As many of you know, I'm pretty passionate about growing healthier foods. Whether it is the beef and pork we grow, the vegetables for my family, or the big beautiful flowers we sell in the greenhouse. It all starts in the same spot.
Healthy soils and life in the soils.
If you get the life of the soil healthy, you will have less to no weeds, less to no diseases, and more nutrient-dense food. All of this will make you and your family healthier too.
The best way to figure out how to grow nutrient-dense food is by studying nature and how God created it.
1. No Tilling. Tilling brakes up and kills all the fungal hyphae that the plants use to get extra nutrients. Which leaves only the bacteria in the soil that creates an environment that promotes lots and lots of weeds.
2. No Herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides. These kill soil life and make the soil sick. Remember bugs or diseases are a sign of sick soils. Bugs are there to get rid of sick plants, not nutrient-dense plants and these nutrient-dense plants are what we all should be eating. Click here to read more about how we use beneficial bugs. Why was Little Miss Muffet Scared?
3. The need for animal impact. Now I don't want my cows and pigs in my garden so Compost is my go-to for getting all the wonderful animal impact on my garden with the extra benefits of all the soil life in good quality compost and it is very easy to use.
So what do you do in the meantime while you are still building up your soils?
Mulch. I love to mulch well.... it is a lot of work but after the initial hard work, we do not have to weed. Consequently, everywhere I have mulched, the soil has gotten a lot softer and easier to work with. My soils are very clay. They are hard and when they dry out the soil cracks. The Mulch keeps a lot of the moisture in, which the earthworms really like.
I use this great recipe and I have had great results in the garden, especially with tomatoes. I use it for everything as it is a good overall soil amendment.
Use this mixture to ward off many common tomato diseases from your transplanted tomato seedlings. Sprinkle a handful of the mixture into each plant hole. For additional disease defense, sprinkle a little more powdered milk on top of the soil after planting and repeat with the Tomato Blight Buster every few weeks throughout the growing season
Tomato Blight Buster
3 cups of compost
1/2 cup of powdered milk*
1/2 cup of Epsom salts
1 Tbls of baking soda
1 tsp 20 Mule borax(for the boron which is lacking in most of our soils)
Mix all together.
*I mix everything together and use organic raw milk in a ratio of 1 to 10 with water and water in the plants.
What do you do to promote healthier soils in your garden or yard?
