Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #58 - Regenerative Indoor Creek Ecosystem | Josh [Yellow Skunk Farms]

Transcript

#58 - Regenerative Indoor Creek Ecosystem | Josh [Yellow Skunk Farms] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Shed
0:03
Organics show. Today is a really interesting
0:07
and cool episode. We have Josh from Yellow Skunk
0:11
Farms in Virginia in the South, well, mid South.
0:16
He tells me of the US and another international guest and
0:21
this guy Josh, I came across on Instagram doing this.
0:25
Incredible project, this regenerative ecosystem that is
0:29
actually indoors. Now he's growing some medicinal
0:32
plants in there, but he's showing that you can literally
0:36
create this ecosystem to grow pretty much whatever you want.
0:39
And having it indoors means that he has complete control over the
0:44
environment and can run this system all year round.
0:47
Even while he's in the middle of a winter storm outside, he can
0:51
have this system thriving indoors.
0:54
We touched on the system itself, what it takes to build this
0:58
ecosystem with a flowing Creek all the way through it and
1:01
multiple plants in succession, what it takes to build that
1:04
indoors, and the knowledge and the story behind how this
1:08
incredible idea came to fruition.
1:10
There's lots that you can learn here.
1:12
And it doesn't just relate to any kind of medicinal or food
1:15
plants. This relates to a whole
1:16
ecosystem and nature in general. And Josh has a really good
1:21
fundamental understanding that we are growing soil and not
1:25
growing plants necessarily. So this was super fun for me.
1:29
I'm really interested in Josh's journey and I highly recommend
1:32
you go and check out his page on Instagram and YouTube both
1:36
before, during and after this episode so you can have a little
1:39
bit of context as to what he is creating.
1:43
But here it is. Here's the conversation.
1:45
This is Josh from Yellow Skunk Farms.
2:05
OK, well, let's start from the beginning.
2:08
I guess that'll be the best thing.
2:09
So I started growing. I started growing.
2:12
Excuse me, when COVID hit. So everybody got scared and you
2:18
know, let's see if we can grow our own medicine, grow our own
2:22
food. So I started in with the
2:24
medicine because that's what me and my wife do.
2:28
And so I started off in pots and then basically, you know, a 5
2:36
gallon bucket is where I started.
2:39
And then I, I hit you too because I had some bag seat and
2:42
I just was like, you know, let's throw it out there and see what
2:44
happens. And and what the maybe the 1st
2:49
or it wasn't the first, maybe the second or third one I put by
2:53
my outdoor fish pond. So I have a koi pond here.
2:56
So I live on my grandparents old piece of property.
2:59
So this piece of property's been in the in the in the family for
3:02
a long time. Very good.
3:04
And me and my grandfather built the koi pond back in 2003.
3:10
It's just a small 1500 gallon koi pond, got a little, you
3:16
know, upgrade that runs down through there, maybe 1520 koi in
3:21
there and some goldfish. But I set the plant by there and
3:27
I just removed the bottom of the pot.
3:30
And when I removed the bottom of the pot and I stuck it, you
3:33
know, by the fish pond, I noticed that roots just started
3:37
coming out. The feeder roots started coming
3:39
out wanting to get out of the pot.
3:41
And then I tried to pull the pot up out of the ground and it
3:43
wasn't coming out of the ground. And then I and then I, I moved
3:47
some of the soil around from the pond, you know, right on the
3:50
edge, like right where those, and I can see the roots
3:53
attaching themselves to the side of the plastic tub that the pond
3:59
is in. They're.
4:00
Attached themselves to it. So this pond's been there for 20
4:04
plus years, you know, but I noticed the roots were just
4:07
drawn to it and I was like, damn.
4:09
I wonder if the, you know, I wonder if they're, you know,
4:12
leaching, you know, some type of, you know, nutrient from the,
4:16
you know, moisture from the pond, everything.
4:19
So, you know, I got the the wheels turning.
4:21
So then I got into getting into YouTube and then I started
4:24
exploring YouTube and that's where everything just went
4:28
crazy. I found future cannabis project
4:32
on YouTube and this is where I ran into the soil.
4:35
Food Web Doctor Elaine Ingham, Layton Morrison Natural Farming
4:44
Jeddam. There's there's so many
4:47
different things that people were talking about.
4:49
I'm just like, holy cow, you know, there's so many different
4:53
ways to do this. And not just not just focusing
4:57
on the medicine, I'm focused on like, you know, everything.
5:00
The medicine was just, that's what I needed at the time, you
5:04
know, so I was scared I wasn't going to be able to get it.
5:07
And then, you know, let's let's just see how this goes, of
5:10
course. And, and you know, what I'm
5:12
hearing online is it's extremely difficult to do it very well.
5:16
I mean, it is a, it's a, it's a weed, but it, it's very finicky,
5:22
you know, it's, you know, but it wants this, it doesn't want
5:25
that. But then again, if you study it,
5:29
it kind of wants everything. It's an.
5:31
Accumulator it really once you learn this stuff and I was like,
5:36
wow, this this plant is really versatile.
5:39
You know, it can do a lot of different things.
5:41
It can. I've noticed it can be in the
5:43
desert. It can be in the jungle.
5:45
It can be. Pretty much anywhere you want it
5:48
to be, as long as you're got the environment somewhat close,
5:53
it'll it'll perform. And you find the right genetics.
5:55
Of course, you know genetics, they're everything when it comes
5:59
to things like this. But then the natural farming, me
6:04
putting that plant by that pond just was like holy cow,
6:08
aquaponics, you know, aquaponics got into it and then I was like
6:13
wow. Then living soil beds got into
6:16
it and I was like, I started with the living soil beds or
6:21
progressed the living soil beds. So I went to the 30 gallon pot
6:24
living soil grass roots bed bag and then went to the 4 by 4 bed.
6:32
I've seen that. I was like.
6:34
The bigger is better, you know what I mean like more root, more
6:38
fruit type of thing. It's going to be to maintain,
6:43
you know, life in the bed because I didn't figure, I
6:46
figured out that I wanted to go natural farming, you know, and I
6:50
and I basically focused in on like the nutrient dense side of
6:57
natural form. And so like Doctor Lane Heehan
6:59
kept pushing, you know, nutrient density in our food and nutrient
7:03
density in our in everything. Like it's what we need.
7:07
It's what humans need to thrive and be disease free.
7:13
We need good food and it's extremely hard.
7:16
Come to find out, it's extremely hard to find, if not impossible
7:21
to find nutrient dense food in the area if you're not growing
7:25
it yourself or know somebody on a farm who's literally doing it
7:29
and doing it the right way. Just, you know, having a farm
7:34
next to you and if he's growing in sauce, if he's using old
7:37
practices, MPK and all that stuff, I've learned that that's
7:41
just not where it's at. Like tilling garden, NPK, just
7:45
that old mindset. It's not, it's not working.
7:50
No, it's not. It's the same.
7:51
It's very much the same here with, you know, it's very hard
7:54
to come by unless you can find some farmers or some, you know,
7:57
organic markets, things like this.
7:58
So it is really difficult. It is.
8:01
You can't go to a grocery store. I mean, once you bite into a
8:04
tomato at a grocery store and you grow your own, everybody
8:06
knows that it's totally different.
8:08
It does, and you're right. You go to have this wormhole
8:10
like why is it so different? Well, that's it.
8:13
You're, you're touching on the the point there is the nutrient
8:16
density and having that soil life, soil food web that
8:20
connects all of that, that can turn all of the organics into
8:24
plant available nutrients translates into healthy plants
8:27
into healthy human beings. Exactly, it's very simple
8:31
actually, the basics of it were so simple to me, you know, and
8:36
I, I kind of I'm a car guy, so I like to like point everything
8:41
towards cars because most most people can relate to like the
8:45
fuel gauge on a car, you know, when it's full, it's full, but
8:48
you can't go too too much. Too much is pouring all out on
8:53
the place and it stands and it's bad.
8:55
You know what I mean? It's right on that line.
8:57
You know, if you can keep this biology, and not necessarily the
9:01
biology I've learned, but the moisture level, it's all really
9:05
about maintaining. And that's where I was going
9:08
with this. How I got here was a planted by
9:12
the pond. I've noticed that the plant
9:15
could pretty much handle anything as long as that soil
9:20
was separate from the pond water, the roots could go to it.
9:26
And then I found aquaponics. And then you find deep water
9:29
culture and there's so many. And like the roots can be in
9:33
water as long as the top half is separate.
9:37
The roots can be in water all the time, as long as that water
9:40
is oxygenated. And.
9:42
Moving, you know what I'm saying?
9:45
So then light, you know, light bulbs started going off.
9:47
And I was like, wait a minute, flowing water, bubbles,
9:53
oxygenated mountain streams. I live on a reservoir here.
10:00
I live on a freshwater reservoir.
10:03
So what that it's just a, it's a big basically it's, it's an old
10:07
stream that comes from the river.
10:10
And they dammed it up. OK, back in the 60s, they dammed
10:14
it up the stream and created and then went in and, and and
10:19
basically bulldozed all the trees, made this huge swath of
10:23
land. It's like, I don't know, it's
10:26
over 2000 plus acres, you know, of just this huge reservoir full
10:33
of water that they pump fresh water out.
10:36
So there's pipes running to it. So no swimming, no boats, no
10:40
motors, no nothing like that. So it's kind of a perfect spot.
10:45
Yeah, me to go harvest some of these things that I needed to do
10:50
what I was thinking about doing, and that was the sand and the
10:54
silt and the clay that's down on this Creek that flows into the
11:00
reservoir. So there's a bunch of little
11:02
creeks and underwater streams here on the property that just
11:06
flow. I live on top of the hill, so
11:09
everything flows down to the reservoir.
11:12
So all I got to do is walk down there, shovel up a little bit of
11:16
sand, silt and play off the edge of the Creek where it's entering
11:19
in OK. All the trees are over top of
11:22
me, so that in my head I was like, that's sand, silt and
11:27
play. That's all organic matter.
11:30
It's all broken down organic matter to its finest form.
11:35
So you've got sand, which is the bigger particle, and then silt,
11:39
which is the finer thing that the the wind can blow in the
11:43
air. And then the clay is this
11:45
extremely fine particle that you really can't see hardly with the
11:48
naked eye. Add that to the water flow and
11:54
magic happens. I noticed that when I went down
11:58
there, I could just move just the the top, just a few grains
12:03
of sand and also that organic matter that it built up.
12:06
And I saw earthworms, just worms just running through everywhere.
12:10
And I was like, in the blackest organic manner.
12:14
I mean, just a thick layer of it because just all those trees
12:18
falling down over those years, just building.
12:21
And the deeper I dug, the more finer the sand, the more broken
12:26
down all that gets in my head. I would say, OK, yeah, that's
12:30
that's what I'm looking for. You know, that's the biology
12:34
that's breaking down all that organic matter.
12:37
So if they're doing it down there, they can surely should do
12:41
it up here. I create a system that provides
12:45
the exact same thing that they have down there here.
12:51
So then I found Layton Morrison and Layton introduced me to the
12:56
soil horizons and he introduced the, to the cannabis community,
13:01
the soil horizonal system, which he was creating in a, in a, in
13:06
the, in the pots basically. So he was taking a 30 gallon pot
13:11
and creating, you know, putting rock and different size pebbles
13:15
down at the bottom and then putting sand on top, filling in
13:19
all those gaps and then putting soil on top of that sand.
13:24
When the water runs down, it separates that soil from that
13:29
from the, from all that water. And then it, you know, that
13:33
water sets down in that bottom and waits for the roots to go
13:37
down and tap into that biology that's in that sand and
13:42
everything and it goes from there.
13:45
You know what I mean? So I'm mimicking nature to it to
13:47
like the to the 10th degree here.
13:51
Like. Really like organic.
13:53
It's all layers. So in my head I'm seeing layers.
13:57
Well, that's shoveling around. I see the layers.
14:00
That's exactly it. Sorry to jump in, Josh, I think.
14:02
Oh I'm sorry, I get rambled on so.
14:04
No, no, this is this is perfect because there's so many things I
14:07
want to jump into already, but I love how you're just mimicking.
14:10
You're looking outside at what's working really well and you know
14:15
fortunate enough that you can mimic exactly what's happening
14:19
outside, indoors. I've got 2 questions.
14:23
First and foremost before because the second question is
14:27
related to that layering. But the the first question is
14:31
why not tap into the one that's already outdoors?
14:35
Why the decision to go indoors? 24/7 basically, and I can
14:45
monitor it like in my head. I was like, you know, I if I
14:47
brought this indoors, I can, I can pretty much run this system
14:51
non-stop 24/7, 365 days a year and really be able to see how
14:58
fast I can turn sand into silt. I mean, sand silt and clay into
15:03
soil. So that was kind of the like I
15:06
didn't realize it was going to happen that fast.
15:09
Like I, I really thought this was going to take like 2 to
15:11
three years. Yeah, on on the time frame,
15:14
because that's kind of how it how long it takes outside, you
15:17
know, if, if you really come across some bad soil like clay
15:23
and you know, it takes 2-3 cycles.
15:26
Yeah, exactly. The reason it takes so long
15:28
though is because it has to shut off during winter time.
15:32
Yeah, OK. Lose half of a year.
15:34
Depending on where you are, you really only get 1/2 of a year.
15:39
Right, so your are your winters in Virginia quite cold?
15:43
Right now I'm Yeah, we got that ice storm come through here.
15:47
It was like 10° last night. It's supposed to be like in the
15:51
teens, but usually, like, this is a freak storm, like one in
15:56
every 10 years we get like this. But normally we're in the, you
15:59
know, the 35°F range. OK, but it's still cold.
16:04
So at least indoors you can keep this system running.
16:06
You can keep the temperature up, you can keep humidity where you
16:09
need it, all of that sort of thing.
16:13
That's brilliant. OK, well then can we touch on
16:15
these layers again then? Because to me, like not too many
16:21
people are doing this right. So quite often we're building
16:25
some sort of soil medium, you know, a lot of the sort of the
16:29
the Clackamas Coot mix, that style where we're doing a third
16:33
of each with our aeration, our base and our compost.
16:36
And it's not really often thought about this kind of
16:41
structured layering through to like the bedrock almost that you
16:44
might see of thousands of years of organic matter falling and
16:48
building this soil layering system.
16:50
So you mentioned that you were introduced to this idea, but had
16:56
had you seen many people using this technique before?
16:59
And you sort of talk me through the basics of what is going on
17:05
and what you're trying to create with the layering.
17:08
OK, yeah, I had seen this done. A couple of couple of different
17:12
people were already in in the in the in the game doing it.
17:17
One in particular guy named Marco was growing.
17:21
I was following him on Instagram.
17:23
I was following him on YouTube and he he was, he was, he set up
17:27
a layering system. He was growing award-winning
17:30
stuff. Wow, OK.
17:31
Like he went, he went up to a big DC, you know, cup and won
17:37
it, like won the whole thing. I was like.
17:39
Not not just the like the One Cup he won all of it.
17:42
Like the the, the People's Choice, the number one, the
17:46
terp, everything. Wow.
17:48
OK, OK, he's on to something here.
17:51
He was doing natural farming. Like basically he was mixing
17:56
everything kind of together. He was doing a little KF little
18:00
Jidam little little bit of this, doing it in the horizonal soil
18:05
system. And and then he had this this
18:08
whole nother little system where he was he was watering with a a
18:12
side tank. So he had a 4 by 8.
18:16
So he had a 4 by 8 grass roots living bed, but he had boxed it
18:21
off. So he had, he had wrapped the
18:24
whole thing in plastic, OK. So he had taken away that air
18:28
gap you get at the bottom, OK. That does not work in a
18:32
horizonal soil system that you're defeating the whole
18:36
purpose by having that air flow. There is no air flow in in the
18:42
earth. So you've got to turn that
18:44
mindset into like I'm growing in the Earth, I'm just going to
18:49
pull a section out. I'm going to dig down to the
18:51
bedrock, I'm going to pull it up with my, with my hands and I'm
18:55
going to set it inside and I'm going to try and mimic it as
18:58
close as I possibly can then. And then like you said, you want
19:03
to use like a, a, a super soil. So it is.
19:07
So that's kind of what I did with the layers.
19:10
So I still use the Super soil. I still use the soil like
19:14
everybody else uses for the that's already, you know, hot
19:18
and ready to go, or I say balanced.
19:21
It's it's balanced and ready to go.
19:23
Not hot, it's balanced and ready to go.
19:27
I just added to that. And then I created a what I like
19:32
to call a hamburger. So I the the the sand and the
19:36
silt and the clay layer at the bottom.
19:39
That's my bottom bun. OK, The soil is my meat.
19:44
OK. Then my organic layer is my is
19:48
my bond is my top bond. So I'm sandwich and boom, I've
19:52
got layers Now I've got an organic layer, I've got a soil
19:55
layer and I've got my sand, silt and clay layer.
19:58
The difference now is, is that I'm I'm adding the sand and the
20:03
silt in the clay that's on the bottom pad and I'm adding an
20:07
inch of that to the top. OK.
20:11
And then I'm and then I'm connecting that sand and silt to
20:14
the Creek, that Creek with the same sand and silt in it that's
20:20
in the Creek. It's coming up out of the Creek
20:23
and going into my soil beds and an inch layer all the way across
20:26
the top. It's leaking that water at a
20:29
constant rate on top and it's keeping that that inch layer
20:34
moist all the time. 100% and it doesn't.
20:38
Over water only takes and holds what it can, but it continues to
20:43
Wick. What it doesn't Wick goes down
20:45
my layers down to the soil, down into my horizon layer and sits
20:50
there until the roots get big enough to go down and Wick it
20:54
all back up. So I can see a huge difference
20:58
in the plants. So when I chop my plants, all
21:01
the water rushes down into my reservoir and I can see it like
21:05
I have a hole where I can see all the water.
21:08
When the plants get a certain size, all that disappears and it
21:11
just sucks up all that water right out of the out of.
21:14
The hole. So I don't have to water.
21:17
Yeah, OK. So you're did you say you're
21:20
directing the the actual Creek water from outside inside and so
21:25
my. Pond, Yeah, to the pond, right.
21:28
And so the pond water filters up.
21:29
Yep. And that's waking up in the.
21:32
Days OK, and so what's the site because I know you know, I've
21:36
had the I'm fortunate enough to have had a little look through
21:40
the Instagram and YouTube and followed a few of the the videos
21:42
and stuff. But for people listening at
21:44
home, what sort of size is the bed that you've created with
21:49
this ecosystem and like volumes wise as well if you if you've
21:55
got a rough estimate. Yeah, the rough, like I said at
21:58
the beginning, bigger is better. So in my head I was like, more
22:02
roots, more fruit, you know what I'm saying?
22:04
I was like, let's build something like and I, I stopped
22:07
going and trying to find something that somebody else had
22:11
already built. Like that wasn't going to
22:12
happen. Like I knew in my head I was
22:14
going to have to create and build something from scratch.
22:18
And, and in my head, I did this with no plans.
22:21
I did build a model. So I had a model that I built
22:25
out of clay and I just molded it and I kind of got in my head how
22:30
I wanted it to look and function.
22:34
I'm very OCD, I'm very dyslexic. I don't I don't learn like most
22:40
people learn, like reading white paper.
22:44
So I have to see it. I picture it in my head.
22:48
There's no plans, there's no nothing.
22:50
That's just piercing it together in my head and then pieces
22:54
together out there. So it was really a learn.
22:57
It took me 10 months. It's 12 feet long.
23:01
OK, Absolutely. All right.
23:03
So it's 9 1/2 feet wide and at the at the top of the mountain,
23:09
so everything slopes down. So we're on A1 inch grade.
23:15
I did the grade on the floor. Right, so.
23:19
I'm in a I'm in a garage on concrete.
23:22
OK, I sloped the bottom of the the floor 1 inch just with some
23:29
just with some level floor, floor level, floor level mix
23:34
that the floor people use. I just levelled that up to where
23:37
I had a one inch grade to where all the water that was going to
23:41
be wicking up into the beds was going to go down this reservoir,
23:46
hit this and slowly work its way down to where I could wear it
23:50
into this one portion of the bed.
23:52
Yeah, OK. So the overflow, so to speak, So
23:56
what the sand and silt and clay isn't holding on to which it
24:00
holds on to a lot. Like if you ever put any of this
24:04
stuff in in a bucket, you could just hit it with a water hose.
24:08
And if you just put like holy, I know I'm putting more than 5
24:10
gallons in here. It just holds so much moisture.
24:15
But once it once it gets full, it'll just you know that
24:18
moisture will come on up. So that was in my head.
24:23
That's what I had to solve. I had to solve.
24:25
What if too much water starts building up?
24:28
You know, what if I keep. Yeah.
24:29
What if things go awry and that water level keeps coming up and
24:33
coming up and coming up, which is what was happening at the
24:36
beginning. That's what was happening at the
24:39
beginning. And I'm kind of knew because I
24:41
didn't have any roots in the system wicking anything up.
24:45
So once the soil got saturated, that excess water went on down
24:51
to the bottom and started to fill up and fill up and fill up.
24:54
So I was having a shot back it out.
24:56
Right. OK, Wow.
24:57
I was shot backing it out, putting it in a bucket.
25:00
It was pretty much clean though, because that was the cool part
25:03
about it. Is it ever gone through all
25:04
those layers of sand and silt and clay down there?
25:07
So it was coming out clean. It's all natural filtering,
25:09
isn't it? It's a natural filter, exactly.
25:12
And I was like, wow, OK, how, what, how is this thing?
25:16
Am I leaking? I'm like, am I, do I have a leak
25:18
in the pond? Do I have a leak in the Creek?
25:20
Because that's way too much water.
25:23
Like it should not be that much water in the bottom of the
25:28
reservoir. I just couldn't figure it took
25:31
me 9 or seven tries. I, I sucked it all out, sealed
25:35
it, did it again too much. I put it all back.
25:41
I sucked it all out again, put it all back, sucked.
25:44
I did that seven times. Like the fifth time I came in
25:47
here almost in tears. I was like telling the wife.
25:49
I was like, I don't know. I think I bit off more than I
25:51
could chew. I don't think this is going to
25:53
work. I can't.
25:54
I can't regulate the water. It's like, how can I?
25:58
How? I don't have a spigot valve.
25:59
I can't turn the valve. You know what I mean?
26:02
How do I regulate this? And then I, I, I went on a
26:07
little journey down to the bottom of the hill and had
26:10
another light bulb moment when I was walking up to the Creek and
26:14
I saw where the water was coming out.
26:17
But we had just had it. Oh, I know what it was.
26:19
We had just had a big rain. There you go.
26:22
So there was a lot of water down, there was a lot more than
26:25
usual. There was a lot more coming out
26:27
of underground right there. And it was, and it was pushing a
26:32
lot of this organic matter out of the way.
26:36
And where it was coming out of the ground, that sand that was
26:39
right there, that silt and sandy clay was clean.
26:42
I was like, and then just off to the sides of it, you know, where
26:47
the water wasn't flowing through, it was pushing all that
26:50
organic matter up, off to the side, up on the sides of the
26:53
hill and flowing on down. Well, in my head I was like,
26:56
well, that organic matter is being pushed up on the side.
26:59
That means that's where that's how much it's being wicked.
27:03
Like that's organic matter is that's what's really pulling
27:06
that moisture up these hill, up the side of the Creek.
27:09
And then I was like, well, if I can remove the organic matter, I
27:14
can regulate the water. Right, OK.
27:18
So how do I regulate? How do I remove the organic
27:20
matter out of a bucket of sand and silk?
27:23
Well, come to find out that was pretty easy.
27:25
I'd already had good I'd already sucked it all out five, six
27:28
times already. So it was already in my
27:31
wheelbarrow. So I just decided I was going to
27:33
hit it with some with the water hose.
27:36
So I'm just blasting the water hose and while I'm working the
27:39
wheelbarrow, like I'm panning for gold, and sure enough, the
27:44
organic matter floats up to the top.
27:46
Now I just have to do this over and over and over again until I
27:50
work that organic matter that it literally turned.
27:52
It was a black layer, a little bit of black layer, about 1/2
27:57
inch to an inch thick of organic matter that I'd worked up out of
28:00
this sand and silt just by working, working, working.
28:04
And then I was left with pure sand and silk.
28:06
No organic matter, just pure sand and silk went back in and I
28:12
lined the Creek where I wanted it.
28:15
And I turned the water on and I was like, I waited and I waited
28:19
and I waited and I waited and I waited and I waited.
28:21
And I was like, damn, no water. I waited like 10 days later and
28:25
I was like, no water coming in. And I was like, it's not
28:27
wicking. It's it's not wicking what it
28:29
was. Yeah, yeah.
28:31
I decided I was just going to take that organic matter that I
28:33
had in the bucket and add it to the sides where I wanted it to
28:37
Wick where I needed it to go. Voila.
28:43
No way. All I needed to do was create a
28:46
bridge for the water to come across.
28:51
So once I created that bridge, it I needed to widen the bridge
28:55
or, or narrow the bridge. That's my, that's my regulator.
28:58
I could widen it or narrow the bridge with the organic matter
29:02
that I'm bringing up out of it, out of the Creek into the soil.
29:06
So just picture the organic matter as a bridge for the water
29:09
to come up over. That's so.
29:12
Clever. Now I can line it wherever I
29:14
want, wherever I want the water to go.
29:16
And then once I here's the crazy part about it.
29:20
Once you get the bridge over, then you can spread that sand
29:23
and silk out all across your bed and it'll just that one little
29:27
line. Take the whole just.
29:30
Spread the whole bed out and it's a It was amazing.
29:34
I was like holy shit, boom, there's my answer.
29:37
There's your unlock. Everything just fell together
29:40
after that. That's brilliant.
29:43
What? Well, that was going to be one
29:44
of my questions is starting something like this.
29:49
You know, you're essentially trying to recreate the perfect
29:54
blueprint of nature. And I imagine that, you know,
29:59
nature finds a way to make it happen in normal ecosystems that
30:03
there's things that come in and do certain things and over time
30:06
it works. So you were basically playing
30:09
that role, having to come in and have a look and go, OK, how can
30:14
I sort of use those techniques? But again, it came down to the
30:17
observation rather than, you know, trying to be too forceful.
30:22
You just were watching how it naturally works and then copying
30:26
that. Hey guys, really quickly jumping
30:29
in. I just want to remind you, if
30:31
you are not subscribed to this show, that is the number one
30:33
thing that you can do to show me your support.
30:36
So if you're finding value from this conversation and you're
30:39
deeply engaged, I would love you to hit the follow or subscribe
30:42
button. All right, back to the show.
30:44
So then you had the system. You have the water coming in.
30:49
At what point did you start introducing, you know, the fish,
30:53
the, the life in the water and then obviously the plants and
30:57
things as well in and around those, those bank areas where
31:00
you're trying to Wick the water up.
31:02
What stage did this all come in? Well, here's the crazy thing.
31:06
I didn't bring in anything really.
31:10
I might have brought in one. Actually, I brought in well, I
31:13
can't say anything. Most of all the life you see on
31:15
the edges of the Creek, all the grass, all all the grasses, all
31:19
the the elephant ear, all that stuff was in the sand.
31:22
That seed was in the sand, silk and clay that I brought up from
31:27
the. I mean, I saw recently you've
31:30
been posting about Monstera and how that's been sort of going
31:33
crazy. So I added, I added the Monstera
31:36
and then I added the lucky bamboo that's in the Creek.
31:40
Oh, yes, yeah. Just because I like the bamboo
31:43
or the lucky bamboo? It's not.
31:44
It's not even bamboo, it's just they call it lucky, but they do.
31:48
Yeah, they call it lucky bamboo and then like you've got turtles
31:51
in there. You've got.
31:53
So yeah, talk to me about a couple of things now that you've
31:55
got and what it's looking like because you're about.
31:59
Is it close to two years in? I think.
32:02
No, I'm actually, we just crossed one year.
32:05
Oh. Right.
32:06
You said they day 700 and something.
32:09
That's where I'm getting confused.
32:11
Yeah, that's where a lot of people get confused, but that's
32:13
from actually when I started Instagram, like I actually
32:15
start, I got on Instagram and then it was about 51 days in of
32:22
that 700 where actually actually may you can go back to day 51 or
32:26
55. So I think it is and see me and
32:30
actually putting the box together.
32:31
Oh yes, I have seen that and it's a more short form.
32:35
Yeah, then you can see me put the the liner in and then the P
32:38
gravel in and then I'll just do updates throughout the days, you
32:43
know, But the whole time I was doing that, I was growing in a
32:46
4x4 beside it. OK, Well, that was in a
32:50
horizonal system too. And that was a disaster that
32:54
that that was my, my another light bulb moment when I did
32:59
that in that 4 by 4. And that was, excuse me, it was
33:04
a moisture disaster, OK, because of that air gap at the bottom.
33:10
Yeah, OK. I.
33:11
Could not maintain moisture. Well, I've heard, I saw, I'm a
33:16
big fan of Jeremy Builder soil. And I saw that he he ran a
33:20
either a three by three or 4 by 4 grassroots bed and he added up
33:25
on this tray or like a trolley or something, some sort of
33:29
system. And he was complaining a lot
33:32
during that round that he was losing a lot of moisture because
33:36
of the air going all the way underneath the whole system and
33:40
it was drying out from the bottom and from the top, which
33:42
was kind of disastrous. So was that a similar thing that
33:46
was going on for you maybe? Yeah, Yep, that's exactly what
33:50
we said there's. So you got to think about it if
33:52
you've got all this aeration in there, OK.
33:55
This, this soil is meant to breathe.
33:57
It's built to breathe. So if you put that in a system
34:01
and let the air come in, it's going and going down, especially
34:06
if you've got the environment right.
34:08
You know, if you've got your BPD dialed in, you've got everything
34:12
dialed in. Especially like he does.
34:14
Oh, you're sucking some water, man.
34:16
I mean, you can't keep like without a system set up to
34:21
maintain that moisture because that's what biology needs, man.
34:24
It's like, let's go back to the like, life in the bed.
34:29
You know what I mean? Like, this is what it's all
34:32
about. Like I watched a video of yours
34:36
and you were talking about life. You know what I mean?
34:39
You were doing a seminar and talking out.
34:41
You were outside. You were talking about how, you
34:43
know, chopping and dropping and, and I was just all this STEM.
34:47
You even mentioned Doctor Elaine Eham's name.
34:49
And I was just like, all right, there we go.
34:52
Now I know the man knows what he's talking about.
34:54
He knows where I'm coming from. That's right.
34:57
Thank you. Because a lot of people don't
34:59
understand like this isn't just about the plant.
35:03
Like I'm not growing the plant, you know, the plant's more or
35:06
less growing me. I'm there to just steward it
35:10
and, and really grow soil. Like I really want to maintain
35:14
and grow the life in the soil. And if you if you figure that
35:19
out, once that light bulb goes off, it's like a whole nother
35:24
world. Yeah, like, really start seeing
35:27
like, holy shit. Like, I chew my food.
35:30
The easier I chew it, the more I chew it up, the easier it is to
35:34
digest. The more I chop and drop these,
35:38
this, this leaf and all this organic matter, the the finer I
35:41
chop it, the faster it goes because it's easier for the
35:46
biology to eat it and digest it and carry it on to the next
35:51
stage of life. That's right.
35:53
And in my head, I was like, we need to create a system or not
35:57
just a system, but a, a, a place that these things can thrive,
36:02
like an amusement park. Somebody said you built an
36:04
amusement park for life. You know, I was like, yes,
36:07
that's exactly what it is. I want them to be able to come
36:10
back home. You know, I want them to be able
36:13
to leave, go somewhere, go to the Creek, go to the, go to the
36:17
park, go over here and but be able to come back home where
36:21
they know they're safe. I love that analogy.
36:23
This is how life works. You know what I mean?
36:26
Like if you don't have a place to live, you don't have food,
36:29
air, water and a place to live. Yeah.
36:33
You got you ain't got much. Yeah, that goes for everything.
36:37
It really does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Josh, that's
36:41
perfect. Man.
36:42
I haven't heard about that amuse.
36:43
I like that amusement park type situation.
36:45
That's really cool analogy, but you're right.
36:48
And yeah, like it is about growing the soil essentially.
36:53
Because if you've got everything, you know, I often
36:55
talk about having all of the raw ingredients that you might have
36:59
for a meal. But unless you've got the
37:01
workers, the chefs, the things, the people that can turn that
37:04
from raw ingredients into human available or plant available
37:09
forms that we can then digest, like turning a raw chicken into
37:13
a dish that you can eat. You know, you need all of those
37:16
workers to be able to do that. Otherwise there's no biology in
37:19
there. You're not going to get it to
37:20
the end result that is the most optimum for us.
37:24
Have you? So to talk to me about a couple
37:27
of the other systems that you've used in there to because it's
37:30
building soil is what you're doing in this system as well,
37:33
right. And obviously a diversity of
37:37
plants, diversity of roots in there.
37:40
And you know, you, you mentioned like you've got these different
37:43
grasses and ground covers and things like that.
37:47
You mentioned most of them had sort of come in like by chance
37:51
in the system and more naturally adapted or just come in from,
37:57
from outside, whatever. Talk to me about the, the other
38:00
plants around your main crops. What are the decisions going on
38:04
with what to keep and what to bring in and and why basically?
38:10
So this was a successional thing.
38:14
I. Started listening to, you know,
38:16
Doctor Lane, you know, she's talking about the poop loop and
38:20
successions. Like when, when we destroy
38:23
something, when we come in and bulldoze something down, we've
38:26
cut all the trees. We, we take it down to the bare
38:29
soil. We remove everything.
38:30
The first thing that comes back is what it's grass like nature
38:35
is always going to try and cover herself.
38:37
She's going to try and cover that topsoil as best she can.
38:41
And then the next comes a little taller grass and then the weeds
38:44
and then the bushes and then the trees and then the old growth
38:48
forest. It's a, it's a succession thing.
38:50
So that's kind of where I was going with this.
38:54
So I wanted the grasses, I wanted the bushes, I wanted the
38:58
tree root. I wanted the root to go deep.
39:01
So each one of these roots, one goes a little deep, deeper.
39:05
They're in different layers of the system.
39:08
OK. So the, the, the medicine
39:10
usually likes to stay in that organic range.
39:13
You know, they like those feeder roots at the top, You know, most
39:17
everything, if they do have that taproot that goes down if you
39:19
grow from seed. But if you grow from like a
39:22
clone or something, you know, most everything is on that top
39:26
organic. That's where all the good stuff
39:29
is going on. But I also want that life, that
39:32
rise, those fear to penetrate those other layers down there
39:36
into that clay layer, into that sand layer.
39:40
This is like, you know, pushing those exudates.
39:44
You know I want those cakes and cookies to be distributed
39:48
throughout all the layers of. That.
39:51
Not just the top. So this is this is the kind of
39:54
the trick of keeping that life going and keeping that the whole
39:58
regenerative thing going is how can we turn that sand, silt and
40:03
clay into usable plant food quickly?
40:09
Now I know this can happen over thousands of years, but I ain't
40:12
got thousands of years. I got like, you know, a few
40:17
seasons, you know what I mean? So you know.
40:20
I found out real fast that biology and the worms, if given
40:24
the right moisture content constantly will turn that sand,
40:29
silt, clay, organic matter into real usable plant food.
40:35
Whatever's in that the sand and the silt, which used to be what
40:40
we have around here. I got Beech trees, oak trees,
40:43
pine trees. I have a diverse amount of.
40:47
You know. Like a, a a hardwood.
40:51
I have a lot of hardwood around my property here, some soft, but
40:56
a lot of hard, which gives me a lot of fungal diversity because
41:00
a lot of the stuff around here hasn't been messed with.
41:04
So I'm kind of lucky in that aspect.
41:08
My grandfather didn't cut down all the trees used to grow.
41:11
We've we've grown Peach trees, apple trees, Christmas trees,
41:19
which is kind of where I learned how to prune and figured out the
41:23
little finger method. I figured that I don't know if
41:25
you've seen me do that. A lot of people like that.
41:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have seen you actually do
41:30
that. But do you want to give a little
41:31
explanation for those listening what that is?
41:35
The little finger method is really in my head.
41:37
I was just, I need more light down the bottom like in, in, in
41:43
the cannabis is a lot different than a lot of other plants.
41:47
We only we're, it's, this is an annual plant.
41:49
We don't have much time. So time is everything.
41:52
I mean, the date of this plant is like, you know, 2 weeks.
41:56
Yeah, especially after you flip. Yeah, it everything happens
42:00
fast. So speed is key, but also a
42:04
gradual pruning at the beginning.
42:09
So I like to take a finger when I start to see those branches
42:13
start to come, I'm going to take that top finger off of that, off
42:19
of that fan leaf. So I always like to say if
42:23
somebody's going, if I got to, if I got to have something taken
42:26
off of my hand, I want you to take a finger, not my whole
42:29
hand. All right, I'll, I'll need this.
42:32
If you need one, I'm going to take one knee one, but leave the
42:36
hand. So in my head I was like, let me
42:39
take this finger here. That little slight pluck.
42:43
It's a little stress, you know, but it's it, it heals super
42:47
fast. It'll it'll basically calyx
42:51
over. It'll, it'll, it'll create this
42:52
little scab, so to speak, all that really quick.
42:57
I mean, I've actually plucked a finger in the morning and gone
43:01
back a couple hours later and seen the scat where if you take
43:05
a whole arm, you know, a whole hand, it takes the whole day,
43:10
maybe 2 days more time for disease things to get in there
43:14
and cause problems. But really air flow, light flow,
43:21
water flow. That's that's in my head all the
43:24
time. Air like water, kind of like,
43:26
you know, in the car. So it's suck, bang, blow.
43:29
Yeah, You know what I mean. You need to suck the air in.
43:31
You need to as spark. You need to blow the air out.
43:34
Yeah. OK.
43:35
Yeah. So you need, you're right, you
43:37
need all of that happening at once.
43:38
And then and as you say, with something as fast growing as you
43:45
know, as various different crops, whatever you decide to
43:47
choose, there's different timings and that affects your
43:51
succession as well as in terms of what you can have under it.
43:55
You're also, I presume changing the light schedule to, to
44:00
trigger it to, to flower. And then you've got a flat
44:04
canopy to manage as well. So there's no overarching sun
44:08
where you're getting different angles of sunshine and different
44:12
things like this. So I presume a lot of that, you
44:15
know, just stealing the finger and stuff is like what the
44:18
Monstera does by putting holes in it as it gradually climbs up.
44:21
It's creating that filtered light to come through.
44:24
And then you can sort of daily you're going to go in and, you
44:29
know, adapt and go, OK, I need to give more light to this, the
44:32
understory, more airflow, move the fans around, blah, blah
44:35
blah. So it's a.
44:37
Daily change. Yeah.
44:38
That's what you're sort of like you said, stewarding that whole
44:41
process. Is that right?
44:44
And then, yeah, so just if you could go back to a couple of the
44:47
other plants that you've got in there.
44:50
Yeah, a couple of other plants like the, the, the jet, the pink
44:56
Jasmine. So that's my binding.
44:58
That's that's, that's what's in there to create that jungle
45:02
look. Huge roots, roots everywhere.
45:07
They also it it, it, it cut, it's got a great ground cover.
45:12
There's some IE I got English IEB in there mixed in with the
45:15
Jasmine. So the English Ivy will actually
45:19
run those those lines down like the Jasmine does.
45:23
We got to Stewart that as well. But the English Ivy will
45:26
actually root in the soil. So it has these little roots
45:29
that come down. You can actually move the the,
45:32
the, the, the vine, so to speak, the IUD vine.
45:36
You can move it where you want and if you leap in that spot,
45:40
it'll root. It's a very versatile, strong
45:43
one. Yeah, you can move it where you
45:45
want. So instead of like growing also
45:49
have Diacondra grass. So Diacondra grass is they, it's
45:53
very viny as well that that kind of grows.
45:56
And when it doesn't have soil, it'll just keep growing and
45:59
it'll keep going. It goes right over into the
46:01
pond, down into the water which feeds turtles and fish.
46:05
Yeah, right. But the Jasmine, like I said
46:09
that that was there just for cover, give me some good root
46:13
mass over in a corner where I knew I wasn't going to be
46:16
growing. There's not a lot of light over
46:19
there. So it's getting like side light
46:21
pretty much so, yeah. And then the elephant ear those,
46:27
that's the tree that. So I have these all over the
46:30
place here on my property. They get big.
46:32
They can get like 50 feet tall. Huge huge leaves.
46:37
Like ginormous. They're beautiful looking too.
46:40
We get them a lot here and a sort of it's can be grown in
46:43
quite a tropical place so they look really impressive.
46:47
Yeah, they're they're fun to grow because they're versatile.
46:50
You can pluck them, you can, you can really chop them down and
46:53
they grow right back. Yeah, that's giving me that
46:55
constant route. So in between my flips, So when
46:59
I go from 18 to 12, everything that's in here is all it's, it
47:05
doesn't matter. Yeah, OK.
47:07
It's a matter if it's 18 hours or 12 hours, it likes, it
47:10
doesn't matter. It's not going to go, it's not
47:12
going to die under 12. It's like it's like it's going
47:14
to go flower and then die off. Everything that's in there is
47:19
going to stay non-stop and give me roots, give me the eggs and
47:23
dates, push them down soil constantly, but still give me
47:27
room to plant my crop. Yeah OK.
47:32
That was kind of the idea behind putting all these plants.
47:34
Of course I want it to look good.
47:36
So OC like I said, I want I have to have it look good.
47:40
If it doesn't look good to me like, it won't function right
47:43
like. Of course.
47:44
Kind of like a car, you know? I like it clean, you know, a
47:47
clean engine always runs better to me.
47:49
True. You know what I mean?
47:51
True. True.
47:52
It's. Gonna run longer, you know it's
47:54
gonna run better it's. Just and as you say, it means
47:59
that you're more excited even to just be in the room and working
48:03
on it and and managing it so you.
48:07
Know this is a head thing too. You know you're growing for your
48:10
for myself, I'm growing for a hobby.
48:13
I'm growing for a lot of different reasons.
48:14
This has turned into something more that I could ever imagine.
48:17
I'm sure. I didn't realize at the
48:19
beginning like I'm a scientist, I'm a truck driver, you know
48:23
what I mean? I don't, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a
48:25
small businessman. I've been small businessman for,
48:29
you know, since I was 19 years old.
48:31
So I do have the mindset for it a little bit, but I'm dyslexic
48:36
as hell, yeah. Well, you're showing that like,
48:38
I mean, you know, your, your stuff, which is great.
48:40
You've obviously you've studied that.
48:42
You are very good at the observation.
48:44
Yeah, well. Three to four years of YouTube
48:48
University. Yeah, you got me here.
48:51
But it's, but there's, there's nothing wrong with that.
48:54
I think it's a really incredible way of learning and you're
48:57
proving that it's, it's fruitful.
48:59
And I'm just, yeah, I'm, I'm very impressed.
49:04
Like every time I see it, I'm just sort of, I love the idea
49:08
behind it. I love the fact that it's
49:11
getting better with time. And then also like one thing I
49:15
was going to mention before with the sole food web that you're
49:18
trying to create obviously is the fungal component that you
49:20
mentioned and using. Do you use things like the
49:25
mycorrhizal fungi and having that to connect any of it
49:30
underneath or is it just all it's probably a lot of it's
49:33
already in there creating its sort of network.
49:37
Have you added in anything like that or are you just letting it
49:40
do its thing? So we're doing, I do, IMO, so
49:44
indigenous microorganisms. So this is a KNF, so I know you
49:49
familiar with it, where we just take rice, put it in a box.
49:53
I take it out. Like I said, I told you I have a
49:55
lot of hardwood. So I just find me a nice oak
49:58
tree, go out, collect me some indigenous.
50:01
So then I'll use, I use sawdust, wheat bran.
50:10
I have an old compost pilot. Well, it's not really compost.
50:13
It's more wood chip. It's broken down wood chip.
50:16
I haven't added any type of fruits, right?
50:18
It's just years of broken down wood chips.
50:21
I just put in to that. And then we put that in a
50:25
bucket. We add our natural farming
50:29
inputs. I follow Chris Trump as well, so
50:34
I do a lot of his techniques and I do a lot of his recipes.
50:41
So I'll use his recipe to do the IMO 1234 and I'll take it to 5
50:48
because I use rabbits here. I have a couple of, I have a
50:50
rabbit. I have one rabbit here that I
50:54
take. He produces enough shit for two
50:58
or three Groves. So that's where I'm taking it
51:02
and I'm using my natural soil here.
51:06
Put that in a bucket, heat it up 120 for I usually let it.
51:12
It usually stays heated for about four or five days at 1:20
51:15
and then let it slowly grow, let it go down to about 90.
51:19
Once it gets into that range, then I'll just set it off to the
51:22
side, wait to cut. Then once I cut, that's when I
51:27
re amend with the 9 MO. I've done that twice.
51:33
I've this is my fourth run. I've topped off twice, but I'm
51:38
going to skip this one. So I'm I haven't seen the
51:43
breakdown in the soil like I did from the beginning.
51:46
So the first run I, you know, I used I sandwiched the soil.
51:51
You know, I used big worm organics.
51:54
He's a local guy, created the soil specifically for cannabis.
52:01
And then like I said, I told you I sandwiched that.
52:05
Well, the first run it really shrank quite a bit.
52:09
Biology just shrunk. So I had to add my IMO four and
52:13
five On the next run. I did that.
52:16
I've done that twice. On the second IMO I did add kelp
52:20
and alfalfa meal to the IMO process so I did that and since
52:27
then I'm on. That was the third run so I'm on
52:29
my 4th run now and when I cut these I'm not going to do
52:34
anything but plant new plants right beside the old stalk.
52:38
Yeah, cool. Let it go.
52:40
I'm not going to add any. I'm going to see how far.
52:42
I'm going to see what happens. Yeah, I feel like the the
52:45
system's more resilient now, isn't it?
52:47
It's coming. It's like it's building that
52:50
resilience over time. Yep, yeah, the worm castings are
52:53
crazy, dude. Like the worm castings are just
52:56
so black and rich and they're just lining the whole wherever I
53:01
put that organic matter where I wanted it to Wick, it's just
53:05
black worm castings just everywhere.
53:08
Brilliant. And then are you topping that
53:10
organic matter up to keep those that bridge happening?
53:13
That's all I got to do. That sand, silt and flay, that's
53:16
just topping it off. I'm just lying the edge of that
53:19
Creek. When they break it down, I add
53:21
to it and go to town. And then I just keep spraying.
53:25
It keeps building and building and building and building up.
53:29
And I'll just scoop a little that where I'm casting, throw it
53:31
in the bed or throw it in the little pot that I'm growing in,
53:33
wherever it's at. And.
53:36
That's it. The moisture, it's all about
53:39
that moisture level though, that moisture coming out of that
53:42
Creek, it just creates such a rich organic because there's no
53:48
dry bag. There's no, there's nothing like
53:51
everybody keeps talking about. We're dry bag.
53:52
God, no, no dry back kills, dry kills like that.
53:59
That resets everything. It does and like, you know, a
54:03
little bit of stress obviously is proven in a lot of instances
54:07
to to maybe improve things in slight ways, but it's the more
54:13
stress obviously then also produces a lot of other problems
54:17
in the system. So people would say, you know, a
54:21
little bit of stress is good and, and yes, like, you know,
54:23
that's why we put a bit of, you know, some wind on the plants to
54:27
develop some strength in the stems.
54:30
You know, that's why we are doing a little bit of pruning
54:33
and defoliation here and there because that does help.
54:36
Or some of these low stress training where you're bringing
54:39
some of the plants over to one side or tying them off to try
54:42
and guide them in a certain direction.
54:45
But coming in with a, a dry back where all of the biology that
54:50
requires that water is then, you know, unable to do its job,
54:54
unable to move things around and, and have that complete
54:58
moisture level all the way through the system.
55:00
That's when you do get a lot of stress.
55:02
And there's like bits that dying off and it's it's almost
55:05
spending all its energy trying to fight off the stress than it
55:07
is to spend growing a great product.
55:11
Exactly. You know, that's that's kind of
55:13
the point that I was more focused on.
55:15
Like a lot of people are just focused on the plant.
55:18
Yeah. And so they don't care about the
55:20
soil. They don't care about the life
55:22
in the soil. They only care about the plant
55:24
and what's best for the plant. And I'm the opposite.
55:27
Like I care about the plant. I really do.
55:30
And I love it. But I know for a fact that if I
55:33
maintain that soil, the plant is going to take care of itself.
55:37
Like, I don't have to worry about pests.
55:39
I don't have to worry about disease or funnel disease.
55:42
Any of that is the soil is right and has the life and diversity
55:47
in it. You will not have disease.
55:50
You won't see powdery mildew. You won't see pests.
55:53
You won't see aphids, spider mites, None of that.
55:57
I hadn't seen the first name once.
56:00
I did at the beginning, Yeah. The pest pressure was there at
56:04
the beginning, but once the life took hold in the soil, I could.
56:09
I don't care if my dog rolls around in an aphid bed and comes
56:13
into the bed, into the Grove and rolls around.
56:16
It doesn't matter because the life in the soil is going to
56:20
destroy the larva of the aphid, but it doesn't stand a chance.
56:26
The spider bite larva in the soil doesn't stand a chance.
56:29
It's like throwing them to the wolves, you know what I mean?
56:33
Like the nematodes, the protozoa, all these things, the
56:37
microscopic and what I can see, but there's more microscopic
56:42
stuff that we can't see in that soil than what I can see.
56:46
You know what I mean? I can see a lot.
56:47
Like I can take my camera and focus in.
56:49
It looks like the soil is moving.
56:51
Wow. Yeah, that's brilliant.
56:54
Moving and I'm just like, there's your aeration.
56:57
Yep, there's your there's your pest control.
56:59
Those guys are eating everything down there.
57:01
And believe me, if it's like warm and like has life in it,
57:05
it's gone. Do you know what I mean?
57:10
I totally know what you mean, Josh.
57:12
That's awesome. I'm cognizant of time because
57:15
usually I sort of wrap up around an hour.
57:17
I just wanted to get from you before we finish, what's what
57:23
are you looking forward with this system and this whole
57:26
project? Is there anything coming up that
57:28
you have that are plans for it to be do anything drastically
57:32
different or what are you thinking about in terms of like
57:35
the next couple of steps for you?
57:38
The next step is taking it to the food.
57:40
Cool, yeah. We're going to build a system.
57:45
I'm in between right now, me and my wife are thinking about
57:47
building where we're going to build a house down about on the
57:49
same property here. But we like I said, I live in my
57:52
grandparents old house. So my grandfather built the
57:55
house we live in here back in the 40s.
57:57
So it's it's it's due, you know, but we want to get out of here
58:01
and, and move into a new spot down there for and I'm basically
58:06
going to build a system down there and build a house around
58:10
the system. Basically that system there is
58:13
really going to be based towards food and growing nutrient dense
58:18
food year round. We'll still keep this one for
58:22
the medicine, but we'll have the food also.
58:25
And then hopefully I can get that monetized and get that on
58:28
YouTube where they can actually, people actually can see it
58:31
because they restrict, you know, everything right now.
58:34
So I'd like to create a system to to basically force people to
58:42
understand what's going on in our food industry.
58:46
Like you really have to great. You got to build something, you
58:50
got to really do something stupid, almost crazy to get
58:54
somebody's attention these days. And it usually takes sadly,
58:58
somebody getting cancer, getting sick, somebody in your family
59:02
gets sick to push you that way it.
59:07
Does you know? Once you once you see it, it's
59:10
like whole shit. Time to start, you know,
59:12
changing our ways a little bit. This isn't working.
59:16
You know what I mean? So if I can push people to to
59:19
see that nutrient dense food, nutrient dense medicine is the
59:23
way to go. That's why we're here now.
59:26
I mean, we're in it to win it now.
59:28
You know what I mean? I didn't, I didn't start this to
59:30
do that, but that's where we are now.
59:33
And I didn't realize at the time what I was building was actually
59:36
going to do what it did. I'm happy that it did.
59:41
But I'm learning too, you know what I mean?
59:43
I'm like, I'm just observing everything and just sucking it
59:47
all in. And then hopefully I can tell
59:50
people who are smarter than me what I'm observing and then they
59:53
can tell me what I'm observing. Or maybe I'm seeing something
59:58
they don't know or haven't seen before, you know what I mean?
1:00:00
Maybe, maybe we can turn sand into nutrient dense soil in
1:00:05
under a year. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:08
Is it possible? I think it is.
1:00:10
I think it is. Wow, there we have it.
1:00:29
Thank you, Josh. Again, what valuable insights
1:00:32
and what an incredible system. If you have just been listening
1:00:35
to this and you are deeply intrigued by what you've heard,
1:00:39
go and check out Josh's links. They are in the description
1:00:42
below. As always, Yellow Skunk Farms
1:00:44
you can find on YouTube and Instagram and there's so much to
1:00:50
see. There's literally daily videos
1:00:53
of Josh showing us this system and what's changing, what's
1:00:56
adapting his thoughts, What do I do here?
1:00:58
How should I manage this? And you can be a part of that
1:01:01
community and sharing that with him as well.
1:01:03
And I've very much enjoyed catching up on a couple of
1:01:06
episodes. There's so much to get through,
1:01:08
but I've been enjoying listening to those and watching and really
1:01:11
learning from him as well. So that's been valuable for me.
1:01:14
If you found value in this conversation, if you enjoyed
1:01:17
listening, a review would be deeply appreciated as well as
1:01:23
sharing this episode around or sharing the podcast around.
1:01:26
It's the number one thing you can do to show me your support
1:01:30
and continue to allow me to do this and speak to some
1:01:33
incredible guests. So I'm very grateful for you.
1:01:36
And again, excited to see you on the next episode.
1:01:40
Take care and bye for now.