John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ attends the Soil Life Summit 2024 in Pahrump, Nevada at Steve Cantwell’s Green Life Produce Organic Farm to share with you the best Living Soil Products from the vendors at the event.
Special thanks and shout out to Josh from Boogie Brew that told me about this event, and filmed footage at the 2023 Soil Life Summit You can watch on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/boogiebrew
In this episode, John will share with you what you missed because you did not come to the Soil Life Summit 2024 in Pahrump, Nevada that was put on by Grassroots Fabric Pots.
John will give you an overview of the summit layout as well as all the main areas of the summit with a focus on the best vendors that sell products so you can grow in the most nutrient-dense living soil.
You will see active demonstrations of some of these products being used, and how these products can benefit your organic cannabis grow or your organic vegetable garden or even fruit tree orchard.
Jump to the following parts of this episode:
00:00 Episode starts
01:00 What is Living Soil?
02:45 What You Will Learn in this Episode
04:55 Main Speaker Area
05:50 Green Life Organic Greenhouse Growing
06:19 Compost Making Workshop Main Take-away points
08:00 Layout of the Soil Life Summit
08:58 Vital Garden Supply Best Organic Gardening Products
09:45 Best Compost You Can Buy in a Bag
11:50 Bat Guano & Fish Guano
13:00 Higher Quality Compost than Big-Box Store Compost
13:30 Vital Organic Gardening Dry & Liquid Products
15:26 SAVE 10% off Vital Gardening Products with coupon code GYG
16:58 Most Important Area of the Event: Next-Level Irrigation System
18:54 The Plant Dictates when the Irrigation System will Water
20:07 This Irrigation System does not require power and can be used off-grid
21:50 How to Use the Blumat Irrigation System
23:06 How the Bluemat Irrigation System works in a raised bed garden
24:08 Moisture Sensor Doesn’t need any electricity
25:37 How the Blumat Pinch Valve works
26:18 Using the Bluemat Irrigation System in Individual Pots
29:02 Aquaman and Blumat – Bottom Water Your Seedling and Plants in Pots
30:58 The True benefit of using the Bluemat System – Hormetic Stress for your plants
32:27 Get a FREE Plan for your garden with the Blumat irrigation
33:45 Best & Worst Time to Visit the Vendor Area
34:30 Grassroots Fabric Pots – Favorite of the Living Soil Movement
36:45 Sustainable Village
37:11 Catalyst Bioamments – Best Compost Money Can Buy
38:40 The most expensive compost I have ever seen!
42:50 Organics Alive- Best Organic Nutrients for Hydroponic Systems
44:11 Build-a-Soil – Best High-Quality Organic Amendments Ingredients You Can Buy
47:22 Summary of the Event
After watching this episode, you will learn about the best products you can buy to take your cannabis grow or vegetable garden to the next level.
Referenced Videos:
MJ Biz Con Episode
Watch Build-a-Soil Episodes
https://www.youtube.com/@BuildASoil
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Product Links:
Vital Garden Supply – Organic Amendments for Living Soil
https://www.vitalgardensupply.com/ Apply coupon code GYG to save 10%
Blumat Irrigation – Dependable Irrigation System that waters when your plants need it
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/
Grassroots Fabric Pots – Best Fabric Pots for Living Soil
https://www.grassrootsfabricpots.com/
Catalyst Bioammendments – Best Compost Money Can Buy
https://catalystbioamendments.com/
Organic Alive – Organic Hydroponics Nutrients
https://organicsalivegarden.com/
Build a Soil – Unique High-Quality Organic Amendments to Build Soil
https://buildasoil.com/
#### Summary
In this episode from the Soil Life Summit 2024, viewers get an exciting peek into the future of gardening and soil technology. Host John takes us on a journey through the summit, introducing us to groundbreaking innovations like the Blue Mat System, which promises to revolutionize how we water plants by providing precise moisture control. We also learn about cutting-edge composting techniques from Catalyst Bio Amendments, where high-quality compost is meticulously crafted to create the perfect environment for plant growth. With insights from other vendors like Vital Garden Supply, Organics Alive, and BuildASoil, viewers get a glimpse of the diverse array of products and techniques available to enhance soil health and plant growth.
[Music] all right this is John Cola with growny
greens.com today have another exciting episode for you and today I’m all the way in parump
Nevada which is about 1 hour outside of Las Vegas and I’ve come here to the green life
organic vegetable farm that grows in living soil um you know founded by Steve kwell who also
has green life Productions where they grow living soil cannabis and the reason why I’m here today on
this 3-day event I attended the first day I missed the second but I’m here the third day to film to
show you guys just some of the things that you guys missed from not being here at the soil life
Summit 2024 you know this is the second soil life Summit that I’m aware of but I hope they have
them in the future what I’m going to tell you guys is this this is the event you want to come
to if you’re into growing plants in living soil how I would classify this is I would say this is
like regenerative agriculture you know whether you’re doing it Outdoors or whether you’re doing
it indoors whether you’re growing cannabis which honestly most of the people here are into growing
cannabis and there’s some very highlevel people that I’ve met here or you’re growing vegetables
like me and many other people that are here um you know this is the event you want to go to
to literally take your your game to the next level there’s so many things I’ve learned at this
event that I’ve never heard other places and you know what I like to think is that you know I’ve
learned a lot of things from Cannabis Growers because that’s where they really focus on using
the best techniques out there to grow the highest quality and most productive cannabis plants but we
can apply all these things to vegetables and vice versa you know some of the things we’re teaching
here was learned in traditional agriculture you know and then now they’re applying to cannabis to
take it to the next level so this is a really cool event and I’d highly encourage you guys to attend
the next soil life Summit uh should they have them in the future this event is uh basically uh done
up by grass roots uh they make the uh fabric pots that I’ll show you guys in there that people in
the living soil movement use the most for sure because they’re special and of course I want to
give a special thanks out to Green life Farm here in parump um you know who for hosting this event
I think this is one amazing place with you know green houses growing tomatoes here ripe Tomatoes
here in even March so anyways what I’m going to do in this video it’s going to be a hopefully
shorter condensed video is we’re going to go ahead and take you guys inside to show you guys
what you miss we’re going to show you the main speaker area some of the areas where they’ve have
the workshops some of the things that I’ve learned in a workshop uh this morning when I went to a
compost Workshop as well as in this video we’re going to have all the all my favorite vendors
that you miss by not being here and of course many of them sell online so you guys could still
get some of these amazing products you know I went through all the different vendors that were
there cuz sometimes they’re hanging out in the talks and I spoke to them and you know there’s
ones that I like a lot and there’s ones I like less but if it’s in this video you know it’s one
of the best vendors at this event and you should highly regard their products and the other thing
I’ll be doing in other episodes so make sure you click that subscribe button right down below
if you’re not subscribed already make sure you click the notification Bell so you get notified
when my new uh soil life Summit videos come out because what I’ll be doing is I’m interviewing
some of the experts here on specific topics such as composting such as soil amendments right for
you guys to spread some of the knowledge that you couldn’t get by coming to their onehour lecture
I’m going to try to get these uh you know experts ense their knowledge down into nice videos that
I sit and we talk and you guys could learn from so that you could get the knowledge by not even
being here of course they do film all the soil life Summit um you know that if you sign up for
next year’s Summit you’ll get uh you’d be able to see the past soil life Summit conferences I would
encourage the owners of the soil life Summit to make all the content that they captured here at
these events free to people instead of putting them the behind a pay wall so they have to pay for
it you know this is really important that’s why I’m here to make videos that you guys could openly
and freely watch if you guys appreciate my content before you go any further smash the big thumbs up
and share this video with others that’ll help out the YouTube algorithm get this video out to more
people anyways let’s go inside the so live Summit and show with you guys what you missed all right
so we’re walking into the farm and there’s this big huge popup tent this is the main speaker hul
um I’ll be going in there from the back not the front because they have uh speakers all throughout
the day you guys can see this is their schedule right here oh they’re just getting out right now
but yeah they have a different speakers breakfast lunch area uh different days the first day two
was regenerative agriculture grow day three was The Growers day they also have workshops that you
could learn from and this is the main speaker area that’s the main speaker uh area right there up at
the top and then there’s chairs up front and then a bunch of tables and uh we’ll let you guys know
be forewarned not quite like a hot box in here but you definitely get the smell of people burning
cannabis openly and regularly of course since we’re on a whole Farm they have just regular green
houses that they’re just growing food here for the local area that’s now being sold in Las Vegas
from what I hear and you guys can see actually they’re doing one of the workshops in the back of
this greenhouse where they’re growing in living soil and there’s a bunch of these uh two big green
houses here on the site and then they have a whole bunch of Hoops at the back of the farm so to me
it’s really cool that actually you know because we are in a farm they actually did Hands-On workshops
so in this Workshop right here that I was at earlier they actually uh showed you guys how to
make the best compost and the best practices to make the best compost and I want to show show you
guys this real quick all right so what’s going on here is they got a big piece of fabric and this is
actually a Grassroots Fabric and this is actually specifically made for composting and putting over
your compost pile so that it keeps in the moisture right doesn’t let the sun the UV rays hit your
compost right this is like next level composting guys so they want to cover the compost you guys
can see there’s the pile underneath there that they made earlier and I mean one of the main
tenants of making a highquality comp post is getting a diversity of ingredients right they had
people going around with a bucket on the property to pick up you know different organic materials
they thought would be best for the compost pile right you could get different kinds of wood chips
you could get you know different kinds of tree leaves and vegetable scraps and you want a really
big diversity of ingredients because that will Ure you have the make the best compost and if you
guys want to learn more about compost once again and click the Subscribe button click the Bell
so get notified because I’ll be interviewing the composting experts that literally gave the
talk and the workshop here this morning to share you guys some of the main concepts of making
highquality compost that can literally supercharge your plant growth better than any compost you’ve
seen before because a compost is not just an NPK value it is now literally a soil anlin because it
is teaming with microbes and teeming with life all right so walking into Farm further what you guys
are going to see in one area there’s like a nice little area with picnic tables um Outdoors to
hang out and then the other side they have one big building which they have a little at the the
second opening is where they have like snacks if you guys want to buy snacks you’re hungry and
whatnot they have a little area here they had a food truck the other day but today they have this
like a a a tent basically that’s serving food for like lunch looks like they’re closed down now and
the the other thing they have that’s here that’s really cool is they do Farm to Table dinners every
night that is an a optional uh thing you could add on if you guys want to eat like locally grown food
literally made here on the farm which is quite amazing I mean this is like truly like living
this lifestyle then of course the opening over there near the vital Gardens supply.com you know
that goes into where all the vendor boosts are and I think that’s what I’m going to do next for you
guys is we’re going to go ahead and head in and Sh with you guys my favorite vendors at this event
all right first up guys I’m want to show you guys the vendor the vital Gardens supply.com and they
got a couple few items that I really like a lot and of course they have all the other items that
they could ship to you that’s what they specialize in you know while they sell at local nurseries in
the area and better hydroponic stores they’ll also Shi to you and that’s really where the benefit is
and they got some very exclusive products that can take your garden to the next level so let’s check
them out all right first up guys I want to really tell you guys about this product that’s being
exclusively distributed by vital Garden Supply and it’s right here I met these guys inside talked
to them like the other day couple hours actually this is catalyst bio amendments and I’ll show you
guys inside when we go to their specific Booth right this place uh sells their product um has
uh limited shelf life it also comes in a bag that can breathe and what you guys don’t understand
about this product this is not like a a compost you get at Home Depot or some other place near you
right that stuff is garbage that’s basically just like they’re running waste products through uh a
system and and there’s big industrial Beggars and and companies that just turn it into compost with
really no Care on the quality of the compost right if you guys are looking for the best compost on
the planet this is it but you’re not going to be filling all your raised beds with this stuff cuz
this stuff is quite expensive but what I’ll tell you guys is this you could use this compost to
your benefit by looking at this not as a compost but by as a soil biologic or knin you’re going to
take this right you could top dress a few plants with it you could also more importantly brew a
compost tea with it or even more importantly than both those is actually you could take some of the
the some of this and actually add it to your new compost pile that you’re creating and then take
your compost to the next level because this has guaranteed soil life biology from Earth Fort
or Elaine Ingam who’s actually speaking here and there she’s connected with the catalyst so
this is like the finest compost money can buy anywhere because before every batch goes out they
test it under a microscope so that’s really Next Level and uh you know this company will ship it
to you here of course the best solution is to not ship compost all over the country but once you
guys buy it once you can inoculate your compost piles uh with this compost and of course make
sure you click the Subscribe button make sure you click the Bell cuz I’ll be interviewing the
owners of catalyst in an upcoming episode to show you guys all the secrets about making your own
high quality compost like they do here and of course the only place to buy this a certified
online is direct from vital Garden Supply that way you are assured this compost is not sitting in
a warehouse for months and months you’re getting the freshest most biologically active compost so
if you guys are looking for some good guano right they got the [ __ ] like literally they got the
[ __ ] this is a vital uh seabird guano that’s literally AG and then they put in the bag it’s
0110 this is triple certified organic cdfa clean green and Eniro can I believe right here they can
ship you guys this5 really good pricing and then of course they also got the uh vital bat guano
631 so this is one of the cleanest um you know C guano or back guano that you guys could get if
you guys are looking for some good guano I like to add it like just top and some of my plants for the
beneficial nutrients and of course another thing that I’m really an advocate of that really is is
really um talked about here is diversifying your inputs right diversifying what you’re feeding not
only your compost pile but also your plants and with some really cool clean uh you know products
that vital Garden Supply can supply you with you could do it so while vital Gard supply has the
compost that I really like you know they also have their own branded compost and I’ll say that
this compost after looking at it is definitely a lot better than compost you’re just going to get
at your big box store they’ve been working at with this uh Compost Facility for years to dialate and
make sure they have biologically active compost you know that being said uh the other compost
that I just showed you guys definitely better than this one and of course I always encourage
you guys to produce your own compost or you know Source you know uh compost locally that
being said I think some of the products that can benefit you guys a lot are right behind me
vital has a whole line of different vital te a granular humus fish powder vital kelp vital
flower power what I will say is that I’m a big fan of the dry ingredients that you could mix
up yourself so they’re not having to ship you know water in packages to you and these are quite
concentrated so they’ll make a lot of nutrition I really like boiler feeding some of these nutrients
such as the fish the kelp and even the vital flour power that can help flour production you know
if you if your peppers don’t really make a lot of peppers right then you’re going to want to use
a vital flower power power right that’s going to help you boost your production on your peppers
or other flowering crops over on this side you know they have lots of other different liquids
that are a little bit different than the powders so you can use those I think I like of them all I
like the vital plus biological inoculant which has a whole bunch of different subtilus uh species of
bacteria that can help nutrient uptake as well as to a lesser degree you know fight different you
know bacterial invasions and whatnot of course they have their own very own vital tea kit that
will help you brew your own compost tea and it comes with a a proper mesh bag and properly sized
uh pump with all the ingredients you need to make your tea I think it’s like over a little bit over
100 bucks and of course they also have if you’re going to brew compost tea on a larger scale like
in a big 55 gallon drum they got these really cool Brew bags that has a proper 400 mesh and this is
going to be really easy to clean and that’s one of the most important things they talked about in
the Composting class is you know we want to clean all the all the biologics after we’re done making
compost here or whatever and sterilize everything and all the biofilms not going to affect your next
Brew so super important and you know vital people are good people here so I’ve negotiated a special
discount for you guys it’s hard to get discount on the vital stuff but I negotiated discount form if
you guys want to get the 10% off discount you guys want to use the coupon code gyg at vital Gardens
supply.com to get any of these products or even more products that they have in their catalog
and they sell some of my favorite things like rock dust and some really cool products that you
can’t normally find at a standard gardening shop you know especially like the silica powder for
those of you guys that are in the know you guys know that stuff is really good they got some uh
these guys black Smith bioscience um for you know benefit IAL microbes that’ll help fix nitrogen or
phosphorus or even help your plants defend against diseases I mean they got some really high-end
products you guys want to definitely check them out vital Gardens supply.com all right so before
we head inside to the vendor area and uh you know during the breaks when the main talks are out the
vendor area is like literally packed you know so what I’m going to do is I’m going to come back in
another 15 minutes when the vendor area is going to clear out because the next talk is starting but
there while there’s vendors inside you know some of them have actually displays set up outside and
that’s what I want to show you guys because the displays is actually the products in use and how
you would use them at home which is quite valuable to be able to show the products to the full extent
I would hope that you know each vendor would have like next to their Booth like displayed inside
instead of outside their products you didn’t have to like walk all the way down to check out to see
how some of these products are used so let’s uh let’s check out the product demonstration set
up outside now I want to show you guys one of the most important areas of the this whole event
that was so important to me and I want to bring it to you guys right now you know you guys don’t
understand what you guys are looking at of course you’re seeing the uh Grassroots fabric pots that’s
used here in the living soil Community but more importantly you’re seeing Next Level irrigation
system that’s going to conserve the most water and more importantly give your plants exactly what
they need right I’ve been having some issues with irrigation at my place lately my timers stop
working and the other thing I’ve always hated about irrigation you know for the longest time
is that you know we irrigate based on watering times like oh you got to you know run the system
for 10 minutes you know but how do you know that your plants really need 10 minutes of water based
on the soil type the plant how big it is right a tomato in the summertime needs a lot of water and
tomatoes when you’re just planting them you know when their new babies seedlings right they don’t
need a lot of water you’re going to flood them so you always have to keep adjusting your irrigation
time and I know some of you guys are thinking John now they have soil sensors and all these things
that could then mod modify your irrigation times but you know what those things like fail they
break and they just don’t really work in my experience and plus your if your Irrigation Timer
goes out right you could lose your whole crop this is not cool so there’s a solution and this is not
the first time I’m showing you guys a solution but this the time that I need to jump up and step up
to the next level and actually I need to implement this myself after learning more about it and being
really frustrated actually just about a month ago I had major issues and it’s preventing me from
traveling because my irrigation system broke and I couldn’t travel until it was fixed right so
that’s really the beauty of this system because this system you leave constant water pressure on
and literally the plant will dictate the system when the system is going to walk the plant I
mean it’s really a smart system if you think about it and that’s what I want to share with you
guys right now how this system works and how I believe a lot of you guys should upgrade I’m going
to tell you guys how you guys could easily upgrade literally they’re going to they’re going to make
it easy for you guys to do that to get this out to you guys because more people in my opinion need to
know about the blue mat irrigation system that’s originally invented over in Europe and you know of
course available here in the US to take your guard hardening your plants to the next level to give
them exactly the amount of water they need without excess waste I mean especially here in the west
where watering you know there’s water restrictions and all these things this is only going to give
your plants what they need it’s never going to give them more never going to give them less right
and that is the beauty of this system saves water gives your plants what they need and when your
plants are happy what does that mean that means you’re happy because you’re going to be having
more food more nutritious food healthier plants they’re going to be less affected by bugs disease
and not bother as much by the elements either so yeah let’s check out the blue mat irrigation
system so the coolest thing about the blue mat system is that you don’t need to be on you know
just City Water right you could you could you could catch your own rain water right be off the
grid in the middle of mountains in the middle of nowhere and use the blue matte system to irrigate
your garden or farm right that’s that’s the coolest thing cuz this does not require any power
right it uses literally water pressure to do it so you know here today they’re using a a garbage
can to hold water right if they want to raise the garden uh garbage can up another 5T tall or maybe
10 ft high off the ground you’d have some water pressure behind it and they wouldn’t even need
this pump there’s a pump here and this pressure tank keeps the pressure at the right pressure then
they have basically a regulator that regulates it down to 13 PSI and then that’s when their system
operates at about 10 to 13 PSI approximately and this is very important of this part of this
system is you need to have constant water pressure this system will not work without constant water
pressure the cool thing is it’s at a low pressure right I think my city wat is are like 50 psi so
if you’re using City Water you’ll basically just need to have this setup right here to reduce the
water pressure to the appropriate low pressure so that the blue mat system could work so that’s
number one source of the water you know whatever Source you got rain water river water just need
to be up high or put under pressure so that this system can operate once you have the proper water
pressure this system is very simple and easy to use literally there’s a 10 page document and
actually two of the pages are just diagrams that literally is this is the book on how to use this
system this is not rocket science it’s not really that difficult to set up but you do need to learn
how to use it because it’s unlike any irrigation system I seen before they tell you how to check
the moisture levels adjust the sensors you know everything you need to know economics you know how
it’s really going to pay for itself because you’re going to have healthier plants higher production
more importantly conserve water now let’s go ahead and uh go more into how this system actually works
uh we’re going to do a few things we’re going to show you guys how it works in a little rais bed
and also in little pots the fabric pots as well as a really cool system they here have here where
you literally set a fabric pot or an open bottom pot on this mat and the mat will automatically
water the pot as needed from you know basically sub irrigation from the root Zone it’ll actually
Wick up into the pot itself this is this is like truly Next Level right and once again all this
is being determined by the soil moisture right so the plant is going to determine if the plant’s
pulling out more water it’s going to it’s going to the soil is going to lose moisture and then uh
this system will water the plant more so that’s a truly amazing thing let’s go ahead and check
it out in a raised bed situation cuz that’s how I’ll be using this system in the future all right
so you guys can see we got a basically a 4tx 4ft raised bed this is a Grassroots living so fabric
pot these are not just any fabric pots Guys these are pots that actually have lining on the inside
you know up to a certain point so they don’t dry out as quickly which will conserve more water and
also encourage more healthier root growth you know without the drying out especially in hotter warmer
climates but anyways as you guys can see this is how the whole setup works and the main thing
is once again you got your pressure line here at the bottom this is at a 13 PSI there’s always
constant water pressure of course if you’re not using the bed you have a valve here you could
turn it off but actually when I turn it off I could I could feel the water pressure in there
stopping or flowing and then what happens is this water line that’s pressurized goes to this
point it goes to a little T and then it goes to this uh guy right here and this is the heart of
the blue mat watering system this is a little uh sensor that senses the moisture it’s basically
filled up with water and what happens is this little ceramic piece I think like an OA like the
old school OAS you know that they would Lee the water out um as this gets dry right it basically
uh the pressure in here changes and then at the top there’s a pinch valve that currently it’s
being pinched so that water is not flowing uh from the pinch valve because water is not needed
should this pinch valve open then what’s going to happen is water is going to flow from the
supply line side to this other side which then it goes into this distribution Network and you
can see they have this uh actually it’s on right now it goes into this uh wicking tape and actually
this tape is kind of cool this is like next level irrigation it’s made out of tyvec and it’s just
weeping out of these little holes and the coolest thing about this tyvec stuff is that it flows at
a very slow and low rate right so it doesn’t need like a lot of water pressure to actually operate
and it’s actually quite wet and because it capat or slowly drips out the water right that means
you’re going to get better even distribution like whereas a drip emitter that’s dripping it’s
going to basically all go down in one spot this is going to more evenly and effectively um you know
uh create moisture in the raised bed so you guys can see they have it all set up here and that’s
how this works so I want to show you guys this a pinch valve here so what happens is as this dries
out the water in here will create a suction and pull this little thing down right and that opens
a valve because at the top this hose is pinched I mean that’s how literally this system works it’s
not rocket science and so that’s that’s a simply amazing thing right I mean this works without
electricity using Old School Technology that you can now apply in 2024 without all these extra
computer things and all these sensors that can break this is really not going to fail so let me
show you guys uh besides using it in a raised bed with this tyvec um tape we could show you guys
how you could use it in these fabric pots next door all right so once again you guys can see the
supply line here with constant pressure and once again it basically tees off and it goes into
one side of the blue matte sensor um right now the water is not coming out because this sensor
senses that the soil has the right moisture uh content and you can adjust this to some extent by
popping off this little top here and then there’s a little uh thing you could adjust here and they
have like two marks a red mark and a blue mark the red mark and the blue Mark is where you want to be
in between they will factory set this up for you guys um you know to determine these marks so that
you guys know the range they’re going to charge you a few bucks for this of course you could do it
yourself if you want to but they want to make sure you do it you know perfectly every single time
and that all your um you know uh blue mats are adjusted properly cuz if you adjust one properly
and don’t adjust one properly your results are going to be inconsistent and you may have issues
across your whole entire system but when they adjust them to spec exactly that means across
your whole system it’s going to work perfectly so anyways you can set this for more or less soil
moisture as you need for the plant and once again when this uh gets dry the pinch valve will drop
down it’ll allow water to flow out this little um Port here and then they have these little rings
and you can just uh put this hose into the ring and then it’ll basically evenly distribute the
water throughout the ring to your root zone so they have smaller Rings here and they have some
bigger Rings here so there’s a variety of ways I mean you could even put a dripper on this if you
had like a small pot like 5 gallons or something like that uh just to drop it out or maybe you
don’t even need a dripper you can just basically angle this down and put on a little steak so
it doesn’t flop all over to water smaller pots that being said for larger pots you do want to
distribute the water more effectively with one of these rings to get everything watered now the
cool thing is they got all these soil moisture sensors right to verify that their system is
working so we’re going to go ahead and press this and the reading on here is uh 56 and let me
go ahead I mean better than a soil moisture meter is you guys all hopefully have some fingers you
want to stick your finger in there and you know to me that’s a really nice soil moisture it’s not
too wet not too dry exactly where plants would be happy I mean that is literally the beauty of the
blue mat system using an raised beds or fabric pots but now want to show you guys the next
level of using their capillary mats to bottom water you know little plants that are like on a
Seedling table for example and I mean they even use the capillary mats I think on big farms so
let’s check it out so next up I want to show you guys this technology this is actually called the
aquamat which literally uses a pressure sensor and the blue mat system uh to give your plants
a precise amount of water this is especially important in like a nursery operation where they
have thousands of plants like sitting on a bench now the the caveat about this is that this needs
to be totally level right this can’t be on an incline can’t be on a slope you got to make sure
everything’s leveled out uh so that this aquamat could work this aquamat can maybe show you inside
but it has basically four distinct layers it has a nonpermeable surface on the bottom and then it has
two different surfaces I can’t show you guys this right now cuz it’s all inside here but basically
what happens is when pressure is applied to this mat and you know there’s water pressure on the mat
uh you know what’s going to happen is the water will go through uh the little level here that
normally allows this to be dry and uh when the sensor turns on it’ll allow the area that’s being
pressed on to be become wet only so underneath here we have a fabric pop but this could be used
as long as if you use plastic pots with a minimum diameter right it’ll basically just wet the bottom
of the pot so the plants could uptake the water and the soil could uptake the water now the caveat
is this you need to have a proper mixture with at least 50% cocoa or Pete otherwise your soil will
not culate using this specific system that’s that’s a critical point that I want to mention but
yeah this is cool that you know I could maybe you could set up a greenhouse to have this so that you
never need to water each each pot you could have a few sensors in your system that run this mat so
that your whole you know Greenhouse or hoop house could get watered only as the plants need it not
to as when you think you need to water and now here’s a cool thing about this whole setup any of
these blue mats because it’s sensing soil moisture right the thing is this this is not just like
watering constantly you know like you may think it does I mean when we do an irrigation system
you turn on for five minutes it Waters it gets pretty wet and then hopefully you’re allowing
the plants to dry out again before you water again right that being said nobody’s perfect and
we’re always watering a little bit too soon or sometimes too late when you see your leaves droopy
that causes excess stress when you’re overwatering or underwatering your plants that being said using
the blue mats you’re going to keep a nicer range you know a more stressfree range for your plants
you’re going to still stress them out because what’s going to happen is when the tensiometer
uh meter is between like you know maybe 50 and 90 it’s in the it’s in the sweet spot where like okay
the system knows you don’t need to water when it gets up to 100 it’s like oh this soil’s dry let’s
kick it on to get it back down to 50 so you have true wet and dry cycles and for those of you guys
that know about plant biology and all this kind of stuff you guys know that having some Cycles where
there’s wet dry Cycles I mean this is critical on things like basil that don’t like having wet feet
right lettuce could deal with more wet feet but you know I would say that if you stressed out
the baso by having some wet and dry cycles and once again being within their range you could even
get better production um you know out of any plant for that matter so that really is the true value
of the blue mat system and the other thing about the blue mat system is this is like they’re now
doing this cuz when I saw them before they weren’t doing this right they have a free uh quote system
so they will plan your exact system so you can go to the website click a free quote you’re going to
submit how many raised beds you have the size that you have and any other specifics that they want
to know and then they’re going to say hey to put in your system you’re going to need this many
things and this is the results that you could expect to see from it this is how much it’s going
to cost so that they make it easy because you know converting over to a blue mat system if you’ve
never done this for you know could be a lot of work but they’re going to take the headaches out
of it for you guys so that you could easily make a system you guys want to learn more about the blue
mat system make sure you visit the website sustain wheell village.com and in the upper right corner
there’s a button if you guys want to get a quote to see how much a system like this that they will
plan out for you guys which takes definitely some time so now you can convert your system over from
standard irrigation to the next level irrigation so that your plants can be happier grow more
and also take the he take make you guys have less headaches from an irrigation system that
has all these components that could plug clog Jam leak or sometimes the batteries fail and then your
plants are left without water and that ain’t cool and I hate that myself all right so what what’s
happening now is that we’re going to go into the vendor area and this is the the best time or the
worst time to go in the vendor area depending on what you’re wanting to do like I’m trying to film
so I don’t need all this background noise so the best time to go in the vendor area if you’re going
to film is right now when everybody’s in like there’s a big Growers panel so like everybody’s
in there like nobody’s in here maybe some boost are even empty but luckily I’ve learned about
the different boost to be able to explain the products in there without anybody even working
there so that’s where I’m going to take you guys inside and show you guys the best booth that
being said the best time to come to Booth is when there’s no talks because then this place is
packed and you can learn a lot just by listening and I encourage you guys to do that a lot like I
tend to listen a lot and I learn a lot of things just by listening to other people’s questions
or hearing spiels that people are talking about so let’s head inside the vendor area and show you
guys the best vendors here the living Soul Summit all right so the first Booth I want to show you
guys is actually the Grassroots fabric pot booth and you know they sponsor you know really a big
part of the summit and put this on for you guys to come to and you know this is the favorite fabric
pot of the living soil movement right here and a very important reason for this I mean you I know
you’ve seen lots of fabric pots online but you know they’re not all the same I mean yes they’re
made out of fabric but the thing with the living soil pots is you know they have a basically a in
here that is waterproof you know all the way down to just a few inches of the bottom so the plant
could the water could still drain out should you overwater but this is going to keep more um
you know moisture in your pot your plants could have better performance right fabric pots were
originally made for the for the nursery industry for specifically trees right not necessarily
growing vegetables in and all these ways that people use them these days that’s why these
living soil pots keeps better soil moisture which then will keep better soil biology which
then means your plants will uh you know do much better and perform a lot better so besides just
the standard fabric pots with the so the bottom right they now have the new pots and this is the
new way of growing plants you basically fill up this tube with all your soil your plants will
grow in there the roots will grow out the roots could even fill this bottom even quicker because
it’s open in the bottom and then you just take this full pot and you can place it on top of your
raised bed The Roots coming out the bottom will then grow into your raised bed so that’s kind of
like a a cheater way to start growing your plants more quickly of course if you are transplanting
it’s a lot easier to transplant out of a pot that doesn’t have a bottom cuz you can just basically
push it down through the bottom or through the top the other thing I like about the Grassroots
and I hope to get a system like this is that they have actually raised beds and unlike most raised
beds out of fabric pots that have floppy sides and i’ I’ve had this issue myself with floppy sides
on fabric pots for raised beds which I hate you know this is a little model I showed you guys out
there they basically use PVC as a framing to keep your sides up and to keep it stable and that I
really like a lot so if you guys want to learn more about the Grassroots fabric pots you can
visit them at Grassroots fabrics.com all right the next Booth I want to show with you guys real
quick is actually the sustainable Village and this is a bloom out watering system that you guys
just saw outside and they have other different kinds of irrigation accessories I would call
them irrigation experts you guys need something about irrigation taking your irrigation system
to the next level definitely want to check out sustainable Village there sustainable village.com
all right so the next vendor here I want to show you guys is actually Catalyst bio amendments and I
discussed this a little bit at the vital uh Booth that’s outside but I really want to show you guys
more about why this compost is really Next Level compost it’s not just a compost so you shouldn’t
really think of this as a compost you should think of this as you know biologic activity that then
you can use to your benefit right they check on a microscope they’re checking soil here whether
it’s their soil or people are bringing in their soil so that people could check out their soil
to see how active or non-active it is right and they’ve really refined their system of creating
high quality compost because they’re just not trying to turn organic matter into something
that they could sell right their specific goal in mind is to create a high food soil web right
with different ratios of fungi to bacteria and high levels of these kinds of biology in your soil
right the biology is critical for your soil health and right having the right biology versus not
having the right biology can mean the difference between your plant survival or plant death for
example having the right biology can make your plants more resilient to plant stress whether that
is cold temperatures bugs or disease right and so they just work on having the right biology so
that you’ll have the best success and they could show you the different you know creatures on the
microscope so I want to show you guys actually their compost real quick and discuss that a little
bit more all right so what I’m going to tell you guys straight up is that this is probably one of
the most expensive compost that I’ve ever seen in my entire life so you know um that being said I
would say although it is expensive it’s actually underpriced because it actually cost them a lot
more and they’re literally scraping on the margins and not making it a ton of money on this stuff but
this is what it is this is the um craft compost by Catalyst bio amendments and that’s what I’m going
to say it is I’m going to say it’s a bio Amendment you shouldn’t think of this as compost cuz this is
unlike any other compost on the planet that you’ve ever seen before right this is craft quality like
you like drinking you know good beers like craft beers instead of like some kind of butt wiper
stuff right that’s what this is and actually this stuff is actually a little bit too dry they’re
tell me don’t show that man this is too dry I’m like man this is some of the moistest compost I’ve
seen they’re like this is a little bit drier than we like to sell it normally you know they monitor
every single stage of the composting facility and here’s the thing they ask most compost facilities
if they see their compost as their baby or as their pet right that’s what they do I mean because
the microbes are their pets they are nurturing the soil life in their compost and they act I mean the
the guy that makes the compost I talked to him you know for a while the other day and he’s like man
I’m kind of concerned about my my compost cuz like I I like to be there and make sure it’s everything
is being done right to it so it’s going to have the most soil biology the most activity and be the
healthiest right so if you guys do have a compost pile you guys want to take care of it like it
was your pet and treat it as best as possible not just ignore it like oh I mixed the Browns and the
greens it’s about the right ratio it’ll happen and I’ll have some compost doesn’t mean it’s going
to be good compost so what I’m going to say is that this is the best compost and more importantly
I want to read you guys this what it says on the label cuz this pretty much tells it like it is
catalyst bio amendments craft compost is used to create a desirable soil structure for plants
right this is the best structure on any compost I’ve seen because it is the right moisture level
right it sticks together like it should doesn’t fall apart of course we can smell it has a nice
neutral smell very important and then it also adds organic matter to soil improves water retention
and promotes an environment for the entire food soil web to thrive so that’s the most important
thing there’s balances of different microbes and different arthopods and creatures in here so that
when you get the compost whether you’re going to top dress it or more importantly how I recommend
you guys use this is that you multiply the biology in this compost by creating a compost tea right
you can create a compost tea but more importantly once you have some of this stuff you can add it
to your compost pile to now get the diversity and literally use this as a quote unquote seed
to add to your compost pile so that you’ll have some of the best biology on the planet added to
your compost pile and then all you need to do then is nurture your personal compost pile to have
compost hopefully as good as this of course you’ll probably also have to get a microscope because
every batch that they harvest and if you order directly on their website before they ship it to
you they’ll actually harvest the batch bag it up instantly right so there’s no waiting time time
they’ll check it on the microscope and make sure it passes their muster their minimum standards
of what they’re looking for before they ship it to you so it’s biolog active biology literally in
a bag so you could use this you know I would say in addition to other biologic amendments you know
that maybe in some cases are dormant when you’re using like white powdered micro Riz for example
the other thing I’ll be interviewing the team at Catalyst bio amendments to show you guys you guys
can make high quality compost at home so make sure you click that subscribe button right down below
and click the Bell so you get notified when my video where I interview them in person to show
you guys the secrets of making the high quality compost that they do here so you guys want to
learn more about Catalyst biom you can visit them at Catalyst bom.com the next vendor I want
to highlight for you guys is actually Organics alive and how I see them is like literally all
these products are based on microbial ferments right they’re carbon based and if you guys
are looking for something for a hydroponic system specifically people ask me all the time
John what’s the best Organics run a hydroponic system and I’ll say well I mean unless you want
to crud up your system with all this bofilm you really don’t want to use Organics in a uh you know
hydroponic system but these are different because they’re not going to create all the biofilms cuz
they’re already microbially digested so they’re available for the plant so you can think that
this is like organically derived nutrients for your hydroponic system if you do want to try to
do your Hydroponics organic which I have whole other thoughts about so yeah the organic alive
they have you know not only the wet uh products but they also have the dry products many different
types you know I’m not really going to talk more about them but I want to put this information
out to you guys that are looking for some kind of solution for you know growing hydroponically
but yet as organically as possible so yeah they’re products are amazing a little bit goes a long
ways uh you know I’ve known them for a long time cuz I got their original compost tber back
in the day cuz they were established in 2004 so I definitely trust the company so you guys want to
learn more about the Organics alive you can check them out at Organics alive garden.com all right
honestly guys one of my favorite vendors here who I followed for so long online because they have
their own YouTube channel which I encourage you guys to check out I’ll put a link down below it
is build the soil and I know a lot of you guys that are out there that follow me also follow
build the soil because like me they share Next Level stuff and more importantly unlike me right
they go out of their way to Source the highest quality soil amendments and other ingredients you
guys can use and also like me right I’m a really big guy with open source right I had Josh from
Boogie Brew he shared his open source compost tea recipe and that’s what build the sto is about
they’re sharing their open source recipes on how you could make your own like top dressed soil
I mean they’ll sell you the top dress soil you don’t want to Source all the ingredients that they
literally Source from all over the country and the world to bring you guys high quality ingredients
that are literally hand selected right you guys don’t understand there’s a lot of literally
crap going on the industry right they don’t sell you know Factory slaughterhouse byproducts
like so many companies do right they tried to Source clean you know manures and they’re just
unable to do it so they just don’t even bother to sell those things they find other Alternatives
and what I would call new and upcomer things that people aren’t even using right over here they
have a hoarder cultural grade coconut which is actually I would say a human grade coconut right
to treat your plants like you would treat treat your pets right I drink coconut water it’s one of
the best source of electrolytes not even talking about electrolytes there’s also things like plant
cyto kindes and coconut so that the coconut could float across the ocean right and stay vibrant and
not mess its de DNA up so then it could you know could it could plant itself on a beach across the
ocean Sprout and grow into a big tree right these are the kind of products they’ll use so that you
guys could get some of those very properties from the coconut from the aloe which is another thing
that more people should be using right grow aloe whether you’re going to eat it yourself and
yes it is edible I have videos on that where I discuss this but also for propagating plants and
like literally sticking cuting into the gel in there will feed the plant and also there’s lots of
different nutrients and fibers and things that you know Alo is good to feed tea for example to you
know feed the tea other kinds of sugars than just molasses which is what normally people do so like
that’s what Builder soil is all about they have so many different products I could go over all of
them here but you know waste my time but I want to encourage you guys to check out their their
YouTube channel what once again link down below you know while most of their content is focused
around cannabis the other thing I want to let you guys know is that a lot of the content focused
around cannabis and building soil for cannabis right could also be used for growing vegetables
right whether you’re growing indoors which is what they specialize in although they have a lot of
outdoor content too they really want to get people growing indoors and pots using a more living soil
mix using some of the best uh purposely sourced ingredients on the entire planet and if you guys
love build the soil like I do I’ll be interviewing Jeremy in an upcoming episode make sure you click
the Subscribe button make sure you click Little Bell so you get notified as that video comes out
so you guys could learn more about the velocity of Builder oil and all the amazing products that
they offer of course if you want to visit them you can check them out at buildasoil.com all right so
I think that’s it for my episode today at the soil life Summit 2024 with the general overview of what
this whole thing is about as well as my favorite vendors I mean some of those uh vendors had some
really amazing products and I want to hear from you what product did you like the most lit you up
the most I got you excited the most about all the amazing products here at the soil life Summit
2024 post your comments down below I want to read the comments and if I get overwhelmingly a
lot of comments about any particular item I may feature that on a future episode for you guys
of course I’ll be converting my whole garden to using the blue mat system because it’s just a
much more intell inent system and of course if you guys want to see more videos about some
of the specific vendors right make sure you click the Subscribe button down below make sure
you click the Bell so you get notified as my new videos where I interview some of the experts
that I’ve met at this episode about specifically on things like composting super critical um to
learn about so that you guys could enhance and grow better fruits vegetables herbs nuts and seeds
and fruits or whatever else you guys are growing on your property so if you guys enjoyed this
episode hey please be sure to a big thumbs up more importantly share this with other people
that would enjoy learning about some of the advanced level living soil uh knowledge that’s
out there also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you miss many new and
upcoming episodes I’ve coming every 5 to 7 days you know or we be learning on my YouTube channel
make sure you click the little bell so you get notified as we new videos come out and finally
be sure to past episodes past episodes are W from knowledge over 700 episodes at this time on this
channel dedicated to teach you guys all about how to grow your own organic fruits and vegetables of
the highest quality so with that my name is John ker with grow greens.com we’ll see you next
time and until then remember keep on [Music] growing

48 Comments
Jump to the following parts of this episode:
01:00 What is Living Soil?
02:45 What You Will Learn in this Episode
04:55 Main Speaker Area
05:50 Green Life Organic Greenhouse Growing
06:19 Compost Making Workshop Main Take-away points
08:00 Layout of the Soil Life Summit
08:58 Vital Garden Supply Best Organic Gardening Products
09:45 Best Compost You Can Buy in a Bag
11:50 Bat Guano & Fish Guano
13:00 Higher Quality Compost than Big-Box Store Compost
13:30 Vital Organic Gardening Dry & Liquid Products
15:26 SAVE 10% off Vital Gardening Products with coupon code GYG
16:58 Most Important Area of the Event: Next-Level Irrigation System
18:54 The Plant Dictates when the Irrigation System will Water
20:07 This Irrigation System does not require power and can be used off-grid
21:50 How to Use the Blumat Irrigation System
23:06 How the Bluemat Irrigation System works in a raised bed garden
24:08 Moisture Sensor Doesn't need any electricity
25:37 How the Blumat Pinch Valve works
26:18 Using the Bluemat Irrigation System in Individual Pots
29:02 Aquaman and Blumat – Bottom Water Your Seedling and Plants in Pots
30:58 The True benefit of using the Bluemat System – Hormetic Stress for your plants
32:27 Get a FREE Plan for your garden with the Blumat irrigation
33:45 Best & Worst Time to Visit the Vendor Area
34:30 Grassroots Fabric Pots – Favorite of the Living Soil Movement
36:45 Sustainable Village
37:11 Catalyst Bioamments – Best Compost Money Can Buy
38:40 The most expensive compost I have ever seen!
42:50 Organics Alive- Best Organic Nutrients for Hydroponic Systems
44:11 Build-a-Soil – Best High-Quality Organic Amendments Ingredients You Can Buy
47:22 Summary of the Event
Special thanks and shout out to Josh from Boogie Brew that told me about this event, and filmed footage at the 2023 Soil Life Summit You can watch on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/boogiebrew
Referenced Videos:
MJ Biz Con Episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlI8BakAkAg
Watch Build-a-Soil Episodes https://www.youtube.com/@BuildASoil
Product Links
Vital Garden Supply – Organic Amendments for Living Soil https://www.vitalgardensupply.com/ Coupon code GYG to save 10%
Blumat Irrigation – Dependable Irrigation System that waters when your plants need it https://www.sustainablevillage.com/
Grassroots Fabric Pots – Best Fabric Pots for Living Soil https://www.grassrootsfabricpots.com/
Catalyst Bioammendments – Best Compost Money Can Buy https://catalystbioamendments.com/
Organic Alive – Organic Hydroponics Nutrients https://organicsalivegarden.com/
Build a Soil – Unique High-Quality Organic Amendments to Build Soil https://buildasoil.com/
From the high desert and the great American Southwest.. Pahrump was Art Bell’s home town. Keep up the great work..
I think some of us as gardeners make it too complicated. I find in nature everything I need to grow healthy food. And although you're always learning, I feel like a lot of people are just cashing in on the the need & desire that people have to grow food.🥬🍃🍇🥦🍅🥕🌽
He’s high again 😅😂
🌘🌘
I need that irrigation system.thanks John
Great video and content!!
thank you =)
I had a bad problem last year it destroyed my compost because it rained everyday for 2 months everyday. Then I had half a month break and more rain. This year I have the hoop green house in
happy spring season ☘️
Thanks
As soon as I saw this I thought of a mentor of mine named Jeremy Silva from Buildasoil, I've learned so much from thier you tube series!! I put on his videos like music in the background
Awesome video thanks! Thats what its all about…open source knowledge! Dig what you do..cheers!😎💯👊🏽
Catalyst bio info please 😊
Best gardening channel ever.
Looking forward to the interview with Jeremy episode
I have better luck with soaker hoses less breaking than with irrigation plastic systems.
Thank you for sharing with us
👍
Your awesome and pretty dang smart. I've been watching you from when I first started growing stuff about 12 years ago. Thanks for all your knowledge and work you do for the growing community!! Alohaaa
Out of All the Garden YT'ers, you have blessed me with so much knowledge. I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤
Bloody awesome John.
From Josh, to TD, to Seth… now to this!
Loving your work mate, been with you for over 5yrs now.
Great to see you still on the grind. Respect from Down Under ❤
Build a soil is THE BEST channel to learn about your soil and cannabis crops. 🤟🏼🤟🏼
Thank you so very much John for bringing these soil life summit videos to us, I learned so much when you had Josh cover last years event, which made my circle of organic gurus to learn from a lot larger
Good shit mang. Bonus points for the Coor's beer cans on the grassroots table. I'll buy from them just because of that.
Thanks
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
Setting up a new 3×3 bed do you think putting 1 cubic foot of the craft compost would make a significant difference?
love the buildasoil way 🙂 an really think blumat irragtion could be a game changer as a product in everyone's garden to
I just watched one of your videos from 5 years ago. I'm so glad that I found you for helping me learn to grow vegetables! Thank you!
Thanks for the knowledge learnt ova the pass few years now I'm sole on organic growing keep up the good work thanks. NZ
This guy looks high all the time 😅😂🤣😭😅🤣😂😭😅😂🤣😂😭😂🤣😅
Did I see you at the chicken ranch?😂
Like ur vidio sir
Please sir i need your whats app number please
🍻🍻🇸🇻🇸🇻
Thanks for sharing
How about a sample for a 6ft x 18” deep
26:00 I think its actually he combination of old-school ancient technology with the new-school technology in the fabrics and materials that make this so unique and clever!
your videos would be 1/2 shorter if you wouldn't keep repeating the same stuff. sorry I can't listen to your videos
Is it possible to have subtitles in French?
My English is really poor and it's not for lack of trying to understand. Thank you for considering the request.😅
Thank you Google Translate.
Instead of using the blue mat irrigation system I use earthboxes you can over water or plants because it's subirigated. You can under water them but not over water them so as long as your watering at least once a day your plants are going to thrive! And yes you can use living soil and worm compost in the earthboxes.
You the best
foh-lee-are feeding
How do you feel about Build A Soil 3.0 for flowering? And what would you prefer Build A Soil or Pride Lands?
What about purple cow indicanja and the nutrient blend FOOP??
Man thanks heaps bro I like ur style work smarter u got me interested in organic fertz rather than shop make thanks keep up da good work
Which ones do I order grassroots fabric pots or sustainable village grass roots fabric pots they both look the same