How To Improve Soil Quality For Farming/Gardening

Join us as we dive into the topways you can improve your soil quality to grow the biggest harvests ever.

hello hello everybody we are back for another Garden webinar thank you guys so much for tuning in to this and all of the other webinars we really appreciate it we are getting better each and every time this is an exciting Journey continuing to upgrade our presentation our camera and all the fun things that bring you guys a better experience so thank you very much for your patience as we learn and grow and evolve through these webinars and our presentations it’s all for you guys at the end of the day we want to be able to bring you not only the best quality of information but also in a really aesthetically pleasing and easily understandable format so we really appreciate you guys tuning in to another backyard farming Academy special I know that there’s going to be a couple people dripping kind of trickling in over the next little bit and I want to give you guys a little bit of an opportunity to be able to do that so I’m going to kind of just talk a little bit about why we started the backyard farming Academy at the end of the day we created backyard farming Academy to feed people we understand that there’s a lot of crazy things going on in the world and especially around food is it is it going to be available what is going to be in it what is going to be on it is it going to be filled with pesticides herbicides fungicides and chemicals is it going to be a GMO crop is it going to be available at the store and what is the price going to be at the end of the day all of these things are more in question now than most of us have ever seen them be in question our entire lives and that’s really unfortunate but we have a solution and and the solution is backyard farming Academy because there’s a good chance that especially for things like vegetables and leafy greens and other things that are easy to grow and easy to incorporate into a really healthy whole food diet you can probably grow a lot of these things especially enough for your family to be able to consume now obviously not one shoe fits all with this solution and obviously the bigger family you have the B bigger piece of property or garden that you have to have also the more picky your diet or the more pointed your diet the more that you’re going to have to look at cultivating those specific types of crop and at the end of the day to bring it back to what we’re going to be talking about today the most beneficial soil grows the best plants so obviously there’s a lot of giv and take and it depends on variables that are what’s your soil quality what’s your water quality what’s your environment what genetics are you working with what year are you working with and what luck is Mother Nature giving you just to start some of those variables but we know that being able to have a comprehensive set of knowledge around this entire topic is going to give you guys options options to be able to steer your plants and your garden toward different routes based upon curveballs that get thrown at you with all the aforementioned variables at any point in time so knowledge is power and we’re handing over the power to you to give back to the backyard farming family and community Through backyard farming Academy so patch yourselves on the back we appreciate the love support and also the subscribing liking commenting and engaging with our social media channels as well as helping us to spread the word about the seed starting blueprint if you guys haven’t seen any of those things check out the links that we’re putting down below or on our YouTube or Instagram and you will be able to see what we’re talking about oh we’ve got some sweetheart beginning of the year deals going on for you guys to be able to have the best deal at the education to be able to empower your family to be able to cultivate the food that they need in any type of economy or Global situation while creating memories and being fully aware of what’s in and on the food so we’re really excited to be to bring the backyard farming Academy and I don’t know if you guys have been watching but we’ve been in the agricultural industry for professionally for a little bit over over 15 years now I started in the plant Greenhouse Sciences space got my agricultural degree in plant and Greenhouse Sciences as a Junior and senior in high school at Front Range Community College under Diane Waltman and just really fell in love with plants early on and I’ve been lucky enough to be in the agricultural space and around plants since I was a sophomore junior senior in high school even once I got out into the real world I had some normal jobs I I was a cook in Breen Ridge I did some other things too but I always went back to agriculture very quickly and I’ve been doing backyard farming and keto life nutrients as well as backyard Department Academy since about 2006 or 2007 official company of key to life is now 10 years old so thank you guys for the support go check out out some amazing organic fertilizers and products but I digress we are here for backyard farming Academy and what we’re here today to discuss is how to improve quality for your garden through soil and soil quality in general because the quality of your soil and feeding your soil ultimately feeds the plant and ultimately supports and boosts the plant’s immune system so that it doesn’t have have to put all of its energy into worrying about pest disease or illnesses and it can focus on maximum growth Vigor and yield and that is really the magic of soil that I fell in love with a long time ago and yes there are some hydroponic growing methods that may be faster there are some aeroponic and some aquaponic and some there’s all sorts of different grow conditions but at the end of the day I’ve seen every single type type of growing either completely fail or completely succeed and I think a lot of times it’s about the steering or the knowledge that you have to be able to influence decisions that you make in your garden in your backyard farm and in your green houses so we want to start with the foundation which is the soil now with that being said guys disclaimer I got to come over here real quick disclaimer soil is a massive subject and soil’s such a massive subject that we could spend weeks on this one topic alone and some people have spent decades and so for us to cover everything about soil in a one-hour webinar is just not going to happen but that’s why we’ve created backyard farming Academy and we’ have continued this webinar Series so that we can sprinkle in to each little area of gardening the particulars about soil that are going to help you to succeed so we want to bring it down to a digestible format because soil is a massive topic and one of the most interesting things that I always found about soil is there are there are scientists that claim and I haven’t done this I haven’t watched this happen with my eyes because it’s impossible that it takes potentially 500 years to create one in thick of really good top soil out in a natural scenario where you don’t have man intervening in composting and fertilization or cover cropping going on and you know you’re out in the natural scenario where you’re expecting things like Pete or leaves or bark or Twigs sticks leaves to be able to break down and form a true layer of top soil and that was one of the craziest things that really got me hooked on soil in the beginning another really awesome thing before we dive in that I love about soil is the amount of minerals that are in this soil I think this is really important to talk about because there’s a lot of health issues that are popping up this day and age in general and I feel a lot of it is because of the soil nutrients that are available therefore uptaken by the plants therefore uptaken by the people which reflect to our health I think we can all agree that there’s some extremely healthy people in humanity but there’s also a lot of extremely unhealthy people in the median is kind of veering towards unhealthy and that’s unfortunate and it’s a global phenomenon unfortunately and it comes through processed foods commercial agricultural practices pesticides herbicides fungicides chemicals GMOs uh fillers preservatives and a lot once again weeks of content on just that but we know that if you have a synthetically grown crop that is only being fed 16 to 19 nutrients versus a organically soil grown crop that might possess 250 to 350 minerals and elements I personally feel that the more nutrient that the more nut nutrient density is really really important for our health as humans because at the end of the day nutrients power us and keep us not sick and healthy just like plants obviously this is massive topic gut health all sorts of things are influenced and that is another area where organic food is just a little bit more biologically friendly for our digestive system so let’s deep dive into soil and how we can use soil how we can improve soil quality for your garden so once again guys we’re getting new at this we’re new at this so we appreciate the support in the slack while we learn how to do produce webinars and all of this fun stuff it’s it’s been a blast we’re really excited we have a ton of content coming down the pipeline for you guys make sure once again go check out the social channels and the website so in today’s live we’re going to go over a couple Co a couple topics like first off obviously understanding soil Basics and assessing your soil I think assessing your soil is a really important thing to be able to do even without tools now if you want to get tools involved that’s even better but we all need to have a grasp of what good soil should look like feel like drain like and air rate like in our hand and that’s really really important that’ll also come down to how we build healthy soil because super compact or super Airy soil just isn’t as microbially or nutrient or moisture dense as a nice perfect soil we’re also going to go a little bit into amendments and fertilization now obviously guys this is like kind of one of my lanes and I could go off for years literally on amendments and fertilization but we want to bring it to you guys in a in a compact manner for this course and in the future courses we are going to be dropping a straight Amendment webinar where we’re going to bring on some guests we’re going to bring on some products and we’re going to show some soil reports and how we tweak and tailor soil soil reports for specific crops to get specific targeted growth parameters but most importantly how do we do all of this sustainably because there’s some evidence coming out that you know climate change might be hardcore linked to the Sun and to surfaces and anything but at the end of the day we want to respect the planet that we were born from we want to respect the planet that is going to host our children so pick up your trash doing your recycling making sure you’re not contaminating water and soil and atmosphere and local National and Global formats is obviously an extremely important thing I don’t care what side of the fence that we live on if we’re a Believer or a denier of climate change I think that we can all unite in respect for our planet so that we are not borrowing the planet or so that we are not inheriting the planet from from our parents but we are borrowing it from our children and I think that that’s the most important thing to look at and when we look at the soil it shows us a lot of what’s going on today and how history has put us into this scenario how we can use that history to correct that scenario and bring a better solution for the future so obviously please feel free to ask questions throw the comments Down Below on the YouTube link on the Instagram whatever and we would love to hear from you guys we are taking our time to go through and respond to all of these comments and we really appreciate love and support the questions and the input so thank you very much so understanding soil Basics really comes down to the foundation of life at the end of the day C soil is one of the most thriving and living ecosystems and I kind of want to jump over to this image real quick some of us a lot of us know about it and I feel like it’s become a lot more prevalent knowledge over the last decade about the soil food web and this is kind of the soil food web under a microscope um this actually shows the relationship between the light or the photosynthesis which actually produces the CO2 or takes the CO2 the H2O and the light and produces photosynthetic active radiation on the plant surface so as the chlorophyll as the coronoids and as all of the different plant constituents that are in a leaf including the stomata which are the capillaries on the bottom side of the leaf that allow the plant to breathe as this Chain Reaction happens just like an engine right an engine needs air it needs spark and it needs fuel so the spark is the sunlight in this particular case the air is the CO2 and the fuel is the nutrients that are uptaken through the root system that are processed by the microorganisms to allow them to be most available this is a the most basic way that I can put it guys at the end of the day being able to take all of this light and through photos synthetic active radiation turn it into starches and sugars that then are mobilized throughout the plant and deliver mobile nutrients and also interact with immobile nutrients to allow our plants to grow causing the plant to also uptake simultaneously from the root system so it’s a really a chain reaction process that it all needs to be working together you could put the the worst soil the best plant in the worst soil and put it in the dark and it’s not going to grow you could put the best plant in the best soil and put it in the dark and it’s not going to grow but when you take the best plant the best soil and the best light and water now you’re cooking with gas and your plants are really going to be able to thrive so there’s a lot of these different plant immobilized carbon nitrogen fixers and different types of bacteria that help to mineralize and break down the mineral mineral break down the minerals inside of soil and allow them to become available and this is very important at the end of the day because a lot of the soil nutrients actually need to be broken down by microbes before they’re uptaken this gets me onto a little tangent that I think is worthwhile heavy metals there’s been a lot of talk about heavy metals and food and by all means do I I’m all for in any scenario the less heavy metals the better but if they’re missing completely now I feel that you’re missing a nutrient that might allow the plant or you as the human who consumed that plant to be a little bit less nutrient dense up a little bit less nutrients iron is a big one right hey we shouldn’t eat that much iron through our food blah blah blah we should cap it at this certain amount but then you turn around and a lot of times you need to take iron supplements or magnesium or calcium it’s the same with humans like it is plants and a lot of it’s because of the available biology that’s down in the soil and IM and mobilizing or immobilizing certain nutrients allowing up take or not uptake and at the end of the day this is really really important for us to understand I’m going to back off because I feel like I’m gonna start going down a deep rabbit hole and starting to get too complex so once again guys it maybe you guys want that throw in the comments down below if you guys are like hey dude we’re all basically to the point that we’ve got a good amount of General agricultural knowledge we want you to go as deep as you possibly can with every detail let me know I try to back off and keep it pretty digestible versus overwhelming but depends which rabbit hole on which day I’m going down so um this is a really interesting process I recommend you guys to look into this on your own it’s fascinating I personally find and I think that that’s a great spot for us to jump back over to the canva present ation so foundation of life soil as a living econ ecosystem is definitely not just dirt if you guys have ever heard the expression do you have dirt or do you have soil dirt is dead and soil is alive and when you take this soil and you put a little bit of the dirt into some water and then you take that water and you put it under a microscope and then you look at the amount of life that’s in soil it is completely amazing because at the end of the day there are billions and billions of microbes right under your nose and it’s pretty crazy to look at I that was something that definitely made me fall in love with soil and organic growing because I could see the microbes I could literally see them and I feel like sometimes in this world some of the things that we can’t see we’re not as worried about but there’s these bacteria help to stabilize our air our water our hydrocarbon levels and our atmosphere and a lot of other things so it’s really important for us to understand this ecosystem and the difference between dead dirt and Alive soil and how it influences organic matter air water to playing a crucial part in the growth and environment of plants and people and when we look at that envir we maximize it for health for the plants the people or the plants and the planet I think that the people will become a lot more healthy so microbes and fungi bacteria and earthworms and ladybugs and nematodes and uh pulus spidermites and cucumeris and hypoaspis smiles all of these different microbials and soil food we web members are really the key to the foundation of humanity in our soil it’s really really important to keep the diversity of all of these different constituents to allow decomposing organic matter and nutrients to cycle correctly because building soil structure is all about the correct input break down time period with the proper output result of the chemical that our microbes are going to uptake or our plant is going to uptake so we’re unsure sometimes but the unsung heroes of every Garden are really the entire soil food web system because that soil food web system allows the regulation of the PH range of our soil if our soil is way out of the PH range I don’t care if it’s the perfect consist consistency and it has the exact perfect nutrients in it those nutrients are not going to be available because they’re not in the right PH range to allow your plant to uptake them or allow microbes soil plant root carbon hydrogen oxygen and light to be able to work together simultaneously and at the end of the day an optimal PH range is specific to the different type of plant that you’re growing and we’ve got the tools and guidance to be able to give you the knowledge so you can maximize those specific or general crops that you want to show to your friends this harvest season so it is one of my passions for sure and I look forward to sharing and continuing this journey with you guys because it’s about as expansive as soil structure and soil texture now this is what we call the soil pyramid once again guys this right here years of conversation so we’re going to keep it really short and simple I will miss some stuff I will miss a lot but it’s okay so we’ve got one side of the pyramid which is silt and we’ve got another side of the pyramid which is clay and it’s really all about that silt to S silt clay and sand which you can’t see down here sand is the bottom silt sand and clay in certain combinations make these different types of soil and it’s really really important to know this because this is going to give you that General feel in your hand now we all know what clay feels like if we pick up Clay it’s going to be like really hard it’s not going to Crunch very much at all and it’s going to be pretty heavy and we’re going to notice like that is clay for sure same thing with sand sque squishy but not necessarily that it removes air it just moves it is extremely fluid if you have the right particulate of sand it drains really easily it’s extremely heavy but it also has a good now term to throw out there for you guys BSA or SSA biological surface area or specific surface area if you put a one by one by one foot box and you put golf balls in it how how many golf balls versus air pockets would there be it’s a good way to think about it versus packing peanuts versus sand obviously with something like sand there’s not nearly as much air then we bring that same metaphor into clay silt sand and LOM and we start and use that same visualization of a 1 by one foot box and how our clay silt sand and LOM allow different amounts of air therefore potential drainage as well as how much surface area would there be on a bunch of golf balls versus a whole thing of sand huge amount of different surface area and that surface area allows microbials to stick to so silt is kind of right there in between clay and sand it’s like this weird in between right and at the end of the day the perfect combination of clay silt sand plus ideally some good decomposing organic material will give you a lone based soil and the lone based soils were we’re all the most familiar with because if we’re buying soil and adding it to our garden it’s most likely a lone based soil now there’s a lot of different types of Lone based soil is it super dark and Rich and mainly compost based or is it mainly Peete based and fibrous and has paraly and a lot of drainage and Iration components in it these are really important things for us to think about because the amount of Squish that we have in our soil is really really important if there’s no squish at all that means there’s not going to be that much air if there’s a lot of Squish there might be too much air now air isn’t necessarily bad if you an automated irrigation system actually Growers that have irrigation systems look for a more air dominant or porous soil mix to allow frequent or high frequency drip irrigation and at the end of the day our specific soil type is really based upon our growing Target our environment which is the temperatures and humidity and also our irrigation frequency based upon the PH range and the food that’s in that irrigation frequency don’t want to make it sound complicated but that when you take those general concepts into account now we’re cooking with gas now we’re really going to be able to maximize our crop steering and our plant growth and most importantly our plant yield so once again I can go on and on about this forever but knowing the right texture helps to optimize watering and plants and once again clay soil doesn’t drain well but it has a lot of minerals and heavy metals and nutrients in it silt is kind of the in between of sand and clay but it’s more like um could even potentially be better dirt because it’s so silty and it’s so airis that it doesn’t have a whole lot of microbial like and same thing for sand sand doesn’t host a whole lot of microbes either but with this magic combination of sand Sil and Clay the the high mineral density of sand the nutrient range of clay and minerals and the ashes and dirt components of silt all come together to make the perfect lone based soil for you for your garden and for your Target that one is hard to keep short because I kind of just want to start going way down rabbit holes and then we’d spend the entire hour on just that one slide so we got to move on but with that being said I wanted to go over this assessing your soil slide and then I’ve got a little sneak preview for you guys so assessing your soil is extremely important not only through grabbing it in texture and the squeeze test but also analytical using tools whether it’s a acid strip test just to check the pH or it’s a nice meter like this blue lab soil meter here or you’re actually going out and scooping it up putting it in Ziploc bags labeling where it came from in the garden and when and where sending it off to a lab and having that test tested by an agricultural College to make sure that you have got a good soil nutrient profile and more importantly that’s the best way to do it because it’s going to give you exact targets of NPK calcium magnesium iron Boron zinc plus plus and at the end of the day the these are the things that we really need to know to be able to dial our soil perfectly but if we’re getting good growth out of our garden and we take a General soil amending um account of even and balanced nutrient additives across the different soil beds that we’re doing sorry I think I’m getting a little bit of breakout here but um yeah so if we allow the different soil beds that we are trying to amend a general and balanced amending we can generally keep our soil pretty balanced all the way through as long as our plants at the end of last season were like hey our plants are growing really good if you’re starting with good soil it’s easy to keep good soil with a general well-balanced amending plan if you don’t have good results that’s where it really comes into play to take measuring and assessing your soil very seriously because sometimes it’s the nutrients sometimes it’s the ratios of nutrients sometimes it’s the pH sometimes s it’s the consistency of air and drainage and water retention based upon clay silt and Sam to loone ratios so these are a lot of the different reasons that it is smart especially during the winter and the early spring to go ahead and go get your soil tested every few years to be able to give you a rock solid concrete lab report so you know exactly where you’re standing it most of the time you will be surprised because you have way more of something than you thought and maybe not enough of another thing that you thought so I highly recommend assessing your soil and doing a dig test before adding anything grab a little a little garden shovel I can’t even remember what it’s called right now A Hoe a pick uh Spade that’s the one I was looking for a spade grab a spade and go ahead and dig up some soil get it in your hands if you’re curious how it’s draining go grab a red Solo cup poke some holes in the bottom put some soil in there and start watering it you might be like wow that doesn’t drain at all you might be like whoa that retains way more water than I thought or it might just puddle up completely playing with your soil is not just for kids it’s for adults and gardeners too so we got to have fun the garden but it’s important to do these little basic things that are completely free for us to do to be able to know how a simple dig test is going to show where our soil is at what its texture structure and organic content is looking like and how we can inspect the soil food web members like the earthworms and the hypoaspis miles and the springtails and the all the different soil born soil life or we could go out and we could get a pH pen and we can take it to the next level with that same slurry test we can now take a cup and we can have no holes in the bottom of it we can put a little bit of soil in there it’s one part soil and one part water for you guys that got to join the webinar today that will be my my easy Pro tip for you is one part soil one part water if you do have a pH pen measure your water PH before so you know what it’s at maybe you need to take that into account a little I’ll dive in later to tell you how you do that or feel free to hit us up at info@ byfs supply.com or give us a call or throw a comment down below is always the best thing to do so one part soil one part water into a Solo Cup mix it around Shake It Up Stir It put your pH pen in see the difference between your tap water PH and your soil PH figure out your mean variable sneak preview coming soon and then figure out your ideal PH range for that specific type of plant is it a blueberry because it might be like four to 4.5 is it a tomato 5.5 is it something else I don’t know what are you growing hey what are you guys growing what are you guys growing what are you excited to grow in the 2024 season throw a comment down below we’d love to hear it it’s very important to us because we are going to be creating some fun modules and mini courses or quests based upon your guys’s feedback so the one that I’m really excited about is how to maximize tomato yield I want to two years ago I grew over 2,000 pounds of tomatoes in in a very small amount of space I want to see if I can beat it this last year I didn’t even come close I maybe got like 600 lbs maybe versus like 2,200 just wasn’t a tomato year it happens guys don’t beat yourself up mother nature throws curveballs and when it’s like rainy and overcast for a month straight Tomatoes don’t really like it that much but I digress hey I’m going to take this little opportunity to take a show you guys something and get you guys a little bit more acquainted with byf Academy and also byf Supply so backyard Farming Supply is the precursor to byf Academy where we really wanted to connect with our community and bring really good products and knowledge to the marketplace but we found as we went further that there was a huge gap in the market of information and a lot of people just wanted some simple places to be able to go and access the content the guides the calendars the ebooks the workbooks the video modules take the tests do the quizzes through backyard farming Academy so we’ve created backyard farming Academy but we got to give some love to Backyard Farming Supply if I was going to start a Nutri company if I was going to start an organic supplements company that is exactly how I would do it [Music] [Applause] we did not inherit the planet from our parents but we are borrowing it from our children because most importantly we wanted to be a fertilizer company that felt good about what we are putting into the Earth that’s the ultimate goal I think is fixing uh this food problem also just food accessibility a lot of people think eating organic is going to cost more money if you’re growing it in your own backyard it’s at a fraction of the cost and scientifically proven like working with in the earth there’s actually microbiomes and bacteria and things that are like anti-depressants and actually make you happy the things that we’re doing are rooted in real science real testing real side by side results and they’re really meant to help people improve whatever they’re doing in an affordable way doing a video all about a conquer rtion which is a type of pepper they’re super mega really good oh my God hey guys by the way I just got to pause this and say today is tean’s birthday today Tegan turns nine happy birthday tan we love you buddy can’t wait to see you here in a few hours when you get off school welcome to the back [Music] bar back here Farming Supply started way back before there was a whole dly [Music] family we started with Ziploc bags with Sharpie marker instructions on fertilizer Blends it was pretty funny and over time it just kind of snowballed and grew and grew and grew my very first product ever was the Cyclone Brewer and it allowed Growers to basically keep their fertilizer tank mixed up and air rated so it wouldn’t go bad I started to have a lot of really good feedback and people were coming back like oh my gosh I put that stuff on my plants and I’ve never seen them grow like that I had been ordering the prodct for a while and had gotten a bunch of my guys on it and they were loving it I’m a a fan of Tate and his backyard farming it’s been amazing we continued to research and develop with organic versus synthetic and 100% pure active ingredients no fillers no preservatives real ingredients of fertilizers at the industry highest potency we felt that we just definitely had something very special when I uh first started working with backyard farming was that ha always said healthy Roots healthy fruits feed the soil because the soil can then give you everything that the plant needs anybody can start whether it’s from you know some little container by your window in an apartment all the way to race beds in your backyard getting out there and telling people hey you can take a small plot of land like this and you can actually maximize and really get some significant produce out of it let’s put good things into the ground that we feel good about for future Generations thank you guys make sure to go check out backyard Farming Supply on all the socials and you know I just got to talk about that real quick like it’s so gratifying to see where we’ve been where we’ve come where we’re going and the support and love and engagement that we get from all of you guys as well as our backyard farming family the people that you just saw on that video are literally my family members not by Blood but in life and I love all of those people that’s for sure um but yeah so you know at the end of the day a lot of people are always like Tate how big is your garden you got like Acres dude and I’m like no man and they they come over to my house and they’re like dude I thought you would like a farm or something I’m like yeah come here check this out and then they go into my backyard and I’m I’m blessed with a big backyard for an urban neighborhood don’t get me wrong absolutely blessed love my house but I’m not on Acres I think our whole property is like a fifth of an acre or a sixth of an acre or something like that in total and that’s including my house and my driveway so definitely not on Acres not even the the whole thing isn’t even on a quarter acre it’s less than a quarter acre including my house so a lot of times that puts it in perspective for people because a lot of times always feel like oh if I’m going to be a farmer and I got to have a big old garden and grow food for my family I got to have acres and acres and I got to live out in the country and that’s exactly what we’re trying to prove that you don’t need we can we can have somebody who’s growing in an apartment on a little easy clone or on a vertical grow tower on their balcony anybody can become a Backyard Farmer or a patio farmer or a tabletop farmer or a sidey yard farmer or a front yard farmer it doesn’t just have to be for the backyard and this is really important there’s so many ways that we can get really creative and give you guys so many solutions with our 12 plus different backyard yard farming features that we’re going to go into maybe on the next presentation what are the features of a backyard farm because at the end of the day I think that this is a really important topic of how we can influence property design from the get-go let’s say you’ve got a house and you’re want to do something outside and you want to fix up the the property you want to change some stuff or you just moved into a brand new house and you’re looking at a blank slate how do we influence the traditional let’s put a tree there some shrubs there a lawn there and some rocks there that everybody does to let’s have 24 raised beds some of them are vertical Planters some of them are meant for ground crops some of them are meant for root crops some of them are meant for peppers and tomatoes and everything in between to be able to maximize your property your Harvest but also create those memories with your family so that you can teach your family not how to feed itself for a day but how to feed itself carrots corn squash peppers tomatoes onions garlic for a lifetime that’s what we’re all about we’re here to give back to the community Through backyard farming so let’s continue with the foundation of our backyard farm like I mentioned in aess so you can go get the rapid test you go get the rapid test and make sure you guys check out the BF store check out the backyard Farming Supply Store on Amazon or our website there’s this product is actually available on our Amazon store we want to make your guys’ life super easy go check it out because we’ve bundled all of our favorite easy to use go-to products over there to make your life simple you don’t have to go and sort through thousands of products through some huge Garden catalog or website that sounds like Alchemy and Magic but we’ve made it easy for you guys so at the end of the day these simple little home tests are super easy to give you your soil nitrogen phosphorus and potassium nutrient levels also your soil PH range knowing what’s there is a good guide to giving you a clue at what amendments you should buy do you need to be adding biofish 777 or should or is your phosphate out of balance and you need to go add a fish bone meal with 14% nitrogen this is really what these type of analytical tools are going to help you to do and allow you to lock in healthy soil that is balanced because in imbalance and excess is not truly healthy it’s all about balance in life and spirit and mind in soil and in the garden so don’t rely solely on numbers your plants are huge indicators of your soil Health like I said at the end of like two or three slides back if your plants were doing amazing last year then yeah sure if you want to lightly amend with a general well balanced flat across the scale NPK diet micronutrient diet biological diet starches and sugars carbon products Brown go for it but when you start going heavy-handed on any of these things individually is when you start imbalancing your soil which ultimately will reduce growth and decrease soil Health which I look for strong growth even moisture retention and no erosion because if we got nice compaction nice airation nice drainage nice irrigation nice fertigation good plants planted at the right timing and a good season by Mother Nature a lot of things are way easier and while we’re down there in the soil make sure to look at our soil food web friends because they’re going to also tell us what our soil is potentially imbalanced in if our soil is too much green material from uncomposted things we’re going to see a lot bigger soil food web activity we’re going to see more centipedes more earthworms more roly poy more springtails and even just bugs larger bugs in general as those things get broken down the the bugs or the microbial and fungal life just get smaller and smaller until it’s all the way to where it’s going to be going into the Riso who knows what Riso sphere is put it in the comments down below I’m gonna leave that I’m not going to answer it we’re going to pick one lucky winner down below for a fun treat so who knows what a risos feere do not Google it I know you got your computer right in front of you no need to do that come on now so I like to have fun with these things guys I know I could be more fun I could be more entertaining let me know what could we do that makes this more fun more entertaining more interactive easier to sit through maybe it’s I should shut up and get to the content I don’t know but building healthy soil is a it’s an not an overnight process yeah you can start overnight by buying some bagged B balanced really good soil but a lot of times those things don’t exist bad soil is often times produced in Mass bulk quantity and they allow some of the composting process to be done in the bag while it’s sitting in storage on the pallet at the Shelf it in your garage until it goes into the garden so how do we build healthy soil even with really good soil that might not be fully fully optimized or ready for our plants well one thing that you can do with any soil at the beginning of any year is mulch mulch is absolute magic and this wonderful material actually conserves moisture that’s one of the biggest things that I love about Mo mulch is how it conserves moisture it also eliminates direct solar radiation which then would kill your microbials eliminate your moisture dry out your soil and ultimately make it much more dead and harder for that microbial and soil food web to stay active and become active again the upcoming year so when we add organic material over time like straw wood chips leaves or even plant sticks stems Roots all of those different things will allow our soil and plants to thrive over time the cover crop is not be underestimated in any way shape or form either and it can be also a type of mulch so I absolutely love white clover white clover is absolutely amazing cover crop and I’ve found literal five leaf clovers the size of my hand let alone many fourleaf clovers and that’s fun yeah when it’s sometimes in the summer it’s a beautiful day trying to get your kids away from the screen hey guys go outside we don’t want to well go jump on the trampoline oh we’re tired can you guys go outside we don’t want to hey guys you want to have a fourleaf clover hunt they’re like heck yeah we do and when they find one now you’ve got all the kids always asking you when do we get to do another fourleaf Clover hunt that’s amazing in of itself so I’m huge fan of white clover I digress cover crop is absolutely amazing a lot of times things like any legume and something like a white clover will actually sequester nitrogen from the atmosphere holds a lot of it into its plant obviously because it’s a green leafy material plant some of it gets obviously exudated back into the soil but I wanted to clear up a little garden MTH yes plants will exudate nutrients don’t get me wrong they will add nitrogen they will add phosphorus they will add pottassium they might even add other things back to the soil depending on what type of plant it is but one of the biggest areas that we get nitrogen back out of our cover crop is when it dies when it dies and it starts to break down and that organic matter becomes plant available nitrogen because a lot of times our carbon to nitrogen ratio comes from any of the carbon based mat materials that were once green and then turned brown so I’m a huge proponent of cover crop during the summer right at the fall maybe a little bit early spring but once you get it established you really shouldn’t have to touch it much I haven’t laid down cover crop seed at my house with white clover cover crop in probably two or three years on existing features now if I have a new guard bed obviously I have to put it in but on existing features that have had cover crop usually it stays now sometimes it doesn’t you guys go check out the YouTube channel there’s a couple times where my plants just get so big and so massive so fast that everything underneath them gets shaded out and the cover crop just doesn’t have the light that it needs to thrive and survive it is what it is at the end of the day and if you can add a little it’s okay but if your plant is already blocking out all the solar radiation and acting kind of as a sun shade for your soil at the end of the day a lot of these building healthy soil Basics are about how do we protect our soil from the Sun from over drying and that’s pretty much the main two and becoming out of balance but the main two is solar and dry cuz once we have those two things we now have no microbial activity in our soil which is required for organic gardening that’s what makes the nutrients available most of them and a lot more easily uptaken by plants crop rotation is another thing this is a really common thing that I get asked about when people come over to my house they’re like do you rotate your crops I do a little bit but mainly I don’t here’s why I’m constantly adding organic fertilizers and compost teas through my irrigation system my irrigation system is not just water and for you guys if your irrigation or your watering is just water that’d be like saying the day after Thanksgiving you’re not hungry you might not be as hungry but you’re going to at least eat one time what about a week after Thanksgiving you’re back to your normal diet so we could look at planting in the soil in the early spring after amending mulching cover cropping as our Thanksgiving well one or two weeks later our plants are like Yo dude I’m really hungry again can I please have some more I don’t care how much nutrients is in the soil how balanced it is at the end of the day you will get a bigger better yield and more explosive growth if you’re constantly giving salads and healthy meals in the right volume just like people it’s not about gorging the plant because when you Gorge the plant it slows down just like we do we’re tired after Thanksgiving I don’t want to move same thing for plants when you overwhelm them with food they’re like H I don’t want to move and the extent is like they’re like oh God you burned me and my leaves are burnt up usually does not happen in Organics if you you see any burning in Organics it’s usually because of moisture retention and usually too much moisture retention and your roots are standing in water and you’re there it’s actually drowning your plant and then there’s too much moisture in the tissue and then the sun burns it that’s usually why in Organics that you burn plants but I digress once again guys I like to go down the rabbit hole this is my passion I don’t know if you guys can tell but I absolutely love talking about this stuff and tomatoes absolutely abely love to follow potatoes and chives and lettuce so planting a garden just like introducing cover crops mulch amendments and soil life is all about Harmony and balance and when you’re constantly adding to the system the system sustains itself more a lot of times crop rotation is for the concepts of stripping everything that that plant can possibly take through crop steering practices leaving the soil completely depleted and then moving on crop rotation is a little bit more of an in my opinion and what I’ve seen based upon good fertilizer and good irrigation regiment crop rotation is a good thing to practice a good thing to know how to do and for some Gardens absolutely essential depends on what you’re working with I also think it’s absolutely amazing to do crop rotation just in sight of being able to Monitor and learn how this crop rotation benefits healthy soil to bring it all the way back amendments and fertilization obviously huge topic give your garden a gigantic boost because nutrients and slow breakdown medium breakdown and fast breakdown nutrients can all be combined through soil and irrigation to maximize the Amendments and fertilizer performance cohesively together supplement specific nutrients when needed and balance whole diets when plant issues are non-existent if you guys are curious and you’re like dude I had this really weird issue going on with all my tomatoes in this one bed last year I think it’s nutrients drop a comment down below hit us up we are here in your corner we would love to help you out seeing people’s Garden Thrive is absolutely one of our passions in life we look forward to chatting organic options there’s a bunch of organic options for some reason we didn’t put keeto life nutrients on here I don’t know why but it’s okay it probably goes without being said but you know you can get basic stuff at your big box stores which will get you going down the path thing like things like organic bone meal it’s a great beginning step that’s super cheap readily available easy to use and also does not burn plants we can use these different things like my favorite on here is biofish biofish fish is absolutely amazing product from our friends over down to earth highly recommend you go check it out you can grab some from our Amazon store want to make your life easy but I really like this because it’s a 772 a lot of times the main nutrients that get absorbed are well all three depend I star and answer these things and I’m like no yeah yeah oh no what about that plant what about that plant what about that plant what about that environment what about about that grow condition it depends so I’m going to just leave that these are some really good organic options for you to include into your garden and your soil amending profile very easy to get easy to use and we also wanted to touch a little bit on inorganic fertilizers and how they can be used as a last resort obviously I’m not about synthetic fertilizers and especially the company above but I wanted to talk about it because a lot of people think some people only the only fertilizer that they know is Miracle Grow and hey you’re doing a good thing by fertilizing your plants and you definitely are seeing some increase in productivity and growth and that’s awesome so kudos to Miro will grow for getting a lot of people A Greener thumb and a bigger Harvest and potentially helping them to bring more food to their table so we got to say what’s deserved right they’ve done a lot for the agricultural movement and I appreciate that now when you’re looking at inorganic versus organic fertilizers sometimes people have a hard time with Organics in the beginning I like to call it the jump start sometimes for whatever reason maybe it’s nutrient balance maybe it’s soil structure maybe it’s soil Health maybe its microorganisms maybe it’s environment there’s a lot of different variables but sometimes people plant and their plants just don’t get rolling very quickly well sometimes it’s just espcially with the correct volume and frequency to give a little jump start boost it’s exactly that it’s coming in shocking the heart it’s hooking up the jumper cables to the battery of the car and allowing you to crank it over so it gets started and once it gets started then it’s rolling same thing for plants sometimes they actually need to get this whole system started and they need to start peeing and pooping and exudating nutrients out to feed the bacteria in the soil to allow those bacterial po populations to continue to grow and populate to allow that population to break down nutrients in the soil to allow it to be plant available and it’s a little known fact well it’s a massive known fact for organic gardeners but this is a funny way to look at it when we talk about microbes making nutrients available most of the time it’s through a microb eating a nutrient and pooping or peeing or exudating it out and so there’s the microbes sweat and that will produce certain type of enzymatic profiles nutrients and stimulate certain types of biological activity or plant nutrient uptake and also sometimes it’s through the actual excretion of the microorganism sometimes it’s from the Slime of the earthworm sometimes it’s from the poop of a bug there’s a lot of different things going on there but sometimes plants need a jump start and sometimes inorganic fertilizers can be a great way to do that now with any organic inorganic fertilizer disclaimer look into the company do you support them this is up to you based upon your values your beliefs your morals and your wallet or your vote as I like to call it now because anybody’s vote Yes it comes down to a piece of paper 2024 but it also comes down to what you spend your money on so vote for what you want to support I’m not here to tell you what you should support that’s up to you so figure out what you want to support look into the companies what have they done in history what what are they going to do in the future how do they treat their employees how how ecologically friendly are these products for the planet and a lot of other things CU there are a lot of products out there there’s a lot of choices and the choice is on you to determine which product you like the best opt for organic whenever possible and if you need a faster breakdown organic definitely check out some of the keto life nutrients that’s what they’re all about or just give us a call hit us up throw a comment down below that’s what we’re all about or if you guys are like hey I’ve got like an actual Farm here or Greenhouse operation sounds like you know some stuff about large scale cultivation I mean I have gone into 3 and4 million square foot greenh houses and help them to optimize all sorts of things and reduce their costs and increase their return on investment by significant percentages so sometimes you guys might be like hey man I’m an actual farmer I’m an actual Greenhouse CER this is my actual business I love what you’re saying and I can tell that you’re holding back and you’re only giving us 1% of the iceberg and I want to actually hire you and I want to bring you into my farm and I want to fly you out here hit us up I do Consulting for farms and agricultural operations and I’ve been doing it for a very long time so feel free to hit us up because we can help you with all sorts of things like sustainable practices water conservation and water usage is one of the biggest ones now just throwing it out for you guys we’re about six minutes after the hour we’re going a little overtime here thank you for your support engagement and attention but when it comes to water there’s a lot of things that we’ve talked about that really need a much much deeper deeper dive probably in the future we will be doing a whole webinar just on water conservation how do we conserve and utilize and optimize the water and the usage that we already have because that is way too big for me to start going down any rabbit hole and any depth for the amount of time that we’re already over so I’m going to save that but obviously drip irrigation and high frequency low volume irrigating is the key to moisture maximization at the right time of day mulch helps a significant amount I can’t even over underestimate how much mulching whether it’s with plastic dead material or living plants helps you to retain moisture it is absolutely amazing so look at these little eggplant here they’re looking good love it water deeply and less often for happy roots and healthy soil when you’re in a high moisture retention area when you’re in a low moisture retention area it’s the exact opposite so there’s always variables there’s always variables that’s what we like to get at if you guys ever see the slides and you’re like oh it says one thing and you’re kind of saying the other you know why because that’s gardening one answer is over here and one answer is over here on the exact same topic that’s the crazy thing sometimes it’s it’s wild when we look at a wellb balanced soil food web system and garden we’re going to see tons of pollinators and we’re going to create a little Paradise for them which allow them to get their nectar and to attract other pollinators bees butterflies their mates other species of that same type of bug and at the end of the day this is extremely vital I you I think that a lot of us adults need to go and watch the Bee Movie if you guys haven’t seen the be movie it’s a great one it is a kids movie but I do recommend it it’s entertaining get your kiddos out get your nieces and nephews out get your cousins out get whoever out get your neighbors kids out go watch the Bee Movie because I think it instills a really really important lesson that we owe more to the bees than we can possibly even comprehend they really support a lot of our our soil or a lot of our food system is supported by bees we owe our little friends here thanks little guy for everything that you’re doing they’re working hard all day every day for us sometimes they get ignored sometimes the environment is hard for them so we got to stand up for them whether it’s man inflicted issues in the environment or Mother Nature inflicted issues in the environment we need to watch out for our pollinator friends because when they go we go that’s for sure plan a variety of blo throughout the season to avoid pesticides harmful to these tiny Heroes and that’s exactly true did you guys know that bees eat aphids they also eat spidermites and they also eat a lot of bad bugs yes they like to slurp up nectar but they also eat bugs in your garden so it’s pretty cool every type of bug that you introduce into your garden has some type of beneficial reaction even a bad bug why because it’s food for the good bugs and the more food for the good bugs the more that the good bugs can establish to have more population to take out more of the bad bugs and then once the bad bugs are gone the good bugs move elsewhere leave the leaves leave the leaves I have a whole video on this on Instagram recently my my neighbors right now are probably like dude you’re like the guy that makes his house look all super nice all summer and during the winter it looks like crap because I just let everything fall and I just leave it you know why because I want my little beneficial bug friends and soil food web soil health building friends to stay around as long as absolutely possible and sometimes by us leaving these Leaf p piles and one leaf pile is this thick and another one’s this thick and another one’s completely gone and another one’s this thick and some of it’s breaking down over here and some of it’s not broken down over there that allows all of these soil food web creatures and friends to be able to hide from the elements hide from the cold hide from the sun hide from the air and also even hide from predators there’s a lot of ways that leaving leaves on the ground even outside of your beds where you’re actually gardening keeps more beneficial biology and more pollinators on your property and I think that that is essential there is a time of year where you can go and clean it up and that’s early spring right when you’re getting your soil amending when you got your soil test done you’re like all right most of the winter is over we got like eight to 12 weeks of winter left maybe at that point clean it up a little bit and leave it only in the beds you know but I digress let fallen leaves lie and remember this this healthy soil is the foundation of a thriving Garden a gift for future generations and a vital part for our planet’s Health by understanding assessing building and nurturing your soil you’re not just growing plants you’re cultivating a vibrant ecosystem brimming in beaming with life and that couldn’t be anything further that that’s so close to the truth for us but at the end of the day we got to thank you guys I know it wasn’t perfect I was stumbling a little bit today I don’t know why normally I don’t stumble like that but you know it is what it is I was also doing like that 15 things like up until one minute before this thing started so if you guys understand that we’re humans you understand that we’re new at webinars and we’re getting better every time throw us a thumbs up it’s all good we’re all human right but at the end of the day we’re going to keep getting better and we look forward to the next webinar the next webinar is actually in two Thursdays from now so today is the 11th in two weeks from today I will be back from my international travels and we are going to be doing another webinar and I think you guys are going to like what it’s going to be on I kind of teased it today make sure you keep your inbox open and for the invite or click the link in this video to see what we got cooking for next time but we wanted to end it with let’s grow together let’s make the world world a better place let’s create a better world I’m Tate dly with backyard farming backyard farming Academy and your gardening friend we’ll see you next time have a great day