Compost, poultry manure (from my own birds), occasionally some commercial trace elements, homemade and purchased organic mulch, the odd sprinkle of organic commercial fertiliser (not the synthetic stuff), and a top up of organic garden soil every now and again is all I have ever used in our veggie garden and it grows like a honeymooners heart on their first vacation :)
I can vouch for the production you get from grafted tomatoes. I have grown them for 2 years in a row and the yields are insane. First year $15 dollars for large start, but this year I got a smaller one for $10. They grow so well and quick and seem to very disease resistant and hot/cold tolerant so size really doesn't matter. For instance on a normal pineapple tom. heirloom you may get a hand full of 1lb + friut. I got dozens of tomatoes over 1-1 1/2 lbs each of the grafted tom.
Nice to see you filming in my beautiful home state of Vermont. Growing up in a town of 500 people, it seems that everyone had a garden in their backyard. And, they took pride in that fact. Thank you for showing us how great Aaron is doing with his organic garden.
Thank you all for sharing your wealth of love and knowledge on growing. Im looking forward to doing some farm gardening myself and am happy to come here to learn through yours and others experiences.
as an urban farmer myself ....ive definatley seen the benefits of micro minerals and rock dust ....my area sells a product called turbo grow ...its glacial rock dust and has something like 86 minerals ,including soluble silicon ,...to make my own high brix mix ....i follow the dr carey reams ratio of 6-5-3......6 parts calcium carbonate ,5 parts gypsum,and 3 parts rockdust ...mix that all together and add one to two cups per bag of soil...its the minerals that increase the sweetest or brix of the fruit and calcium is the king of nutrients and allows this to all happen ....
Im not sure,..i stay in cape town south africa,so i dont think it would be ideal to ship rocks since you'll be paying in weight ..the best solution is to check your local area or/and mining depot/s,you can easily get the calcium carbonate and gypsum there ,search all rock dust products in your area im sure something will show up,the smalle rand more finely crushed the rock dust is the better ,the product i use is 80 micron small which is perfect ,i add it to compost teas when brewing with the worm castings and molasses ,...works wonders ..hope that helped.
+Wesley Rodriguez LOL! My apologies, no I don't want to ship across the pond! I do brew lots of worm tea as I have a worm farm. I sell it too. But no use in shipping it to Cape Town! Have a nice day! Greg
I have use river sand and manure mix over 20 years ago. The best veggies and fruits grow ever with the method. This year I did use wood chips and got a wonderful result.
great garden high brix veggies for sure.. I add biochar and rock dust and some compost on my raised beds then go thru with the broakfork to get some of that deeper into the soil i hope to grow some fine carrots like Aaron does someday
John, what would you do differently at home to say, for example, to improve your pepper yield? Since you use every conceivable rock dust under the sun, what's different here? Might it be the water? I'm looking forward to hear your final analysis.
really enjoyed this episode! thanks for what you do. I will incorporate rock dust in my gardening .thanks again , keep them coming. Lets grow organic!!!!!!!
great video John! your emphasis on trace minerals and rock dusts is legend. I would forward that not everyone discounts the manure and wood chips. If the wood chips were inoculated with mushroom spawn they could be fungal dominated and the supply of manure is not certain in all areas. Having many tractors requires many gallons of fuel and adds to our planet's demise. leave the tillage to the plants! use daikon radishes and other deep rooted species to mine the soil and break the hardpan. add raised beds (like your garden) saves your back and allows for your own mix of soil and additives. tillage destroys soil structures and pulverizes clays into smaller and smaller drainage clogging particles. Thanks
I love your perspectives and videos. I am wondering if you could post more educational based gardening videos. Videos like here is what to do when....or here is how you create soil and what blend to use and explain more how and why videos....thanks! I'm new at gardening and really want to learn. Please use simple wording and don't assume we know what you mean.
I'm a big fan of the hoop houses and green house. I'm also new to organic farming, so thanks for raising my interests. I'm thinking that the growing season can be extended by defending against those cold temps. Even if the cost of growing produce out of season is ridiculously high, there is not much competition in that local market when no one else can grow tomatoes, right? If you are the only one with fresh tomatoes, how much are they worth? Does importing produce into the US effect local market prices?
Yes soil is important, but everyone's soil is different. You should address your soils needs based on local conditions, and possibly a soil analysis, before just adding stuff at random just because you saw it on a RU-vid video. Maybe this guy needed rock dust, but in Florida for instance they are on sandy soil and need to add organic material. Phosphate is mined by the shipload on the east side of Tampa Bay, in fact lawn fertilizers for Florida are formulated with no middle number for example 16-0-8 because they are sitting on literally tons of phosphate down there!
Success, this operation is very professional I am impressed. The only thing that would make it even more optimal is to spray the compost tea to help make the large amounts of trace minerals more bio-available to the plants!
this was a great video - informative, educational, and warrants consideration of non-water soluble nutrients like bio char and rock dust, thank you for making and sharing your videos!
Hi John, how is no-till easier for home gardeners but more labor intensive for commercial farmers? Seems it would be opposite. Guess we need to invent machines to assist no till market farmers
You are exactly right, the challenge to the commercial farmer is availability of proper equipment. The only producer of such machinery is in Australia. Check out Colin Seis, he is the leader of no till pasture cropping. Polyface farms are also doing experiments with modifying available equipment.
Idk if people here know this, but if you live in an area that 1. Doesn't have city ordinances against it and the noise resulting from it and 2. Doesn't have zoning laws against it.. an outstanding source of nutrition for your soil and garden is duck manure and seems the best delivery is from the soiled water that you would be dumping from their pool, which you can get kiddie pools for them that are very inexpensive. Even better they eat slugs, snails and bugs! They are good weed eaters and normally do not eat domestic plants! (but you might want your lettuces, some micro greens and grasses off limits, and ice berg lettuce makes them very sick, and raw beans are toxic to them). The other obstacle is giving them a safe area to sleep. What you might do is is a multi level duck house to save on space and a small but space enough yard for them to use the bathroom but you have to lock it up well and never assume in states or parts of the world where raccoons are native that just bc you're in a high population city there are not predators in fact it's worse in areas that are crowded because your garden and ducks will be a utopia to wildlife than most people would rarely if ever see in the area. Also, for non vegans the eggs are EXTREMELY more nutritious than store brought eggs, and they are even healthier than chicken eggs. They are richer which usually people prefer but some don't care for them. If you're limited on space I recommend keeping your male or males separate from the females except in situations where they are still young enough to breed, but are getting old and you may need to have some new ones for when they pass or you decide to cull them and eat them. You can buy them online if you have to, but try for a farm that's in or near your state to cut back on the extremely steep shipping fee. And certainly research raising ducklings first and work on getting the things you need ahead of time so it's not a huge rush or financial strain to prepare, and research the breeds too. I'm getting Pekings because they are good layers and are friendly.
Also that being said, the pen and house for them would be for safety reasons at night, for your ducks or any poultry to be healthy they need to be free roaming during the day (so don't get too many ducks for your space). Hope this helps someone!!!
I just called my local COOP started telling the guy what I wanted and he transferred me to an older Gent who seemed to understand this was for organic. I said yep that's what I'm doing. I told him I mostly grow peppers and tomatoes but other stuff as well, he is going to check on it for me and call me back. So guys even if they don't have it or know what you are talking about that don't mean they can't source it for you. So give the COOP a call, tell them what you need, they should be able to help.
How would you go about planning fruit trees in the soil that is next to your neighbors but your ground is lower, and your neighbor uses chemical fertilizer on his grass? I want to plant some fruit trees in that location being that's the only spot with good sunlight, but my ground is lower than his. How can I keep my trees organically grown? Can I plant my trees inside a big container and bury that into the ground? So that it's protected in the harsh winter being in ground rather than in container above ground? Thanks in advance for your advice
John I don’t wanna stomp on your ideals, but soil holds all the trace minerals. All of them I shit you not however they’re in mineralized crystalline form. Check a man on RU-vid with a channel named “I am organic gardening” he is higher scale and can’t afford to use rock dust or full compost. He listened to great pioneers in the big scale agricultural industry like ray artuleta or Gabe brown and he showed me the way: don’t build soil GROW SOIL! That’s why most benefit from rock dust because they don’t have the fungi in cooporation with plants constantly to secrete organic acids breaking down rocks and pebbles into their mineral constituents. You touched on michorizzal fungi, but you don’t use them to the max. I understand you don’t have enough space to use soil and you have to use compost, but maybe try a bed. Look this guy up he’s a genius.
+rossn roller Try googling about Yacouba Sawadogo on wikipedia & other articles about him and his farming method. Also there's video on youtube about "The Man Who Stopped the Desert". If he could change the Sahara, Australia wouldn't be any different. Good luck.
should I use rock dust in my garden because I live on the Sand Mountain Plato and we have rich black dirt with lots of sand and I asoom that the ground is full of minerals?
hey bro i need your help , plzz tel me the garden soil substitute for plants to be grown in platic container ,, recently iam using perelite , vermiculite and cococ peat mix it do well but after some time the seedings become yellow and died ,, plzz tell me what kind of nutrient i will give them ,is mixing vermicompost in this mix is coreect or what npk sprays are not working mm,,, iam stuck help me bro bro bro bro bro where are you
+Royal Poison 'Gautschi is the man!' ... really, the whole 'I am Moses' impression is laughable and he believes he hears the voice of God ... It not difficult to get a good result when compare anyone's home grown produce against agro-business produce ...
Yes, really. I too hear the voice of God. It's not an audible voice like they make fun of on South Park - it's a subtle nudge of by the Holy Spirit. I promise neither he nor I are nuts. Paul's results are quite impressive considering he doesn't fertilize or water anything. I'm not saying you can't get good results like he does, but you have to admit he gets pretty amazing results compared to the work he does to achieve them. Acidic/alkaline plants literally growing right next to each other. It's a true testament to the no-till power of the wood chips. Have you seen the video where the guy digs down to his elbow with only his hand? You'd be hard pressed to find a garden with that kind of texture regardless of the amount of compost, peat moss, vermiculite, etc etc etc mixture someone comes up with. Best regards my friend.
He uses chicken manure as fertiliser - per his own video, and if I remember correctly he has done a great deal of amendments with wood chips in the past Acid/Alkaline plants??? This is an artificial over-simplification ... when you research further you will discover that the PH of a plant root will vary along the root. In addition, the central proposition of fungal dominated soil is the transporting of plant specific nutrients ... As for the idea that he get amazing results ... think about it. He's close to a forest - fungal dominated soil, he add's nitrogen in the form of chicken manure, the plant grows, he re-cycles the waste and saves the seed. Over time ... the seeds become site specific. Repeat the cycle and become amazed how plants grow in fungal dominated soil when you leave them alone ... The key point to observe is the contrast between his produce and agri-business produce, i.e. growing in a good spot makes growing simple, anyone can do it, so why give money to agri-business.
Okay, this will be my last reply since you obviously want a debate and I don't have time for it. Yes, he currently uses chicken manure in his garden, but he does not use it in the orchard (He's applied wood chips only and has only applied them twice over the span of over a decade). However, he has said that he's used wood chips for many years in his garden, but doesn't anymore because his legs are worsening from the agent orange exposure and it's very difficult for him to haul a massive amount of wood chips around his garden. The chickens are closer and they break down his 'garden waste' so it's a win-win recycling program for him. If he only used wood chips, the garden would grow just as well. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to write out a dissertation on pH for you. You obviously know a lot about pH up and down roots so I'll just leave it at that. Two thumbs up for you. As for giving money to agri-business, I agree with you. I'd rather grow my own food too... Again, best regards. You may have the last word if you'd like.
I was at my local Armstrong Garden Center yesterday and asked if they had any rock dust like Azomite and the lady looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about. I need to find a good local source of rock dust in San Diego.
+SchmaveUCSB I'm not 100% sure what it likes out there but I would think its same. Here in Colorado most of the indoor gardening/hydroponic shops all carry it, and know about it. My favorite grow store here even sells it in bulk. If you google grow store San Diego I'm sure you'd get a bunch of places you could call and ask.
i wouldnt eat that carrot without washing it first, from what i can tell the farm is beside a major road. The vehicle exhaust particulate is exponentially higher than rural farms that arent on highways
+goltoof Isn't the NO TILL method, just mean you keep adding layers or stuff to the original soil? Seems that just adding stuff would be easier than actually tilling? Maybe I am wrong and missing something?
+Hal337 Isn't no tilling method supposed to prevent the majority of weeds popping up? Like lasagna gardening/ back to eden ect? I think I need to get the definitions of what NO tilling and tilling actually mean. :|
What is the best way to contact you? I have an idea and want to start my own organic farm and raising grass fed free roaming animals with dignity to sell for food and expanding that into a sustainable community aimed at helping disenfranchised people, and I have no base or anything to help me run a successful crowd funding campaign and I deeply love your channel battling cancer myself I have so much respect for you and you've inspired me so much and I understand why you do what you do so others hopefully don't suffer, and im hoping maybe when I get something going you could help by telling people about the campaign so I can get the funds to accomplish what I need to so I can start helping people and make food that's as free of toxins as possible which it will be in a very rural area and make it affordable for people and build a community through that, and I have no idea who else to ask
+sean weir i saw that video, the message, "mix the rock dust with the soil or compost, not layer the rock dust. mixing everything together, then the rock dust becomes beneficial.
Well...I would agree that human "couch potatoes" are "the same as plants." They both have a sedentary lifestyle. However, animals tend to move around a lot more. ROTFL!
Work on your subtitles lol. The cabin sauce(carbon source). Great informative video though. Thank you for posting this. I'm not interested in profit as much at the moment, but looking for ways to build my soul for my home food forest. Thanks for the vid.
You guys heard of waste decomposer just type waste decomposer india you will find it is cheap for us Indians too it is widely famous in organic farming just see its an micro nutrient which requires water, used for nitrogen fixation in soil 1 bottle of it cost around 40 cents max in india after adding in water one can again reproduce it no need of buying it again it is been developed by government to promote organic farming in india
All the garden centres around here (holland) are sooooo dusty and oldfashioned, they don't pick up on ANY of the alternative gardening trends at all. I mean i want to BUY all this stuff, but they don't have any of it so they just lost a great potential customer who once again leaves with just a bag of cowmanure pellets (the only useful organic thing i can find in there) and leave without spending the money i brought :D It's so frustrating! guuurrrr.... >.< Then i just carry on putting more and more compost on it, because thank heavens my neighbor has a pile she doesn't really use. HALP! What can we DO when we can't get our hands on any of these fancy organic products you keep showing?
Just thinking, perhaps the reason is soil is so poor is because he destroys the soil biology and mycorrhizae every time he tills. The food looks great as long as he keeps adding supplements. Looking at his garden does make me hungry !
If ye love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15 KJV Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: Exodus 20:8-9 KJV Saturday is the day of the Lord The claim that Christ by his death abolished his Father’s law, is without foundation. Had it been possible for the law to be changed or set aside, then Christ need not have died to save man from the penalty of sin. The death of Christ, so far from abolishing the law, proves that it is immutable. The Son of God came to “magnify the law, and make it honorable.” [Isaiah 42:21.] He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law;” “till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law.” [Matthew 5:17, 18.] And concerning himself he declares, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” [Psalm 40:8.] GC88 466.3 Ecclesiastes 12:13 KJV Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Heirloom seeds aren't the only non-gm seeds. Heirloom is weaker than hybrid non-gm's. Why didn't you make this clear John? I love your videos John but confusion ensues when pros like you leave things out. Heirloom is great but they aren't the only non-gm 's
Joshua Bader dude I'm with love this guy. but yeah non-gmo seeds catalogs are awesome. order all you want delivered right to the house. please everyone check them out. seed of the month clubs the whole. garden on man.
