Organic Gardening Tips To Increase Plant Taste & Smell! (Garden Talk #111)

In this episode of Garden Talk, I interview Luna Whitcomb. She has been gardening for 15 years and has experience with indoor, outdoor, greenhouse, and field cultivation. She is a writer for SKUNK Magazine and her methodologies revolve around growing organically. She has knowledge on microscopy, biology, entomology, agronomy, botany, and enzymology. In this episode she talks about organic gardening methods that she does to help increase the final product’s taste and smell. What type of plants do you like to grow? Kale, lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, oranges, grapes, apples, potatoes, house plants, let us know in the comments section below. If you enjoyed this video please click that thumbs up button 🙂

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★Timestamps★
00:00 – Podcast Intro
01:04 – Sponsors
02:06 – Introduction
04:47 – Does Growing With Organics Provide A Better Taste/Smell?
07:45 – How Microbes Impact A Plant’s Taste/Smell
10:53 – The Soil Food Web Explained
16:07 – Microbial Inoculants
20:01 – Soil Mix
28:07 – Organic Inputs
32:54 – Amino Acids
39:57 – Root Exudates
45:55 – Horizontal Gene Transfer
47:47 – Advice To Get Better Taste/Smell In Plants
53:47 – Container Size For Growing Organic
55:41 – Final Words

welcome to the Garden Talk podcast where we interview Growers from all over the world both beginners and experts seeking to learn more about what they know about gardening and how they do things in their Garden what’s up everybody if you that don’t know me my name is Chris aka Mr Grow and you’re tuned in to the Garden Talk podcast this episode number 111 in this episode I interview Luna witcom she has been gardening for 15 years and has experience with indoor outdoor greenhouse and field cultivation she is a writer for conk magazine and her methodologies revolve around organic gardening she has knowledge on microscopy biology entomology Agronomy botney and enzymology in this episode she talks about organic gardening methods that she does in order to help improve the taste and smell of the final product if you want to see highlights of these podcast episodes search Garden talk clips on YouTube that is a channel dedicated to short clips of these podcast episodes one of my goals of this podcast is to bring free information about gardening to the general public that that being said I’d like to thank the sponsors of today’s episode who helped make that goal possible thanks to AC Infinity for sponsoring this episode my entire ventilation system is AC Infinity I have their inline fan ducting carbon filter and their controller I love the controller 69 Pro with temperature humidity and VPD programming and having control of different fan speeds this makes it so much easier to control my grow environment their controller 69 pro version also controls their oscill fans grow lights and humidifier the discount code Mr Grow 15 works on both Amazon and their website AC infinity.com stash blend I’ve been using stash blend for over a year now and it’s awesome one of the things that I really like is that it saves me money it’s a whole bunch of different inputs in one so I no longer have to go out there and buy a silica bottle then a separate seaweed bottle beneficial bacteria then a separate one for microle fungi all of that plus more is in this one blend go go to stash blend.com to learn more about it and I also have a link down in the YouTube description section below and we are back welcome to the Garden Talk podcast today I am joined with Luna whip how you doing today pretty good thanks for having me on and thanks for coming on so I initially came across you through the FCP Channel and I I think you’ve been on there multiple times and I mean if you just search your name into YouTube there’s several different talks and you have a lot of knowledge when it comes to gardening more on the advanced side of things which really piqu my interest because we do have uh quite a bit of advanced folks here that tune in to this podcast and I know you’re all into the organic side of things that’s really what I want to get into today is kind of organic gardening and I know a lot of folks their goal is really to bring out a good taste and smell in the final product so kind of utilizing these methods and kind of how we go here if you have any tips along those lines please feel free to mention them because that is certainly an end goal for a lot of folks but before we get into the questions can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself kind of tell us how you got into gardening and stuff like that yeah sure uh so my name is Luna Wickham I specialize in Agronomy soil biology microscopy enology um I do a lot of work on building soil and making nutrients available in soil through balancing nutrients through the soil mineral balancing Theory as well as making them available with mimicking root exit dates adding amino acids enzymes carbohydrates uh and processes that promote biology consume nutrients cycle them through their different processes and make them available to plants to promote Health Vigor flavor and Aroma I originally got into gardening um through growing medicinal plants I started cultivating in 2009 I’ve been cultivating for 15 years um doing outdoor living soil outdoor organic cultivation um growing in ground using a lot of teas a lot of different inoculants a lot of compost um and really forming an alliance with nature to promote you know healthy vigorous medicine like to to grow real medicine that’s therapeutic flavorful enjoyable for people um did this in Northern California I’ve also done it in southern Oregon I have experience doing consulting on hemp farms and growing in green houses indoor outdoor um using synthetic nutrients also using organic nutrients I kind of just touched on all of that good stuff there so I’m GNA ask you a controversial question right off the bat and uh do it I like many Growers claim that growing with Organic inputs and utilizing microbiology results in the plants producing a better taste and smell they swear by it they say hey organic way better than anything bottle grown what’s your take on that I subscribe to that ideology also I’ve done hydroponic cultivation for many years um I’ve also done living soil and organic cultivation from my understanding of how it kind of results in better flavor and Aroma is that each of these compounds that produce flavonoids they produce Aroma they produce you know the different diversities of smell they all require a complex chain of compounds prior to their formation to be able to be expressed genetically expressed in a plant so if you’re lacking any piece in the chain that’s required to biosynthesize these compounds they simply just won’t synthesize so in a hydroponic growing environment we have a very we have a much more narrow profile of nutrients and compounds we have our major ones you know that you hear of the NPK the calcium the Magnesium um but when it comes down to different forms of nitrogen different forms of phosphorus different forms of calcium living soil has a much broader diversity of these compounds while also including a diversity of amino acids A diversity of enzymes A diversity of organic acids and these compounds all have uh they create unique physiological responses in plants and they produce different genetic Expressions so when you have a larger diversity of these compounds it allows the plant to biosynthesize different flavonoids and and you know volatile organic compounds the things that produce Aroma like Esters phenols thols which produce a different profile a more depth profile of Aroma and I believe that that’s more achievable and more likely to be achievable in a living soil setting in an organic setting than in a hydroponic setting however that’s going to be based on user un like the user success so just because you’re growing an organic doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to end up with a better product um and a lot of the times it’s more difficult for people to grow in organic settings because it can be a little bit more complicated um and you may not result uh have an end result that is you know more flavorful has more Aroma more aromatic so I think that it’s potentially possible that you can have more flavor more smell um but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you well understood that’s a really good way to break it down and I think you’ve revealed some information here that hasn’t been revealed on any of the past episodes now one of the things a follow-up question to this is uh and I know we’re going to get into microbes here in a little bit but uh this relates to microbes is what is their impact to the taste and smell that the plants Express so microbes during their processes of decomposing organic matter they secrete enzymes that are key components and building blocks um or key components to processes that provide the diversity of organic compounds needed by plants to produce different flavonoids and Aromas they also they secrete um they secrete enzymes they secrete carbohydrates they break down organic matter but they also convert particular organic acids into other organic acids they can also break certain organic acids down um so they’re no longer viable are no longer useful by the plant but they can also stabilize organic acids and like I mentioned earlier they organic acids have specific plant physiologic stimulating effects so microbes with their interaction with the soil and the diversity of compounds in the soil the nutrients the um organic acids like I had said and the different the broad profile of these different things that exist inside of the soil their their role changes the composition of these things and allows for a wider diversity so on top of that also microbes can be what’s called endic and what that means is they can exist inside the cell of the plant and inside the cell of the plant they also do these processes but an important part of this P like an important piece of this puzzle is that they also can create phyto hormones so phyto hormones they trigger specific actions in the plant they can trigger um like P pest defense stress responses they can promote different flowering stages they can Pro promote you know node elongation you know bud swelling and stuff like that they’re made by the plant but they you like the plant and the microb work together to create these compounds they can be created in the soil they can also be created in the cell of the plant so we have our our decomposing microbes that do what I had mentioned but we also have our endic microbes which can exist inside the cell of the plant and produce these phyto hormones directly at the cell to stimulate the plant to do these different processes and produce more Aroma more flavor resulting in a better product incredible yeah Endo fights is something that uh I picked up learned from Jeff lenells so shout out to him I had him on the podcast in the past he did a really good breakdown of endo fights and their role and he was so excited about it it was incredible I I say a newer thing that’s kind of been learned over the past you know 5 10 years or so it seems like there’s more Focus talking about end fights versus just the soil microb and really uncovering more things that we’re learning about Endo fights and how it impacts the plant so really cool that you had mentioned that here they’re extremely fascinating yeah and talking about the other microbes particularly the ones in the soil you did a really good breakdown on another top I had tuned in of yours talking about you know bacteria and fungi and ARA can you give us kind of like layman’s terms or just kind of the basics of those microbes kind of information Growers should know to help improve plant health and growth sure so um what it sounds like you referring to is like the soil food web and we have like our lower bacteria right which is you know kind of just what you think of when you think of bacteria we also have like our protozoa which are which are kind of just like the the Predators within the the soil World um protozoa actually means early animal or first animal they’re supposedly the first step in evolution between bacteria and animal and what they do is they run around they swim around they little wiggle around and stuff um and they consume the lower bacteria so the lower bacteria consumes organic matter um that possesses forms of nutrients and then the protozoa will come around and consume that bacteria and unlock those nutrient nutrients they change it from one form to another like I had mentioned earlier just kind of touched on it there are different forms of these nutrients with different forms of nitrogen there’s different forms of phosphorus and what this biology is doing when it’s consuming lower bacteria is it’s changing it from one cycle to another and you hear this as the nitrogen cycle or the phosphorus cycle um there’s also nematodes nematodes are like tiny little little worms they serve a whole bunch of different functions there’s predatory nematodes um there’s a lot of different species of nematodes but a lot of the time they consume bacteria they can also consume fungus and in this process they’re breaking down and releasing nutrients from bacteria but also converting things like polysaccharides into um simple sugars so they’re taking complex sugars they’re turning them into simple sugars um and they’re allowing for other biology to consume it and feed on it’s all just like this big cycle right right and then we also have you know um amibas and ARA and stuff like that and they all kind of serve similar functions as protozoa there’s felet they’re within the protozoa family um but further on like in the soil food web we have like microarthropods right which are tiny tiny insects like mites and mites can actually consume forms of protozoa they also break down in Trad organic matter and their excrement um is full of nutrients for the plant as well so all of these components are required to really have like a healthy living organic soil that’s full of cycling nutrients and a diversity of compounds that promote that flavor and that give give people the the outcome that they’re looking for with living soil and organic cultivation we can tailor different fermentations whether they’re aerobic with oxygen um multiplied with oxygen or anerobic multiplied without oxygen we can tailor different mentations to introduce specific forms of these biology we can also tailor them by adding different food sources to our fermentations different different species of bacteria they they prefer different food sources which is why there’s different types of like agar plates and stuff like that right um so we can actually tailor our fermentations through different food sources through different polysaccharides as well as different enzymes and amino acids to promote diversity Within in like our fermentations and introduce them to the soil that’s kind of more complicated and requires a little bit of understanding but it’s a really really fascinating aspect of living soil that I think people shouldn’t ignore and it’s also really a lot of fun so you hear about people talking about um lactic acid bacteria serum or fermenting you know making activated um effective microorganisms or um ired compost tees and things like that that’s that’s kind of the the the foundation of it but you can take it a little bit further when you understand how biology works and what it requires to multiply then you can you can promote the multiplication of very specific species of biology especially if you’re using inoculants like a source inoculant for example there’s um you know phosphorus solubilizing microbes right you can introduce phosphorous solubilizing microbes the food source they prefer as well as the enzymes that they secrete to kind of give them the home and the stimulation they require um to thrive and multiply them and I think that that’s like that’s kind of like the next level like advanced stuff that people can get into um that really takes someone from struggling with living soil and organic cultivation to like really taking full advantage of it and seeing like it’s real potential which can be intimidating but in the end the juice is definitely worth a squeeze and I highly encourage people to dive down those rabbit holes and learn about microbes and biology to you know level up their game that’s interesting yeah I think a lot of people use microbial inoculant um you know they’re buying it off the shelf whether it be like a mammoth P or tribus or there’s a ton of different microbi inoculant products on the market today and uh you know they’re using those they’re adding them in and then of course it’s they’re doing their jobs in the soil there do you use any microbial inoculant or you kind of doing like the Imo natural farming process IMO for those that don’t know it’s indigenous microorganisms there’s basically a process that’s done where you can get microbes naturally from your native soil for example can you talk to us about kind of microbial inoculant like ones that you use or maybe the IMO process if you do that sure um so I actually don’t use the IML process I have um particular opinions about it um and we can get into that too but to first answer your original question I will use some microb ulence specifically if I’m after a particular end of Fight right so a lot of these bottle inoculants they have you know basilla species that are pretty common um and exist kind of ubiquitously in nature um and you can really harness them just with high quality earthworm castings and insect frass so I like to just source that my inoculant source is earthworm castings and insect Fass which is my preferred method of inoculant because insects they do what’s called mesophilic composting where they take organic matter and they break it down mesophilic which is like uh medium temperature which so they have we have mesophilic we have thermophilic thermophilic would be like traditional composting where you’re turning and it’s getting really hot um that heat can limit diversity of microbes it also produces CO2 not in any excessive amount that it’s you know really damaging to the environment but potentially it can be and and I prefer to not put the labor in to turn compost piles but to use insects kind of as my allies to break down organic matter faster in my opinion with less labor and produce a wider diversity of biology that I can introduce as my microbial inoculate so if I am after very specific species of of biology of microbes like um you know the phosphorous solubilizing bacteria that I had mentioned earlier I’ll pick up a product like Mammoth P I’ll also you know find all Source enzymes that are secret secreted by those specific bacteria you can buy them online with different websites um introduce them to like a fermentation find the specific food source that they prefer introduce that as as well and let them multiply so that I’m not limited to the very small amount that I’ve purchased and I like to do that with a bunch of different biology um it sounds kind of intimidating it’s really not but um when I do use bottled inoculants I’ll find specific bottled inoculants that have specific endites so another one is uh rotos sudon rotos sudam monus palestras which is a photosynthetic Endy that you can find in a product like uh photosynthetic Plus or I’m sorry photosynthesis plus which is a microbl product so those are the two that I really use um I’ll use micro um photosynthesis plus and I’ll also use Mammoth P cuzz those have very particular bacteria that I want um another one would be like nitrogen um solubilizing and fixing bacteria so those are like the big ones that I’ll use those are the big inoculant that I’ll go after but other than that I use earthworm castings and insect frass as my go-to for my inoculant for my soil earthworm castings in Tech fast I love those two inputs really really good I use them in just about every grow as well well let’s get into inputs actually let’s first get into initial soil mix right so what is your kind of recommended soil mix to begin a lot of people are going after the the one to one: one clamus cot is kind of made that famous although he got that from University I forget which university you got it from but one part where it’s either Pete or cocoa one part Iration and then uh one part of compost to worm casting and then some people add fertilizer on it as well but what’s your recommended soil mix so I love coup um I’ve actually done podcasts with him before um I don’t follow that heavy of an organic matter mix I’ll max out my organic matter at about 20% but I’ve seen great results with organic matter as low as 5% um 20% from a study that I’ve seen recently released by uh Cornell University is kind of the maximum that that Cornell has recommended in recent years and I know that that c is you know a very knowledgeable person um but I think that that study was from a while ago he released that CP mix um quite some time ago now and it’s a very it’s like probably the most well-known living soil organic mix out there is the the cot mix cuz he was one of the first people to just release it I’ve used it before it’s not my favorite in terms of like what’s my favorite mix if I told you you wouldn’t know the name of it so like no one would know what it is but um what I do is I follow a system called the alre soil mineral balancing Theory and I encourage everyone to look this up and it has different ratios of nutrients um that are applicable to different soil compositions and one of them being um like Rich potting soil that’s mixed you know with Pete or cocoa um and it has different different ratios for NPK so on through your your trace minerals your micros um and that’s what I like to follow um is the soil mineral balancing Theory there are some bagged soils that I will use there’s sensy side that I like to use in southern Oregon um I had U I grew the these monster plants um in southern Oregan a few years ago and I used that soil it was great it was a cocoa core based mix that was also balanced with Al soil mineral balancing Theory um you know he was an agronomist that came up with this this approach to generating and remediating soil after the dust bow um he saw that there was a problem that needed to be fixed and he came up with these techniques and released it to the world but it was all kind of ignored um because there was a whole bunch of ammonium nitrate that had just hit the uh the industry um after the world war and people you know are there was a gentleman I forgot his name but he realized that you can use ammonium nitrate to grow crops with and it totally changed the world and it produced tons of food for people um so his theory um Dr Al his theories kind of got brushed to the side because you know we can use this byproduct from the military industrial complex to grow all this food but now it’s kind of becoming more applicable with medicinal plant cultivation where people are really trying to level up the the nutrient cycling the nutrient availability um in custom soil mixes and so now it’s becoming more applicable um but you look at all of his work and it’s back you know in the 20s and the 30s um but it’s really interesting and I definitely recommend people look into it um any living soil mix is going to be pretty good they typically tend to be pretty expensive and I recommend people learn how to mix it and do it themselves cuz not only are you going to have a soil composition and a soil blend that’s unique to you it’ll produce a unique expression within a plant um resulting in an end product that cannot be mimicked without your very specific soil mix so you can dive down this Rabbit Hole kind of learn a little bit about Agronomy and create your own soil mix that’ll result in your own unique product but what it also does when when you learn this is you now have the skill to take any soil outside and turn it into a lush fertile Garden you can take native soil from anywhere with these practices and principles that you can Implement and turn dead dirt into living soil and have a farm anywhere which I think is one of the most invaluable skills that anyone can have so I try to encourage people to to learn how to use these techniques so that you can then it’s you can then just possess what I think is one of the most valuable skills and powers out there like there’s no bigger power than being able to feed yourself off of the land because of knowledge that you’ve Poss possessed and learned you know absolutely yeah I mean having the end goal of being able to use the native soil out of your backyard and use that then you wouldn’t have to go to the store to buy begged soil you know spending money at the the hydroponic store or your local Nursery um you wouldn’t have to do that if you’re able to take the the soil from your backyard repurpose it you know maybe a lot of these are soils are too compact depending on where you live right but I know a lot of people uh run into the issue where there it’s just too compact not enough ariation so they have to add ariation I know some people well first of all generally advised to grab a so test right you want to get a so test find out what’s in your soil to begin and then kind of make adjustments from there I know Tad hussy kiss organic shout out to him he had found uh considerable a heavy metals in in some of his native soil I forget where exactly it was on if it was his current land or or past land but he had mentioned that he’s not really able to use it so like for those folks that are interested in using their native soil you probably get a soil test to find out what’s in there to begin uh and then kind of make adjustments from there 100% so so that’s kind of one of the principles that are that are recommended in this this soil balancing theory is like you know step one you get a soil test you see what’s in it you see what is lacking you see what it’s abundant in and then you make calculations and alterations from there and if you do have an abundance of heavy metals over time you can remediate it with like cover crops and biology but you may not be able to immediately use um that soil right away um if you’re worried about heavy metals or testing requirements um there are also options of introducing certain inputs that will kind of suck in those those heavy metals things like biochar there’s also an amendment um called zolly um which has a very unique structure uh like molecular structure that holds on to heavy metals also so there are ways to like remediate heavy metals but you’re 100% right you a lot of times cannot just take a native soil um and start using it to to grow in um you 100% have to get testing done and then make calculations and alterations from there good to know I’m going to have to look into that uh so balancing theory in more detail and kind of get familiar with it uh because yeah that’s right now I am using just bag soil started off with Fox pH otion forest soil and I turn that in and I’ve been using that soil for six seven Groves now so you know adding organic inputs and being able to reuse that so over and over and over again so I don’t have to go to the store to buy begged soil anymore I live in Las Vegas and uh it’s desert out here so like I’m really nervous to try to use the the native soil in my backyard it’s mostly just sand and rock and but hey I I’ve heard it’s possible so maybe I you need to roll up my sleeves and figure it out yeah there’s people who even dry Farm in sand and have success with it there’s there’s all these different regenerative and cultivation techniques um that are really unique that have come up with solutions to a lot of different problems you just kind of got to look around for them or ask someone who who might know the answers yeah absolutely now for a lot of folks uh that are tuning in they’re probably not going to use their native soil they probably are going to go out and buy a bag soil and then they’re going to attempt to use that as a good starting point and then continue to put in organic inputs and then of course reuse that soil over and over again if somebody’s going that route or even doing like a Coots mix where they’re creating their own soil mix organic fertilizers or organic inputs what do you recommend and how often to apply them I know it’s a very broad question but throwing that at you see if you can answer that it is a broad question so I use amendments right I use soil amendments to balance my soil and then I focus on making those amendments available to the plant and usable by the plant through adding amino acids enzymes carbohydrates poly saccharides um biology and filling in the gaps of the soil food web so fertilizers fertilizer is kind of a funny word um so in terms of fertilizers I guess the the fertilizers that I use would be um sources of soy amino acids as my um cation form of nitrogen the nh4 positive right um amino acids the building blocks of proteins they’re also needed to for the formation of enzymes um I focus a lot on amino acids in my grow um also the cation form of of nitrogen found in amino acids doesn’t leech right you hear about like nitrate runoff and stuff and how it affects the environment um this doesn’t it it holds on to the negative charge um cation exchange sites in the soil better so that doesn’t rinse out opposed to um uh the NO3 negative annion that a lot of nitrogen sources are so in terms of fertilizer I use a lot of soy based amino acids I also use a lot of micronized inputs so I’ll use things like micronized lonite which is um sulfur potassium magnesium right it’s a mineral that is rich in Sulfur potassium and magnesium um and if I need those nutrient sources those elements in my my soil um or my plants require them I’ll add them in micronized form into a solution um with like some fulvic acid or some humic acid to kind of create my own carbon based fertilizers I’ll also use things like micronized rock phosphate um which is calcium phosphate so it has a lot of calcium it has a lot of phosphate in it um and phosphate is a key part of energy production inside of a plant um same thing with nitrogen so there’s um I think it’s ATP adamine triphosphate I think is how you pronounce it right and it’s um formed with nitrogen and phosphorus right and when you introduce both of them you’re you’re kind of creating an energy source for the plant so I do things I focus a lot on amino acids micronized inputs calcium phosphate potassium um in micronized forms after I’ve custom built my soil to have a balance of these different nutrients with things like gypsum um fishbone meal uh greens sand crab meal shrimp meal kelp meal um Lang bite like I mentioned what else is in my soil mix earthworm castings um earthworm castings are also a source of nutrients um however I don’t know I don’t I don’t know if I would consider them fertilizer um yeah and then there’s also other inputs that I’ll add that aren’t technically fertilizers things that just kind of like promote cation exchange capacity like uh Clays like bentonite clay zeolite that’s a lot of it for in terms of like fertilizer is just I use organic dry amendments that I mix into soil with um a biology Source like Earth room castings insect frass and then my inert you know um organic matter things like Pete M cocoa cor whatever so that’s mostly what I do I don’t actually buy much of anything that is like a nutrient Source except for those micronized inputs but I like to use a lot of fulvic acids and enzymes and amino acids also to kind of like promote the availability and mimic root exid dates which is like the function of how plants make plants I mean make nutrients readily available got it yeah I use uh a handful of those inputs that you mentioned as well so you mentioned amino acids and one thing uh I’m look at online right now actually I pulled it up is raw amino acids and uh these things are quite expensive I mean uh you get 2 ounces for $16.20 that’s $8 an ounce or you get like 2 pound for $135 you talked about amino acids and how you focus on that is a product like this raw amino acids is this something that you would potentially incorporate in your garden is it useful so I think that’s a dietary supplement um so no I wouldn’t use that I like to use bioag so they have a few different products that have amino acids they have calino they have Mulino um they have nitroamino nitroamino is the most potent one I think it’s 14 or 15% nitrogen um and that is not that expensive I think it’s a pound for like $18 or something like that $15 um and it goes a long way and no so I think what you found was like a dietary supplement for people because all all cells require amino acids and they helpful for humans to consume and for the soil to utilize and biology to utilize biology plant cells human you know animal cells you know we all use amino acids so no I don’t I wouldn’t use that one okay no this one actually is from NPK Industries uh and it does talk about oh really yeah yeah it does talk about like keates ion nutrients and facilitating plane uptake movement into cells yeah this particular one does seem to be that sounds very expensive yeah it does that’s what I say what I was asking is it even worth it to buy it that way or can we get amino acids from somewhere else you know we can get amino acids from from other places um you know since cells are all made of proteins you can break proteins back down into amino acids using enzymes that break proteins down into amino acids these are called proteolytic enzymes or protees and it’s a form of enzyme that will take a protein and break it back down into its original amino acid form you can find this inside of um U things like lactic acid bacteria serum which I’m not sure if everyone’s familiar with but it’s a fermentation of milk with lactic acid bacteria lactobacillus species um that then contains protolytic enzymes that you can add to plant matter that will break it down and turn it into amino acids there’s also specific plant inputs that are rich in amino acids things like aloe vera which I’m a big fan of using in in my soil and I’ll just take aloe vera whether cultivated by myself or from like a grocery store clean it nice and good so you don’t have kind of like funky weird stuff on it chop it up into little pieces throw it in a blender strain it and water it into your plants and there’s a lot of really simple techniques like that that you can do to introduce you know um amino acids as well as different compounds and phyto hormones to your garden um another one that I really like is um red beet um it is rich in a polysaccharide called inin which is great at multiplying um bacteria it also has nitric oxide in it which promotes um you know metabolic processes inside of the plant the list goes on and on and if you have something growing in your native environment you can actually look up the phytochemical composition of that plant on websites like Dr Duke’s phytochemical database um and it’ll tell you the full phytochemical composition and you can take that information and look it up and see what each organic acid’s physiological effect are on a plant and integrate it into your garden and you can identify what the parts per million of phosphorus that contains potassium nitrogen and so on so that you can take your local native plants and through fermentation or through just blending and straining or composting or feeding two insects you can integrate it into your garden organically sustainably regeneratively um there’s just so many cool things like that that would be really difficult to cover all of them in this in this talk but you can absolutely go out and find stuff and integrate it into your garden from your local environment and I think that’s where like the creativity and the the art really comes into living soil cultivation I think one thing that people worry about going that route is bringing in pathogens right kind of going back to the IMO process that we talked about and bringing in good microbes but they also could be bringing in some bad microbes and I know with fermentation if it’s not done right there could be bad microbes in there as well so I think that’s one thing that kind of that’s true cautions people away from it so but yeah you can definitely do it safely from what I’ve learned and kind of what you’re mentioning here so I guess it’s just a matter of uh following it step by step and doing your due diligence and uh looking under a microscope and seeing if those bad microbes exist in there or not or if there are just good microbes in there and then utilizing that that’s really difficult to do um you know you can make a slide and look at it under a microscope but being able to identify which species um in which fungi based on their like morphological properties is extremely difficult um and you could be sitting there looking at stock images all day long trying to find the one thing and then think that you found it and you haven’t um it’s it’s difficult it’s difficult to do um and often times you see people posting microscopy images making claims that they’ve found this particular thing and they’re completely base um it’s it’s definitely there’s a reason why you know people are you go to college and study for for years and years and years behind this particular uh this study you know it’s it’s definitely really difficult um but you’re 100% right like you can bring in pathogens from the outside um which is one of the reasons why I’m really big into um insect um breakdown of things because their gut microbiome is really effective at breaking down pathogens um and then it’s a much safer way to introduce it which is why I really like earthworm castings and insect f um and things like you know doing turning of compost piles and stuff I have seen so many people incorrectly compost and incorrectly make IMO and introduce pathogens to their Garden um it is it’s hard it’s hard to do it um and it takes finesse it takes a lot of attention to detail and thoroughness to really accomplish fully and like effectively um I just Outsource that labor to the bugs you know that’s that’s my Approach um but yeah you’re 100% right you can absolutely go out and take something from somewhere and bring it in um especially if your native environment isn’t entirely healthy and your native you know ecosystem isn’t fully intact that makes total sense now we took a short break and you mentioned uh something that you wanted to talk about root exit dates root exites yeah let’s get into that have you yeah are you familiar with root exit dates at all yeah a little bit okay um so root exites are compounds that are secreted by roots to facilitate several functions um one that I’ve touched on before um is that they they feed specific profiles of biology to accomplish specific goals for example there will secrete profiles of amino acids enzymes carbohydrates that promote the um multiplication of phosphorus cycling um bacteria this is called the rise of fagy cycle and during particular stages in the plant’s development it has different profiles of root exites and of these compounds I just mentioned to feed specific species of bacteria to make certain nutrients available during certain stages in the correct proportions that the plant wants them right this is like the the the overwhelming majority of how nutrients are cycled um and delivered to a plant in a living soil system is through root egg States and each plant is each species of plant is more or less effective at certain at feeding certain profiles or um yeah profiles of these compounds to feed specific species of bacteria so you’ll see people introduce cover crops and companion plants living mulches that have a diversity of different plant species that are more or less effective at secreting root exid dates tailor to specific nutrients to make them available so you’ll see people use Clover um for nitrogen um it fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere but it also solubilizes nitrogen in the rizosphere and then you have things like buckwheat which is really effective at um phosphorus solubilization um it secretes phosphates or it could be phosphotase anyway and um it’s an enzyme that helps with nutrient cycling of phosphorus this is crucial this is like super key in BIO remediation of soil as well as making nutrients available to your plants and keep in mind that these profiles of biology you know while they are also I’m sorry these profiles of compounds while they’re feeding biology they’re also catalyzing chemical reactions and calent bonds in the soil to make nutrients you know transform from one form to another right so while living soil is like an ecosystem of bacteria and biology um it’s also a Perpetual chemical reaction and so not only are we kind of working with nature um well chemistry is still nature but we are working with chemistry we’re working with bacteria biology kind of forming an alliance with these these living organisms but we’re also needing to understand how those aspects influence chemical reactions in the soil and this is done a lot of the time through root exit dates um and we can introduce and kind of mimic root exit dates with the different compounds that we play with and that’s like the the key the like the secret key behind effectively growing living soil is is mimicking root exit dates cuz this is how most nutrients change forms and become readily available um there’s also the the soil food web and how I mentioned earlier bacteria being consumed by protozoa but the vast majority of how nutrients are uptaken is through the rise of fagy cycle and how root exites interact with chemicals and with Biology and those biology in that biology breaking down specific nutrients it’s crazy the amount of reactions that are happening down in that area right I mean what blew my mind is back when I learned that uh you know acids were released by the plant in order to and you touched on this is kind of adjust the pH uh to make nutrients more available right iron is is a good example of that where the pH is too high it’s going to iron’s going to be in a form that the plant can’t uptake so the release acids gets in the correct PH range then the iron is able to be converted into that form and uptaken by the plant so it’s so fascinating and I feel like there’s still so much that we don’t know that we still learning about it and um man it goes above a lot of people’s heads it goes above my head to be honest with you because there’s there’s just so much to it it goes over everyone’s head there’s a tremendous amount about soil that we don’t know um that nobody knows that we’re just still figuring out and Yeah like he had said there’s such a complex network of reactions happening that how they all function and how they all interconnect with each other is would be would be so difficult to study because it’s all in this microcosm world that is really difficult to observe um and it’s all mixed together and this like Melting Pot of of things that’s separating them and and studying them is really really difficult for humans to do um and often times we just kind of have to like let nature do it you know let nature take care of it let the biology take care of it yep and you know that’s one thing that makes it so fun is like we’re still identifying things and we’re always going to be learning I think all of us that are living here on Earth right now uh we’re going to be learning till the day we die right and still not everything’s going to be uncovered in regards to Growing these plants and and uh soil biology and so on and so forth I think I read a stat somewhere where it’s um 99.9% of microbes haven’t even been studied yet so it’s like we’ve got way like yeah it’s it’s insane also is that they’re constantly quote unquote evolving right they’re they’re not necessarily evolving as as much as like their genetic composition is constantly changing are you familiar with um horizontal Gene transfer no okay so this is cool um horizontal Gene transfer is when there is a microbial density of bacteria to where they’re so tight together inside of like a biofilm or just like a you know sludge whatever inside a solution inside of water where there’s so much compaction there’s so much microbial density that they start tossing genes back and forth they start tossing DNA back and forth and those random combinations of DNA being passed back and forth can actually create new species of bacteria like spontaneously and this is how like the first evolutions and combinations of bacteria formed um were through this horizontal Gene transfer back in like the primordial soup of like early amino acids and humates and enzymes um you know it it’s perpetually happening so you can experience biology changing potentially rapidly but it pretty much means that we will never ever ever document all the different species of bacteria um in the world cuz it’s it’s constantly changing so we could we could find new bacteria that do new things every day for the rest of our life you know and never and never find them all it’s like this it’s like trying to find the edge of the universe you know you just can’t you just can’t do it you’re not going to be able to do it right yeah it actually reminds me of viruses viroid those can change up too right I mean we won’t get too deep into to that when we get off the subject here but like it reminds me exactly of that how they’re always changing evolving um yeah let’s bring it back into kind of more of I guess uh let’s Loop in the beginners and Inter media folks a little bit more and give them some actions okay what advice or tips do you have for folks that are maybe just getting started growing organically and they’re really focusing on they want a better taste to come out of there they want a better smell to be produced from these plants what’s some uh advice you have for them I’d say like the the first kind of easy step is make sure you have enough Iration in your soil make sure that you maintain it wet you need to keep living soil moist there are some habits that people learn from growing um hydroponically that don’t translate to living soil cultivation one of them is letting your soil dry out too much um and there probably will be people that disagree with me and want to talk about root respiration um dry backs and stuff like that and I’d be happy to get into that conversation with people but you need to keep living soil wet one is because bacteria needs to be moist it needs to have um a a solution a space to exist a media which is water to exist in and to multiply in all of living soil processes are so much dependent on bacteria and biology that when they start getting dry they stop functioning properly the rise of fagy cycle is very dependent on moisture keep your soil wet keep your soil irated that is the the I see it so much I see it so much so I have a patreon where I help people um and they post images and stuff like that um I see people just drying out their soil too much all the time just make sure you have enough biology um make sure you keep it wet and make sure that you have good drainage if you can do that you could just water only if you had enough soil you could water only um and grow a plant completely to finish in living soil um if you’re having a small soil Mass it’s going to be very difficult and you will have to have to add nutrients um and it’s going to be very difficult to keep nutrients balanced in a small pot living soil really wants large soil masses moisture and drainage and biology that’s like the stepping stone for growing living soil and some people really struggle with that um but but that’s that’s it that’s like the beginner step that I recommend to people and then you can get into like fermenting and you know adding different profiles and stuff like that after you learn about it you know um people it’s a lot of fun to do these things people like to get ahead of themselves but you can make mistakes you can introduce pathogens you can add too much of an enzyme and cook your roots or kill your worms um kill your microarthropods it’s it can be complicated um so just start with a lot of soil keep it moist keep it draining add simple inoculant like earthworm castings and insect fress if you want to use Bashi that’s great use cover crops companion plants to provide like that diversity of rot ex States like we had discussed earlier and you can just water it you just you can just water it um I did a full run in a tent with a in like a 4×4 bed in a in a tent and it was just water companion plants soil with you know nine plants in it and it just that was it and it was great it worked out great I didn’t have to do anything to it super simple don’t over complicate it yeah it definitely can be super simple now that’s one thing that uh you know you talk about keeping things moist that’s one thing I wasn’t told when I first started growing organic so I was taking my practice grow using synthetics to where I was letting the medium dry out between waterings and then the plan was showing deficiencies and I’m like hm is organic really the easier way to about I was just doing it wrong I didn’t have the medium moist enough I didn’t keep a consistent moisture level and then of course I learned about that had much better success having a a moist medium the whole time introduced blue mats Auto watering system so really dial in that moisture level in the medium and it’s just been a GameChanger for me I love blue mats um I’ve used them for years um they’re probably my favorite way to just keep soil wet um BL mats are great but yeah and and like you mentioned and I think it’s important to note is that when you’re growing in living soil and you let things dry out you start seeing symptoms um plant symptoms that mimic deficiencies when your soil actually has the nutrients in it that the plant needs but you let it dry out too much um and you know the the plant was not able to cycle nutrients effectively and then it started showing these signs of deficiencies and what people often do is they let their plants Dr out too much they see these deficiencies and then they have their but or themselves or a book help them identify the deficiency and then they start pumping it with that deficiency I mean with that nutrient you know and um and then they create an imbalance in the soil um that antagonizes another element you know creating an improper you know form improper Bond right an improper chemical reaction and now you’re perpetuating this teen reaction of aors in your soil and you start seeing all these different Burns you start seeing overdoses of nutrients you start seeing deficiencies of nutrients and you’re chasing your tail around trying to pump your soil with all these different nutrients spending all this money um when you just need to keep your soil wet and that’s that’s tough that’s hard for people and then they want to be like no I know that it needs more more calcium I know it needs more magnesium I know it needs more nitrogen and they just start hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and then things get out of whack things get out of balance you know bacteria colonies break down they don’t function properly it’s just keep keep it wet keep it wet keep it full of biology that’s got to be one of the biggest frustrations for new organic Growers is keeping that Medium moist and then yeah going through the the Motions that you mentioned is like you know things dry out and you see deficiencies and do adding inputs and so on and so forth you can just sounds like a headache sounds like a big headache there it is it’s a huge headache now you mentioned you caution people on using small container sizes what’s your recommended minimum container size to use for Organics you can pull off 20 I like to use 45 G for for a single plant um if I’m using a container um I grow in beds though I grow in big 4×8 you know in like an indoor setting of 4×8 bed um you know that’s at least 12 in deep I like to have them 18 in deep if you don’t have enough drainage 18 in can provide problems so 12 is good for most people but my bad at my Greenhouse is 5 ft wide and 60 ft long you know and 18 in deep uh and that’s that’s how I prefer to grow is I like to have a solid soil mask cuz now it turns into like an entire ecosystem um and roots go really far and micro risal networks go really far and things get transported from really long distances nutrients can be transported long distances through micro isal networks But to answer your question 20 gallons I think is minimum 45 is what I recommend um but growing in beds is what I think is ideal in living soil cultivation that makes sense yeah I mean I’ve tried growing in you know organic in puts in one gallon containers three gallons five gallons I had pretty good results with seven gallons okay then I worked my way up to 10 gallons which I’m actually in right now and I’m having some pretty good success but I know that as a track record the bigger container I go the easier it’s getting you know so uh it’s only a matter of time before I’m in a bed I actually have a twoot by 10 foot bed outside for my vegetable garden and I love it as far as my indoors only amount of time before I’m in beds as well so good advice there fantastic episode we had today great great talk I definitely learned quite a bit here I appreciate you coming on can you uh can you tell the listeners how they can find you and what do you have upcoming in the future yeah for sure so um I host podcasts on the future cannabis project every Sunday at 4:20 um I I rotate co-hosts and we we go over research papers it’s kind of like highle stuff really nerdy stuff um each co-host has like a specific specialty that that we go over uh you can find me on my Instagram it’s @ Luna all day um I have a patreon um if you go to my Instagram you can look at my bio there’s a link tree to all my different articles and stuff I write for skunk magazine um I’ve written for Greenpoint seeds and for SD microbes so I do a lot of writing I do Consulting um I do podcasts um and my my Instagram is probably where I’m the most active and share my different concoctions my recipes and my approaches you know as well as how I like to shape plants and um just My overall General approach to living soil cultivation so it’s all mostly on Instagram @ Luna all day the a in Luna and all is shared so um l u n a l l d a y that’s that’s that’s pretty much it awesome I’ll definitely have a link to where people can find you down in the YouTube description section below and then if you’re on one of the podcast platforms just just search for her you’ll find her I have a gut feeling here that there’s going to be quite a few people in the comment section asking for a part two so uh if we get enough people demanding to for a part two would you be willing to come on for a part two where we talk about something else kind of maybe dive deeper into one of the areas or talking about a different area that you have knowledge on I’d love to there’s there is so much to talk about there’s an endless amount of topics to talk about in living soil so I would be happy to thank you awesome well if you want to see part two definitely comment down below and we will get her back on Luna thanks so much for coming on I really appreciate it this has been this has been awesome and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day thank you so much have a great day