the seed bank in the soil.
46:11
It hasn't just, you know, magically landed there.
46:14
They're lying dormant, and it's the microbes that wake up that
46:18
seed and cause it to germinate. And people don't realize this,
46:21
but that's fact. Yeah.
46:24
So, so through a process called rhizophagy or rhizophagy, yeah.
46:29
So plants, through this process of feeding microbes, they
46:32
actually internalize a lot of these microbes.
46:34
They bring them into the root. Exactly called endophytes and
46:38
but they climb some of them as they go into their fruiting,
46:41
silking and flowering phase. And they invest that around the
46:43
embryo of the seed on the inside of the seed coat or on the
46:46
outside of the seed coat. Because when a seed is
46:48
dispersed, how does it know whether it's a centimetre deep
46:53
or 10 feet deep? How does it know whether it's on
46:56
fertile ground? How does it know whether it's
46:57
winter, summer, autumn or spring?
46:59
You know, it's the the biology that does this through
47:02
biochemical signalling and it wakes that seed up and says,
47:06
hey, it wakes up the Thistle seed compaction conditions are
47:10
perfect for you and up they come.
47:12
So the, the weeds are there to perform a function.
47:15
They are the first responders. They sort out whatever problem
47:19
is going on in soil. So what I say is leave those
47:23
roots here because they've been fixing soil.
47:25
And sometimes you if you interrogate your weeds before
47:28
you go getting rid of them, they'll tell you what you could
47:31
be planting in their place to do the same job.
47:33
Exactly right. You might put a daikon radish or
47:36
a parsnip or something like that right beside the old Thistle or
47:39
yeah or plantain, whatever the case may be.
47:42
If it was a compaction breaker, you can do that, you see.
47:46
So and you get the benefit it it leaves that root system in the
47:50
ground, which will be slowly decomposed.
47:53
And it adds wonderful organic matter back into the soil.
47:56
And you get the opportunity of continuing on the job that it
47:58
was doing. And now you get something to put
48:00
on the plate. So if you do this on a daily
48:02
basis, go find a word, cut it off, compost the top, put a
48:06
plant seed or a seedling right beside water in with a bio
48:09
stimulant that helps signal the microbes that were around the
48:13
old root system. Hey, there's a new food source
48:15
in town. Yeah, because they're not going
48:16
to get fed tomorrow because you took their food source away.
48:20
But if you signal to them, hey, there's a new riser here, now
48:25
all of a sudden your plant is potentially protected because
48:28
that's what microbiomes do. They protect their food source.
48:32
That's why we get so much info these days about how important
48:36
it is to have a good gut microbiome because it helps us
48:40
from bad pathogens and etcetera. You know, it separates the bad
48:44
stuff in our food from the good stuff in our food accorded we're
48:48
fueling our bodies with nutri intense food.
48:51
Yeah, exactly. So it has a knock on effect.
48:55
So and in no time flat you will fill up your garden, front yard,
48:58
backyard and you'll be, you'll be thinking how long has this
49:01
been young? And of course we've got to think
49:03
about getting the flowering plants back into, we've got a
49:06
75% decline in flying insects. There's five studies now
49:11
published with the strand for 20, somewhere between 20 and 23
49:14
years. And and well, we've done no
49:18
scientific studies in the impact that we've had with this
49:23
chemical and mechanical farming. We've gone down the path of and
49:25
even though that sounds farming, but we've been doing it at home
49:28
as well. Turning all over.
49:29
That's one of the worst things you can do.
49:31
And I don't say don't ever till there.
49:35
From time to time can be I guess a time where you might turn over
49:39
a small amount, like a small bird or a small animal mite.
49:42
Yeah, or if there's there's no biology in the soil to begin
49:47
with and you're trying to cultivate it, you can maybe do
49:50
it at the start and then leave it, you know, because you might
49:53
want to incorporate some aeration, some organic matter.
49:56
You can wait for ecological succession.
49:58
But it you might, it might take you a lot longer, but.
50:01
You can, you can expedite that by simply planting it out
50:04
because yeah, every plant has its own rhizosphere, even if
50:08
it's been grown with fertilizer. It has some biology in it.
50:12
Not much. I've seen some experiments where
50:15
they have planted seeds with fertilizer and you can easily
50:21
tell when a plant is, is actually is operating in
50:24
functioning soil. So if you by chance happen to
50:26
pull a plant out of the ground, if it doesn't look like it's got
50:29
dreadlocks down the, the root systems, because that's, that's
50:34
what happens through this liquid carbon pathway.
50:37
The, the microbes populate that rhizosphere and they use these
50:41
biotic glues, one of them called glomalin, and they start
50:44
sticking the sand, silt and clay particles together.
50:47
That becomes their home. And they sit there waiting for
50:49
their daily download of, of complex sugars, that food that
50:53
they get on a daily basis. So you should.
50:56
So if you see bare roots, you know straight away that you've
50:59
got no function, you've got no biology happening in your soil
51:02
and it needs help. But I have seen about 50
51:05
millimetres or 75 millimetres down below where the seed is
51:08
germinated, absolutely no aggregation around the roots at
51:14
all. Below that all all aggregated.
51:17
Yeah, OK. Fertilizer has stopped any, any,
51:21
any biology whatsoever. And then down below where it's
51:24
been OK and the the the fertilizer hasn't been able to
51:28
infiltrate, then the biology starts and you've got the
51:31
dreadlocks down below. Well, yeah, that's where I
51:35
always inoculate when I'm dropping in a seedling or a a
51:39
seed itself with mycorrhizal fungi mix for that reason.
51:43
They are the biggest, well, I think they're right and saying
51:47
the biggest contributors to Glomayland for those aggregation
51:50
and things. And yeah, they are, yeah, yeah.
51:51
But there's some are vascular mycorrhizal fungus and they're a
51:53
whole host of those types. I mean, and again, we're, we're,
51:57
we're, this is the new frontier. Yeah, exactly.
52:01
Just biostimulation is enough I find.
52:04
If you soak your seeds, the seed, provided it's been grown
52:09
in reasonable biology, and that's one of the other things I
52:12
encourage people to do, is collect their own seeds 'cause
52:14
they build genetics, but more importantly, you know, the seeds
52:17
are already invested in the stuff you need more of.
52:20
Yeah, when you soak your seeds or water them in with bio
52:24
stimulants and you need to do that.
52:27
You don't need to, you know, up the ante.
52:28
Don't make it more potent than it needs to be.
52:31
You can actually I I if it says 12:50 I make it 20 to 1.
52:35
Yeah, less is more. In that case, they can multiply
52:37
absolutely. Absolutely.
52:39
But not turning soil over as I say before is really important
52:42
to do. I mean the microbiome, the
52:44
majority of the microbiome lives fairly shallow, you know
52:48
somewhere about 25 mil below the top of the MULS surface or the
52:53
bottom. Yeah, the bottom of the MULS
52:54
surface and down as deep as about 150 to 200mm.
52:57
That's where the majority of them is, and the further down
53:00
you go, the less of them there are.
53:02
Of course, the more you can get more diversity.
53:05
The more population above the ground, the more population you
53:08
get down below the ground. And of course, when you get
53:10
more, more than four or five plant families, so that's where
53:13
the diversity comes in. You get much more.
53:17
They literally explode in number.
53:19
This builds biomass. And of course, then it becomes
53:22
necromass when they pass on, and they do.
53:24
They don't live for very long, you know, some for only moments,
53:28
some for minutes, some for days, but they pass on.
53:31
And provided we leave it put, it becomes stable organic carbon,
53:34
which builds back, you know, that's that that that carbon
53:37
content that we desperately need to get back to at least 5%.
53:42
Oh yeah? Well.
53:42
Less than 1%, you know so. And of course, what happens when
53:45
you turn soil over. Carbon is a very heavy, hot,
53:49
heavy molecule, and when you're exposed to oxygen, to oxygen
53:52
molecules attached to it, to like a magnet, now you've got
53:55
CO2. Yeah, oxidizers.
53:58
You know, I mean, I, I, I, I share a, a solid satellite map
54:04
over WA where it's, it's got a, a line that separates the rabbit
54:09
proof fence that stretches 750 kilometres.
54:12
It separates ordinary scrub land from 13 and a half million acres
54:16
set aside for agricultural land, which is culpable for wheat and
54:20
what have you. And it's often left fallow for
54:22
some time, no plants hoed and plowed and what have you.
54:26
And funnily enough, this process, plants and microbes
54:31
release a bacteria called an aerosol.
54:33
It's a microscopic bacteria that makes its way up into the
54:36
atmosphere and it forms the nucleus upon which water vapour
54:40
forms clouds. And when it gets heavy enough,
54:42
we get rainfall. It you count for about 40% of
54:45
our rainfall. So this this this satellite
54:48
photo clearly shows you where this agricultural land is and
54:53
and where the cloud formation is over the ordinary scrub land.
54:56
It's nowhere to be seen over the top of this farm area, and it
55:00
gets 40% less rainfall on the agricultural side than it gets
55:04
on the other side. Yes, madness.
55:06
And it, it's just craziness, you know, And when it does rain, it
55:09
runs off the land, picking up the fertilizers that have been
55:12
applied in excess. And you see, it's, it's just a,
55:15
a bad negative effect. So turning soil over obliterates
55:19
that mycorrhizal network you spoke of.
55:21
Some of these can be the largest organisms on the planet.
55:24
Some of them stretch kilometres. Yeah.
55:26
It's it's remarkable what, what takes place.
55:29
And I mean, these fine filament threads make up this fungal
55:36
network. And sometimes you'll roll over a
55:37
log or a bit of bark and you'll see these micellons that that's
55:41
not one my ceiling thread that can be 10 or 15,000 of these
55:45
fine filament threads altogether.
55:47
So there's three-dimensional freeway or network is is fearing
55:51
back minerals. It expands the water capacity to
55:55
plant sometimes up to 100 times their own root systems capacity.
56:00
You know, it's hugely important. So, and of course, the minute
56:03
you put a diversity together, now there's competition, now
56:06
there's degradation, now there's no sharing, now there's
56:09
depletion. So it doesn't make a great deal
56:11
of sense. And like I said, Mother Nature
56:13
doesn't do that, you know, So don't turn soil over.
56:18
Diversity is the next big one. You know, get those four or five
56:22
plant family groups, at least not species family groups.
56:26
You know, it's very easy to get all brassicas in there.
56:28
Yeah, listen. And nasturtiums and and no, not
56:32
nasturtium, but, but certainly listen and, and things like bok
56:35
choy and Pak choy and or brassicas, you know, So don't
56:38
think for one minute you've got, you know, lots and lots of
56:41
diversity. You haven't.
56:42
That's not brassicas. Yeah, exactly right.
56:44
The. Same things you know you.
56:45
Want like the grasses and you want like, well, I've used
56:49
grasses as well, but like you've got to be careful with, with
56:52
some of them. But like, you know, more like
56:54
root root crops like clovers and things I use in the the legumes
57:00
are massive, under under planted and all sorts of different.
57:03
Things, absolutely, but to mix them up is the thing, you know,
57:05
because you get shared diversity and with them, they bring their
57:09
own risers with their own mesh of specialist microbes that
57:14
often other plants don't have. And then there's the sharing
57:17
that goes on that you know that that's the importance.
57:21
So when I hear that term crop or shudder because crop indicates
57:26
to me or we've got the one thing.
57:29
Going crap, yeah. And and and and I sort of say
57:33
when you're growing corn or things like broad beans, I put
57:36
them in trios. 3 Mother Nature doesn't grow them in.
57:41
Do you know what I mean? Fast fields.
57:44
So, so. And what happens is when I used
57:47
to grow them, you know, I'd grow a whole bed full of corn and I
57:51
would get really good pollination and, you know, lots
57:53
of cobs on the ones on the outside, but on the ones on the
57:55
inside, it was a bit hit and miss.
57:57
Yeah. OK, because when in because
58:00
they're wind pollinated. Do you know what I mean?
58:02
So the ones on the outside are getting great.
58:04
They're not, they're not much. And same with broad beans.
58:08
So now in this trio, I plant them in a triangular fashion and
58:11
I think about the three sisters, the companion planting, you
58:14
know, so they're nitrogen hogs. So I plant some legumes around
58:18
the outside of them to replenish what, and often if it's a
58:20
climbing plant, you don't need to worry about then offering a,
58:23
a steak or something. You've got what it takes.
58:26
And then, you know, so, so and I get huge, huge yields off corn
58:32
and, and, and broad beans, whereas days gone by, I was a
58:37
bit hit and miss, you know, So and, and I can use them to my
58:40
advantage because I can pop 1, you know, a set here and a set
58:43
there and I can get some depth in the garden and cast some
58:46
shade over some of the plants that require it, You know, wild
58:49
leaf plants, by and large, the shade lovers, they don't like
58:52
full sun. So don't take the lead from
58:54
market gardeners. Don't look at them and go, oh
58:55
look, that's where they grow that.
58:57
Yeah. They have to feed us.
59:01
I feel sorry for them because they're in a rock and hard
59:03
place. They can't do what we can do.
59:06
You know, we're, we're, there's some discussion that we're about
59:09
somewhere between 14 to 16 times more productive than than a
59:14
market gardener growing the way they grow.
59:16
We can get more per acre growing in this fashion, you know.
59:21
Like almost like a food forest style.
59:24
It's it's absolutely a food forest.
59:25
I mean, it's not, it's all of those things, you know.
59:29
Yeah, yeah. Agroforestry.
59:31
I mean, it's, I wouldn't say agroforestry, but it's but it's,
59:34
it's similar. Yeah, it's, it's got that.
59:38
It's got that common thread running through it, doesn't it?
59:40
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's kind of, as I
59:43
say, it's regenerative gardening.
59:45
It's yeah, it's it's it encompasses all of these things,
59:48
a bit of permacultural, a bit of agriculture, a bit of
59:50
horticulture. It's a bit of common sense.
59:52
It's a bit of bio mimicry. That's what it's about.
59:55
It's about mimicking nature as best you can.
59:57
You can't be there every day to feed the soil like Mother Nature
1:00:01
does, but you can mimic that. Yeah.
1:00:04
And it's basically, I, I sieve my compost and I don't spend a
1:00:08
lot of time at it. It's not about making big heaps
1:00:10
of compost either. We're talking about feeding
1:00:12
microscopic things. But it needs to be done often
1:00:14
because on a daily basis it's fed naturally.
1:00:18
So we're not doing that, you know, because we've taken away
1:00:21
the, the, the, the upper canopy, right?
1:00:24
And we haven't got what goes on in the forest.
1:00:26
So we've got to try and help buffer that somehow because of
1:00:29
what we're trying to do. We're trying to, you know, build
1:00:33
nature back where it used to once be, and we're doing.
1:00:36
What? Well, we're doing it trying to
1:00:37
do it fast basically because it's like or yeah, speed up the
1:00:42
process and and you kind of have to have.
1:00:44
Yeah, that's, I think that's also like part of it feels at
1:00:48
least Craig, part of what we're built to do.
1:00:52
We have this creativity that runs through human beings.
1:00:54
We have this kind of urge to cultivate and grow and and
1:00:59
pollinate almost like we, we've cross pollinated so many plants
1:01:03
and things across the world like that's just innate in our our
1:01:07
nature. So I feel like it's we are able
1:01:11
to do that in such a positive way.
1:01:13
And if all of the people that are in the world doing growing
1:01:18
food or doing farming in the ways that are so destructive
1:01:22
currently, if we made that switch, which is obviously
1:01:25
backyard farming is the future. Everybody, that's the T-shirt
1:01:28
Greg's wearing today. Exactly right.
1:01:31
Backyard farming is the future because it it is restoring this
1:01:34
carbon small scale, bringing back local food, bringing back
1:01:38
the the shortening that distance, as you said, from
1:01:41
plant to plate. And I feel as if you know
1:01:46
someone like yourself, so passionate about this, that's
1:01:48
really helping you. You're a wealth of knowledge.
1:01:51
I'm learning so much from you. Thank you.
1:01:54
I'll, I'll kind of preface one, one last question that I like to
1:01:57
ask so that we can kind of round out because I could talk to you
1:01:59
for a while. What is it that I guess excites
1:02:04
you right now? Craig?
1:02:05
What is it? That's because you're, you're
1:02:08
what's interesting you, what are you looking into?
1:02:11
What's your study on? What's your brain thinking about
1:02:15
outside of what we've kind of normally just spoken on?
1:02:18
OK, well, I guess a lot of people feel a bit lost today,
1:02:24
you know, for one or another reason, you know, with the
1:02:26
conflict that's going on and you know, rising prices and all that
1:02:30
sorts of things. And I guess how do I best help
1:02:34
those people and how do I, how do I make this count?
1:02:38
You know what, how do we all get to leave a legacy of some sort
1:02:42
behind, You know, and, and what it sort of got me thinking and
1:02:45
about 9 weeks ago I sort of thought, you know what I mean,
1:02:48
500 square meters is what I live on.
1:02:50
And when you take out the house, the garage, the paths and the
1:02:53
stuff that I can't use, I'm only left with about 120 square
1:02:57
meters. And yet I'm able to produce in
1:03:00
the suburbs of Werribee in the West of Melbourne, 85% of their
1:03:04
fruit and vegetable now. And I'm now going down the path
1:03:08
of medicinal. So, and I've got a few
1:03:11
autoimmune dysfunctions. I mean, we're now carrying 1964.
1:03:16
We used to have 4 today, best figures I can get 2022.
1:03:21
We now have 47% of us are carrying somewhere in the in, in
1:03:27
the instance of about 85 known autoimmune disease and
1:03:31
dysfunction. Some of these are things like
1:03:33
IDHD, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease,
1:03:37
rheumatoid arthritis. So all of these things, you
1:03:39
know, so, so we can do this and we can turn back time to some
1:03:46
degree and, and start to change all of this.
1:03:48
But to feel part of something a bit bigger than ourselves, to
1:03:55
truly know that this 120 square metres that I'm changing
1:03:59
actually is going to make a big difference in the scheme of
1:04:03
things. It's hard to, it's hard to
1:04:06
fathom 120 square metres. I mean, look at the size of this
1:04:09
placement. How, how, how can I be really
1:04:12
making a difference? But I thought realised that that
1:04:16
collectively my 120 square meters, you're however many
1:04:22
square meters you're and we started to put these together.
1:04:25
So I started a list and I asked people if by chance you feel
1:04:29
inspired or have felt inspired to change and you're doing and
1:04:34
working on moving toward this regenerative model, region
1:04:39
edible model and using what I, you know, bio mimicry.
1:04:44
Put down your post code and your amount of square metres that
1:04:48
you're in charge of. That's going to make a
1:04:49
difference. And I haven't put the last three
1:04:52
sheets in from the last few workshops, but we are now up to
1:04:56
75,000 acres a month. Wow. 75,000 acres.
1:05:04
Craig, that's incredible. And and I'm going to publish
1:05:07
each December. What that cumulative amount is
1:05:11
beautiful. Now when I sat back that time
1:05:14
ago and went, you know, 120 square meters, what difference
1:05:17
can I, you know, am I truly making?
1:05:20
Wow, I'm now blown away, mate. I just cannot believe.
1:05:24
That's blown me away. It's it's just it's mind
1:05:29
blowing, mate. It's like, yeah, that gets me
1:05:31
out of I mean, I've got to move my behind mate.
1:05:35
I've got to get this out there because this is really striking
1:05:39
the blow with a lot of people are going, you know what, I want
1:05:41
to be a part of that. I want to, I want to change
1:05:44
where I'm at. You know, we pay a fortune for
1:05:47
where we live. Whether you're renting or
1:05:50
whether you're owning, it makes a difference.
1:05:51
You're expected to look after your gardens.
1:05:53
Why would you not get something back from that?
1:05:55
And when you can do something simply takes 5 minutes a day,
1:05:58
plant something every day of your life, cut out the weed, cut
1:06:02
off the weed, compost it, plants something beside it to
1:06:05
outcompete it. You can now put it on the plate
1:06:08
that's fresh. And if you're looking after
1:06:10
soil, everyone gets the benefit, including the planet.
1:06:13
I mean, what's not to love about that?
1:06:15
That's what excites me, that we've got an opportunity, you
1:06:18
know, each and every one of us to make those sorts of a change.
1:06:22
I mean, it's, it's, it's incredible.
1:06:24
And I mean, as I say, I can't wait to get out of bed every
1:06:27
day, you know, to, to start my day and continue what, what
1:06:32
we've set out to do. And yeah, I, I'm excited to see
1:06:35
where we're headed. I can't wait till December might
1:06:37
be able to announce that wonderful figure.
1:06:40
So, yeah. And I'm going to add that up
1:06:41
each year, you know, so that's incredible.
1:07:00
And then we have it, ladies and gentlemen, what a cool person
1:07:03
Craig is. An absolute wealth of knowledge
1:07:05
and somebody that I could have chatted to for a long time.
1:07:08
I was trying to take mental notes as much as possible.
1:07:11
I need to go and listen back to this conversation afterwards,
1:07:14
but so much to take away and the passion and enthusiasm I think
1:07:18
is what's most infectious about Craig.
1:07:21
So if you enjoyed the episode, please go and let Craig know.
1:07:24
You've got his links in the comments below in the
1:07:26
description of the video, the show notes, wherever you are
1:07:29
finding this podcast, if you could go and follow on that
1:07:33
platform or leave a review, it's going to help more people find
1:07:35
these conversations, get inspired and get out into the
1:07:39
garden and into nature. And then more of us can be
1:07:42
improving our square meterage out there to be helping with
1:07:46
this whole regenerative movement.
1:07:49
Otherwise, join the Soil Society if you want to hear more from
1:07:52
me, if you want education on more of what we're talking
1:07:55
about, hopefully I can get Craig into the society to help us out
1:07:59
in terms of teaching and educating, offering some things
1:08:01
there. Head to the website.
1:08:03
The link is in the top of the show notes there.
1:08:05
Head to my website. You can sign up through there
1:08:07
and you will have access to so much more knowledge on soil
1:08:11
health and how you can bring vitality and nutrient density to
1:08:15
our food and to our plants. Now, apart from that, just go
1:08:20
out there, get out into nature, get out into the garden, get
1:08:23
inspired by this conversation and go and do something today.
1:08:26
Go and cultivate something. I feel inclined to do that
1:08:29
myself. It's currently Easter weekend,
1:08:32
We're going to be releasing this conversation a few weeks down
1:08:34
the track, but I'm going to be spending a bit of time with my
1:08:36
family getting outside into nature and into the garden.
1:08:39
Incredibly grateful for all of you to listening and to Craig
1:08:43
for joining us today, but we'll see you again next week.
1:08:46
Take care, bye for now.