Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #56 - Creating Perfect Organic Living Soil | Matt Barnes [Easy As Organics]

Transcript

#56 - Creating Perfect Organic Living Soil | Matt Barnes [Easy As Organics] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Shed
0:04
Organics show. Today was the most fun I've had
0:08
talking about soil in a little while because we have Matt from
0:12
Easy as Organics on the show today.
0:15
And Matt is a living soil guy like myself.
0:19
And I know a small percentage compared to somebody like Matt.
0:25
And it was so much fun for me, selfishly, to be able to ask all
0:28
of the burning questions that I had to provide as much value as
0:32
we could around living soil. And there is so, so much that we
0:35
could have dived down. And there's so many avenues to
0:38
talk about in terms of managing living soil and all of the
0:41
inputs. But I think Matt does an
0:43
incredible job of simplifying the the most important factors
0:47
that we need to look at and talking about his journey
0:50
building an impressive living soil product that he then gives
0:54
out to facilities, to home growers and all of this sort of
0:57
thing. It's been so much fun to have a
0:59
chat to him and this episode is loaded with knowledge.
1:03
So if you, if you've got a pen and paper or something like
1:07
that, and if you're not driving or anything like that, then get
1:10
your pen and paper out. Or this might be a one to listen
1:12
to back again in the future. Because there's going to be some
1:17
things that hit at different times that make a lot more sense
1:20
when you're at that stage. But I'm so grateful to Matt for
1:24
jumping in on this conversation. He's someone who I look up to
1:27
very much, and I have no doubt that you're going to find some
1:30
value from this conversation. So here we are.
1:32
Here is Matt from Easy as Organics, and here is our
1:36
conversation about living soil. Obviously, you know, living
1:58
soil, right, is something that you've been drawn to.
2:03
Yep. What was it about, like what
2:08
were you seeing in terms of problems or what were you seeing
2:11
in terms of a reason why you might have wanted to dive into
2:17
living soil? Was there anything that kind of
2:19
sparked that to go, hey, look, I think this is really important
2:23
and I think we need to go down this Ave.
2:27
Yeah, for sure. So there were a few factors, you
2:32
know, one of them really just having grown up around organic
2:38
food, I'd sort of raised, so I kind of hippie parents, I guess
2:42
I was always fair, fair organic food.
2:44
And you know, I rebelled against everything in my, in my earlier
2:48
days. And then, you know, I went, you
2:50
know, in my in my adulthood and started getting really into
2:55
gardening again. You know, my mum was a really
2:59
good food grower, and that was sort of around as a kid as well
3:05
as sort of growing up around farms.
3:06
And then, you know, I had, yeah, a good, good friend of mine in
3:10
New Zealand who's an organic garlic farmer, a very, very
3:14
talented sort of food web guy. He was a bit of a trend bucker,
3:17
you know, before it was cool or whatever.
3:20
Yeah. And yeah.
3:21
And I don't know, it was just weird moment we came over and I
3:25
was, you know, having a sad attempt of just growing a lemon
3:30
tree, for example. And, you know, I was, I was
3:32
growing a bunch of leafy greens and, you know, Peppers and
3:36
zucchinis and things like that. And yeah.
3:38
And he was like, man, you this, this tree here needs like a huge
3:43
amount of nitrogen in, in, you know, in organic form, you know,
3:48
and I had this big bag of chicken manure pellets and he
3:52
chucked like half the bag on there, you know, 25K bag and go,
3:55
what are you doing? Like that's way too much.
3:56
He's like, no, it's cool, go and then just threw heaps of mulch
3:59
on it and sure enough like, you know, for the next 5 years, this
4:03
thing was just the most I've never had to do anything again
4:05
other than water it occasionally.
4:08
So, you know, there was that, you know, I was also trying
4:13
different potting mixes at the time and I, I found that just
4:20
what was available on the market was it just all didn't seem like
4:25
there was much efficacy there. I've seen just this real lack of
4:28
plant vigor and health. I got on to some forums and
4:34
yeah, like many others, I discovered, you know, this is in
4:38
2000 and like 13 or something like that discovered, yeah, some
4:46
fantastic forums like this Coot Organics.
4:49
And these guys were sharing some organic soil mixes that were
4:54
based on, you know, Cornell Institute mixes and they sort of
5:00
adapted them for the worm castings, especially that
5:04
Clackamas Coot was making, you know, So then I tried them out
5:07
and it was just, it was like, you know, light switch went off
5:11
in my head. I was like, wow, this is this is
5:13
cool. And I'd like to be able to
5:16
provide this in some way to the public.
5:20
And Australia is like, yeah, it's a good business
5:22
opportunity. And this is something I've
5:25
instantly had a huge amount of passion for.
5:28
And yeah. And so, yeah, from there, it's
5:31
just been quite a journey, a learning curve, you know, which
5:35
would probably segue into, yeah, some of the assumptions, I guess
5:39
that I had early on that, you know, I was sort of forced to,
5:43
to face and learn to, to develop.
5:46
Yeah, Yeah. Tell me a bit about those, like
5:48
what what's changed in terms of your thinking from when you
5:51
started to now? Like is there?
5:52
There are a couple of big things that have really shifted for
5:55
you. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
5:58
Yeah, You know, so, yeah, as mentioned, like in in the early
6:00
stages, I was making mixes that were, you know, like looking at
6:08
a recipe book essentially and you make a mix.
6:10
The the the problem with that when you're approaching it from
6:14
an organic perspective is that, you know, we're trying to dial
6:17
in fertility and trying to trying to get this sort of
6:21
consistent level of fertility for, you know, on availability
6:28
for microbial, you know, healthy microbial activity for
6:31
stability. So it's not, you know, your your
6:34
mix isn't just sitting there in this sort of anaerobic state or
6:37
it's not just sitting there with nutrients that are sort of half
6:42
nitrified and there's a bunch of unprocessed nitrogen and stuff
6:47
like that. You know, we want it stable.
6:49
And I was just getting a lot of variability very, very quickly,
6:55
you know, after really just putting my head down,
6:59
researching more, you know, started reading few of these
7:03
sort of horticultural textbooks that were specific to
7:08
formulating growing media. Then I also started reaching out
7:11
to people like Ted Hussey, Brian Mason, soil doctor, because I
7:15
was, I was really impressed with some of the work that we're
7:18
doing overseas and started seeing it.
7:20
They were, you know, really just using a lot of data and science
7:26
driven decisions around how they were formulating and how they
7:30
were providing advice to other growers.
7:35
So I started applying some of that those principles of really
7:40
just, you know, I started with a soil test.
7:43
I mean, I've been soil testing before a lot, but I was having a
7:46
hard time like translating that soil test that I was getting in
7:52
Australian labs to any, to something that really was
7:58
relevant to what the plant needed at the end of the day.
8:03
So, so this is some, you know, some pretty solid work that,
8:10
yeah, Tad Hussey, Brandon Hudson, Brian Mason and the, and
8:14
these people in the US had really perfected in a way.
8:19
And they had a solid sort of methodology around, you know,
8:27
using Logan Labs specifically and, and dialing in soil
8:33
chemistry based on, on Logan Labs tests mainly 3 standard
8:39
soil test and also saturated paste, you know, and, and look,
8:43
EAL do do some of the tests as well, but Logan Labs have this
8:47
sort of data set that's easily translated into, you know,
8:52
something tangible that, you know, with, with solid targets
8:56
and things like that. So I was able to start dialing
8:59
in, but then what what I found was, yeah, I was able to do
9:01
that, but I then I had to bring it all the way back to where I
9:04
started, which was, well, hang on, you know, I can do a lot
9:10
better with the physical properties as well.
9:14
And then I need to completely, you know, go back to drawing
9:18
board in terms of looking at the biological, yeah, basically
9:22
biological and the physical component after I started
9:24
realizing that, OK, I can dial this in from a chemical
9:27
perspective and biology is going to like that and I'm going to
9:31
get a good diverse sort of microbiome there.
9:37
However, what was happening was just for that huge portion of
9:41
compost in my mix, it was just creating variability.
9:45
So what I was able to do was just, you know, bring that
9:48
portion down a lot after trialing a lot of different
9:52
compost and that really helps. So just upping the amount of
9:55
aeration and, and, and Pete to give me more stability and I was
9:59
able to control the actual nutrient balance more.
10:03
And in turn, I think the the microbial activity and the
10:08
cycling time, everything of my soil became more predictable.
10:12
Yeah. Although we get a bit more
10:14
stability from there. And yeah, and in turn, you know,
10:20
like it just got a lot easier too.
10:22
I noticed in during veg seedling own veg stage, just just faster,
10:30
healthier growth instead of having to sort of really wait
10:33
around for quite a while for plants to establish, which I was
10:38
sort of used to. I was getting much more so
10:40
bigger as early growth. There's a there's a couple of
10:43
things, if I may jump in to click on there.
10:45
I could dive down. That's really fascinating to
10:48
having, you know, obviously using the soil test and stuff is
10:52
really good because you can understand what is in there, but
10:56
it's not always directly related to what the plant can uptake and
11:02
what will eventually be in the plant.
11:04
And that also changes from when you've poured a fresh bag in
11:10
compared to a couple of years down the track.
11:13
And having, having like I, I try and tell people that we don't
11:17
want to be throwing the soil out.
11:18
We want to be improving the soil over time and using the same
11:21
soil. And that's where the structure
11:24
and the actual makeup of the soil becomes really important,
11:26
doesn't it? Because you, you don't want to
11:28
have just solid organic matter because then that's going to
11:30
compress going to become anaerobic over time.
11:33
It's just you want to have this medium that is going to
11:36
translate in the long term and then have that, you know, like
11:41
you said from the get go, a good microbial population and access
11:45
to all of these nutrients, but also having that, you know,
11:49
stable so that it, it can last and it is going to mimic
11:53
somewhat of a, a soil system out in nature.
11:58
My, there's a few questions, but one of the questions that comes
12:01
to mind then is what do you like?
12:07
What's the, what was the main challenge in trying to find a
12:11
soil? Like obviously you're, you're
12:12
taking what some others have done before and they've done a
12:15
lot of the groundwork and that's great.
12:17
But you're having to adapt this for an Australian market finding
12:21
a compost that it's so hard to find compost that's solid and,
12:26
and the same and repeatable as well.
12:29
And a lot of the potting mixes in the compost that we see, you
12:33
know, done generically are sterilized.
12:35
There's no life in them. There's no like to get that
12:38
continuity. They sterilize them and it's not
12:40
really a compost anymore. It's not a living thing.
12:44
So can you tell me a bit about the challenges for a just going
12:49
into that compost again, how you managed to find something that's
12:52
consistent that you know is going to be repeatable?
12:55
And then secondly, building a structure or something that and
12:59
and talk about how that changes over time from when you first
13:03
use it to a couple years down the trap.
13:06
Yeah, cool. So starting with the compost
13:10
thing, you know, so, so now I have a, you know, at at the
13:15
moment I've got a solid formula and it gets manufactured by a
13:20
large growing media manufacturer because it's a very reliable
13:24
formula. But for the first, you know, 5-6
13:27
years or whatever, yeah, I was making everything myself.
13:30
So I had a very close relationship with all the
13:36
suppliers as well as, you know, a very, you know, very detailed
13:44
oversight of all of the materials I was working with,
13:48
you know, selecting those, those inputs.
13:50
I'm going off a little sidetracked.
13:52
It'll come back to what we're talking about South, selecting
13:55
these inputs. You know, it's very important to
13:59
me that these, that they were the cleanest in terms of heavy
14:02
metal or other undesirable elements that are going to
14:08
interfere with the outtake of other π nutrients or potentially
14:12
be hazardous for human health. So we've selected inputs based
14:16
on their lowest heavy metal content and highest efficacy.
14:21
And that's, you know, all of the inputs.
14:22
Yeah. Like compost is by far is by far
14:25
the most challenging one. Like everything else is like a
14:28
OK, it has to be the right physical properties and we just
14:30
need it the cleanest. And on average, they're going to
14:33
contain X amount of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus or
14:36
whatever. Yeah, with compost in
14:42
especially, especially in Australia, you know, we've got,
14:47
I've seen manufacturers in the US and Europe that make these
14:50
perfect composts that are literally designed for
14:53
horticulture or for agricultural for whatever, you know, for
14:56
whatever purpose. But what I was finding here was
14:58
that, you know, company A would just make a compost and Company
15:03
B would, they would just make a compost.
15:05
And I would both say that their compost is the best compost.
15:08
And I'm not even talking about the large scale commercial.
15:12
Yeah. You know, waste management sort
15:15
of. Oh, yeah, yeah.
15:16
Systems where, you know, look, there's a place for that, and
15:18
that's important. And I'm sure that some of them
15:21
are doing a great job, and that is a place for that.
15:24
But you know, when we're talking about high quality growing media
15:28
that has good efficacy, we need to use compost that ticks a
15:32
number of boxes. You know, So I had to start
15:35
looking for compost manufacturers that were paying
15:39
close attention to the moisture. You know, so many of them were
15:43
just too dry, especially down in Victoria, it's a very dry
15:47
climate and especially in the summer months, we're ending up
15:51
composts that, you know, I'm sure maybe they were trying, but
15:55
it just kept getting stopped in its tracks.
15:58
So the thermophilic, you know, processes that start to to
16:04
happen when producing A compost just end up halting and you get
16:11
this unfinished material and biology that maybe isn't best
16:17
for the actual growing stages of plants.
16:19
And they're more for, you know, it's more like what you would
16:22
see at the breakdown of organic material that is not
16:26
necessarily, you know, good for actually growing plants.
16:31
And yeah, so the majority of composts I was finding was just
16:35
this sort of unfinished. And I think it came down to a
16:38
cost thing as well. Like a lot of the manufacturers
16:40
just didn't, didn't wanna spend the time required to properly
16:44
finish these things. You know, it takes a lot of
16:46
work, takes a lot of time. It does.
16:49
And then they would argue that, you know, in order to actually
16:52
do that, to spend at least eight months or something would, you
16:57
know, require more work and more labour than than what they had
17:01
access to. So true.
17:03
I ended up finally sort of choosing a, a, a compost that
17:12
was very, very low in sodium and, and chloride, which I was
17:16
finding a real hard time with with other composts.
17:19
So yeah, the one we've landed on, it's extremely low and
17:22
sodium and chloride, it's low in nutrients across the board, but
17:26
it doesn't matter. We, we just needed the sort of
17:28
organic matter and, and the biology and the humus and and
17:32
and whatnot. And then and then we would amend
17:36
that growing media to where we needed it for, you know,
17:40
ultimate really plant health and to feed that sort of soil
17:45
biology for the slow release nutrients over a plant cycle.
17:50
We could dial that in using amendments as opposed to having
17:53
this really hot, you know, high nutrient content compost.
17:58
That it that takes a lot of that control away, especially when if
18:03
we're adding compost like 20 or 30%, you know, you end up with
18:06
the situation where you just got no control and it's going to
18:09
change from batch to batch. Yeah, yeah.
18:12
So the, you know, selecting these inputs is it, you know, in
18:19
Australia it's, it's very blind on.
18:23
Yeah, it, it varies from place to place.
18:26
So, you know, what I've actually found is that a lot of the a lot
18:30
of the minerals that we need for these mixes, such as lime and
18:33
gypsum and sulfuric phosphate, things like this.
18:37
Yeah. But I've actually found the
18:38
minerals up in the Queensland area to be very clean.
18:42
Yeah. Comparative to other places.
18:44
Yeah. So, you know, going down the
18:47
rabbit hole of heavy metals testing, that's been very
18:51
interesting because in a way that sort of shows you a bit of
18:54
a snapshot of, you know, where that came from, the potential
18:59
contamination in those areas. And and it sort of has allowed
19:04
me to kind of guide where I go in terms of input selection.
19:11
Yeah. And so, yeah, again, you know,
19:14
coming down to the actual mix as well in dealing with Australian
19:19
conditions being very, very hot, a lot of the time the heat isn't
19:24
such a bad thing with a fresh mix because your soil is going
19:27
to cycle pretty quickly and be and be ready, you know, to grow
19:31
in within say two or three weeks from mixing.
19:33
And the cold temperatures make it very challenging because that
19:37
slows the nitrification down incredibly.
19:40
So you end up with, you know, the bulk of the nitrogen still
19:45
in ammonium form for like a good month or six weeks until it
19:50
could even be until, yeah, grower ends up putting it in
19:52
their container in warmer conditions and watering it and
19:55
you've got roots and then it starts to finish cycling.
19:59
So yeah, what one of the big challenges is us just getting
20:02
that to to sort of completely cycle, you know, in
20:06
manufacturing out the box. Type thing.
20:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
20:10
Are you just just quick question on that, you're not using any
20:13
worm castings in your mix, It's all just that compost?
20:17
Yeah, we went. We ended up going for just the
20:20
compost and that and that portion of the mix.
20:23
Yeah, I love worm casting. What what I've found again, the
20:25
variability in the worm cast because we, we did end up really
20:30
focus, we, we focused on viability for commercial
20:34
operators as well as home growers.
20:37
And so again, we really were trying to formulate with fish
20:42
organics a, a mix, it would be a viable option for commercial
20:48
operators. Yeah, OK.
20:49
And. One of the things I was.
20:50
Finding is that, yeah, worm casting's an incredible input to
20:54
add as a grower, you know, and treat it as an amendment and a
21:00
sort of a biological inoculant source of humus, you know,
21:04
unavailable nutrients. And when applied it, it has that
21:08
effect. And I was finding just by mixing
21:11
it in, you know, high quantities into the soil mix.
21:16
Yeah. Again, I was, I was struggling
21:18
just to keep things like sodium and chloride and heavy metals,
21:22
all these things. It it you just don't need to use
21:25
much worm casting to get a huge amount of benefit for it.
21:27
True. Yeah.
21:28
So that was a just a decision I made to to go steer more towards
21:33
the stability side of things as opposed to you know, and you're.
21:37
Like you're coming from a Oh yeah, you're coming from a, like
21:42
obviously you're generating a product that you want to have
21:45
this repeatability and this reliability.
21:48
So like, it, it isn't to say that you can't go and use worm
21:52
castings as your portion of the mix.
21:54
And you know, if it's like you said with the input selection,
21:57
if you're getting a good quality compost that you're happy with
22:00
or you're getting good quality worm castings and things like
22:02
this, people can use that in their mix and they're going to
22:05
still get a really good result. You know, I did a lot of, so
22:10
I've got 22 products that I, I started making for myself
22:14
initially and then for the, the community.
22:17
And then I sort of just sell these on the side as a little
22:20
bit of an aside as well. Like I've got an amendment mix
22:24
and a cover crop seed mix. And I was looking because I
22:30
wanted to get local Australian source stuff, you know, finding
22:34
people that had got good quality inputs and that were locally
22:39
sourced. And then it's more about for me
22:41
teaching people what they are and why and where they can
22:45
source their own rather than saying, you know, buy from me.
22:47
But the the the inputs themselves like like you said,
22:51
having to really do that quality control initially to make sure
22:55
that what is going in is really important, I think is the
22:58
message that. Yeah, yeah, is a is a really
23:02
good. Message to say like you're just,
23:03
you know, focusing on the quality of the input to start
23:06
with means that you're not polishing a turd as they say.
23:09
And you're 100. Percent.
23:10
And then yeah, So like, yeah, bring it back on track.
23:12
Like translating this to say the home grower, the home gardener
23:18
that's just trying to find out where they can get, you know,
23:22
like either purchase good quality compost or castings or
23:25
make their own, you know, because the purpose of this is
23:29
that you're trying to grow the healthiest, most vigorous.
23:33
Yeah, nutritious, whatever plants that you're trying to
23:36
grow. Yes.
23:37
These are some of the things to look out for.
23:38
Like some of the things I mentioned, you know, compost
23:40
manufacturers make sure they can supply you with an analysis.
23:45
Yeah. You know, hit me up or whatever
23:48
if you if you want to know what some of the targets ranges are
23:51
that, you know, that that mean it's quality.
23:54
But yeah, you know, you want to see you wait.
23:57
Look, if they if they give you an analysis that also includes
24:00
heavy metals, that's great. You know, it means they care and
24:02
it means they're they're trying to do a good job.
24:06
But you know, you want to see, you know, carbon to nitrogen
24:10
ratio that's not crazy high or crazy low.
24:14
And yeah, just a few of these things that they're arranged.
24:16
But also ask them what you know, what, what it's made from, like
24:21
what, what are the source materials you know, And
24:24
depending on your application, you know, you might not want to
24:27
use a extremely manure rich or like horse manure rich or based
24:37
compost. You might want to use something
24:38
that's maybe a little bit more on the the plant based end.
24:42
Or, you know, if it is say just a straw manure based compost, it
24:44
might be perfect for, you know, your brewing teas and you want
24:47
some really, really, you know, diverse source of biology to to
24:54
say make compost tea, then a straw manure based compost is
24:58
going to be like best for that. Yeah, in a way.
25:03
Same with and worm castings in my mind is like, you know,
25:06
plants superfood. I mean, that's, you know, you
25:09
want to add you you want to apply worm castings in my
25:12
opinion. And, you know, use it as source
25:14
of, of biology for compost tea or even just applied directly.
25:19
And again, with worm castings, that's probably the most
25:22
important one because it's cold. It's that you aren't.
25:25
So you know, one of the benefits with the thermophilic compost is
25:27
that, yeah, when it does go to the thermophilic phase, when it
25:31
heats up to say 60°C for a little, a little while there,
25:35
then it gets turned again. Then it heats up and turns again
25:38
and it heats up a little bit less and then a little bit less,
25:40
less, less, less. So it's in it's mesophilic stage
25:44
and now it's like stable during that thermophilic stage.
25:47
One of the benefits is that it does essentially get rid of
25:52
things like weed seeds. And it also does get rid of some
25:55
of the more pathogenic organisms that you may not want.
25:59
Yeah. And then as it matures, now
26:01
you're going to, you know, grow a healthy, diverse population of
26:05
biology, including, you know, fungi, lots of protozoa and
26:08
everything else. So, you know, if if that compost
26:16
isn't mature enough, you know you're going to you're going to
26:19
struggle. Yeah, but the worm.
26:20
Casting. So it's already done, isn't it?
26:22
They've gone through that pro. The worms have done that for
26:24
you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:25
Sorry. Yeah, so exactly.
26:26
So. So with the compost, if it's
26:28
been done right, you're going to have a pretty clean material.
26:32
With the castings, you want to be very certain that they're
26:36
using good starting materials. Like, yes, dairy cow manure is
26:40
an excellent source for for casting.
26:43
So if any manufacturer said, you know, that makes worm casting,
26:46
says, hey, this is made on a a bed of dairy cow manure.
26:50
That's great. Most of them use horse manure,
26:52
which can or can't be good depending on where the horse is
26:56
grazing. They're grazing and round up at
26:59
pastures or whatever, you know, like horses don't process the
27:07
various compounds that are going through the gut like a cow does.
27:11
So just think of things like that.
27:13
You know, when you're selecting a worm castings particularly
27:17
like it is cold. So.
27:19
And being that it's cold, a cold compost, it's gonna have
27:24
incredible microbial population. But it's also.
27:27
Yeah. You just wanna make sure that
27:28
those starting materials are clean and come from.
27:32
Yeah, good, good source. Exactly right.
27:34
Yeah, getting the source right. We'll come back to that question
27:37
about structure that I asked in a bit.
27:39
But just going down this amendments pathway because, you
27:44
know, as I said, I got an amendment blend, which is, I
27:48
would say heavily influenced by Jeremy and Bilder Soil's product
27:53
and it's a split between rock minerals.
27:57
So sort of you Brock phosphates, I get like the Polygonite from
28:02
Mount Sylvia up here in Queensland, these types of
28:04
things. And then it's also you've got
28:07
your kelp, we've got name, we've got all sorts of things like
28:10
that in there as well. When it comes to like amendments
28:17
and adding in amendments. And I know you said you use your
28:20
amendments to build your soil and sort of bulk it out with
28:23
with some stuff. I'm aware that a lot of people
28:28
don't know about the different inputs that you can use.
28:32
And a lot of what my mission is to try and help people
28:35
understand what these inputs are, why we're selecting them.
28:39
We're bringing, and I essentially say we're bringing
28:41
some of the best organic sources of these nutrients and putting
28:45
them all in one place and allowing the biology to work
28:47
that in, in a way that it knows how to do very efficiently.
28:50
Rather than going through the chemical route and, and
28:53
synthetics and helping people understand that they can use
28:59
some of these to, to either mix through the soil to top dress
29:03
through, to run through your worms, run through your compost,
29:07
all of the above. A couple of things.
29:12
One, what would you say is probably the go to apart from
29:19
worm castings cause and compost 'cause we touched on that.
29:21
It's a really good balance of stuff, but in terms of inputs in
29:25
that regard, what are some of the things that people are are
29:28
missing and or or over overrated, underrated?
29:33
And then also is there a point at which you can over amend soil
29:39
and overdo it with that kind of thing?
29:42
Oh, definitely. Yeah, you can definitely over
29:45
amend and. Hey, guys, really quickly
29:48
jumping in. I just want to remind you if you
29:51
are not subscribed to this show, that is the number one thing
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that you can do to show me your support.
29:56
So if you're finding value from this conversation and you're
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deeply engaged, I would love you to hit the follow or subscribe
30:02
button. All right, back to the show.
30:05
Yeah, so. Sorry, going back to the first
30:08
part of your I know, I'm sorry. I asked one question some.
30:10
Some like, yeah, so my, yeah, my opinion about, you know, some of
30:16
these food sources and having worked for a long time, you
30:19
know, these are raw materials that have been selected based on
30:24
yeah, what people before us have found have been excellent
30:27
sources of organic nutrition that are ideal for a
30:32
biologically active type of soil that.
30:36
Are going. To be, you know, that that
30:39
nutrients going to be cycled into an available, it's a form
30:42
that's available to the plant over time.
30:44
And some of these materials are going through with the help of
30:48
biology going to allow these nutrients to be available over
30:52
different release periods. So it's a lot of the a lot of
30:56
the reason why you know, like, like people like yourself and
31:00
companies like mine make some of these amendment mixes.
31:04
And so, you know, like I mean with mine, like I'm thinking
31:07
about, you know, different sources of nitrogen, different
31:11
amendments to to provide different source of nitrogen
31:14
that's going to provide a varying rate to release over a
31:19
period of time. So if I were to just say put one
31:22
amendment in it, yeah, great. It's an awesome organic
31:24
amendment. However, it is one source and
31:29
your plant is going to be able to access the nitrate in its
31:32
final form from that material. And you know, in a sort of
31:37
shorter window where as you know, if I can add a few
31:39
different sources. And now we've not only are we,
31:42
so we're, we're, so we're increasing the diversity of that
31:46
nutrient in organic form. We are then allowing that
31:51
nutrient to be available over a longer period of time in
31:54
different rights. So like fish meal, for example,
31:58
you're going to get some nitrogen that's going to be
32:01
available a bit quicker, a bit more immediate.
32:05
And then something yeah, like you're saying me meal.
32:08
I mean, that's that's going to take much longer or say loosen
32:13
or, you know, soy meal, it's quite it's quite fast, you know.
32:17
So when you when you're starting to think of some of these
32:19
materials, just do a little bit of research about how long it
32:22
takes for the nitrogen component.
32:25
Look at how much nitrogen by percentage is in some of these
32:28
inputs and how long it's gonna take roughly for that to
32:32
release. And that's why I, you know,
32:36
those are the reasons why I select some of them puts that
32:39
I've I've selected so. And I think that's, yeah, those
32:43
are the main benefits of these sort of systems where, yeah,
32:47
you, you do all the work upfront.
32:49
You know, you're preparing for a complete crop cycle by repairing
32:53
your soil with these sort of materials so that over time, as
32:58
they slowly breakdown or quickly and slowly, whatever.
33:02
And especially these, you know, the minerals, things like sulfur
33:04
phosphate is going to very slowly release, release
33:08
phosphate over the long period of time.
33:11
And, you know, that's going to provide, you know, availability
33:16
of these material of these minerals over, you know, long
33:22
like crop cycles. And so then we can just do just
33:25
very minimal supplementation. And yeah, you know.
33:28
Biological. Stimulants and things like that,
33:30
you know, focus on on, you know, training of plants properly
33:33
focus on IBM, it just it frees the grower up to it does
33:39
certainly. And if you, if you've got a, if
33:41
you've got a bigger battery of soil as well, like a larger
33:45
volume, your going to be mitigating a lot of these
33:49
availability issues that come in because, you know, talk about
33:54
the plant outpacing the biology in the, in the soil.
33:56
I'm actually running an experiment on my YouTube at the
33:58
moment, which has been really interesting.
34:00
It's about 18 months in. I took a, an organic chili
34:04
seeds, grew up all the chili seeds, picked the best one, grew
34:07
it up into a mother plant, took clones and then I ran those
34:12
clones while I am running the clones in the the most
34:16
sterilized, awful cheap potting mix that I could find on the
34:20
market. And I did, I've got, I did three
34:25
different ones. So one I was no fertilizer,
34:28
nothing at all. Just leave it in that potting
34:30
mix and that died very quickly, which was, I mean, you know,
34:34
obviously if we know about that. Then the second one I used again
34:38
the most cheapest basic NPK synthetic fertilizer, which is
34:44
still going but does not look healthy at all because it gets
34:48
this when the water goes through it, it's super available, shoots
34:53
out the gate, but then is becoming into so many problems.
34:57
Partner post that there's no biology in the soil, We're not
35:00
adding any biology. There's no compost, anything
35:03
like that. Obviously slowly over time
35:05
things will will happen. But the second one I'm using
35:09
just my amendment mix and what's been really interesting is that
35:13
initially I didn't get a huge amount of growth out of that,
35:20
you know, as much as the initial MPK because you know it's water
35:24
soluble, it's available quickly in the MPK.
35:27
So it was being used and growing this nitrogen plant, but not
35:31
when it's come to actually creating chilies.
35:33
It can't do it very well. Whereas the the blend is now
35:39
showing that it's a much healthier plant, much better
35:43
chilies. And then with that third one
35:46
that I that died, I then decided to re pot the mother plant in
35:51
there and then show how we can improve that soil with all the
35:55
living soil techniques. And that mother plant is an
35:59
absolute monster compared to the other two because not only am I
36:03
feeding it the blend, but I'm putting in biology as well to be
36:08
able to break down those nutrients, things like the
36:11
mycorrhizal fungi to go and access and get that phosphorus
36:14
out, all of the things that might not be happening without
36:18
the biology. So my point in, in bringing this
36:22
up is that yes, you can put some of these amendments in and yes,
36:26
they do have some biology with within them and around them and,
36:29
and from these sources. But if we're not focusing on the
36:33
biology in the soil, then these inputs might not even get broken
36:39
down at all. They might just be sitting in
36:40
the soil for a long time. Is that something that you're
36:45
that you ever you battled with or is obviously that goes
36:49
backwards and forwards with the testing and what amendments
36:51
you're putting in and then seeing how that iterates over
36:54
time? Yeah.
36:57
So sorry, I'm just thinking about the best way to answer
37:03
this because that's OK. I.
37:06
I'm interested on. Your thoughts on it?
37:08
Yeah, I did. Have a good thing.
37:09
So, so one of my observations, you know, over over time, you
37:15
know, a lot of time of, of doing this and countless soil tests
37:19
and working in a commercial facility for a little while with
37:23
living soil and having to, you know, test numerous crop cycles
37:27
and things like that, is that if you so we're starting, starting
37:35
with a high quality living soil that you know, you know, it's
37:40
everything's there that's required and a fairly good
37:42
balance. You know, you can assume the
37:45
biology is there. You can just smell it.
37:47
It's you know, it's got some moisture to it.
37:50
You plant a plant in there, the plants healthy, You know, you we
37:53
can assume that there is a healthy diverse kind of
38:00
ecosystem of, of, of soil cycling biology and whatnot.
38:07
Over time, if you're amending correctly and feeding that soil
38:12
correctly, your microbes will flourish and that will continue
38:18
to, you know, their populations aren't going anywhere.
38:21
If anything, they just explode, right.
38:23
Yeah. What what I've found is that if
38:27
I dial in, if I focus on say the chemical and the physical,
38:33
because I know that my compost is good.
38:35
So I know that my source of, of microbes are good and the
38:38
biology tends to follow. Yeah.
38:40
And then, you know, at that, that's my baseline, right.
38:45
But then from that baseline, OK, I know that I've got a good
38:49
balance of nutrients. I've got healthy plants, you
38:52
know, my, my soil isn't compacted all that then if now
38:56
if I, if I want to apply some biological treatments such as a
39:03
good compost tea or say some bacillus to help speed up
39:08
nutrient cycling and protect the plant roots, you know, roots
39:12
from pathogens and things like that.
39:14
It's, it's going to have a really explosive result on
39:19
yield, on health, plant resilience, all that sort of
39:22
stuff. Whereas if I'm throwing biology
39:25
at a subpar mix with subpar nutrient content and you know,
39:31
sort of low airfield porosity and, and low levels of even, you
39:38
know, organic matter. Well, organic matter is a tricky
39:41
1 to measure in a growing media. But yeah, low levels of humus
39:45
and low levels of, of nutrients or out of balance nutrients
39:50
particularly so high magnesium, calcium or high levels of sodium
39:54
and things like that, then I'm just going to struggle
39:57
regardless of what biology I throw at it.
39:59
So, and, and what I've come to learn over time is that it
40:04
really is about making sure you're not neglecting one thing
40:08
for another, making sure you're always thinking about all these
40:12
three things because with that comes good.
40:15
You know, when you start thinking about all three of
40:16
them, you start thinking about watering practice and.
40:22
And like watering so that you know, you're not letting dry
40:26
pockets start to appear in certain areas of your container
40:29
bed which you're going to grow and 'cause these like completely
40:33
dead areas of of your soil and you want the moisture dialed in
40:38
just right. Because there's a sweet spot
40:40
there for that biology to, you know, the the biology that we
40:44
want that's going to continue to cycle nutrients into a plant
40:47
available form and to promote a healthy root zone.
40:51
That's not going to promote pathogenic organisms from
40:55
flourishing in, you know, in the root zone.
40:58
Yeah. So, you know, we want to be
41:00
amending the right amount of amendments that is not going to,
41:07
you know, increase salinity to the point of where it's gonna
41:10
then start just being, you know, harmful.
41:14
Yeah. Not just microbes, but even, you
41:17
know, on roots as well. Yeah.
41:19
Because it's not a thing to think about, you know?
41:21
Yeah, these are organic amendments, but they've all got
41:24
salts, you know, they are salty, especially.
41:27
Especially ocean ingredients. Yeah, exactly.
41:30
So just just bear that in mind, like you know, look at the sort
41:33
of maximum recommended application rates and sort of
41:36
work backwards from there. Because a lot of the time I know
41:38
in my product anyway, like the maximum amount is recommended
41:42
for completely depleted soil and most of us don't completely
41:45
deplete our soil, right? True, true.
41:48
So just yeah. And then experiment, you know,
41:51
so work backwards from there, like, you know, OK, here's the
41:53
maximum amount that we recommend for depleted soil.
41:56
What do your plants look like at at the end?
41:59
Were they totally faded and all the leaves are falling off or
42:02
are they still pretty, pretty healthy?
42:04
You know, got fairly green leaves, still really, really
42:09
good yield. I'm assuming that it's landed in
42:12
a good place, yeah, soil fertility wise.
42:16
So we might not need to add too much more to get it back to
42:19
where we want it for the next cycle.
42:22
True. And yeah, because what?
42:25
What I'm hearing. From you there is like thinking
42:28
about balance obviously, and then it all coming down to the
42:32
chemistry at the end of the day as well.
42:34
Like having having too much salinity or having too much
42:37
nitrogen or whatever it is can shut down a whole bunch of other
42:41
minerals and and throw the balance out.
42:43
So no matter what biology you have in there, if it's in the
42:47
wrong ratios and things like this or something's in there too
42:50
hot, then it's just going to impact and impede a lot of the
42:53
other things that are going on. And Graham Sate talks about the
42:59
interplay between minerals, microbes and humus as being what
43:03
you're trying to basically, which, which is similar to what
43:06
you just said. It's trying to balance these
43:08
different elements so that they're they're efficiently
43:12
working together. It's not you don't want too much
43:14
of one thing and not enough of another.
43:17
So then going to, to structure mate in the soil and coming back
43:25
to that question about, you know, I've just bought a
43:29
beautiful bag of living soil from you and I've used it in, in
43:33
a, in a pot or something container, whatever it is.
43:36
And how does it change from when I've just dumped it in to say, a
43:42
couple of years down the track? And how, what, what challenges
43:45
did you face in terms of what that looked like?
43:49
And I'm going to, I'll just give you a little example of
43:51
something I'm thinking about in terms of people that use an
43:56
aeration component like perlite where it raises to the top
44:01
eventually. And you know, I've used rice
44:05
holes quite often in, in my mixes that I've done in the
44:09
past. And even though like it's great
44:11
form of silica, but it does break down.
44:14
So then eventually that aeration component has gone.
44:18
So can you just talk to a couple of those things for me?
44:22
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
44:23
I agree, yeah. If I were to say use 100% of the
44:27
air rash component as perlite, I think it would probably move
44:31
around a bit too much and the mix would just generally be a
44:33
little bit too light. Yeah, if we're looking purely at
44:37
physical properties, you know we're looking at the overall
44:40
airfield porosity of the mix and that includes the grade of
44:47
substrate, that peak substrate that we use.
44:50
We of course I'm not just using like seed raising grade of you
44:57
know, it's very well it has different components.
45:02
So we've got sod as well as milled in the recipe that we use
45:08
because that allows the heat itself to actually contain fair
45:15
bit of air in there. Yeah, OK.
45:17
It's very important because, you know, if it it really, really
45:20
fine heat or cocoa is just going to, you know, be very
45:24
restrictive in terms of air crossing when you scale up into
45:27
a large container or raised bed. Yeah.
45:30
Biochar as well helps the kind of compost that we use this what
45:34
are called for compost. It's, it's pretty, it's got a
45:37
nice sort of airy sort of feel to it.
45:40
You know, there's some chunks of like little small chunks of wood
45:43
still in there. Yeah.
45:44
And things like that, that just allow for a bit more air instead
45:47
of just becoming completely like this fine humus, like this humus
45:51
in the in the fines, but it's not 100%.
45:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, humus.
45:56
So. And that actually helps for the
45:57
container structure. And then so with the perlite.
46:02
So yeah, we use perlite, but we use it in sort of a a bit of a
46:07
mix of prolite and some lava rock ascoria.
46:09
And that kind of just helps maintain that aeration in a, in
46:15
a more stable structure. So it keeps it in place and
46:19
stops it from moving around, stops the prolite from moving
46:22
around a bit too much. And then again, like quite a
46:24
while back, I used to use just lava rock or just ascoria.
46:29
It was too heavy and it actually held on to too much water.
46:33
It's Yeah, this bizarre sort of Yeah.
46:36
Water holding properties. So what Yeah.
46:38
What I found, yeah. The balance between the pro
46:42
light and the score I really like.
46:44
And pumice is just. It's not economically viable.
46:47
Yeah. We we bring it over from New
46:49
Zealand. Yeah.
46:51
You know, and. And it's a rock.
46:53
Yeah. Yeah.
46:54
So you know, Yeah. I've got I've.
46:56
Got some? I'd love to, but yeah.
46:58
Well, exactly. It's for you.
46:59
This is what I wanted to just touch on in that regard is that
47:02
you're coming from a business standpoint where you're shipping
47:05
is a massive thing for you. So like that's why a lot of
47:09
people use Pearlite in their mixes because of the shipping
47:11
capabilities so they can it's less weight to to ship around.
47:15
So I'm going to be. Honest though, like if I were to
47:19
say, you know, the business had nothing to do with it and I was
47:22
just making it for myself, like I wouldn't have a problem with
47:25
using and I I think everyone's a little bit different and that's
47:29
totally cool That's what I mean that's one of the things I love
47:31
about this industry is everyone has different, you know, idea.
47:35
It's it's such a a vast kind of industry in terms of what you
47:39
can do and how you can make mixes and where people, you know
47:44
how people approach it. What what?
47:45
Yeah, definitely. You know what we use in our
47:47
mixes, you know, a lot of different things work, I'm sure.
47:52
Yeah, look, hummus is awesome and but it again, it is still
47:56
expensive and like even if I was making it myself at home, I'd
47:59
probably still use just a bit of Prolite and yeah, maybe some
48:03
pumice, like mix them together just like what I'm doing with
48:05
Scoria. Yeah, I think it's kind of not.
48:08
Again, like I like the diversity as well, just getting some
48:10
different grades of variation. I don't think it's 100%
48:15
necessary, but for me, it's for my mix.
48:18
I think it's worked well. Biochar is another really,
48:22
really, yeah, I highly recommend it for long term, not just long
48:26
term structure, but long term buffering, stability.
48:31
It provides a habitat for biology as well as a, you know,
48:37
micro porous. It's sort of honeycomb structure
48:43
that allows for nutrients to be held in place and exchanged, you
48:49
know, for the plant when required as well as there's a
48:54
lot of, there's quite a bit of research out there that shows
48:59
its efficacy in remediating heavy metals and other toxins.
49:05
So it's going to reduce the level of which your plants take
49:11
heavy metals and potentially other harmful compounds.
49:16
Yeah. So, yeah, I think biochar is is
49:19
an awesome input. You know it's it's an expensive
49:22
input, but you can also make. It yourself, We think it's
49:27
worth. It's worth.
49:28
It you you can, you just gotta pre.
49:30
Charge it, don't you? Yeah.
49:32
You you gotta pre charge I think the actual production of of the
49:35
biochar after seeing. So the biochar that we get is
49:38
made commercially and with this crazy pyrolysis machine, you
49:44
know, it's, it's quite impressive and it's, it's
49:46
actually made, it's, it's produced with some heat.
49:53
It's, it's from the excess heat of barley molting manufacturing
49:58
process. OK, So they're using the heat
50:00
from molting barley at a barley mold and then they've created
50:04
this huge production line off of that to create biochar.
50:08
And the biochar feedstock that we use is made from walnut, but
50:12
sometimes I can't depending on what, but it's the only those
50:16
two feedstocks and never anything else.
50:18
It's only those two. So it's extremely consistent and
50:21
it's actually a little bit higher in nutrient content in
50:23
regular. So not dissing, I love on on
50:28
based biochar. I think it's really good, but
50:34
you definitely need to charge that, whereas I've found with
50:36
the walnut based stuff, yeah, I've, I've always been able to
50:41
just throw it in the mix and then it just, you know, as as a
50:44
result of cycling over with the rest of my soil mix.
50:47
It tends to, you know, that's where the the charging seems,
50:50
yeah. Biochars are great.
50:53
That's such a great input. That's really, really cool.
50:56
I'm just cognizant of time. There's a couple of things I
50:58
want to touch on before we we wrap up.
51:02
Just going going back to that thing in terms of like over time
51:06
using the the aeration amendments and things once
51:08
they've broken down, what do you think changes over time in terms
51:14
of is there anything that people can do to keep that aeration
51:18
component, the oxygen in the soil that we need and all of
51:20
that overtime? And how does your mix last
51:24
overtime that you found? Yeah, yeah.
51:26
So this is a, this is a good question.
51:30
You know, a lot of my customers are growing with the soil long
51:35
term. Some of them, some of my
51:37
commercial clients, they're in large raised beds.
51:41
They're relying on, you know, the fact that they can have
51:45
continual perpetual cycles over and over again.
51:48
Yeah. So, yeah, obviously the physical
51:51
properties are important to enable that goal.
51:56
I would, yeah, Again, I would suggest, you know, when you, if
51:59
you're making your own mix, make sure that you're using a good
52:01
aeration component because, yeah, if that does start to
52:03
breakdown over time, you, you are going to have a more and
52:07
more difficult time with plant health and and consistency.
52:13
If we're looking at say commercial production where
52:16
consistency is extremely important, that's going to
52:18
become a problem, you know, say a couple of years down the line.
52:22
We now all of a sudden everything is slowing down, your
52:25
yield is decreasing everything because your plants cannot, they
52:28
simply can't take up nutrients and with the same level of
52:32
efficiency that they did, you know, at the start.
52:35
So translating that back to the home garden, I mean, it's same
52:39
sort of thing, right? It's like, well, two years down
52:42
the line, I mean, you want to have a similar nutrient density
52:45
and quality of of whatever food it is in herbs that you're
52:49
growing, whether they're medicinal plants, herbs, food,
52:52
you know, you, you five years, you know, like, yeah, you should
52:56
be able to use your a soil necks like this for five years,
53:01
definitely without issue. And I think another, another
53:06
major factor with getting longevity and, and consistent
53:10
results over time, really, you know, watering, like proper
53:15
watering and potentially sort of mulching and, you know, adding
53:18
protective layers and things like that on top.
53:20
And, you know, good irrigation and watering practices is going
53:24
to help a lot. You know, you'd be surprised,
53:28
you know, how much or how little this sort of soil needs
53:33
depending on the stage of plants that and the environment.
53:37
So just really it's not a schedule.
53:41
And this is one of the misconceptions I see from
53:44
growers that are sort of starting out.
53:46
They think, oh, if I just water every second day, it'll be fine
53:49
or once a day or once a week or whatever it is, right.
53:52
And it's, it's dynamic. It's what is required.
53:55
You want to try to maintain some level of consistency.
53:57
You, you can allow some dry back and things like that, But but
54:03
the requirement, the water requirements of that plant are
54:05
obviously going to change over time.
54:07
Same with the soil. Based on you know how hot, dry,
54:12
humid it is and what stage your plants are in, the demand for
54:16
water is going to rapidly increase as your plant you know
54:19
the root mass increases in that container or raised bed.
54:23
True. Just keep an eye on.
54:25
That and if you, if you get it, you know that that'd be one of
54:28
the things I'd really focus on in terms of skill as a grower.
54:31
Because over time, if you, if you have a good handle on that,
54:35
then you'll get much more out of out of your soil for a very,
54:39
yeah, I've found. Using moisture meat is very
54:41
helpful because I can see because like like you said, it's
54:44
very difficult to guess unless you know the plant very well and
54:48
you can see the signs. It's very difficult to, to just
54:51
go, OK, well within my busy schedule, when, when do I water?
54:55
How much am I putting in? What percentage volume by volume
54:59
am I putting in? And having a moisture meter in
55:02
there where I know I've just got to keep it within a certain
55:05
range. That's much more helpful for me
55:09
because I kind of go, oh, that's fine.
55:10
It's still within range. It's still happy.
55:12
I don't need to go in and dump a whole bunch of water, which
55:14
could be a terrible result if you go and do it.
55:17
Hey, absolutely. No, like, yeah, moisture meter.
55:20
I have moisture meters in my pots outside here.
55:23
Like I, I've always used Blue mat digital moisture meters.
55:27
You know, when I was at a commercial facility, we used
55:29
barometers, which are cool. They're really expensive and
55:32
they're a bit fiddly. Blue mat digital moisture meters
55:36
are just amazing because they are essentially 10 geometers and
55:40
it's a measurement of what a plant root is feeling in terms
55:45
of the amount of pressure required to it's it's, it's a
55:48
measurement of plant available water in the root zone.
55:51
And that is just such a useful data point for a grower because,
55:58
yeah, if we're looking at volumetric, volumetric is useful
56:00
for me. Say it's someone that's like
56:02
building soil and I need to know how much water by percent of
56:08
volume I'm adding to, you know, that's mixed to get to say 40%
56:13
or whatever. Yeah, you know.
56:15
Whereas. When I'm growing, I wanna use
56:18
AI, wanna use A10 geometer because now that's gonna tell me
56:23
what the plant is in. Yeah.
56:25
And they can vary. I mean, there's definitely an
56:29
association between the two, but the 10 geometer is gonna are
56:34
gonna give you a much easier sort of metric to go by.
56:36
So if you get, you know, if any any of your listeners, you know,
56:40
they find a Blue Magic once you meet her somewhere.
56:43
I can't recommend it enough, honestly.
56:45
It's a game changer. You put that thing in your soil
56:48
and it's going to tell you in the water, you know, just keep
56:50
between 50 and 100 or something like that.
56:52
Don't get too crazy with it. And the beautiful thing about it
56:56
is that if you do keep it within that range, you'll then start to
56:59
notice correlation between that and the health of your soil and
57:02
your plants. And then it sort of trains you
57:05
almost to how to properly water, yeah.
57:08
Definitely, Yeah, I, I totally agree.
57:10
And yeah, Blue Mat's a great company.
57:12
I've used some of their carrots when I've disappeared over for a
57:16
holiday or something and I've needed some consistent sort of
57:19
watering through their little carrot systems, which seemed to
57:23
work. Well, it, it did.
57:25
I, I feel like I didn't have enough carrots for the size of
57:28
the, the soil volume. So there was a few little bits
57:30
of dry back pockets when I, when I returned.
57:32
But you know, these are, are minor, minor details.
57:36
You mentioned also like in terms of the watering conservation and
57:39
stuff like that, having like a mulch or, you know, some sort of
57:43
covering on the soil. I talk about obviously again
57:47
with the, the cover crop blend that I've talked about, like
57:50
that's a cover crop is just incredible for, for building
57:53
soil and covering the soil and for providing some of the
57:57
benefits in the root zone for breaking down the nutrients and,
58:00
and all of that sort of thing. But in terms of like in terms of
58:04
mulch and, and watering and water conservation, it can be
58:11
very different in, in the climates.
58:13
Australia, massive country, same as the US, obviously, big
58:16
country, different ecosystems all over the place.
58:21
How, how challenging is it for you to, to have developed a mix
58:26
that works across different, you know, climate zones?
58:33
And is there a difference in terms of how people should be
58:39
protecting that soil versus someone like me where I'm, you
58:43
know, we're getting some scorchingly hot, humid days
58:47
versus somebody that's freezing cold and dry and, and that kind
58:52
of thing. Obviously the watering amount
58:54
will be different. And if you're using a moisture
58:55
meter, it's much more helpful. You can kind of see that, but
58:59
but what sort of what comes to mind when I when I talk about
59:02
the differences in the climate and and how that impacts the,
59:06
the soil itself? Yeah, so like, basically, I
59:13
mean, yeah, if you're growing outdoors in Australia, mulch is
59:17
critical, you know, like you can't, you almost can't do it
59:20
without it, you know? I mean, you can, but yeah, you
59:25
know, you know, struggle because, you know, like,
59:28
especially if we're bringing it back to containers, you know,
59:30
you're, you want the most out of that container and, you know,
59:35
straight away without mulch, you now you've pretty much lost 25
59:39
to 30% of that soil volume just to the top part of it being
59:43
completely dry and lifeless and nothing is now usable.
59:47
The top the the horizon of the soil because it's dry.
59:51
So yeah, it look it, it all depends on your application.
59:56
So for the average, say home gardener, home grower, yeah,
1:00:00
just get some straw. You know, one thing I've
1:00:01
noticed, like up here in Brisbane is like, yeah, I found
1:00:06
a problem actually all over the country, but it's really hard to
1:00:08
just get like a course more coarse grade of straw mulch.
1:00:14
It doesn't just break down so quickly like every mulch product
1:00:17
here, it seems to be very fine. So what happens is?
1:00:22
Is it just? I don't know, just sort of like
1:00:25
incorporates into the soil and breaks down quite quickly.
1:00:29
So just be aware that if you can find something that's a little
1:00:32
bit more on the coarse side, it will just help that separation a
1:00:35
bit more and just keep it up on top and stop it from kind of
1:00:38
incorporating in the soil too much and, and it will last
1:00:42
longer. Like I've used wood chips in the
1:00:45
past, bark, straw, it will do the same thing.
1:00:50
They just have different rates of breakdown.
1:00:53
You know, I really like, I do really like using wood chips,
1:00:57
but it can be a total rabbit hole, like getting the right
1:01:00
ones or whatever. But don't worry about like
1:01:02
drawdown and stuff like that too much.
1:01:03
I mean, at the end of the day, at the top, if you don't overdo
1:01:05
it, it's not going to compete with, you know, nitrogen and
1:01:11
whatnot from the microbial breakdown.
1:01:14
You know, if you're a real, if you're really into something.
1:01:20
Steve Cantwell actually put me onto one of those soil life
1:01:25
summits I was at a couple of years ago.
1:01:27
Was BBQ grade like wood smoking chips really.
1:01:32
And. Those are, yeah, amazing.
1:01:35
So if you're using an expensive living soil and you want some
1:01:39
some wood chips that are guaranteed to be a very high
1:01:42
quality, then that's good. That's incredible.
1:01:45
I've never heard of that, so yeah.
1:01:47
They're expensive though, you know.
1:01:48
Yeah, of course. Yeah, I've been, I've, I've used
1:01:51
a few different things. Like I've found that like you
1:01:53
said, with that, the smaller shredded up mediums, like
1:01:57
especially something like sugar cane mulch can become quite
1:02:00
hydrophobic. It kind of just mats over the
1:02:02
top of the soil then and you're not getting that penetration of
1:02:05
the water. You can water for an hour and
1:02:07
then peel back the layer and it's bone dry.
1:02:09
So I've found that like my favorite ways of doing it is
1:02:15
like a barley straw, bigger, bigger pieces.
1:02:18
So there's lots of oxygen that comes through.
1:02:21
I use my cover crop as a living mulch as much as possible,
1:02:24
keeping lots of Clover and things in there to, to, to
1:02:28
create that kind of cover on the soil.
1:02:31
But going back to rice holes as well, I've used rice holes as a
1:02:35
mulch too. And I've found that that's been
1:02:37
quite good. That's been quite easy.
1:02:40
And like they're, they're not too expensive to get a bunch of
1:02:42
that. So, so yeah, that's, that's
1:02:46
really, really cool. And then last question mate, if
1:02:49
I would about watering and I know you mentioned to me before
1:02:54
we started that we this could be a deep rabbit hole, but water
1:02:59
only and low input systems. What are some of the?
1:03:05
Problems that or like what's the main couple of issues that
1:03:10
people might face if they're just going down a water only or
1:03:15
really low input style system like what what comes to mind
1:03:20
with that? So I'm just gonna have to get
1:03:30
you to it's go with that question.
1:03:32
That's OK. Yeah.
1:03:33
I'm sometimes like, I can be a bit vague with the question, but
1:03:37
I'm just thinking about like, yeah, I'm thinking in terms of
1:03:40
like if you, if you've just bought your soil mix, Yep.
1:03:46
Is it? Possible first and foremost to
1:03:48
just use water. OK, cool.
1:03:51
Yeah. And then what?
1:03:52
Yeah. What problems might you face
1:03:54
long term if that's what you were doing?
1:03:56
Yeah. Now this is a good.
1:03:56
Question. All right, Got you.
1:03:57
Yeah, Because you know, like this is probably the key point
1:04:02
of difference, I would think with this kind of so, So you
1:04:05
know, my my soil mix is distributed around gross stores
1:04:08
like hydroponics shops around Australia, you know, and you
1:04:12
might see it on the shelf next to say a Coco Coya, you know,
1:04:17
hydroponic media, things like that.
1:04:20
You know, this is an organic living soil that, you know, the
1:04:24
plants are taking up what they need nutrient wise from the soil
1:04:29
itself. So you it, in order for this to
1:04:33
work well with mainly just water, you need to have enough
1:04:38
soil volume for the plant to be able to access, you know, enough
1:04:43
nutrients for particularly for the whole crop cycle.
1:04:46
And it depends on how long this all depends on how long the crop
1:04:49
cycle is, you know, the type of plant, the, the, the
1:04:56
environmental conditions and everything.
1:04:57
But it's just a rule of thumb, you know, like we've formulated
1:05:01
our mix for sort of around 2 to 4 weeks of veg and, and nine
1:05:06
weeks of, of flour. And that requires a minimum of
1:05:10
50 liters of soil. So if you're outside of those
1:05:13
parameters, you can expect it to become deficient and require
1:05:16
supplementation. True.
1:05:18
You know, I, yeah, I interestingly, you know, I get
1:05:21
this less these days, but yeah, back when I, when I started, you
1:05:24
know, you would see people doing this constantly where they're
1:05:27
trying to grow in A10 litre pot. And it's all good until you get
1:05:31
to about Week 2 in the flowering stage and it just completely
1:05:37
falls over because there's just not enough nutrients being out
1:05:40
paste. Isn't it?
1:05:41
Yeah, Yeah. Biology.
1:05:43
Cannot keep up. There is just way, you know, at
1:05:46
that point it requires constant supplementation with on a
1:05:51
nutrients. So yeah, 50 liters minimum with
1:05:55
with those parameters of around 2 two to four weeks veg and and
1:05:58
nine weeks flour. You know, if you if you got a
1:06:01
full season thing going on where, you know, you're starting
1:06:05
early in the season and you're growing, say outdoors and, you
1:06:09
know, it's just, you know, there's no greenhouse or
1:06:12
anything, you're just outside, you're going full term, then,
1:06:15
you know, I would say get into absolute minimum of like 200
1:06:19
liters or something like that. Yeah, OK.
1:06:22
You know, and, and look, you know, people break these rules
1:06:26
all the time and I always find that really impressive.
1:06:28
Like wow, how'd you do that? You know, get these really
1:06:30
healthy plants in small pots. But you know, if you want to, if
1:06:33
you want to see some really impressive results, I just can't
1:06:36
recommend, you know, setting yourself up for success with,
1:06:42
with adequate soil volume to begin with and just following,
1:06:46
you know, best practices with watering and stuff like that.
1:06:48
And you'll find that, yeah, absolutely you can get through a
1:06:50
full crop cycle with just water. However, you know, that's that's
1:06:56
the kind of baseline and you can continue, you can improve
1:07:02
results from that baseline by using various biostimulants.
1:07:06
Yeah, microbial applications, whether it's Bacillus, bacteria
1:07:10
and Oculus or some more emphasis applications or say boosting,
1:07:16
you know, virus specific amendments in the firing stages.
1:07:21
Yeah. You know, anything that's going
1:07:23
to, you know, be compatible with the living soil and in, in
1:07:29
balance, you know, you're not, you're not feeding too much.
1:07:31
I mean, these things are all going to improve your, your
1:07:35
yielding and quality crop quality potential, you know,
1:07:38
from that. But yeah, you can absolutely get
1:07:42
a good crops like just water, you know, if you're, if you're
1:07:45
working within those parameters. Yeah, I had a customer the other
1:07:47
day actually reached out and they had really healthy plants
1:07:51
all the way up to like week 3 or 4 of flour and they're in like
1:07:54
10 litre pots, right. You know.
1:07:57
So yeah, it's it's probably the main that is the main limiting
1:08:05
factor for water only 100% is just get getting the big enough
1:08:10
volume of soil per plant you can get.
1:08:13
Great results and like your mix is this is the the difference
1:08:19
between what I was using in a really cheap basic potting mix
1:08:23
that I got to deliberately demonstrate that there's no
1:08:26
there's nothing in it basically. So then when I went water only,
1:08:30
it just suffered extremely, very quickly.
1:08:33
And yeah, that's the difference between, you know, somebody
1:08:37
who's really thoughtfully built a soil that has all the
1:08:41
components in there of a healthy living soil that's going to
1:08:43
provide that for for that. And then as you said, after the
1:08:46
crop cycle, like everybody normally does for any kind of
1:08:50
gardening, you want to sort of re amend or add back the
1:08:52
nutrients that you you were taken out in the plant or the
1:08:56
crop if it's not all chopped and dropped back on top of the soil
1:08:59
and being fed back to the soil. So that's really interesting,
1:09:03
mate, and I really appreciate you.
1:09:06
You coming on. Is there anything, just just
1:09:09
lastly, is there anything that's coming up for you that you want
1:09:11
to plug or you want to talk about or where's the best place
1:09:15
for people to go and follow your journey or find you other than
1:09:19
easy as organics? Yeah, sure.
1:09:20
Yeah, probably the best place, either my website
1:09:23
easyasorganics.com dot AU or my my Instagram is, which is just
1:09:28
easy as organics. Yeah, we've got a few things
1:09:32
coming up. Yeah.
1:09:34
I'm, I'm really, I'm really proud of this new mix that that
1:09:37
we launched recently with Ted Hussey and Brandon Hudson at
1:09:42
KISS Organics. Yeah, it took took a lot of a
1:09:45
lot of work, a lot of trial and error to get it to where it is.
1:09:50
So, yeah, I think it's a really, really great thing for for
1:09:54
growers here to try. And yeah, yeah, regenerate
1:10:01
nutrient pack, I think that is an excellent just all-purpose
1:10:05
kit that is going to kind of help people to, you know,
1:10:09
maintain or supplement fertility if you are in small pots or if
1:10:13
you are a longer season and things like that.
1:10:15
I'm sure your mix is probably really good as well.
1:10:19
Oh, for sure. And and look, we are releasing a
1:10:25
new product pretty soon. It's a bloom specific top dress
1:10:30
product. I won't go into too much detail
1:10:32
just yet, but yeah, it's not not too far away.
1:10:36
Yeah, we just want to be able to provide our our customers, you
1:10:40
know, growers using our products with everything that they need
1:10:45
to get the most out of the soil essentially.
1:10:48
And, you know, it's something that I wanted to do for a really
1:10:52
long time and I just haven't gotten around to it.
1:10:55
So yeah, we're finally. I know what?
1:10:57
That's like, yeah, no, that's perfect, man, because I, yeah, I
1:11:02
look up to you and, and Tad and all all those guys very much.
1:11:05
So. I very much appreciate your
1:11:09
insight and I'm very grateful for your time and thank you so
1:11:12
much. Thanks, Jordan.
1:11:13
Yeah, Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
1:11:32
Wow, what a. Conversation thank you again to
1:11:34
Matt, he is an absolute wealth of knowledge and I highly
1:11:38
recommend you go and check out his products.
1:11:41
You know, as somebody who makes products in a sort of similar
1:11:45
elk to to Matt, I can vouch for the fact that he really
1:11:49
meticulously he's gone through and made sure that these
1:11:52
products are perfect for the market.
1:11:54
And as you heard, he's gone through some extensive work over
1:11:58
the years working with some of the best in the biz, trying to
1:12:01
create a living soil mix that works.
1:12:03
And I'm keen to go and dive into a few more of the things that he
1:12:08
spoke about and to do some more research and learn some stuff.
1:12:11
But I really hope you learnt something from this conversation
1:12:15
too and enjoyed the deep dive of two soil guys nerding out on
1:12:20
some some in soil information. To enjoy the episode, please
1:12:24
consider leaving it a review. And of course, follow the
1:12:28
podcast because that is the number one thing you can do to
1:12:31
show me your support to help continue allowing me to do
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something like this and to bring these conversations to you every
1:12:39
single week. So I'm very grateful to you, the
1:12:40
listener. I'm grateful to Matt for joining
1:12:43
us today and I'm very excited to see you on the next episode.
1:12:46
Take care. Thank you and bye for now.