Quite well done. I liked the format, science based, common sense ideas and methods for increased success. An easy to understand and simplified, yet nutrient rich brain food method for beginners and veterans. Yes, I agree it seems you have done a good amount of research and put time into developing the presentation! Again, very well done, and thank you for sharing your passion, time and knowledge!
This pretty much says it all. I've been following Charles Dowding all year while supplementing with lectures from Elaine Ingham, but while she is absolutely brilliant she's also intimidating to the average gardener. This breaks it down into coherent tasks that any gardener can manage and makes it simple without sacrificing the principle. Well done.
This is a really good assume of all i’ve seen before about organic agriculture. I’ll left it at my blackboard to remember. I’m newbie in gardening. I’m from Ukraine. It was my first year in this work. I have some results that satisfied me quite enough so i’m agree with all told in this video. These principles are working. Another issue - pest control. Theres a lot to study but with notill and no-chemistry seems to be easier and less damage than in conventional methods. One zone where i sewn the beens i’ve got a new structure of soil doing NOTHING(the harvest is not sufficient, but i ve done really nothing after seweing and soil became better aerated, better drainage, brown instead of black/grey, and earlier it was the worst zone - now it seems to be normal.)
Excellent video, Diego! Great soil requires all of these and patience. Adding quality 1 - 2" of compost every season, avoiding digging/tilling - after 3 to 5 years will create a spectacular garden that improves every year - but most gardeners I have known want results now and don't seem to have the patience the soil needs
Impressive list. Easy to follow. Makes lots of sense. I especially like the advice that gaining a slight edge isn't going to make that much difference at the end of the day in gardening. Also, thinking and acting to improve the garden over time will give you better results than short term thinking. That second one needs much more repitition so that it actually sinks into more people's heads.
All these steps are so true. I don't till , I don't use fertilizer or pesticides, I don't rotate my crops. My only issue is brasiccas. What I learned this year is they like bacteria dominate soil and not fungal.
I believe most brassica actually do quite well w fungal dominant compost. That is my experience, anyway. Many other vegetables, especially nightshade prefer bacterial dominant.
Sometimes it's a time of year thing too. Try earlier & later plantings etc. . I also want to get saving my own seed from even more types of veg. and getting my own landrace going. Always picking from the best, most thrifty but still great for eating, plants/fruits, every year. Some successful market growers who do everything right still battle pest issues with some things, like brassicas and have to depend on row covers, sometimes it's more the climate than anything. I try to see if there's something similar - in taste, feel, nutrition or uses , whatever's my main need - that likes to grow here, easier.
Way to go Diego!! You knocked out of the park with a concise principled based approach. I have been following you for 2 years. I moved to Virginia and started a market garden in April 2020. We were at the market in early July 2020. In 2021, I utilized your instructions, built raised beds, and added bark mulch into the aisles 4-8 inches deep. We have heavy clay soil. I grew cover crops last winter(Tillage radishes/Winter peas) I am setting up the field blocks now, using rotary plow to mix the composted mulch with the soil in the raised beds. Setting up your modified design Johnson-Su bioreactor this fall. Affordable quality compost is not available in my area. Hope to create compost tea and apply it regularly via drip tape 2023. Keep up the great work!! Your ideas are being implemented here!! My garden is 9 field blocks inside a 240ft x 240ft fence. Laid out like a tic-tac-toe arrangement.
Cool. I am wondering if you've noticed increased slugs from the wood frames. I'm in WI, but from what I know you're climate is plenty damp, probably even more so than mine. Charles Dowding always says that slugs love the wood habitat. Also, he and others have demonstrated reasons to not till in the compost, and why it's beneficial to let it be a top layer ( acting as a soil-cover, like a mulch &/or plants do ). The Kaisers get into the science of this even more, and especially helpful as showing, from their testing, that if u do till it in us when you may run into the "too much compost" issue more so than if u leave it on top, just btw for anyone that bit is helpful to. Anyways, I recommend watching one of their presentations which are on Y. T. though I recall I also found some info fuller in an article on them online. I'm all for keeping it simple and am just a gardener myself, I'm just sharing what I've come across which were key sources of info for me.
Diego I found this comprehensive and well presented and in my small home garden I try to apply regenerative practices to improve the hard clay soils which exist in my area. I’m retired and am always thinking and planning and your content is such a great resource. Love your close …and do the work 💪💪
Thanks much. Nice priority listing with reasoning. I have messed up by letting soil go dry (So. AZ, easy to do) and I think it took a couple of seasons to recover. Didn't really think about the loss of biology in the soil. Good tips.
As a kind of "new gardener", your soil videos had been very helpful. This year garden was incredible improved thanks to videos like yours and other gardeners, like G.Scott. thanks a lot. cheers
Love the suggestions and order. Two considerations for consideration: 1. plants having adequate light access because photosynthesis influences availability of nutrients for soil biology. 2. wild life bigger than microbes needed to be included...bugs, insects, birds, mammals... That it's ok to have them because their gut microbiome and fecal matter is a way to move microbes form one place to another. They are quick biodigestors and will improve the diversity of microbes in the soil. Animals will prune the plants and this will alter exudates from the roots. Diversity of plants will cater for these animals and still leave a surplus for humans.
This presentation made me eager to learn more details about putting these principles in place. I presume some of these details are contained in your other vids.
Absolutely love this! I agree just eliminating any store bought chemical fertilizer in my plots and using pretty much what Diego summarized was astonishing! I do add vermicompost extract once a while and mulch my tree leaves in the fall on top and thats it! Its not Ellaine Ingham level of harvest but for the amount of work and inputs i do its def way better than anything you can buy in stores! And with more different techniques in this video itll definitely just get better!
Ive gardened for some time in A. Calif. Really getting disappointed at low yields. Glad I watched this. I think #3 is my problem. Very dry here and keeping garden watered has always been the challenge. Thanks. Hearing another gardener is helpful. If you care to know my what I got right. I think it's having flowers and diversity, as my pollinators are varied here. Others in area say they don't have many. This time of year I plant calendulas and Johnny Jump Ups the most. I have salvias, guara, and Texas grass sage in bloom.
Spot on!!! Success us almost guaranteed if you just focus on organically feeding the soil, and let the soil feed the plants. Nature’s been doing it for billions of years on its own.
I have been working towards all of these steps in a new garden over the past year. I live in 10a Southwest Florida in an area that part of the year is dry as a bone and part is rain every afternoon. One cover crop that I have found that is very successful is Sunn Hemp. I have sandy soil full of shell. Main input has been compost and peat moss to add organic matter, retain moisture, and help to acidify my soil. The Sunn Hemp can take the floods and drought, adds nitrogen and keeps roots in the ground. I am looking for a year round lower growing ground cover. I am currently experimenting with perennial peanut and Florida native Sunshine Mimosa both of which are perennial low growing legumes.
Pete ... can't recall channel's name but he's the one with all the interviews with Jim Kovaleski ( LOVE that guy ! ) was just sayin recently that ground cover peanut ( doesn't produce peanuts, for those wondering ) has been working well for one of them in FL, said some more things about it. Jim always plants his yard ( New Port Ritchie (?) , FL ) in sweet potato while he's gone for the summer ( up to Maine ) but obviously that's not a yr. round coverage per se ( he does replant right away again in fall I think ). I'm in WI, but I loved watching anyways and learning what applies to me from Jim and Pete, and also Rob Greenfield's year of eating only what he grew or foraged , most of that was spent in a yard in FL , was really cool. Which veg did the best there etc. . Also cool how well some fermented stuff kept in a box in the ground while he was away for several weeks.
Singing to the choir. These are things I have discovered on my own, mostly by trial and error. Right now I am trying to find a perennial cover crop for my WI vegetable gardens.
I have been moving along the same framework as the year progressed and my knowledge expanded about soil biology. The list, in importance, is fantastic. Adding the reason why was also important. I think one thing that could be important to put up front of this list is to add compost. It increses soil biology, adds biomass, can shade lowers layers of soil and helps with water retention. I have been trying this fall to add dutch white clover to my beds as a cover crop. I will let you know how it goes. I am in a zone 6b near the east coast, but i am worried how tall the clover will get. It might work as a living mulch, but that yet to be seen.
I used white clover as a living mulch this year, zone 6a on the east coast, and it worked quite well. It increased the water requirements of the bed a bit, and I had to "mow" it with shears a few times, but mostly it was less than 6 inches tall throughout the year and it provided excellent shad and protection for the soil while providing food and habitat for insects. I like composts place at number 6 on this list. Compost is imported organic matter. Building it directly in the bed with living roots is preferable where practical.
I purchased some white clover seed, however rethinking this a bit as I am in a zone that rarely gets a hard freeze. Wondering if it would totally take over my raised beds?
@@Katydidit Clover can survive hard freezes so that doesn't control it. It's best as a semi-permanent living mulch, so if you want to clear the beds for your garden crops I would recommend other options. Cowpeas, chickpeas, or even soybeans are legumes that aren't cold hardy so would die down even in more mild winters, and are annuals so are less risky regardless. I plant large crops in my clover bed like Peppers, Sunflowers, and Tomatoes that grow above the cover, so it being permanent doesn't bother me.
Hey Diego, love this concept you are developing. As you've called for feedback, I'd like to touch on point #8. Grow carbon. Might I suggest expanding this to a broader concept of maybe "Grow plants to feed plants" or "Grow rich biomass" Yes carbon is one of the main elements being cycled as we grow plants, compost them and add them to our gardens, but there is a lot more than just carbon being cycled. Think of the concept of the deep rooted weeds that are bringing up the micro-nutrients deficient in the local soil, or the legumes that fix nitrogen and the dynamic accumulator that comfrey is. Giving space to plants to grow that are intended just to feed other plants is a great idea, its just more than carbon that we're growing. A similar concept comes into play in certain agroforestry systems where some plants are added to the system simply to grow rich biomass and be chopped and dropped to compost in place and feed the soil. In my experience this whole compost-in-place process only really works in tropical climates and on a forest scale, but its just another example of dedicating some growing space for the plants that feed your desired crop.
This Is overall a great, simple and direct instruction set as to how to develope a sound gardening system. Thank you so much for all your efforts. I shall pass this along to others.
Very useful and clear advice. These principles echo very much the Charles Dowding way of focussing on soil health. Here in the UK we have quite a lot of rain so he advocates keeping beds covered with compost to limit weed growth and slugs and snails. It is difficult to source that much compost as an ordinary gardener so I am trying cover crops this winter as an alternative for building soil health.
I love your goal of simplifying the awesome but oh so complicated theory on how to build great soil. But: I'd love to hear a short line on the why for every point... I hope you will make more videos about streamline gardening and maybe then you could add reasons for what you advocate. I already follow most of your principles and know why, but I would be very happy if you or anyone reading this could explain why I need to keep the soil moist: Will the bacteria or fungi etc die? If yes, after how many days or weeks? (My background: Northindian subtropical climate with many months of dry season and I am not yet so good that there are no breaks in between growing crops in my veggie patch, so up to now I didn’t water the mulched soil for several weeks or longer until I sowed the next crop...)
Thanks Diego! I’m new to gardening but am determined to build healthy soil. I have been doing a ton of research and your system pretty much sums up what I have been learning. I only wish I could do it faster!
Thanks for the affirmation! I have been following no till methods and ideology for almost two years now and this pretty much sums up what I have arrived at and have been practicing. Soil health is where it's at! UA-cam is great but there is sometimes too much information out there and we must weed through it to get to the good stuff and this is good stuff - thanks again.
I'm thankful for the time you have spent in deeply thinking about improving soil. This was evident with the many thoughtful questions you posed in the search of soil podcast series. I'm getting through these and listening to them again. I follow most of these practices however as I grow a range of vegetables usually I harvest a bed and therefore no living roots remain. I immediately transplant seedlings into the bed so it's some time before a significant root structure is developed. What practice in such cases could I adopt to more closely adhere to principle 4? I do rotate crops from summer to winter crops so the beds are rarely empty.
I wouldn't worry about the little time in between removing a previous crop and a new one establishing itself. The fact that you are having succession is good enough.
Awesome video! You talked about keeping a living root in the ground all year long, what could I plant for the winter, it gets to -40 up here in the winter and expecting more snow this weekend
Rye is a good suggestion. I would look for cold hardy cover crops. Even if they die at least you moved a steps away from having nothing there. The biomass will still be above and below surface.
Hi Diego, I need help with my walkinstick cabbages, and tronchudas, they've grown big and some flowering.... The thing is they've been terribly attacked by aphids and I'm wondering what kind of bacteria or fungi I should be feeding them to get rid of the pests.... Some 9f the leaves of these cabbages are huge and I end up feeding them to the chickens not to mention snail attacks, but if like to have them grow aphid free... What do you recommend for the soil?
Thoughts on mini composting? I'm using left over 16 oz sour cream containers (for example), throwing in used tea leaves, banana peels, vegetable scraps etc. When the container gets full, I punch a bunch of holes in it, basically breaking the container a little, and then burying the around the garden. I've observed the tea leaves by themselves produce white stuff, is it fungi, mold, both? I figure this is the easiest way to get nutrients into the soil. Before, I was empty the container and reusing it, but then I felt this was actually destroying whatever mold or fungus was produced, so now I'm just putting holes in the container to keep the contents mostly intact.
Great framework! Helpful for a busy dad who wants to get the most out of my garden with least time input. Love the associated action steps. I noticed that noticed that “make compost” is part of the framework, but “add compost to garden” was never explicitly an action step (unless maybe I missed it?). I am making the assumption that it’s part of covering the soil and increasing organic matter, but just wanted to note that. Thanks for all your work in distilling these principles for easy consumption :)
It would fall under Step 6. If you do the other things I am not sure that you need to add compost. That being said you will always have extra biomass, so make it and add it.
Definitely going to implement this plan starting today with my already established fall garden. The tilling part is the biggie for me. I get lazy with weed control between winter and spring. Really going to work on that this year
Diego if you were a Guitar Amp. All the dials would go to 11! No joke. Watched/listened to a Gabe Brown podcast from earlier this year. Except for the animal impact he mentions it's as though one is hearing the same incredibly useful info again! My belief is people, at times have a problem with scale. The same principles apply if one has a gazillion acres or doing square foot gardens. He mentioned he likes the Johnson-Sue bioreactor. It gave me a smile. Thanks Diego.
What's happening with the "composting system for people who don't like flipping compost"? Has the new and improved johnson-su_esque bioreactor faired better than the original?
Diego you are my go to guy. Here’s where I need advice Johnson Su bio reactor or bokashi to break down piles and piles of old hay? These are quite opposite techniques to reach the same point. Help!!
I have an orchard of olive oil trees , pomegranate and dates . Perviously I feed my orchard using chemical fertilizer . Now I am going to make compost out of sheep manure for the first time and feeding the orchard and not using chemicals. My question is ; Can I putting 30 kg of compost just on the top of the soil under the trees or I should till it and mixe it with the soil . Thanks
Diego, I'm in PA (6B). It has been warm enough that I'm still getting peppers and tomatoes but next week we might get snow. It seems too later to pull plants and get a cover crop in. Should I just try to cover the beds with a layer of compost and a tarp?
Great content but my big problem is the lawn. No way to get rid of grass completely and adding compost is $ and beyond my ability. I would love to hear what others are doing in terms of lawn care and trying to enhance soil chemistry
I have an acre of desert in mind to turn into good soil. I have an AG grade well and was going to start by covering the soil with wood chips and a cover crop. Then add Moringa trees to the perimeter and spotted throughout the area to create shade and start holding water in. I am looking for more shade trees that offer a good source or natural resource that can be used at some point. I’ll be watching this video again and again. Open to suggestions I am.
Honey mesquite. Slow grower, but very resilient. If you can find a way to grind the pods you can make flour. They have nice dappled shade. I have some and like them.
What to do about grubs? My compost always has a bunch of grubs beneath the areas I turn it. Since my veggies are nearby the mulch I worry their roots will get eaten.
We are on the same page, Diego. I wonder about applying the 9 principles to a suburban lawn, with the goal of increasing organic content for the cooling impact on the local environment. Can we task our suburbanites to create carbon patches of their lawns.
Well done sir! An absolute "MUST WATCH" for anyone who is getting started. If I could suggest adding one thing, it would be about being certain your inputs are free of toxins - especially chloramines and persistent herbicides. Regarding chloramines, none of the inexpensive KDF filters I've tested come close to 100% effectiveness. Even putting three in series and running them very slowly is only about 70% effective. I do that and still have to mix the filtered water with sodium ascorbate to get the ammonia below 0.3 PPM. Regarding persistent herbicides, everything than contains manure is now suspect, including most "organic" slow release fertilizers. I believe all your subscribers understand aminopyralids are the worst, not practical to test for and assaying will only show high levels. What I've been doing to "police" this is asking manure purveyors to give me something in writing that states their manure is 100% free of persistent herbicides. That way I have some legal recourse if my soil becomes tainted. Not sure how you would advise a beginner on this, except don't buy cheap manure from a big-box store. Instead try to buy it locally from ranchers who are free-ranging their animals and compost it as long as possible.
Tillage. What is tillage? If I grow potatoes how do I harvest them if I am not to disturb the soil? I grow cassava, yams (real ones) and sweet potatoes. All need to be dug out, same as my potatoes. I have tried minimum disturbance, but Cassava and yam grow very deep and need a good digging to harvest. So that is what they get. So no tillage is a no go for me.
As, I said, some is part of agriculture and obviously you have to do certain things to actually produce the crop. I am not preaching dogma. Do the best you can.
@@DiegoFooter I really appreciate the emphasis on these being flexible and non dogmatic. I really think that Kevin's point on Epic Gardening is that we only have so many gardening seasons in our lifetime, and that is a valid reason to till once to jump start things.
Do you think it's worth getting a decent microscope🔬 to check out the soil critters etc and try to influence what's down there, Diego? This is such an excellent video! ✅
Hi , I’m Johnson from Singapore. We , 86% of population, live in public housing in multi-storey blocks . Hence we don’t have much land like your country has. We grow plants in pots, pots & more pots. How to manage the biology of the soil in pots of various sizes from 4” to 14” diameter.?
I could be wrong, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, so who knows. However I'm my opinion if your going to cover you beds with plastic to rest and you want the soil life to live, then you better feed it. Put down a big thick layer of organic matter before you cover it. It could be the last crop you grew just beaten down, it could be compost, it could be leaves, coffee grounds, but give it something if you want most of the life to be there when you get back. Don't starve your microbes.
I don't agree that item 9 does the least. Diversity is required to produce the full range of water soluable nutrients during the whole year. I also highly recommend a video about plant health and insects: ua-cam.com/video/bnNOvA3diDU/v-deo.html
Diego, I do like the way you formatted this video. When it comes to to soil for the gardens, or just soil particularly, you’re my favorite person to watch. I would make one recommendations, light yourself a little better. Primal Video with Justin Brown has a bunch of techniques on this, and I think you would find them helpful.
To be honest I like tilling its fun! But I know that I need to get away from it, that is my goal. There is a time and place for tilling, but in my established garden shouldn't be one anymore.
What does carbon mean in this context? Like putting “carbon” into soil. Carbon doesn’t really exist on its own (elemental carbon). Soil scientist and the field should use the right terminology. They are referring to carbohydrates.
Got it, many thanks for replying. Fantastic video. Can I be on your podcast? I’d love to share my knowledge on carbohydrates in regards to their structures and carbohydrate-microbe interactions. I have a PhD in chemistry from UC Davis. This is of course in the context of building soil.
I guess I fundamentally disagree with your choice for #9. You acknowledge that the other 8 all lead to 9, while asserting that 9 has the least impact on our soil. And yet, there's good basis for proposing that the soil biology and diversity is the basis of all soil fertility. It's the "single" defining factor in achieving really good soil. To me, this choice for "least impactful" is a contradiction.
Quite well done. I liked the format, science based, common sense ideas and methods for increased success. An easy to understand and simplified, yet nutrient rich brain food method for beginners and veterans. Yes, I agree it seems you have done a good amount of research and put time into developing the presentation! Again, very well done, and thank you for sharing your passion, time and knowledge!
This pretty much says it all. I've been following Charles Dowding all year while supplementing with lectures from Elaine Ingham, but while she is absolutely brilliant she's also intimidating to the average gardener. This breaks it down into coherent tasks that any gardener can manage and makes it simple without sacrificing the principle. Well done.
It's like you just condensed 300 videos into one, I thank you🙏
Thank you for spreading hope, Diego. Blessings and Respect. 🙏
This is a really good assume of all i’ve seen before about organic agriculture. I’ll left it at my blackboard to remember. I’m newbie in gardening. I’m from Ukraine. It was my first year in this work. I have some results that satisfied me quite enough so i’m agree with all told in this video. These principles are working. Another issue - pest control. Theres a lot to study but with notill and no-chemistry seems to be easier and less damage than in conventional methods. One zone where i sewn the beens i’ve got a new structure of soil doing NOTHING(the harvest is not sufficient, but i ve done really nothing after seweing and soil became better aerated, better drainage, brown instead of black/grey, and earlier it was the worst zone - now it seems to be normal.)
Excellent video, Diego! Great soil requires all of these and patience. Adding quality 1 - 2" of compost every season, avoiding digging/tilling - after 3 to 5 years will create a spectacular garden that improves every year - but most gardeners I have known want results now and don't seem to have the patience the soil needs
THANK YOU!! At last someone giving us the exact steps we need to take to restore our soils.
Impressive list. Easy to follow. Makes lots of sense.
I especially like the advice that gaining a slight edge isn't going to make that much difference at the end of the day in gardening. Also, thinking and acting to improve the garden over time will give you better results than short term thinking.
That second one needs much more repitition so that it actually sinks into more people's heads.
Thanks for your time
A most concise, informative guideline to garden by. Very simple and straightforward. It was most appreciated.
Do you know what else keeps getting better over time ?
Your Videos ! Awesome summary for new gardeners.
Thx D !
Very good principles for steady improvment.
All these steps are so true. I don't till , I don't use fertilizer or pesticides, I don't rotate my crops. My only issue is brasiccas. What I learned this year is they like bacteria dominate soil and not fungal.
I believe most brassica actually do quite well w fungal dominant compost. That is my experience, anyway. Many other vegetables, especially nightshade prefer bacterial dominant.
Sometimes it's a time of year thing too. Try earlier & later plantings etc. . I also want to get saving my own seed from even more types of veg. and getting my own landrace going. Always picking from the best, most thrifty but still great for eating, plants/fruits, every year. Some successful market growers who do everything right still battle pest issues with some things, like brassicas and have to depend on row covers, sometimes it's more the climate than anything. I try to see if there's something similar - in taste, feel, nutrition or uses , whatever's my main need - that likes to grow here, easier.
Way to go Diego!! You knocked out of the park with a concise principled based approach. I have been following you for 2 years. I moved to Virginia and started a market garden in April 2020. We were at the market in early July 2020. In 2021, I utilized your instructions, built raised beds, and added bark mulch into the aisles 4-8 inches deep. We have heavy clay soil. I grew cover crops last winter(Tillage radishes/Winter peas) I am setting up the field blocks now, using rotary plow to mix the composted mulch with the soil in the raised beds. Setting up your modified design Johnson-Su bioreactor this fall. Affordable quality compost is not available in my area. Hope to create compost tea and apply it regularly via drip tape 2023. Keep up the great work!! Your ideas are being implemented here!! My garden is 9 field blocks inside a 240ft x 240ft fence. Laid out like a tic-tac-toe arrangement.
Sounds great. Keep at it. :)
@@DiegoFooter if you give me an email address, I will send you pictures.
Cool. I am wondering if you've noticed increased slugs from the wood frames. I'm in WI, but from what I know you're climate is plenty damp, probably even more so than mine. Charles Dowding always says that slugs love the wood habitat. Also, he and others have demonstrated reasons to not till in the compost, and why it's beneficial to let it be a top layer ( acting as a soil-cover, like a mulch &/or plants do ). The Kaisers get into the science of this even more, and especially helpful as showing, from their testing, that if u do till it in us when you may run into the "too much compost" issue more so than if u leave it on top, just btw for anyone that bit is helpful to. Anyways, I recommend watching one of their presentations which are on Y. T. though I recall I also found some info fuller in an article on them online. I'm all for keeping it simple and am just a gardener myself, I'm just sharing what I've come across which were key sources of info for me.
@@ajb.822 It has been unusually dry this year. Have not had slug issues. This is bark mulch not wood chips.
Diego I found this comprehensive and well presented and in my small home garden I try to apply regenerative practices to improve the hard clay soils which exist in my area. I’m retired and am always thinking and planning and your content is such a great resource. Love your close …and do the work 💪💪
Thanks much. Nice priority listing with reasoning. I have messed up by letting soil go dry (So. AZ, easy to do) and I think it took a couple of seasons to recover. Didn't really think about the loss of biology in the soil. Good tips.
Diego, this is the best explanation of soil management I have seen on UA-cam. Thanks much and keep them coming...😀
As a kind of "new gardener", your soil videos had been very helpful. This year garden was incredible improved thanks to videos like yours and other gardeners, like G.Scott. thanks a lot. cheers
Love the suggestions and order. Two considerations for consideration: 1. plants having adequate light access because photosynthesis influences availability of nutrients for soil biology. 2. wild life bigger than microbes needed to be included...bugs, insects, birds, mammals... That it's ok to have them because their gut microbiome and fecal matter is a way to move microbes form one place to another. They are quick biodigestors and will improve the diversity of microbes in the soil. Animals will prune the plants and this will alter exudates from the roots. Diversity of plants will cater for these animals and still leave a surplus for humans.
Well done! These are among the permaculture principles that are becoming more well known. I always look forward to your videos!
This presentation made me eager to learn more details about putting these principles in place. I presume some of these details are contained in your other vids.
Before you told that you worked hard on this, I already told myself, it seems like hard work went into it. Keep it up, Diego.
Absolutely love this! I agree just eliminating any store bought chemical fertilizer in my plots and using pretty much what Diego summarized was astonishing! I do add vermicompost extract once a while and mulch my tree leaves in the fall on top and thats it! Its not Ellaine Ingham level of harvest but for the amount of work and inputs i do its def way better than anything you can buy in stores! And with more different techniques in this video itll definitely just get better!
Ive gardened for some time in A. Calif. Really getting disappointed at low yields. Glad I watched this. I think #3 is my problem. Very dry here and keeping garden watered has always been the challenge. Thanks. Hearing another gardener is helpful.
If you care to know my what I got right. I think it's having flowers and diversity, as my pollinators are varied here. Others in area say they don't have many. This time of year I plant calendulas and Johnny Jump Ups the most. I have salvias, guara, and Texas grass sage in bloom.
Use tillage crops. Use swales. If you take a harvest from the garden then you need to also re feed the soil in the garden.
I get so bogged down in what to do to maximize soil health. This was most helpful. Thanks a lot.
Spot on!!! Success us almost guaranteed if you just focus on organically feeding the soil, and let the soil feed the plants. Nature’s been doing it for billions of years on its own.
Love the list. I was missing a couple steps that I need to add. Gracias🌻
I have been working towards all of these steps in a new garden over the past year. I live in 10a Southwest Florida in an area that part of the year is dry as a bone and part is rain every afternoon. One cover crop that I have found that is very successful is Sunn Hemp. I have sandy soil full of shell. Main input has been compost and peat moss to add organic matter, retain moisture, and help to acidify my soil. The Sunn Hemp can take the floods and drought, adds nitrogen and keeps roots in the ground. I am looking for a year round lower growing ground cover. I am currently experimenting with perennial peanut and Florida native Sunshine Mimosa both of which are perennial low growing legumes.
Tried to grow it out here in the past, never had luck. I should try again. :)
Pete ... can't recall channel's name but he's the one with all the interviews with Jim Kovaleski ( LOVE that guy ! ) was just sayin recently that ground cover peanut ( doesn't produce peanuts, for those wondering ) has been working well for one of them in FL, said some more things about it. Jim always plants his yard ( New Port Ritchie (?) , FL ) in sweet potato while he's gone for the summer ( up to Maine ) but obviously that's not a yr. round coverage per se ( he does replant right away again in fall I think ). I'm in WI, but I loved watching anyways and learning what applies to me from Jim and Pete, and also Rob Greenfield's year of eating only what he grew or foraged , most of that was spent in a yard in FL , was really cool. Which veg did the best there etc. . Also cool how well some fermented stuff kept in a box in the ground while he was away for several weeks.
Singing to the choir. These are things I have discovered on my own, mostly by trial and error. Right now I am trying to find a perennial cover crop for my WI vegetable gardens.
I have been moving along the same framework as the year progressed and my knowledge expanded about soil biology. The list, in importance, is fantastic. Adding the reason why was also important.
I think one thing that could be important to put up front of this list is to add compost. It increses soil biology, adds biomass, can shade lowers layers of soil and helps with water retention.
I have been trying this fall to add dutch white clover to my beds as a cover crop. I will let you know how it goes. I am in a zone 6b near the east coast, but i am worried how tall the clover will get.
It might work as a living mulch, but that yet to be seen.
I used white clover as a living mulch this year, zone 6a on the east coast, and it worked quite well. It increased the water requirements of the bed a bit, and I had to "mow" it with shears a few times, but mostly it was less than 6 inches tall throughout the year and it provided excellent shad and protection for the soil while providing food and habitat for insects.
I like composts place at number 6 on this list. Compost is imported organic matter. Building it directly in the bed with living roots is preferable where practical.
I purchased some white clover seed, however rethinking this a bit as I am in a zone that rarely gets a hard freeze. Wondering if it would totally take over my raised beds?
@@Katydidit Clover can survive hard freezes so that doesn't control it. It's best as a semi-permanent living mulch, so if you want to clear the beds for your garden crops I would recommend other options. Cowpeas, chickpeas, or even soybeans are legumes that aren't cold hardy so would die down even in more mild winters, and are annuals so are less risky regardless. I plant large crops in my clover bed like Peppers, Sunflowers, and Tomatoes that grow above the cover, so it being permanent doesn't bother me.
Hey Diego, love this concept you are developing. As you've called for feedback, I'd like to touch on point #8. Grow carbon.
Might I suggest expanding this to a broader concept of maybe "Grow plants to feed plants" or "Grow rich biomass"
Yes carbon is one of the main elements being cycled as we grow plants, compost them and add them to our gardens, but there is a lot more than just carbon being cycled. Think of the concept of the deep rooted weeds that are bringing up the micro-nutrients deficient in the local soil, or the legumes that fix nitrogen and the dynamic accumulator that comfrey is. Giving space to plants to grow that are intended just to feed other plants is a great idea, its just more than carbon that we're growing.
A similar concept comes into play in certain agroforestry systems where some plants are added to the system simply to grow rich biomass and be chopped and dropped to compost in place and feed the soil. In my experience this whole compost-in-place process only really works in tropical climates and on a forest scale, but its just another example of dedicating some growing space for the plants that feed your desired crop.
This Is overall a great, simple and direct instruction set as to how to develope a sound gardening system. Thank you so much for all your efforts. I shall pass this along to others.
Very useful and clear advice. These principles echo very much the Charles Dowding way of focussing on soil health. Here in the UK we have quite a lot of rain so he advocates keeping beds covered with compost to limit weed growth and slugs and snails. It is difficult to source that much compost as an ordinary gardener so I am trying cover crops this winter as an alternative for building soil health.
Perfect! Thank you :)
Growing perennial plants would be another good one in my opinion (part of diversity, I know, but very beneficial for your soil).
I love your goal of simplifying the awesome but oh so complicated theory on how to build great soil. But: I'd love to hear a short line on the why for every point... I hope you will make more videos about streamline gardening and maybe then you could add reasons for what you advocate. I already follow most of your principles and know why, but I would be very happy if you or anyone reading this could explain why I need to keep the soil moist: Will the bacteria or fungi etc die? If yes, after how many days or weeks? (My background: Northindian subtropical climate with many months of dry season and I am not yet so good that there are no breaks in between growing crops in my veggie patch, so up to now I didn’t water the mulched soil for several weeks or longer until I sowed the next crop...)
Fabulous video!!! Please explain your abbreviation of 'EM' at 8:24, about the microbes.
Sure. Check this out. ua-cam.com/video/03AuC27UsDo/v-deo.html
Perfect mate. Simple, easy to digest and well delivered. Nice to know I’m doing all the above too
Thanks Diego! I’m new to gardening but am determined to build healthy soil. I have been doing a ton of research and your system pretty much sums up what I have been learning. I only wish I could do it faster!
Getting it! Very good presentation and I will be able to apply these to my gardening. Thanks so much for breaking this down the way you have.
I think this video is great, I am a fan of your streamline steps! Thanks for making this!
Thanks for the affirmation! I have been following no till methods and ideology for almost two years now and this pretty much sums up what I have arrived at and have been practicing. Soil health is where it's at! UA-cam is great but there is sometimes too much information out there and we must weed through it to get to the good stuff and this is good stuff - thanks again.
I'm thankful for the time you have spent in deeply thinking about improving soil. This was evident with the many thoughtful questions you posed in the search of soil podcast series. I'm getting through these and listening to them again.
I follow most of these practices however as I grow a range of vegetables usually I harvest a bed and therefore no living roots remain. I immediately transplant seedlings into the bed so it's some time before a significant root structure is developed. What practice in such cases could I adopt to more closely adhere to principle 4? I do rotate crops from summer to winter crops so the beds are rarely empty.
I wouldn't worry about the little time in between removing a previous crop and a new one establishing itself. The fact that you are having succession is good enough.
Great video! I love how informative your content is.
Would it be ok to Jadan grass clippings in the winter?
Good breakdown.
Welol done! Very concise. I like it.
Awesome video!
You talked about keeping a living root in the ground all year long, what could I plant for the winter, it gets to -40 up here in the winter and expecting more snow this weekend
Winter rye grain
Rye is a good suggestion. I would look for cold hardy cover crops. Even if they die at least you moved a steps away from having nothing there. The biomass will still be above and below surface.
Hi Diego, I need help with my walkinstick cabbages, and tronchudas, they've grown big and some flowering.... The thing is they've been terribly attacked by aphids and I'm wondering what kind of bacteria or fungi I should be feeding them to get rid of the pests.... Some 9f the leaves of these cabbages are huge and I end up feeding them to the chickens not to mention snail attacks, but if like to have them grow aphid free... What do you recommend for the soil?
Thoughts on mini composting? I'm using left over 16 oz sour cream containers (for example), throwing in used tea leaves, banana peels, vegetable scraps etc. When the container gets full, I punch a bunch of holes in it, basically breaking the container a little, and then burying the around the garden. I've observed the tea leaves by themselves produce white stuff, is it fungi, mold, both? I figure this is the easiest way to get nutrients into the soil. Before, I was empty the container and reusing it, but then I felt this was actually destroying whatever mold or fungus was produced, so now I'm just putting holes in the container to keep the contents mostly intact.
I really enjoy your videos! Great info!
Grazie Mille!!!!
Great framework! Helpful for a busy dad who wants to get the most out of my garden with least time input. Love the associated action steps. I noticed that noticed that “make compost” is part of the framework, but “add compost to garden” was never explicitly an action step (unless maybe I missed it?). I am making the assumption that it’s part of covering the soil and increasing organic matter, but just wanted to note that. Thanks for all your work in distilling these principles for easy consumption :)
Step 6 includes adding compost. timestamp 6:30 for when he directly mentions adding it.
It would fall under Step 6. If you do the other things I am not sure that you need to add compost. That being said you will always have extra biomass, so make it and add it.
There it is! Gracias.
Definitely going to implement this plan starting today with my already established fall garden. The tilling part is the biggie for me. I get lazy with weed control between winter and spring. Really going to work on that this year
What michael paulissen said. Well done sir.
Diego if you were a Guitar Amp. All the dials would go to 11! No joke. Watched/listened to a Gabe Brown podcast from earlier this year. Except for the animal impact he mentions it's as though one is hearing the same incredibly useful info again! My belief is people, at times have a problem with scale. The same principles apply if one has a gazillion acres or doing square foot gardens. He mentioned he likes the Johnson-Sue bioreactor. It gave me a smile. Thanks Diego.
What's happening with the "composting system for people who don't like flipping compost"? Has the new and improved johnson-su_esque bioreactor faired better than the original?
My soil is low in zinc and boron. Is there an organic way of adding them, since they are both inorganic elements?
This guy knows what he's talking about :).
Rules for gardeners to evolve by!
Excellent way to balance your long term soil portfolio. Junk Bonds to CD’s.
Diego you are my go to guy. Here’s where I need advice Johnson Su bio reactor or bokashi to break down piles and piles of old hay? These are quite opposite techniques to reach the same point. Help!!
I have an orchard of olive oil trees , pomegranate and dates . Perviously I feed my orchard using chemical fertilizer . Now I am going to make compost out of sheep manure for the first time and feeding the orchard and not using chemicals. My question is ; Can I putting 30 kg of compost just on the top of the soil under the trees or I should till it and mixe it with the soil . Thanks
Diego, I'm in PA (6B). It has been warm enough that I'm still getting peppers and tomatoes but next week we might get snow. It seems too later to pull plants and get a cover crop in. Should I just try to cover the beds with a layer of compost and a tarp?
Nice video
Easy to understand .
Thanks sir for the knowledge
Happy that I subscribe
Great content but my big problem is the lawn. No way to get rid of grass completely and adding compost is $ and beyond my ability.
I would love to hear what others are doing in terms of lawn care and trying to enhance soil chemistry
I'd like to know what cover crops go well with common types of veggies.
I think any cover crop is a bonus. Don't overthink it.
You could also just plant a mix of cover crops in the same bed.
@@DiegoFooter thanks Diego!👍
The most important aspect is keeping the soil moist in my region. I notice it's just too hot here to grow so I need permaculture meaning shade.
I have an acre of desert in mind to turn into good soil. I have an AG grade well and was going to start by covering the soil with wood chips and a cover crop. Then add Moringa trees to the perimeter and spotted throughout the area to create shade and start holding water in. I am looking for more shade trees that offer a good source or natural resource that can be used at some point. I’ll be watching this video again and again. Open to suggestions I am.
Check out Geoff Lawton and his videos called "Greening the Desert"
Yes watch Geoff Lawton’s series and the follow up videos. Very inspiring!
Honey mesquite. Slow grower, but very resilient. If you can find a way to grind the pods you can make flour. They have nice dappled shade. I have some and like them.
What to do about grubs? My compost always has a bunch of grubs beneath the areas I turn it. Since my veggies are nearby the mulch I worry their roots will get eaten.
Maybe, I haven't ever worried about that.
We are on the same page, Diego. I wonder about applying the 9 principles to a suburban lawn, with the goal of increasing organic content for the cooling impact on the local environment. Can we task our suburbanites to create carbon patches of their lawns.
Need to know about that snake/grower picture….where can I get more info on it?
Sure. :) www.moderngrower.co
Well done sir! An absolute "MUST WATCH" for anyone who is getting started. If I could suggest adding one thing, it would be about being certain your inputs are free of toxins - especially chloramines and persistent herbicides. Regarding chloramines, none of the inexpensive KDF filters I've tested come close to 100% effectiveness. Even putting three in series and running them very slowly is only about 70% effective. I do that and still have to mix the filtered water with sodium ascorbate to get the ammonia below 0.3 PPM. Regarding persistent herbicides, everything than contains manure is now suspect, including most "organic" slow release fertilizers. I believe all your subscribers understand aminopyralids are the worst, not practical to test for and assaying will only show high levels. What I've been doing to "police" this is asking manure purveyors to give me something in writing that states their manure is 100% free of persistent herbicides. That way I have some legal recourse if my soil becomes tainted. Not sure how you would advise a beginner on this, except don't buy cheap manure from a big-box store. Instead try to buy it locally from ranchers who are free-ranging their animals and compost it as long as possible.
Make a poster!
Tillage. What is tillage? If I grow potatoes how do I harvest them if I am not to disturb the soil? I grow cassava, yams (real ones) and sweet potatoes. All need to be dug out, same as my potatoes. I have tried minimum disturbance, but Cassava and yam grow very deep and need a good digging to harvest. So that is what they get. So no tillage is a no go for me.
I like your example of crops that require 'tillage' for harvest
As, I said, some is part of agriculture and obviously you have to do certain things to actually produce the crop. I am not preaching dogma. Do the best you can.
@@DiegoFooter I really appreciate the emphasis on these being flexible and non dogmatic. I really think that Kevin's point on Epic Gardening is that we only have so many gardening seasons in our lifetime, and that is a valid reason to till once to jump start things.
This is a great list, I also like that it's ordered by effectiveness.
Do you think it's worth getting a decent microscope🔬 to check out the soil critters etc and try to influence what's down there, Diego? This is such an excellent video! ✅
I am curious about this also
No. I think it is overcomplicating things for the average person.
Hi , I’m Johnson from Singapore. We , 86% of population, live in public housing in multi-storey blocks . Hence we don’t have much land like your country has.
We grow plants in pots, pots & more pots. How to manage the biology of the soil in pots of various sizes from 4” to 14” diameter.?
I could be wrong, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, so who knows. However I'm my opinion if your going to cover you beds with plastic to rest and you want the soil life to live, then you better feed it. Put down a big thick layer of organic matter before you cover it. It could be the last crop you grew just beaten down, it could be compost, it could be leaves, coffee grounds, but give it something if you want most of the life to be there when you get back. Don't starve your microbes.
That's a fair point. Makes sense.
Tarp or plastic will cause anaerobic soil.
I don't agree that item 9 does the least. Diversity is required to produce the full range of water soluable nutrients during the whole year.
I also highly recommend a video about plant health and insects: ua-cam.com/video/bnNOvA3diDU/v-deo.html
Diego, I do like the way you formatted this video. When it comes to to soil for the gardens, or just soil particularly, you’re my favorite person to watch.
I would make one recommendations, light yourself a little better. Primal Video with Justin Brown has a bunch of techniques on this, and I think you would find them helpful.
Thanks. I kind of liked the darker look. Maybe that's just me.
Spanish subtitles please 🙏😅
To be honest I like tilling its fun! But I know that I need to get away from it, that is my goal. There is a time and place for tilling, but in my established garden shouldn't be one anymore.
What does carbon mean in this context? Like putting “carbon” into soil. Carbon doesn’t really exist on its own (elemental carbon). Soil scientist and the field should use the right terminology. They are referring to carbohydrates.
Trying to keep it simple. Carbon = forms of carbohydrates.
Got it, many thanks for replying. Fantastic video. Can I be on your podcast? I’d love to share my knowledge on carbohydrates in regards to their structures and carbohydrate-microbe interactions. I have a PhD in chemistry from UC Davis. This is of course in the context of building soil.
I guess I fundamentally disagree with your choice for #9. You acknowledge that the other 8 all lead to 9, while asserting that 9 has the least impact on our soil. And yet, there's good basis for proposing that the soil biology and diversity is the basis of all soil fertility. It's the "single" defining factor in achieving really good soil. To me, this choice for "least impactful" is a contradiction.
Of course. #9 refers to the human adding microbes to the soil.
Great video, are you aware of the permaculture principles?
1. Never use pesticides and fertilizers ever again.
Less less talk and more demo.. ur talking theory/lectures.. show us please
I will. I have to present the concept first. One thing at at time. :)
I made JADAM Microbial Solution and it was listed as 9 on your list, but it made a huge Difference with so many plants , Amazing!!