5 Easy Ways To Build Soil Health For FREE 😱 🆓
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Build your soil...feed your plants. It's a mantra that all gardeners should know. Your soil is the #1 factor in the health of your plants, and it's a living thing! Well...it houses billions of living things, all of which work together to help you get truly EPIC harvests.
1. Use Dynamic Accumulators
2. Compost, Compost, Compost
3. Mulch
4. Cover Crop
5. Use Chickens!
There are MANY more methods than these, but I find these to be my go-to's in the garden. Comment down below if you have a favorite method!
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Dandelions also make great dynamic accumulators, as they have one of the most robust taproots, capable of reaching several feet below the surface. Dandelions are one of the most nutritious greens you can grow, and every part of the plant is edible and has a lot of culinary uses. It's too bad most people consider it a weed.
Tell that to my neighbors….pretty sure they hate me but I like to keep ground covers along with buttercups, dandelions, clovers and native grasses and weeds…..they can hate me idc I have an oasis for butterflies, birds, hummingbirds, ladybugs,bees, bunnies and tiny animals. These critters are my neighbors too and I like them the best.
@@yadiaag7771 I wish more people realized the importance of native species. They can be a great benefit to any gardener. All-grass lawns are overrated, and aren't doing the environment any favors.
Not saying I'd do this, but if you grow carrots or onions that produce a lot of seeds, those seeds can make for a good prank on one's annoying neighbors. Chuck a few handfuls into their grass lawn and watch the hilarity ensue. Those plants can't be eliminated by broad leaf weed killers.
I shouldn't laugh but 😂
@@Equinella2 That is too funny not to laugh 😂😂😂😂
These are great tips, but I have a much cheaper way to compost. Get a black plastic trash can with lid. Drill holes around the sides and a couple on the bottom for air flow. Set it up on bricks and fill with layers of brown and green materials. I use coffee grounds, all veg peelings, eggshells, leaves, grass clippings, etc. You can attach a bungee cord across the top, turn the can on its side and roll to circulate. Put back up on bricks for air flow. Keep damp to appropriate level. Cooks compost fast, it's economical, and easy.
@CLTserendipity You are SO smart! I've been looking for a reason to upgrade my trashcan. Now I can, & use the one I have for this. What a great idea, thank you for commenting!
nice! i have two lidded, wheeled black bins for green-waste because we get greens picked up biweekly (alternate with recycling). But i've been thinking, since i already have holes in the bottom to drain the rare rain, i could use the lids and compost directly in there. We don't produce much actual wet greens (food waste) and our trimmings are generally roses, eugenia, grape, or fruit tree pruning, so likely no smell - and the dogs can't get into them (or the raccoons, or that skunk that must've detonated *under* the bloody house . . ; ) ). You're a genius!
I wonder if the polymer decomposition of the garbage can offgasing into the organic materials that will then provide nutrients to food I might eat have any effects?
@@philhunt1442I thought of that as well. Plastic sucks!
This is a great video. Solid advice with no fillers.
The Ruth Stout method combined with worms and bio-char has shown me the best results. All I do is drench with compost tea every few weeks and the soil gets better every year. No tilling, fertilizers, pesticides, perfect drainage and retention. Ruth is my hero. The mighty red wiggler worm is my spirit animal. Epic Gardening is my go-to channel.
My toddler thought your voice slowed down was hilarious! He made me rewind it several times. 😂
Your voice was made for podcast and teaching haha
And a face made for the camera 😌
I got a load of tree grind to use for mulch. It was full of worm castings, huge clumps. I think it's going to do great for my junk clay soil.
It is the new growing season for 2021. I grow in
containers such as storage bins. At the end of last growing season, I chopped up alot of cucumber and tomato plant leaves and sprinkled them into the soil of those bins, then turned and mixed them into the soil. It is all an experiment, but I hope I have enriched the soil by degrees. I will fert.
and see how things go.
Conditions are not quite consistent yet for transplanting my seedlings,(southern N.H.) but soon!
Good luck to all for 2021!
I'm doing all of these plus I'm about to start growing king stropharia mushrooms in my mulch. It's a saprophytic fungus, so it will help speed up the breakdown of the woodchips.
Great suggestions! I had the opportunity to meet Paul Guachi (Back To Eden documentary) in 2016 at his property. He let my daughter and I taste things (it was winter). Even the weeds tasted wonderful. And everything was full of water due to the heavy mulch.
I believe that "Borage would also be good to use" as well...Wish I could find a list of old medicinal garden plants that would be good for my soil & I do have a compost pile & 2 red wiggler worm bins as those casting are black gold. As far a chickens poo, a bit scared on burning my plants as not sure how much to use during the winter time, but with the "worm castings" & a little horse manure, that's aged makes me feel more comfortable. What do you think please, as I've only had raised beds for 2 years & get a bit nervous that I may do damage to the plants/soil? Great video as always, thank you...
I like dropping food scraps and bits I ďont eat in a black bin to compost. Might get anaerobic but seems to work for me in the small space I got. Could you do something like this for purely container growers please. Thanks.
Maybe his bokashi video can work for you as an option. Still trying to do an aerobic compost in a really small space. Wish me luck.
@@tamaRAWSFX a DIY method may include a 25litre bottle some hinges a dowel rod and wooden frame to make a small compost tumbler. Good luck.
unaerobic compost ? NOT A GOOD IDEA!
@@svetlanikolova7673 nah, it was okay after baking in the sun for a while to dry out then mixing in with the soil. I think the aerobic bacteria takes over at that point.
Great info as in all your videos👍 Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
You are a fantastic teacher. Thank you so much for your lectures and demos.
Awesome video! Soil building is so very critical…and strangely fun (kind of a labor of love :))
Just a note…at 1:11 I think 10 ‘feet’ and not 10 ‘inches’ is what was meant here about comfrey, which is a wonderful plant. Just be sure you want to have it around in perpetuity, as it’s practically impossible to get rid of once planted.
Thanks for the succinct inspiration!
You had mentioned that you can use old leaves for mulching. Does this create disease? I save my leaves in piles in my woods. So could I dig those up for cover for my plants?
GREAT bunch of info Kevin Thank You. I've wanted to do composting for years now but I don't know how to go about it, I watched a show once on it but the guy made it look so involved I said the heck with it. I'll have to look into it again. Thanks again. (John from California)
Definitely give it a try this season!
I just use large totes, put holes in them, leave the lid on them, add some cheap top soil and then cut up my veggie/fruit peals really small and throw them in, then cover them up with some top soil. We have a neighbor that doesn't care if her tree overgrows into others yards so with the leaves we get (that fall from the tree in the fall/winter). I put those in the compost as well. Very nice dark compost when I need it.
Currently trying composting in a pile and mixing every few days with a pitchfork in an area of our property... fingers crossed.
Thanks so much. I've been making a lot of mistakes that you have cleared up. Sometimes its about how a person says it. Bingo, I've needed to cover my soil and protect it. I will also work in the various composting dynamic accumulators, and mulch. This will help with the very hot So. Calif. sun that seemed to be intensely wilting the things I was growing even though they want lots of sunlight.
Yeah, I try to give a different perspective on the WHY behind it all. Still learning over here as well. I feel you on the socal sun!
Awesome share! Thank you. Always working with the soil. Wishing you a lovely evening.
Thanks! Wishing it right back at you!
Agree with cover crops in raised beds. Got my seeds today. Hopefully I can get them in within the next day or tw
Excellent advice as always.
Thanks for all the to the point videos, glad every time I search a gardening question your channel pops up. So frk handsome 😘
i use trench composting because it is very easy and has a lot more benefits
I'm a new zone 7B gardener...and I committed the #1 soil sin: I left it bare this winter. (smh) Can I still use it? What can I do to replenish it for the coming planting season?
If comfrey is included in cover crop blends, that may not be a good thing. I've found once a comfrey starts in my yard, I cant get rid of it. Digging it up results in broken roots (since the roots go so deep) which results in more plants. At least they don't spread in a creeping way....just are indomitable. So make sure you actually want comfrey where you would spread fall cover crop blends containing comfrey. Similarly with stinging nettle, if that is included in the fall cover crop blend....make sure you're prepared to deal with the sting in the nettle. I love both plants, just placed where I want them.
Moringa tree is the best nutrient rich plant In the world. Easy to grow and very quick growing.
Great video. I will use some of these methods for sure.
Yeeeeeesss! Our tiny planet and all on it is an ecosystem (bigger to smallest) esp soil our foundation. Biology 101. This was big msg from another show I watched Growing a greener world. Yet so many incl our neighbours douse lawns/gardens w/pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Even when we try telling them it’s why/how Monsanto etc are worth billions and so powerful (sued often successfully.) If you kill all the bugs in the soil you become dependent on the same chemicals to grow anything. Sadly true for many farmers incl smaller ones worldwide who find out too late. 👏🌱
How long do you have to wait to use the soil after cutting your cover crop?
Should I cover crop my grow bags over the winter too? True winter here, zone 6b.
Do you have a video how to get rid of soil bugs? My garden bed has these small warns looking bug and ant looking thing with feathers. Not a termite. Or do they live in dirt? How to keep them out organically
I do all container gardening, and it would be nice to get tips on how to rejuvenate the soil for reuse.
Dry amendments like compost, worm castings, and guano
DigitalRanger - the same way you would for an in ground or raised bed. Compost, mixing in lawn clippings, cover cropping, dead, non-diseased plant material, mulch, etc. If your containers are open bottomed, the earth worms should come. If your containers are closed bottomed, you may need to introduce earth worms.
I've got cedar shingle siding. Wondering if you painted yours for a specific reason. I'm gathering opinions on the subject. thanks.
Thank you!!!
Enjoyed the video, appreciated the information.
Yayyy I needed this videoThank You
Thank you again Kevin for the valuable content.
Thank you for tuning in Denise!
How about lupine?
I want to make a lawn and I have very compacted clay soil.
It has been landscaped and therefore it’s bare.
Thinking of sowing grass and incorporating lupine into it to get extra nitrogen into the ground.
I have harvested a ton of lupine seeds last season.
I love yoyr channel but I am confused by all the gardening methods, not sure which to choose dig vs no dig...home made compost vs bought
What is your criteria for straw purchasing? Is sprayed straw mulching that bad?
Bury a bunch of fish and kitchen/garden scraps in trenches about a foot deep in your garden rows in the fall. Add grass clippings and shredded leaves about 4 inches deep and let it all break down over the winter. Come spring your plants will have super plant steroids and grow better than you have ever seen. Easy peezy and very effective.
You are a great teacher
Be careful with it, but I bury kitchen scraps directly into the garden bed. Especially when I'm in between composting, or when I let a bed rest I bury a fair amount about 10-12 inches below the soil and let it naturally decompose over time.
I use my chickens for everything soil getting rid of waste turning the compost eggs meat fertilizer you name it they are so worth it
I cant find the doecon radish seeds.iv looked at the place you recommended.
How about Cyprus mulch instead of straw? I am not sure where to buy straw in east central fl
Well done. Good information
Thanks Aaron!
How do I incorporate stinging nettle into my compost and not wind up growing the nettle?
Look up Coots soil recipe. Its another great organic soil recipe
Thank you for the video, but (unless you know what you’re doing) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD don’t plant stinging nettle in anything but a container by itself! Nettle is super invasive, growing super, will take over everything, and the process to remove it from your garden is super complicated and takes forever to accomplish! If you are inexperienced with stinging nettle make sure you wear gloves when coming into contact with it, cause like the name suggests it will sting, so please be careful with it!
I have an existing flower garden, what's the best way to add compost without disturbing the plants?
Usually topdressing around the plants about an inch or so works really
Great Video
If I had a lot of space, I would just trench compost my food scraps. It's just an idea, but I would have multiple beds and I would rotate which beds I was growing in. The beds that I'm not growing food in would probably have some sort of cover crop/mulch and I would just bury my food scraps from left to right as I go through each bed. If I did use a cover crop, it would probably be a type of grass because those root more deeply than the nitrogen fixing ones and I'm already adding a ton of nitrogen into the bed from the food scraps. So I probably wouldn't need more.
My chickens are the hidden gold in my garden
Good information sir. It would be better if you add sub titles which will help people like me with hearing issues..thank you
what do we do if the daikon radish won't grow?
Thank you for such wonderful videos!
Would sunflowers also be considered dynamic accumulators? Also, I have a few composting questions ( if you dont mind it being misplaced on this video) all winter, I buried my food scraps directly into the garden dirt. Even when there was snow on the ground ❄ Each time my container of food scraps would get full, I dumped in to a new hole in the garden, cover it with the dug up dirt, pour wam water over it, and then just leave it. Was this OK?
I'm really new to composting, and I've been super lazy about it thus far lol I just watched your video on the different methods, and plan to make some changes..but in the mean time, I've switched back to my first method I started last summer... throwing every thing in an old square recycle bin outside, covering it with crappy dirt, sometimes any worms I might find, and of course water. I keep repeating this process, which results in a big bin of layers. But I never turn it. Does this mean Im creating an "anaerobic " environment when I don't turn it? Is that bad?
Last year, when the recycle bin would get full, I would simply dump and bury the entire contents into an unused flower bed wth undesirable clay soil. I thought the soil would be amazing by this time of year, but it's hard to tell lol
Long story short, i know my super lazy method isn't the best way to do composting, but was it better than doing nothing at all? What happened to the soil by doing it this way?
Am new to this as well, I would recommend opening up the oldest compost pile u made and see the progress, maybe take a few pictures and cover it back up. If you see any indicators that your on the right path then great, otherwise if are unable to read further into it you can share those pictures online and am sure people would be more than glad to help out.
I do the same and what I lear is that you have to leave like bubbles of air, I put kitchen scraps with cardboard that's huge and not chopped, that leaves air bubbles and accommodates to my lazyness then on top of it all I plant something like a tree with good compost not too much cuz it's expensive, then water everything for about a month if there's no rain and it's ok till now, not death plants so far..
I grow hairy vetch between my rows and chop n drop it into my beds as mulch.
Thank you! Can you repeat what are the plants for dynamic ? I got only daicon, what is the other one? Thank you
Daicon radish, stinging nettle, and comfrey were the examples in the video. You can find more examples also by searching "dynamic accumulator" on the web.
How I can protect my soil from nematodes?
What do you recommend for cover crops? I'd like to use clover because I love the smell and I know that clover attracts bees, but I'm afraid that clover will overtake my garden.
Clover is a fantastic one. I usually get a fall mix from ufseeds.com when I cover crop :)
Do any cover crops attract beneficials? I've heard clover can attract mites and I'm growing indoors, maybe dill or something else with a pungent odor?
I use clover as a garden border. Sometimes it grows into the garden beds, but it's really not a problem. It easy to take it out with a hoe if you need to plant something else there.
Great video thank you
You're
Welcome!
I just moved to a new house. The soil here is pure sand. Did I say pure sand? Like at the beach. I have to grow. I left a garden of 40+ years of building up that soil. So here's my thinking. Cut up the cardboard from my moving boxes, moisten and lay them down on the area that I want to improve, put grass clippings on top...keep them moist, add kitchen scraps below the wet cardboard, introduce some worms from my worm bin and start building my new soil. What do you think. I'm pretty sure there are no worms in this sandy location.
I get yards of wood chips and black mulch delivered. I pull weeds and let them dry out on the driveway. Then throw them near the banana trees. Everything I plant is mounded up. My soil was sand, no worms. I throw vegetable scraps and coffee grounds near the plants. I am always feeding the soil in southwest Florida. I try to plant near other plants. The plants share underground.
I need a book to just tell me what to do😭 there's so much. Any recs?
Won't the garden cover die when it snows, will it still help
not leaving bare soil will help improve the soil. even if it dies in the winter, the roots that grew will hold the soil in place & feed it nitrogen.
Beans, clover, nitrogen fixers, bunny foo foo poo poo, brown or green teas, coffee grounds, banana peels, egg.shells and so on.
If I buy land and make a garden, how do I know it won’t have chemicals or roundup in it or depleted nutrients ?
You can get a soil test! Look for a university soil lab near you.
😳 wow badass
Small space? Consider chicken trains, check out Deiago Footers idea on CZcams! I really like his chicken train idea and plan to implement it on my farm
Yeah the train idea is wonderful. I believe it's a Salatin technique?
@@epicgardening Hmmm...I've not seen Salatin use that technique only the movable 'coop'
@@epicgardening his technique of movable coups is called "chicken tractor"
What a handsome smile he's got :)
Goat poo 🐐 with hay. Our friends have a goat ranch that they're GLADLY encouraging us to take away as much as we want. We use the aged stuff that comes from their enclosures. It's not as "hot" as other manure and smells earthy. The hay works as mulch. Anything that grows from the hay is easily weeded by hand.
Great idea! I'm using some aged manure this year as well.
Comfrey can go down past 18 feet......where did you come up with 12 inches?
It hits the bottom of the container?
It goes 2 ft at least in good deep soil. I have never seen the bottom since it always breaks off when digging and too deep to get the full root ball out. Comfrey bocking 14 is one of my favorite plants!! Grows anywhere. U can take 1 inch root cutting to make lots of new plants. Simplest plant to grow and mother natures band aid.
Chickens are large worms with claws
I want mini chicken tillers!
Me too!
Eggsactly
Can I use colored mulch in my vegetable garden?
So delish! And I don't mean the produce 😂😂😂
Ohhhhhhhhhhh Kayla :P
You can also just put shredded leaves in thick layers on your garden over winter and save all your urine and use a watering can and sprinkle it on the leaves. It provides more than enough nitrogen to break the leaves down. Laugh if ya wanna but it works and makes compost right on top of your soil for friggin free. Drink a couple coronas every evening and double your urine output to speed up process 🤣
Mt
Feed Your Soil
8
Just don't plant comfrey too close to the foundation of your house, heh heh
Very true ;)
I see those biceps 😏
Urine
Using chicken waist in your garden. Isn't that a way to spread salmonella
Sorry he doesn't get to the point hardly at all at times he just makes suggestions what other people like what he likes he doesn't just straight up say where to go what to do what you need and that's it you talk too much
This video was made for Radio. No visual aid and the maker likes is face to much.
I just use large totes, put holes in them, leave the lid on them, add some cheap top soil and then cut up my veggie/fruit peals really small and throw them in, then cover them up with some top soil. We have a neighbor that doesn't care if her tree overgrows into others yards so with the leaves we get (that fall from the tree in the fall/winter). I put those in the compost as well. Very nice dark compost when I need it.
Thats nice of your neighbor to share her tree