There are lots of folks in the regenerative cannabis community who will say that
they have been into natural farming their whole life. And that is not me.
It isn't that I was against natural farming,
it's just that I had never really considered it.
I was a Midwest city boy with a great deadhead weed dealer,
and I just didn't have a need to grow my own.
So I never really gave it much thought.
But after I moved to San Francisco in 1994,
all of that changed when I visited Dennis Peron's Cannabis Buyers Club,
I came in contact with epic varieties of kind bud.
That totally changed what I thought weed could be,
but I really couldn't afford them in the mounts that I wanted to smoke.
Top shelf weed is expensive.
I knew that if I wanted to smoke those flavors that I was gonna have to learn
how to grow them myself. So I started learning about basic n pk,
growing, focused on the mineral and chemical content of the soil,
and really wasn't all that passionate about it,
and I didn't really follow through. So instead of growing the fancy flowers,
I now knew I wanted,
I decided I'd to just get a better job in the virtual reality industry that
allowed me Ford to buy that top shelf cannabis.
Everything changed though when I learned about Elaine Ingram and her model for
cultivation called the Soil Food Web.
Instead of being focused solely on the nutrient composition of the soil,
Elaine focused more on the life of the soil growing cannabis went from
boring nutrient math to suddenly having a relationship with microbes and other
life forms in the root zone.
It was like having friends in the soil who I was getting into a relationship
with. And unlike the tomagotchi that I kept alive at the time,
when I kept the microbes in the soil alive, they grew me amazing,
thriving cannabis. That was my kind of relationship.
My new friends were nematodes, worms, arthropods, and fungi,
and we shared the same goals.
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You are listening to Shaping Fire, and I am your host, Shangle Los.
My guest today is Soil biologist Andy Marsh.
Andy is a soil health practitioner and focuses her efforts on soil restoration
through her business Rizzos, LLC based in Texas.
She studied bio environmental science at Texas a and m,
focusing largely on agricultural microbiology and bioremediation.
Andy has studied the Soil Food Web with Elaine Ingham and is a certified Soil
food web lab technician.
That means that Andy has completed all of Elaine's foundational soil food web
courses and has gone further to earn a soil food web certification and
microscopic soon. She will also have her Soil Food Web consultant certification.
Andy has been practicing soil microbiology for over 12 years.
During the first set,
we will talk about seasonal impacts on soil and biological activity,
focusing on the metabolism of the soil,
changing food sources and differences between container soil and ground soil.
The second set is the big one today,
as we look in detail at the sorts of nutrition available during winter,
and discuss preparing soil with specific compost, tea brews,
biological innoculants, like protozoa infusions and fungal foods,
as well as the effective use of mulches and crop covers. Finally,
we finish the episode in Set three with a discussion of best practices to revive
your soil in the spring in order to shorten its transition from winter dormancy
to actively growing your thriving cannabis plants.
Today's episode comes from the perspective of living soil and the soil food web.
Today,
we are most interested in microbial life and the prey and predator relationship
in the soil, and how that changes seasonally. Certainly,
there are soil chemistry aspects to be considered after having a yearly soil
test done, but that's not the focus today.
Today we set aside mineral and other amendments and focus squarely on the
preservation of biological activity in the soil so that you can preserve your
gains from year to year. Welcome to Shaping Fire, Andy.
Thank you so much for having me.
So at the end of the season, temperatures obviously decrease,
and at the lower temps life slows down both above and
below the soil.
If the soil food web is cycling life all summer so our
cannabis plants can grow,
I'd like to understand which aspects slow down into the fall
and winter in the soil, which causes everything to kind of go to sleep.
So I guess I'd like you to start off with a description of an active
soil food web, a summertime soil, food web,
and then describe the mechanisms that change and slow as we go into
winter. So that a, as we talk about how to interact with that, um,
w we know we know the mechanisms that we're talking about.
Sure. So, yeah, you know, with with the food web,
we're talking about these predator prey relationships, um,
below ground for the most part. So who's eating who?
And in the summertime, in a vegetative growth cycle,
flowering cycle, it's a very active, uh,
partnership between the plants and the microbes
below ground. They're constantly communicating. They're feeding one another.
And so, uh, in theory,
if you ha if you've done a great job of inoculating your soils in the spring,
and you've established these relationships, um,
or really introduced these relationships between the plants and the microbes,
there's a lot of, uh, predators, eating prey, which is cycling nutrients.
So when I say predators, I'm referring to things like nematodes, that's, um,
nematodes that feed on bacteria, nematodes that feed on fungi. Um,
and then the protozoa,
which are primarily bacterial feeders and things like flags and
ameba, um, cts as well. Although, um, and we can come back to this,
cts are more of an, uh, an indicator species that we use to, um,
provide as a sign of, uh, anaerobic conditions in the soil.
And so we don't wanna see too many cts, um,
among the protozoa in that ecosystem.
But this brings me to the point of another feature that's, uh,
happening in a thriving root zone is the element of
diversity. So you'll have a lot of these different, uh, types of organisms.
You're not just going to see fungi or just going to see bacteria.
You're going to see a l a little bit of everything, um,
in your soil at that time.
And so as things kind of get colder and are going into a
more dormant state, the,
the main, uh, element that is, uh,
changing there is as the plant dies back,
it's no longer providing the root exudates to kind of, uh,
be a source of fuel and energy for, uh,
its microbial partners below ground. And so their dynamics change. The,
the microbial partners below ground, uh,
are going to start feeding on other things and finding other food sources.
And so that's really important for us to know as stewards,
is what are those food sources? Do they have enough food? Because in theory,
we actually want them to stay as active as possible throughout the winter. Um,
and there's some reasons, there's some really important reasons for that.
But in terms of what that, that root zone could look like in the winter,
if we don't, um, consider the, the microbes needs, uh,
through that period where they don't have their, uh,
plant photosynthesizing above ground,
things tend to go really dormant below ground. Uh,
and that means you have protozoa that are insisting and they're no longer
feeding on bacteria in general. Bacteria are kind of the hardiest group,
so that you're always going to have your, your cold loving, uh, bacteria,
your heat loving bacteria,
and you'll always have some kind of bacteria activity happening in the root
zone. Um,
but it's really a matter of losing some of those larger organisms like your,
your fungal activity, your nematode activity,
and protozoa, that we, we want to, um,
really try to keep those organism groups active rather than allowing them to
go into dormant states.
So, um, that's interesting because I,
I thought that you were gonna say the things slowed down because of the
temperature primarily, but I'm getting, I'm getting the idea that, um,
while yes,
temperature probably plays a role that really it's about the,
the abundance of summertime food sources that are
decreasing, and that is actually what causes the, I don't know,
metabolism of the soil to slow down.
Right? So, like in nature,
if you think about a really mature forest ecosystem,
one way that the trees, uh,
in that ecosystem continue providing for the microbes underground that
they're going to rely on,
more so in spring and summer is many of the des deciduous trees are going to
drop their leaves and actually feed that soil in a different way.
So it's no longer through root exudates,
but it's through this leaf litter on top of the soil.
And that's doing two things that's insulating the soil from those harsh
temperatures that you've referred to,
and it's also providing some kind of organic matter, uh,
to feed into that system to keep the, the metabolism going below ground.
So it can actually be quite busy, um,
if the ecosystem is providing some kind of food source and
protection to, uh, the microorganisms in the root zone.
I would think that if the food source is changing during the winter
from being our cannabis roots and potential companion
plants to now not being cannabis roots,
perhaps still the companion plantings, but now, um, you know,
leaf litter and potentially a top mulch or whatever,
whatever we're gonna put on the pot to help it overwinter,
that that's actually gonna change the varieties of life forms that are
actually gonna be active in the soil too.
It will, it will certainly.
And a lot of times that leaf litter or mulch that you're topping
off a container with, or the, the soil itself with those are carbon rich,
uh, materials. And so that is going to provide more, um,
benefit to your, your fungal, uh,
types of organisms. So your fungi are breaking down carbon rich, um,
materials more so than bacteria, but they're all linked. So as one, um,
organism starts feeding on a particular material,
it inevitably creates a byproduct that another organism can feed on.
Thus the soil, food, web, everything's dependent on everything else. When, when,
when the pots, I guess this question is specifically container oriented,
but when a container gets cold during the winter, um, you know, it gets,
it gets true, truly cold in a way that, um, the ground won't,
since the ground is enjoying some geothermal benefits.
Are there some parts of the root zone,
some inhabitants that we just know we're gonna lose during the winter because
they'll cyst up because, uh, it just simply the,
the cold is enough to knock them, um,
knock them back into a dormant state instead of just the losing of
a their food source?
Yes. I kind of think of this on a good, better, best scale.
So best case scenario,
you're able to provide the root zone
enough, um,
fuel to and protection to actually maintain some level of activity.
That's not always possible.
But the second best option would be to protect it
enough that those organisms that you do quote unquote lose,
are at least insisting and they're not actually dying, which is,
you know, the, the worst case scenario is that, uh, the,
the extreme temps or conditions that that soil is
exposed to, um,
is so severe that you're actually killing the organisms and you're essentially
starting from square one come springtime when you're trying to rejuvenate that
soil.
Interesting. So, um,
so often we treat our containers and sometimes even our fields
as, okay, we're done with it, and we just, like,
people just walk away from it mm-hmm. , and, and you know,
they get into trimming or, or start focusing on the holidays or, you know,
just doing anything other than farming. Um, because yeah,
they've had a long summer, but I'm, I'm actually getting this idea now that, um,
you know, the, the,
that you wanna make sure that you button up your soil properly
before you walk away from it, and not to be too hasty about it,
because we, we wanna kind of turn it from like the, the high, you know,
the high, very active setting down to like a low simmer mm-hmm.
for the winter, because we,
we don't want it to go entirely to sleep.
We just want it to turn down so it, it, it,
it eats through the nutrition that we're setting it up with slowly
throughout the winter. So that, so that when we,
when we re when we re-approach it in the spring, we're not,
we're not having to start it from a cold start, if you will.
There's already a low warmth going on.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
I think what you observed there about how hasty we can be once
our growing season is over is really an invitation to
reflect a little bit. Like I would,
I always encourage people to consider what's your relationship
with that soil, that soil that you discarded,
or the soil that you're no longer tending to just because your cash crop isn't
growing in it right now. Um, and asking the question, you know, are,
are we going to need that soil to support our goals later?
Or did we rely on it this past season to produce something
meaningful for us? And, you know,
just because the cash crop isn't actively growing doesn't mean that our
stewardship responsibilities for that crop are, uh, over.
Um, we, we do have responsibilities and there's,
the biodiversity of the partners below ground are part of what makes our
crop successful. And so just, you know,
building a relationship and considering that when you don't have your,
your crop in season,
what are you doing to ensure that you are caring for that soil system so that
you are introducing your plant to a very hospitable, uh,
new home come spring.
I really like that emphasis on the stewardship. I remember a couple years back,
I visited, uh, Nicholas over at, um, green, um,
a Green Gardens in, in Wolf, Oregon. And, and he was walking me through, and,
and I like it cause they do a lot of,
of food planting underneath their cannabis plants.
So they'll have cannabis growing up top and, and, and p potatoes, uh,
growing underneath and, um, uh, green source gardens. That's it. And so,
uh, and I asked him, I said, oh, I bet you, I said, oh,
I bet you're really gonna be happy to like, walk away from the garden and,
and be done with it. And he says, you know, I I, I've never really done with it.
He's all like, the, the soil is a family member, you know, and,
and just because, um, it's, we're going into winter, I don't,
I can't just turn my back on it. Um, I,
I need to do what I can to make sure that it's taken care of and fed and loved
through the winter so that we're not strangers in the spring. Mm-hmm.
, and, and like the first part of that,
I may have paraphrased poorly from him, but the, so that,
so that we're not strangers with the soil in the spring is the part that really,
um, held on for, for me mm-hmm. . And, uh, and I thought,
I thought that was beautiful. And, and, and, and it,
it sounds very similar to the i,
this idea of stewardship that you're putting forth.
Oh, definitely. I love that phrase too. To,
to be strangers in the spring feels so uncomfortable and you almost start
feeling guilty at that point, you know, cuz I've been there.
E even even as someone who considers themselves very, um,
enamored with soil more so than the plant itself,
sometimes when that planting season's over, you just are eager to, uh,
get comfortable and, and kind of step away from that work for a while.
And I think that's okay. I think there's room for both.
Like we all deserve rest and we should, um, snatch rest when we can,
when we can get it. Um, but there's, you know, finding a balance,
like what does it mean to you to stay connected to that soil throughout
the winter and finding ways to do it, uh, that that makes sense to you.
And given that season of, of the year and in life.
Um, I think also to, to take it into an a non soil example,
I feel the same way when I rush,
taking the plastic off of my greenhouses in the fall mm-hmm. ,
and if I don't put them away properly, you know, if I don't,
if I don't wash 'em down, let 'em dry,
fold them up and like lovingly put them back. You know,
if it's a season where I pull 'em down wet,
I roll 'em into a ball and I shove them in the back of the barn, um, which,
you know, it's not something that I, I I'm ever proud of,
but it happens sometimes, right? And when I come back in the spring, I see that,
you know, now the, the, it's the plastic is moldy and it's, and it's,
and it's crunchy and it's, it's all like, oh, you did me bad chango, you know,
. And, um, I, that same thing happens with our soil. If, if we,
if we want to have a good start in our spring,
we need to end the fall properly as well. Um, so let's,
let's talk about the, some of the differences that, um, that there is in the,
the, the changing from a container versus, uh,
the ground. And so, um, you know, during, during set two,
we're gonna go into more detail about the things we want to do, um,
for, uh, our soil, what, whatever,
whether it's in the ground or whether it's in a container. But as far as the,
the coming of winter,
I would think that the containers are at a much higher risk
of getting true seasonal damage than the soil is
because we have a, uh, uh,
smaller d diversi diversity of life forms because it's just
contained in the container and things aren't generally coming in and out unless
it's being like delivered by, you know, birds or frogs or, uh, people,
people and life forms that are going by. Right. People,
uhhuh , um, versus the, the, the actual ground soil,
which has got huge amount of biodiversity and also is
being somewhat kept warm just from the nature of earth. Um,
would you agree that that,
that those of us who are growing in containers really have to pay more attention
because the ground some more often than not,
will cover your mistakes, whereas a container won't? Hmm.
Yeah. The ground is much more forgiving in that way. Certainly. And, you know,
not to say that we, we can't also find a way to mess that up , right? By,
by poor practices. But in general, um,
more forgiving in in ground planting and in ground, uh, um, you know,
stewardship of the, of the micro world. I,
I think it's like anything in controlled agriculture or,
uh, when, when we're trying to emulate nature, it's,
it's always imperfect, but we just do our best.
And so when we have these containers, um,
I think definitely the two points that you brought up are the, are the most, um,
obvious ones. You know, like you, you have, uh,
more of that surface is exposed, um, the, and one,
the surface I'm talking about is like the actual root zone is exposed,
where that's just not the case in ground. And the, the,
uh,
observation you made about migration of organisms is kind of a less obvious one
to people. So that really is a limiting factor if you think about it. Um,
like even during the growing season,
you don't have migration between one root zone and another.
And sometimes that can be helpful, um,
if you have really strong plants with great microbial partnerships that are
thriving,
and then maybe some plants thought have some kind of disease and could benefit
from, um, you know, the migration of those organisms from one,
one side of your planting to the other.
And some people would actually view that in the opposite way.
It's kind of like a, is this glass half full or half empty?
Some people would be concerned like, oh, well, when you share root zone,
now you have the risk of pathogens, um, tearing through.
And that that is also true. But, um, if you're,
if you're actually growing from a biological perspective,
your decisions and your amendments are all
about focusing on beneficial organisms and kind of taking up real estate,
uh, on, on the root surfaces and plant services as well. Um,
because they migrate below ground and above ground all these organisms and
you're,
you're taking up real estate so that pathogen pest and pathogens don't even have
a chance to come in. So that's really what we're doing with, uh, our amendments,
whether it's in pots or in ground.
But I do find that you have to be much more diligent in any kind of
container, um, because each, each plant now is, um,
has its own root zone that you have to tend to,
rather than one single root zone that has shared resources.
And shared communication between the plants as well. Yes. Um,
I think that's one of the first things that we have to give up and we start
practicing natural farming versus some of the more sterile
kinds. Like, like, you know, certain types of hydroponics and such is that, um,
we are, we don't have sterile soil.
There are pathogens in every one of our pots mm-hmm. . And,
and it's not about like making sure my containers don't have
any pathogens. It's about, um, uh,
feeding the beneficial and making sure the environment for the beneficial are
positive so that they are always outcompeting the pathogens,
but we know the pathogens are there. It's a,
it's a hard truth that's like really creeps a lot of people out when they,
when they come to regenerative style farming at first. But, but you know,
technically the pathogens are part of, of the, the,
the food web as well. And we just want them to play a very small role.
Yes, I agree. And I feel like there might even be an analogy here somewhere,
like with our human societies,
like you're always gonna have a bad egg on a team,
but in general that team's much more resilient when you have a lot of, you know,
good healthy communicative partners that are helping move the
ball forward, you know, and they might even, uh, band together and say,
enough is enough and we're getting rid of this parasite that is in,
you know, messing with our, our goals. So I, if you can kind of,
sometimes that helps to just relate to the soil in some way is like thinking
about it, their communities similar to ours in general,
you know, their, the systems in place are,
are moving towards beneficial partnerships and it's only
when there's an imbalance in the ecosystem that there's a specific
set of organisms that take advantage of that. And let me just take a moment too,
Chango, if you don't mind kind of explaining some of my perspective on pathogens
. Um, cuz I think it might be of interest here.
Please.
The, when I think of pathogens, this is, you know, this is me trying to,
uh, reframe pathogens. So I'm, I'm not perfect at, you know,
not getting angry when I see,
when I see something that is destroying the garden.
But I think of pathogens as, uh, filling a role in the ecosystem.
What a pathogen's essentially doing and,
and why it's evolved is that that soil is sick in some way
and it's destroying the above ground organic matter to feed that soil.
And, you know,
in time that process of pests and pathogens destroying the above
ground parts of the plants and returning those nutrients to the soil would set
the stage for a stronger and more resilient, uh,
environment that would actually support more and more beneficial microorganisms
and kind of do themselves the pathogens out of their job.
So when you see a pathogen, it's really telling to say, oh,
well, something's amiss here.
The plant isn't actually getting everything that it needs from me. So this is,
that's one way that the ecosystem is communicating with you.
And instead of trying to stamp it out with, uh, pesticides and, uh,
whatever else we can get our hands on, that is more of like a sterilizing, uh,
effect, um,
just consider what can we do to add to the system to give that plant what it
needs in order to fight that pathogen or eliminate it, um,
so that it's no longer needed in that ecosystem.
I think that's a really healthy way of looking at about it. That, that,
even though, I mean,
because our goal is to have beautiful high terpene
profile, high cannabinoid flowers, that's, that's the end goal.
And so the, if the pathogen is challenging us from getting to our goal,
it makes us wanna be pissed off at the pathogen, right?
When actually it is playing its role. Just like,
just like if I get sick and I get a, uh, I get a a,
a high temperature myself and I'm like, oh, I'm so tired from having this,
this high temperature, but,
but my body's intentionally increasing the temperature so that I can heal.
It's trying to heal me. And,
and I think that if we embrace the pathogens as being a partner,
but a partner that we really don't want to have to do their role very often,
that's probably a more holistic approach to thinking about our soil instead of
like, good guys and bad guys.
Exactly. Exactly. I appreciate that analogy that you provided as well.
Right on. So, all right, great. Well, um, I think that's set two where we we're.
We talk about the what to do and why is gonna be the fattest of the three sets.
So why don't we go ahead and, uh, wrap up and go to our commercial break,
and then we'll get right to set two,
which is probably what most people are here for anyway.
So we're gonna go ahead and take a short break and be right back. Um,
you are listening to Shaping Fire and my guest today is Soil biologist Andy
Marsh. So without these advertisers shaping Fire wouldn't happen.
So please support them and let them know you heard them on Shaping Fire.
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Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire. I am your host, Chango Lo,
and my guest today is Soil biologist Andy Marsh. So before the break,
we were talking about, you know,
ge getting us all on the same page as far as an understanding of the soil, food,
web, what is happening like systemically, uh,
in the soil as temperatures. Cool.
And kind of making sure that we all understand that w we're
not the, the winter does not make the system stop.
The winter makes the system slow. And so, um,
set two is going to all be about what can we do for our
soil in what ways so that we can turn our soil down
to this slow simmer so we don't become strangers with it in the
spring. So, um, uh, what do you think about this, Andy? I, I,
I was trying to figure out what our goals are for containers and,
and soil going into the, the winter. And I,
and I and I made this list that we want the soil to be fed, warm,
watered, drained, and then undamaged during the winter. Mm-hmm.
, does that sound like a pretty good list to you?
Yeah, I really like the last one undamaged. I would,
I would've used the word undisturbed,
but I think we're getting at the same thing. Mm-hmm. .
So basically just not trying to disrupt that all of those
organisms that are doing their work during the winter mm-hmm.
. So let, let's start by getting rid of something, uh,
that I see all the time on. Um, like, not not huge farms,
but just like scaled regenerative farms.
It is not uncommon for me to go to a,
a farm tour and to see that cultivators have stacked
their large, uh, containers during the off season. And, you know,
it, the, just looking at it,
it looks like an obviously bad practice because at the very least we
are compacting the soil by stacking the,
the pots. And, and every time you go up a level,
it's more and more weight that's compacting a soil. Um,
but I bet that you have e other ver more specific,
uh, reasons why we should not be stacking our, our specialty fabric pots,
um, uh, over the winter. So would we start with that? Cause I wanna,
I wanna remove that as an option for folks.
Oh, sure. Yeah. I think there's a lot of,
a lot of evidence for not wanting to, to do that. Um, I'm sure it won't.
Let me just first start by kind of empathizing with why you might find yourself
doing that. And I suspect it's one,
kind of what we were talking about earlier about you're done with the growing
season, you're just trying to pack things up and get things, um, put,
put away and kind of outta sight and in a space where they're not going to be
completely drenched in snow or whatever else. Um,
so I can empathize with wanting to stack your pots of soil, you know,
in a corner. And you might even think that you're doing a good thing by, um,
removing them from the elements in some regard. Um, I,
but the more you kind of consider what's going on in those pots,
the less of a good idea this, this becomes, um, because you're right,
you are certainly compacting the soil and that's problematic
for a lot of reasons. Um, reason number one, though,
a soil structure is something that I get really excited about,
um, because it's the, it's where like biology, chemistry,
and the physics of the soil meat is like creating great soil
structure.
And it's something that we're attempting to create throughout the growing
season. And we, whether we realize it or not, um, are contributing to, or,
or taking away from, uh, throughout the growing season.
And then come wintertime,
if we don't realize what kind of gains we made in terms of the improving the
soil structure, we, and then we go and stack these soils like that, um,
we're really setting our,
we're we're really kind of regressing in terms of whatever progress we might
have made, um, in, in improving that soil's structure. So,
uh, yeah, compaction is like a surefire way to kind of, um, you're,
you're not only physically putting pressure to the soil surface and creating
compaction from the top down,
but you're also kind of sealing off the top of that soil.
So there's limited air exchange and, and limited, um,
moisture exchange. Um, and this is what happens in, in-ground systems when we,
um, com compact them through any number of means. Um,
that's called soil ceiling when you do that. Um, and,
and whether you're doing it by stacking pots or, um, you know, mowing a,
a space too, too often and creating compaction that way,
but at the end of the day,
you're really reducing that soil's ability to bring oxygen in,
which all of these microbes that we're talking about,
all these beneficial microbes really need oxygen.
And the ones that thrive in oxygen poor environments are,
are pathogens.
Right on. So, so we want to make sure that we, we,
our top soil can get air exchange, it can get some,
uh, you know, rain and snow and, you know, interact with, with, uh,
nature as it will. And, um, I like what you said where, you know,
if we've spent all summer treating our soil fantastically,
why on earth would we want to suddenly give those advances
back by, by stacking them and then crushing the soil,
uh, structure that we've and our worms have spent all summer working on mm-hmm.
. Exactly.
And then that makes our job a lot harder come springtime when we're dealing with
soil. If you plan to reuse that soil, which, you know, you might not,
you might find that you actually need to purchase new soil or make new soil,
which can be very labor intensive. And I feel like if you,
the more you can do taking care of the soil, you got, uh,
the less labor and inputs and expenses you'll have come springtime,
uh, in dealing with that soil.
I'm really grateful that the, the cannabis growing scene as a whole has,
um, embraced reusing soil. Um, it wasn't,
it wasn't too long ago that people thought that they needed to
rebuy soil for every cycle. Mm-hmm. , um,
both indoors and out. And because they,
they wanted to keep it as sterile as possible, but sure. But,
but now we're realizing that that aged older soil has with,
has got so much more, uh, personality, if you will mm-hmm. , and,
and it's that biodiversity which actually makes your cannabis taste good.
Mm-hmm. good.
I'm, I like that. Mm-hmm. Sorry.
I'm like, sipping on my coffee or, but yes. Yes. Uh, I,
I'm glad to hear that about,
about cannabis culture is that you're able to see this shift towards, uh,
reusing soil and rejuvenating it rather than, yeah.
Creating more and more sterile environments. That's a good thing.
All right. So if our goals for our soil is to have it fed, warm, watered,
and drained, um, let's start with the fed part. So, um,
uh, many folks have got their favorite, uh, amendments that they,
you know, they've, they've harvested their cannabis plant, and then they will,
they will amend or inoculate or add something,
um, before they walk away for the winter. So let's,
let's talk about a couple of those and, um, specifically, you know,
a as I was saying in the introduction, we're not approaching today's episode,
um, dryly chemically like, okay,
I did my soil test and now I need to add this kind of n p k kind of action.
We're talking about what kinds of amendments we're gonna be doing to keep the,
the life force of the living soil intact.
And so by all means, you know, uh, do your, um, do your soil tests and,
and react to those.
But we also want to make sure that our soil just stays alive.
So, so let's start with, um, nutrition. So, um,
so taking what you said during the first set that there are, um,
the food sources are changing from the, uh,
from the rhizosphere,
getting exudates from my cannabis plant roots and having that back and
forth relationship, but now the cannabis plant is gone.
And so I want to add some nutrition so that,
um, everybody stays alive in the, uh,
root zone when the root zones are not feeding them. So what types of,
um, uh,
nutrition as a soil biologist do you find are,
are going to be most beneficial for the folks that we want to keep going?
Yeah. So,
so one way to think about this is to take a,
take an approach where you're providing a variety of foods, because again,
the theme here of the day is going to be biodiversity.
So if you are trying to cultivate, nurture,
and maintain a biodiverse microbial community, then you,
the more different types of foods you can provide to your soils o often the
better. And so one way to do that is to take a multi-prong approach by
feeding the soils through maybe a cover crop so that, that, you know,
something that would survive your conditions, um,
when you're not growing your cannabis plant anymore. But you instead, uh,
come and plant a, a cover crop that will, uh, feed, uh,
the soil root exudates in, in lieu of your cash crop.
And then, um, compost tea is another great option.
I,
and I would just wanna take a moment to kind of explain the difference between
an extract and a t and an extract is you're generally just trying
to knock the microbes, um,
off the surfaces of solid compost so that you end up with a liquid
that has just kind of free floating organisms.
And those are really great for soil drenches. Um, also in containers,
of course, to kind of infiltrate those organisms through the soil profile.
And teas are a little bit different in that you have that brewing step. So you,
so you do the same thing where you're knocking off the microbes from the
surfaces of the solid compost,
but this time you'll have a brewing cycle where you're adding microbial foods
and you're effectively increasing the population sizes of those
organisms, and you're kind of providing them this packed lunch, so to speak,
whenever you, um, distribute that liquid onto your, your soils.
And so, um,
I like tea as a method to feed the,
uh, root zone in the wintertime because it has more microbial foods in it.
And I'm not so focused on inoculating because it, it,
it is a challenging time, . And, um, we, in theory,
if we've done a lot of great inoculating throughout the season, um,
our main goal is just providing a food source and not so much on, um,
inoculating. Of course, inoculating is always happening. So, um,
it comes springtime. I just kinda wanna differentiate that you're,
you'd be more focused on introducing new organisms into that soil, um,
but not so much in the fall and winter. And then lastly, there's, you know,
compost and, and mulch are also ways to, uh,
feed the soil, uh, nutrition. And, uh, those are,
those are gonna be a different set of food as well than what you might have
incorporated, uh, through a tea. And of course, the,
the cover crop is kind of the unique, uh,
food source that we can't necessarily replicate because it's coming directly
from a photosynthesizing plant.
Oh, gosh. There is so much in this, in that answer.
I'm excited to tear this apart with you. All right. So, okay, good.
Let's go step by step. So, um, so the first thing we,
that you were talking about was the variety of, of nutrition. So, so,
um, uh, uh, I'm gonna ask my next question about compost tea,
but right now I'm talking about what, um,
like natural amendments. So, so are you,
are you talking about adding the, for example, like, uh, like,
like, like crab shell and feather meal and alfalfa meal,
and like, things like that. Uh, like making a blend of that mm-hmm.
like we would when we are making soil and then,
and then putting that onto the soil as a top dress, or, or,
and that maybe we'll then cover with a mulch. Are, are,
are you talking about specifically adding that type, those types of nutrition?
And, and if so, um, what,
what varieties of that nutrition do you think work well in winter?
Mm.
The ones that you mentioned feel more like they,
they lean towards mineral amendments mm-hmm. , which, you know,
do eventually end up interacting with biology. I mean, most everything does,
but, um, I, that's where I would again,
kind of take this approach to your soil health,
not strictly from this.
Dogmatic biology is the only thing that matters mode,
but more, more from a, an interdisciplinary approach and,
and really doing those soil chemistry reports,
saturated pace tests, um,
and maybe even considering some of the leaf tissue analysis that you might have
done during the growing season.
And those are the things that are going to inform your mineral
amendments that you might wanna make. And I,
I do think this is a good time to be making those, um,
mineral amendments going into the winter.
And all of this is an experiment too, right? You'll,
you'll find that maybe you amended the soil going into your dormant period,
and then I would recommend testing it again once you're, it comes planting time.
Um, and just see like, did it move the needle and on in some areas?
Maybe it did in some areas it didn't, and record that stuff, you know,
really be diligent about, um, what's functioning and what's not,
and getting curious about why that might be. Um, so I,
I hope that kind of answers part of your question.
It, it does.
I actually think that I just learned something because the very nature of my
question, I think is wrong. So I,
I asked that question with the assumption or belief
that, um, I like this term mineral amendments, that these,
these types of mineral amendments that are the same ones that we use when we're
responding to a soil test and we need to, we need to round out our soil.
I was under the impression that the microbe life
also ate these,
these mineral amendments. And so in my head,
I was, I was going to feed my microbe life both by adding
compost tea, which we'll talk more about in a minute, but also with these, um,
with these other mineral amendments. But, but I guess it's,
it's probably true that that microbe life may not
even eat minerals. I mean, I may, if I, I could be really wrong on this and,
and, and, and, but I'm always,
I'm always learning and embarrassing myself publicly on the show anyway. Oh, no.
So, so, so do, does the life, the,
the living parts of the rhizosphere, do they eat that stuff or not?
Yeah, and and to be clear, I'm always learning too. So, you know,
just keep that in mind.
But my expectation is that those mineral amendments
are really useful during the growing season when we recognize that there's a
mineral deficiency, the,
because the plant is in relationship with the microbes,
there's communication happening and in incentives being
offered, um,
to those microbes to provide the particular minerals that that plant is
deficient in. And so it's, it's pulling,
it is providing that from the minerals that we're adding,
but maybe that dynamic isn't so relevant come, uh,
wintertime because you don't have that same crop in,
you know, as part of that ecosystem.
This is a breakthrough moment for me. I get this.
So the mineral amendments are not really for feeding the microbes.
The mineral amendments are what the plant wants,
and the microbes will bring them to the plant in exchange
for exudates and other types of food from the plant.
But during the winter when the plant isn't there,
we don't really need the mineral amendments because there's no bartering going
on between the microbe life and the plant.
And so we're just trying to replace what the
microbe life normally gets from the plant.
Right. And I would say, I would say more, we're,
we're not necessarily trying to replicate exudates in any way. We're,
we're trying to provide foods that we know microorganisms feed on
when there are no living plant roots.
And that's in general organic matter.
So like your humic acids, fulvic acids, um,
when you're brewing a tea, maybe you, um,
consider fish hydrolysate and you wanna do these things mindfully.
So I'm not going to, um,
get into any specific ratios or anything here, but just, you know,
kind of stay high level in terms of how to think through it. But when you are,
uh, when you are brewing a tea,
you wanna consider what, what is living in your soil,
and you can do this through a microscopy assessment.
That's the most assure fire way to know what's living in there and what's
not. Um, but you can also kind of do this through, um,
maybe, maybe other, uh, indirect observations.
So for instance, if your mulch isn't really breaking down,
like you've had mulch on your pots all through the summertime, and it,
it still looks pretty good at the end of that season and it's not being broken
down, odds are you could benefit from more fungal activity.
So maybe when you go to brew that compost tea,
you are adding more fungal foods rather than bacterial foods.
So bacterial foods are simple sugars, things like molasses and, and honey,
um, where the,
the fungal f foods are going to be more complex sugars.
All right. So let's, let's talk more about, um,
the compost tea as the nutrition for the rhizosphere.
Um, uh, and and less of it as, um,
using mineral amendments. So if we want, if we're,
if we're going to be putting the compost tea into the soil at the begin,
like let's call it late fall, um,
is the idea that we want to, we're,
we're essentially trying to add, um,
microbe life to the soil via the
compost tea that, um, that then the
larger microbe life that's in the container will then be eating.
So essentially we're,
we're pouring compost tea filled with smaller life that the predators
that would be normally getting its food from the plant will then be eating
all the life forms that are in the compost tea is, is, is that what we're doing?
We're, we're, we're trying to, um,
sustain this predator prey relationship, um, throughout the winter. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That's a good way to look at it, is like you're providing,
providing prey organisms to nematodes and protozoa the,
the predators in the soil,
and you're also providing that packed lunch. So, um,
like the,
the foods that you're adding to your compost tea are going to end up in the soil
once you apply it,
and not just feeding the organisms that were in the tea brewer,
but now they're available to the organisms that are existing in the
container. Mm-hmm.
. Um, and, and at this time of year, um, I know we're,
we're both fans of Brooded tea and also extracts,
but this time of year we actually want to do a brewed tea because we want
to, um,
we want to increase the density of the microbe life because we,
we want to offer lots of options of,
of varieties of microbe life that's gonna be in the compost tea,
but we also want it to be very dense because we want it to last throughout the
winter, right?
Mm-hmm. , yes, I think,
I think teas are the way to go in the winter and look, you,
it's not that you're doing anything wrong if you do an extract. So, um,
the extract just doesn't have the added benefit of, uh,
the increase in microbial activity,
nor does it have the microbial foods,
both of which can be of benefit going into this more dormant period.
Mm-hmm. . So obviously if we, if we've got a microscope or,
or if we have the access to someone like you who does microcopy for other folks,
you know, for a living, um,
that is one great way to know how we want to build our fall
brooded compost, because you can like, literally look what,
and see who's in the soil and see who's there that you want to feed, and then,
and then who you might wanna add to the soil to tie in of ro round out
the, the predator prey relationship. But honestly,
most folks who don't have a cannabis
growing business who are just home growers, um, they're,
they're probably not gonna do that. And so mm-hmm. , can you,
can you give some advice or, or, uh, some,
some mental structure to what the rest of us should do to, like,
what would you recommend to have in our brewed tea at, for,
for fall? Um, when we don't exactly know what's in our soil,
but we, we wanna give it kind of a, a, a general buffet so that, so that,
um, we can do the best we can without exact knowledge.
Yeah. I think the,
the biggest thing to be aware of is that what we don't want to do
is be brewing a bunch of bacteria and
putting that on our soils.
And I say that because a really common characteristic of a disturbed
e soil ecosystem is that it's very bacteria dominant.
And when it comes to cannabis, um,
we want a little more balance between our bacteria and, and fungi ratio,
uh, instead of it being entirely bacteria dominant. So in general,
fungi is more sensitive to, um,
mechanical disturbance, certainly.
So anytime we dump our containers or, uh,
turn them in any kind of way, uh, or they're exposed for long periods of time,
we will expect to lose some kind of fungal biomass, but not,
but we'll actually see an increase in bacterial biomass.
And the reason for that is that the bacteria start feeding on the, uh,
fungi that are dying off,
and they kind of have a little party all to themselves to increase their
numbers. And so that,
that's one balance that we wanna be really careful about when we're making our
own amendments. And, and we don't have, uh,
the tools to really look at a drop of that t under the microscope and
see, uh, whether or not we, we've just got a bunch of bacteria, no predators.
That would be the worst case scenario. Um, or if we're,
if we're brewing something that's a little more balanced.
So one thing that I'd encourage people to do is create a,
what I would call a protozoan, uh, infusion. This is, uh,
a method that I've learned from the soil food web by Dr. Elaine Ingham.
And you, you take, uh, healthy leaves and, uh,
different kind of vegetation and put them down in a bucket with, uh,
kind of something to weight them on top like a rock. Um,
and you can add just the tiniest bit, like a drop of honey,
and that's actually going to encourage some bacterial growth. But what,
um, occurs in tandem with that is a prodi, the, the predators will,
um, respond to that increase in, uh, the bacterial population.
And so, um, there, I, if I was doing this without a microscope,
uh, I would,
I would go online and do some research and see if you can find the best
time to use that kind of, um, brew,
because there's going to be a, a peak period after you've, uh,
encouraged the bacterial growth that the protozoa will have had a chance to
respond to that.
And then you can use that as a useful way to introduce predators into
your ecosystem. Um, that's one thing that comes to mind.
A couple others are to just focus more heavily on your
fungal foods and go, go really light little to no bacterial foods,
um, as, as you're preparing, uh, your compost teas. So again, you can,
um, find some guidance online. But, uh, in general,
humic and fulvic acids are really useful for feeding fungi
as our, uh, fish hydrolysate. And there's, there's some others online that,
uh, I've, I've yet to try, but I'm sure are just as viable.
I really like this, um,
protozoa incubation technique that you just described. Mm-hmm. ,
I've not, I've not come across that. Um, and,
and I like the idea that I don't have to
just make food available and hope for the best,
but that I can actually incubate protozoa and make more of them,
and then pour them into the container. Mm-hmm. ,
this sounds like something that I would want to do,
like anytime I'd want to do it in the spring,
I'd wanna do it like before flour, when,
when the plants are working the hardest, and then, and then again at, at,
at fall to keep every,
it seems like it's a good thing for all through the season.
Yeah, certainly. Uh,
and I think anytime that you really need a nutrient boost,
that's when I'd focus the most on your predators, because that,
that's who's doing that job for you by feeding on the bacteria,
they're cycling nutrients to your plant. So, um, I think the,
the times and the growth cycle that you pointed out are, are dead on.
Interesting. Okay. So, um,
another thing that you mentioned when we started talking about like, you know,
best amendments for pre pre winter, um, you were talking about innoculants.
So would you consider this an inoculate or,
or how are you using that word? What do you think of as a, as an inoculate?
Because in my head,
this may be inoculating my soil with protozoa,
but I may not be using that, um, word in the proper scientific way.
Yes. I think in the case of the pro protozoa infusion,
that's certainly an inoculation technique.
You're trying to introduce a specific organism or group of organisms into
the soil. That's how I would define inoculation.
And when I mentioned earlier that I wouldn't be so focused on that, again,
it's not that inoculation isn't happening with your compost tea.
It's more that your focus and intention, and again,
relationship with what you're doing is thinking more critically about the foods
you're putting into that tea rather than what you're necessarily growing and,
and, um, growing in population in that tea. So in the springtime,
I'd be much more focused on looking at the samples from my compost tea and
making sure I know how much fungi is in there because if I,
and how much protozoa and, and et cetera are in there, um,
because that would matter more to me come springtime, uh,
due to all the nutrients cycling that I'm going to rely on for my plant growth.
But in the wintertime,
I'm more concerned about feeding the microorganisms below ground and
less concerned about what they're going to do for my plant because my plant's no
longer there.
Right on. Um, great. All right. So then,
so we've talked about the, the, the mineral type amendments.
We've talked about adding, uh, complex, uh,
brewed compost teas so that we're, there's a, uh, an array,
a buffet of foods for our lifeforms in the
soil, since they're not gonna be getting it from the plant. And then,
and then this delightful protozoic infusion, which I like,
wanna make one immediately , um, do it. And so,
so the last category that I want to talk about are, um, uh,
what kind of a role at this point would you think that, um,
natural farming fermentations, like, you know, everybody's talking about, um,
Korean natural farming and, you know, uh, fermented plant juices,
things like this that, that we are making,
which are in a way, um, kind of like incubated, um,
nutrition. And in some of them, even incubated like hormones. If we're,
if we're gonna be using, um, you know, like a fresh grown tips from that we,
that we harvested in the spring or something, like, part of me thinks, oh,
I should add some of that stuff in the fall to,
to keep some of that zesty life force in the soil.
But some of it is also me thinking it that's adding
the wrong kind of encouragement at the wrong time of the season,
that that's more of a spring thing. And,
and I might not want to be using those types of ferments as a,
um,
going into fall root drench or something like that at this time of
year. So is, is there,
is there any role for that kind of a incubated fermentation?
I think you're, you're on the right track with that. Like, I wouldn't,
again, I,
I don't think that there's anything that would go wrong necessarily by adding,
uh, those fermented plant, is it fermented plant juice that they call that?
Yeah. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Um, and, and just to be clear,
I'm not fully up to speed on K and f methodologies. I'm fascinated by them.
And I think there's a lot of, um,
things in common in terms of what, what we're interested in doing,
uh, from a biological perspective, whether you come from the, the K and F side,
the soil food side, or, you know, there's, there's any number. Um, even if,
if you're like, really focused on mic,
like we're all kind of generally interested in, in similar things.
And so, um, I think with the, what,
what I know about the fermented plant juice approach,
being more focused on those plant boosting signals,
that,
that would make the most sense to me in the context of the growth cycle when you
need that kind of activity. So it, again, it's,
it's not that you're doing, you'd be doing much harm. It's more like,
are you spending your time and energy producing a thing that's going to
actually, uh, help the soil at this current state that it's in?
And I don't know that that would be the best use of your time is focusing on,
on those types of amendments.
Right. On that, that well said. And that also discourages me because, um,
I, I have been hanging out with other folks and we've been talking about it,
and it's not uncommon for me to hear people say, well,
I had some extra f PJ in the fall,
and so I just put it on the pots mm-hmm. . And,
and that might actually,
it might be better to waste it or hold it for the spring
instead of throwing it on the pots and kind of confusing the system at that
point.
Yeah. Because it, it could, I, I don't know. I imagine that it could, uh,
confuse the system. Uh,
if the microorganisms are receiving these, um,
you know, chemical signals, uh,
from that were derived from a plant that was actively growing,
but they're not actu that they're not actually supporting an actively growing
plant, then it might kind of, uh, be unnecessary. And, um,
you know, it's, it's hard to know what's really going on, you know,
without digging into some academic research if it's even been done on this kind
of stuff. But I think if you can preserve that, uh,
amendment and save it for spring, that would be a much better use of,
of that amendment.
Um, this is totally conjecture, but it could totally be the case that, um,
the microbe life, um, becomes aware of those chemical signals,
and then they think that, oh, there must be a plant around. Sure.
And so then they start looking for exudates. And when,
when we don't want them looking for exudates. Exactly.
We want them focusing on eating other, other, you know,
predator prey relationship life forms. It's like,
it's like when you go past somewhere and you smell somebody's barbecue,
but it's like, you're not, it's not your barbecue,
so you're not getting barbecue and now you're like, just hungry and annoyed.
Uhhuh , uhhuh.
. Yeah. Uhhuh right now.
Now you have to go outta your way to go find barbecue. Yeah.
Yeah. . All right. So, so let's, let's move on to, uh, top dress mulches.
So, um, uh,
there are different mulches with different goals,
and to my best understanding, um, the,
the two big reasons we use them are number one, to, uh,
create some kind of warmth at the,
the top of the container or on our field, um,
over the winter. And then,
and then also that as it breaks down,
it is, uh,
biologically active and kind of like a slow drip of interesting nutrition into
the soil. Um, would you agree with both of those?
And would you add anything to that list?
I, I think I would use the word insulation. Mm-hmm. , like, I, I,
you know, it's,
it's really creating a barrier between the environment,
like the ambient temperatures and the soil
atmosphere or soil sphere, the, the root zone. Um, and then,
yeah, it's creating biologically active. I'm, uh, I feel like,
um, we might get into it, but to answer your question directly,
I wouldn't add anything to that list at this time. Mm-hmm.
, um, uh,
we're gonna talk about cover crops, you know, when we,
when we segue to the next topic. So this time I'm talking more about,
um, I guess I'll say not actively living plants. And so,
um,
what are some of your favorite over winter mulches?
One word and that's aged. I just want aged mulch.
And if I can find mulch that is from my
region, uh, as locally as possible, that's ideal because in theory,
uh, they, those, um, indigenous.
Microorganisms.
Yeah, indigenous microorganisms. Thank you. Yeah. They'll, they'll,
they'll have the, the organisms that can survive your, uh,
your local environment, um, col just colonized on their surfaces.
And I say aged because, uh,
the younger the mulch,
the more resistant it actually is to microbial activity,
which is not what we want. So, like in the landscaping industry,
it's really common to use very young mulch, um,
to use cedar mulches or other mulches that have a lot of secondary metabolites
that deter breakdown. And that's for aesthetic reasons.
But of course, here in, uh, cannabis,
we want to actually be feeding the soil with our mulch. So the more aged,
uh, generally the better. I'd say that at minimum,
you'd want that mulch to have been, uh,
kind of sitting somewhere as wood chips for a minimum
a year, um, ideally longer.
All right. So I, I like that, you know, you,
you kind of just systemically over the top said whatever your mulch is,
we want it to be old, which I like,
because we all have access to different things depending on our bio
region, right? Mm-hmm. . And so, so you want to use wood chips,
fine. We want 'em to be old, though. You want to use forest duff fine.
We want it to be aged forest duff. You want want to use old grass clippings,
fine. But we want them to be old.
So the i the idea is what whatever that you've got, um, is usable,
just make sure that it's matured enough so that it breaks down properly.
Yeah. And I think in the case of things that might break down faster than
wood derived or, or lignin, um,
based materials, so as you mentioned,
the grass clippings like that, you wouldn't want those to be aged a year at all.
Um, I think you could, you could, uh, with,
with something like grasses or any kind of like vegetative biomass that you, uh,
chop down and kind of, I, I've seen people do this with like flail mowers,
the chop and drop method mm-hmm. , I think that's viable, um,
to just set it and leave it. It's,
it's better than removing a lot of that material if it's already,
if it's already in place. Like if it's in C2 and you are chopping and dropping,
I think that's totally appropriate,
rather than the disturbance that would be caused if you were to remove that
material and try to age it somewhere else. Now you,
you might decide to actually compost that material.
And that's a whole other thing. But as far as a mulch purpose goes, I think, uh,
chop and drop method is, uh, just as well.
When I have heard people talk about them using mulch to keep their
containers, uh, warm over the, over the winter. Um,
it's funny, uh, you mentioned earlier that it's, it's,
it's used like hy as an insulator, and I'm like, oh, that makes sense too.
But I always thought that the reason we are using it to air quotes,
keep our pots warm is because the mulch, as it rots,
it's, um, it's warm, right. You know, like a warm compost pile.
And I actually thought that it was, that as it broke down,
it was creating a warmth, like a heat source at the top of the pot. Mm-hmm.
And now I'm understanding that it's really more about like being a,
like a, a, a band-aid, if you will, on the,
on the wound where you removed the plant and you're kind of like sealing it up.
Um, what, at what point is it too much of a good thing? Because in the,
in the first set you were talking about, um, we,
we don't want to over seal our mm-hmm. , uh,
the tops of our pots, right? And so we,
we want to be able to engage with the,
the atmosphere and the rain and the air to some degree, but,
but we also want there to be like a nice thick layer. So will you,
will you speak to, I guess, uh,
the thickness of the layer and what kind of attributes
we want our mulch to have so that things like water and
air can go through it, kind of talk to us about what,
what the attributes of a good mulch are so that when we look at what we have
available to us, where we live, we can judge our mulches.
Okay, great. Okay.
So the first thing that comes to mind is the size of that material.
So if it's too large, it,
it doesn't provide as much protection. You might have large gaps,
for instance, um,
I'm thinking of like maybe something that's like really thick straw, but you,
it's, it's not very finely chopped. And you, you'd have, um,
you'd have to put a little bit more of that material layered in order to really
effectively mulch a space. Mm-hmm.
.
Um, and then there's also, um, the, the fact that like,
you want this breaking down, so like the thicker that material is, um, if,
if it's really chunky wood chips, for example, even if they've been aged,
um, that might not be optimal. You might want them to be,
I'm just kind of eyeballing, uh, things around the room right now, but maybe,
uh,
two inches long by half an inch wide would be
like the north star and, you know, give or take an inch on either side.
But the, the point is, you don't want, um, bark essentially like, uh, four,
four inches long by three inches wide, would probably be getting, uh, too,
too large for the kind of mulch that we're interested in here. Um,
also avoiding hydrophobic conditions.
So this still applies even when you're mulching. So we, it,
it's kind of ironic because you mulch a soil surface to try to avoid evaporation
loss as well. Maybe that's one that we can add to, uh, the, the,
the reasons for mulching mm-hmm.
is to avoid evaporation loss from the soil surface, um,
among the other two,
which was insulation and keeping things biologically active. But, uh, the,
the mulch layer itself can actually go hydrophobic if you really neglect it. So,
uh, making sure that it, it is getting some amount of moisture,
so if there aren't any rains or any precipitation that there actually getting,
uh, watered in some way because the, they really mulch layers really can,
um, com compact similar to soil, um, and,
and provide a hydrophobic surface, uh, which can become problematic.
And then, um, let's see, other features in mulch,
those are,
those are the two that are coming to mind [inaudible] So I'll kind of turn it
over to you and see if you have any questions about that.
I do. Um, I'm getting this picture hearing you describe how, um, we,
we don't want it too chunky, but we don't want it too fine. It,
it kind of reminds me of, of that, uh, that old example where, where the,
the college professor holds up, uh, a jar with marbles and it says,
is this, is this full? And everybody goes, yeah, it's full. And then, and then,
and then he adds, uh, something smaller than marbles the sand. Yeah.
And it fits in between. He goes, is it full? Now? They're all like, yeah.
And then he adds water, and you're like, oh. So, so I,
I'm kind of thinking that a blended mulch is,
is probably going to be our best practice where perhaps you have, um,
some semi chunky things that are age wood chips and then some,
and then some smaller things that maybe is forest duff and leaf litter,
and then maybe, um, you know, something else like a,
like a powdered biomass. And so that when you put the,
when you put it all together, um,
in a ratio that that looks good to you, you have, you,
you have some of each,
you can kind of blend those in a way where there is enough room for airflow
and for water to get in. And it's not a sealed thing, but,
um,
but it's by blending two or three mulch things together
that you actually come up with the optimum mulch for mm-hmm.
where you live.
I like that. I like that because it hearkens back to variability, you know,
supporting biodiversity. So I think that's definitely, again, I,
I think of these things as either good, better, or best,
or having a north star and just aiming for that.
Don't beat yourself up if you can't get your hands on, you know,
four different feed stocks for your magical mulch, concoction, . But, um,
but the, the more variability, the, the better in general,
and that that does apply to the,
the size and the source of the mulch. Yeah.
All right. So before we go on to cover crop, let's,
let's talk about what I did this year. Um, uh, get a little,
get a little free consulting on yet mm-hmm. . Um, so what I,
I did something, I thought about it a little, but I didn't think of it a lot.
And I probably should have waited until after, um, we recorded this episode,
but I had access to a whole lot of, um,
um, C B D hemp biomass this year, where,
where they just take the whole plant and they, um,
they essentially wood shipped the whole thing together. I,
I don't know why they did this exactly, but, um, they had it, and, and they,
they offered it to me for free, and I said, great. So, so I'll take it and,
and I'll figure out some kind of fertilizer for it or something.
But then I noticed that, um, you know,
I didn't have anything set aside to mulch the top of my pots going into a fall.
And so I put about, um,
an inch layer of this, uh,
pretty finely powdered,
essentially chewed up cannabis,
like hemp plants mm-hmm. ,
and I just put like an inch layer on there because in my thoughts were, um,
it would, it would insulate it, it would let the water through, um,
if there's any snow that we get this year,
it'll protect the soil from that cold shock.
And then as it rotted. Oh, and, and this was, this was aged, this is this,
this material was probably about three years old. Okay. And, and so,
and so a as it breaks down, since I already know it's a hemp plant,
it's probably gonna be packed with the nutrition that my plants want next year.
And so, so great. Um, except for the fact that it wasn't, you know,
from my island. And so the, the, the IMOs won't be accurate.
I thought that it was gonna be pretty good,
but now I'm starting to think that because it was, I put a,
an inch of fine granular powder on top that it might
actually get wet and kind of like push together and actually create an oxygen
seal. And I might actually want to like, remove that. Mm-hmm. ,
what are your thoughts?
Well, there's so much there. Okay.
I'm like writing down notes as you were talking about that.
So the first thing that comes to mind,
and I just wanna mention it in case it applies to anyone listening,
is that this material, um, it sound,
but until you said that it had been aged,
my original concern was that it would still have a lot of nitrogen in it mm-hmm.
. And, uh, that,
that's just of concern because it would start actively decomposing
or composting really, um,
on top of the soil and generating heat.
So when you were talking about earlier your perception of mulch actually
creating heat, the only time that that,
that I would expect to see that happening is if the,
the material that you're mulching with has a high nitrogen content, and it,
and effectively what's happening is it's being broken down by a lot of bacteria.
And so you're having a bacterial bloom, and that's what's generating the heat.
And going back to what we talked about earlier, you don't want,
that's not necessarily in the best interest of our plants. Right? And in fact,
um, in a really worse case scenario, if you had,
if you use a high nitrogen mulch, uh, product too thick,
you could actually create a little anaerobic environment and have, um, again,
very worse case scenario,
you could have like a combustion issue crop up because, um,
what happens in an anaerobic environment is a lot of those,
those microbes are generating alcohols and, uh,
compounds that will, once oxygen does get back into that system,
can become flammable at certain temperatures. So, um, so again,
just like kind of using a north star and a south star, if you will, , um,
that, that would be like just a word of caution. Uh, don't,
I wouldn't use high nitrogen materials as a mulch, um,
with the exception of that chop and drop method. Now,
when I say chop and drop, I'm thinking of it in terms of, um,
green vegetative biomass that you're dropping on top of a mulch,
an already wood chipped type of mulch.
So it's kind of a layered effect. So you have a carbon, um,
it's not indirect contact with the soil. And I think that,
I just wanna clarify that that would probably be, um,
not the best case of, of a mulch situation if you had that, like a,
a high nitrogen vegetative plant decomposing directly on top of the soil.
Got it. And that, that hearkens back to the, the one guide rule you said,
which was aged, you know, so, yes. Yeah. Yes, I follow.
Yeah. And so, so yeah, there's some instances where maybe, um,
maybe you can get away with it. Yeah. Not being aged,
but just be mindful that it's not actively, uh, composting on top of your soil.
And so in this case, you've dealt with all in theory, you know,
I don't know what happened during those three years,
but you've dealt with a lot of the nitrogen in that case.
And I imagine any kind of resins or things that would create a hydrophobic,
um, you know, seal from a,
a chemical perspective.
But now the concern is the fineness of this mulch and
just like en clay, en clay soils that, um, become compact,
compacted,
it's all those platelets that line up really snugly together and create this
seal, um, in, in the soil and create compaction layers.
And so that might be happening with a really finely chopped source of
mulch. And in that case, I think if you've put,
you said you put it on about one inch. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. .
I think you could maybe gently mix in a chunkier
mulch source instead of, I mean, and, and, you know, you're,
you're there with all the context in person, so you, you know,
how bad it is or isn't. But if it's, um,
able to kind of be moved around and a bit,
if you will, then I would just, I would just add in some chunkier, um,
mulch and maybe something, um, a little more carbon rich, but just as aged.
And, uh, just to add some of that variability.
Right on. Good. Uh, thank you for that. Um, uh, as far as, uh,
how things age, um,
do things have to be interacting with the environment to age,
or does it simply need time to go by? So, uh, the contrast I'm making is,
um, somebody who's got a pile of wood chips in the, in the, you know,
corner of their yard and they're getting rained on and, uh, you know,
warmed up by the sun, and, you know, they are,
they are aging and breaking down versus, um,
for example, this, this biomass that I was referring to that, um,
it had just been sitting in plastic bins in a shipping container
at this hemp farm for three years mm-hmm. , and they're like,
we need space. Will you just take this stuff and get rid of it? And so I did,
um,
can something air quotes age in a plastic bin not
exposed to the elements. Um, time is passing,
but biology may not be happening.
Mm-hmm. ,
this would be a matter of moisture mostly.
And then also,
when was that material harvested before being mulch?
So I'll kind of walk you through my thought process on that. Uh,
the first thing is, whenever it's harvested, if it's, if it's a green,
if it's in a green vegetative state, as opposed to, you know,
an in field ag, you have a lot of crops that, uh,
send all their sugars down out through the roots.
And then the above ground parts of the plants become this like, you know, uh,
brown , like dormant state. Uh, it's no, no longer photosynthesizing.
It's really no longer living above ground. So that is a carbon rich source.
And if you were to harvest thought, um, material, I mean,
I assume this would happen with a cannabis plant, right? Yeah.
You could just leave it in the, I don't think people really often do this,
but if you left it in the ground or left it in your container and let it die
back, and then you come and chop it and mulch it, that is,
that is going to be more carbon rich and far less of concern
from the nitrogen perspective that we were talking about. Mm-hmm. .
But if you harvested it when it was green and then chopped it up,
you'd really have to dry that material. This is where moisture comes in.
You'd have to dry it before storing it in plastic bins so that,
because if you were to just, uh, you know, chop it when it's green,
and then mulch it while it's green, and then put it in a plastic bin,
even if it had a lid on or lid off of it, whether it had a lid on or off, uh,
it would probably be too moist in that volume and start getting
funky. And you'd start losing the ni the nitrogen, um,
in that material because it's actively breaking down.
And it'd probably be doing it in a pretty stinky way,
which is often anaerobic mm-hmm. . So, um,
you'd really wanna dry that material on a tarp or something,
and then you can put it in your, uh, your bins and save it. But it's not,
it's no longer aging in terms of decomposing
anymore. And sometimes that's desired. Like,
I do this whenever I want to save a high nitrogen material
for a future compost pile that I'm not yet ready to build,
but I want to make sure that it actually maintains its high nitrogen value,
and the only way to do that is to dry that material before storing it.
And if you don't, you just lose all that nitrogen. Um, and then it would,
it would, uh, become anaerobic and problematic in that way.
So I know that was a lot of information, so I'm gonna check in at.
This point, . Right on. Um, uh, this is really interesting,
and I've never actually thought about mulches as as much as we have really dug
into them today. And, um, I just, I just looked at our timer. We've done almost,
almost, uh, an hour second set,
like essentially on mulches . Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so, um,
I'm glad that, like, you know, we really,
the goal of this was really to get people to understand, um,
how to think about mulches so that people can use whatever,
whatever they have near them, right? Yeah. Um, because we, we don't,
we certainly don't want people to like purchase stuff and ship in their mulch.
Like there's mulch all all around us, unless you're living in a city and then,
and then maybe still then, um, but I, I think that, um,
we have effectively gone through mulches that,
so people can think about what do they want in it?
How am I going to age it? How am I going to apply it?
And so the, this kind of like,
system of thinking through it can be applied to wherever folks are. So,
so I think, I think that, uh,
even though it went longer than I thought we were going to,
we definitely hit the mark. So that's a win. Okay. Good. Yeah. Okay. Good.
All right. So, um, what I think I'm gonna do though, let's, uh, let's move, um,
talking about cover crop to the third set and,
and wrap up this set right now and go to commercial and then,
and then we'll pick up with, uh, cover crop, um, uh, when we come back. So, um,
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get anywhere else. Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host Chango Los, and my guest today is Soil Biologist Andy Marsh.
So here we are with the big finish. Um,
we're gonna start off by talking about cover crops that we bumped from set two,
and then we're gonna talk about, um, uh, uh, good strategies for,
for waking up your pots in the spring, um, so that you can, um,
preserve all your gains from the prior year. So, so Andy,
when it comes to cover crops, it seems that there,
we kind of need to make a choice about whether or not we want to do a mulch or
a cover crop,
because the mulch would then be on top of
the cover crop. And if we have the mulch on top,
we're not really going to, I don't think,
going to plant the cover crop into the mulch. So it really is a,
you gotta pick one, right?
I think it kind of depends. It kind of depends on your cover crop and how it,
like it's morphology because something really delicate and low growing.
I agree with you. You probably wouldn't wanna double up on those two, or,
or really, I'd just encourage like a light mulching in that case. Um,
but I think you can, I thi I think mulching in general,
even if you're light-handed about it,
is always a good practice and that you can,
you can do so effectively with your, uh, cover crop.
So, so if you're doing something that's really, really short, um,
you'd have to use a lighter hand.
But if you did something that was like a bigger plant, say for example, like a,
um, well, it's not my favorite. A lot of people really like red clover mm-hmm.
, um,
you could potentially start your red clover and once it has grown
above the tops of your containers, then go and add a mulch,
um, beneath the red clover.
And so then that way you're having both.
Yeah. That way you're having both. And in some cases, depending on your mulch,
you could get away with mulching lightly before germ that cover crop germinates,
as long as it's light enough and they're, they're able to get,
get the microclimate they need to germinate, um,
you might find that you can get away with that. So the way that,
the way that I think about cover crops is that it's a really intimate
exercise with your cultivation. It's a, it's a very,
um,
specific practice for you within the context of your
particular cultivation practice. Okay. So it,
it's an exercise in understanding like critically thinking and then researching,
um, plants that might make sense for your specific context.
I like that idea that it's, uh, that it's something intimate and,
and it's very much to your, your,
your kind of growing style and your growing preferences. For example,
one of the reasons that I don't personally like red clover, um,
is because it grows up into the lower branches of my cannabis plants
mm-hmm. . And so, um, so I personally don't use it, but,
but people who aren't growing in, you know,
smallish containers like I am, where I've traditionally been in,
in seven gallon containers,
but moved up to 20 versus some of the regenerative farms in California
that are using 300 gallon, um, grow bags mm-hmm. ,
well, they've got,
they've got lots of room for red clover in a big bag that size.
Whereas for me, I need more of a, a petite , uh,
cover crop because there's Right. There's just not a lot of surface area in a,
in a seven to 20 gallon bag.
Exactly. Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I agree with you.
So let's, let's talk about the, the things that we're hoping the cover crop, um,
uh, is going to do for us. So the one that you've,
one that you mentioned earlier in the set is that, um, it helps keep the,
uh, rhizosphere alive because, uh,
it is a plant and it is, uh,
feeding the microbes through its root structure.
So I would put that probably at the top of the list of,
of the good thing we're wanting for it to do. Um, uh, the second,
a second thing is something we talk about on the show a lot, which is, um,
it helps the,
the top of the soil from going hydrophobic because each one of those
little, um,
stems that are going into the soil are providing a way
for, uh,
water to get into the soil and creates these like little tunnels for them to get
down into the rese.
And then the third one that we talk a lot about the show is that if, if you,
if it happens to be a cover crop with a canopy, there's a,
there's a space between the top of the soil and the,
and the canopy of the cover crop,
which creates its own kind of bioregion and can,
uh, trap moisture and be a home for, uh, uh, you know,
insects and others that live on top of the soil so they, you know,
you can have a more active food web over the winter. Um,
so tho those are the three things that I most think about,
but I bet you've got some more. So what,
what are other good reasons to have a cover crop?
Yeah, I love that last one. I, I think of it as like a habitat,
just like you described.
I would add that the cover crop can also provide
additional nutrients into the rizos sphere,
and not just through the exudates that are feeding the microbes,
but in other ways. So, um, like your legumes, for example,
anything that's able to fix nitrogen is a really strong example of this,
but there's other plants that will, uh, be able to bring about,
um, more calcium or, um,
maybe maybe taking up something that you are, you actually have too,
too much nutrient and you actually want to remove that, um,
excess through a cover crop that would kind of fall under fighter remediation
and cover crops can be really useful for that. Um,
so that would be the only thing that I'd add to your list there.
You had a great list.
Um, would you just explain for folks who are, are like, you know,
they're listening to this episode because this is all new to them,
would you just explain nitrogen fixing what that goal is?
Sure. Oh gosh, I love this topic so much. So you,
you're gonna have to keep me , keep me concise. Okay. All right. But,
but in general, uh,
nitrogen fixing plants are a miracle to us because nitrogen
the only way to get nitrogen into,
even just into biology in general, including u nme.
So first of all, nitrogen is the backbone of amino acids and proteins. We all,
every living thing requires nitrogen.
And the only way that nitrogen gets into
lifeforms is, um, from,
from the atmospheric nitrogen going through some kind of process in the soil and
getting into our food web. Okay. So, um, nitrogen,
it has a triple bond. Um, it's an n two molecule, atmospheric nitrogen is,
so that means one nitrogen, uh,
atom is connected to another through a triple bond, and it's really,
really difficult to separate the two to then, um,
allow it to become something like a, a nitrate, um, and be taken up into plants.
And so what's really cool is that these nitrogen fixing plants like legumes,
um,
as well as some free living organisms that do nitrogen fixing,
um, outside of plants entirely,
is that they've found a way to break that bond and start the,
the cycling of nitrogen into the system.
And so by using these plans, uh,
it's essentially capturing wild nitrogen and,
and packing it into your soil so that your plants can use it next
summer.
Yes.
Exactly. Fabulous. So, um, alright, so,
so that's probably enough on cover crops there. Um,
so let's,
let's move on to what was going to be the start of set three before we,
we bumped cover crops over, which was,
I was gonna start with this very dramatic question. Um,
let's talk about worst case scenarios that, um,
that we want to avoid with our containers. And, um,
I could really only think of two, which would be number one, uh,
your container freezing solid, um, because I don't know this for sure,
but I would think that, um, you know, unlike the,
the ground which will probably not freeze solid because of
the ambient warmth that, that the earth has,
a container could actually freeze solid to the point where I'm
guessing it could, it could wipe out Hughes swaths of, of the microbes.
Um, is that true?
Yeah, definitely. I mean,
the microbes have water in them and, uh,
under freezing conditions they would cr you know,
those water molecules would freeze and effectively kill them. So, um,
that, that would be bad news to have, to have all the water in your pot, uh,
essentially freeze. Mm-hmm.
. And then the second thing I, I considered was that, um,
you kind of want to be aware of the containers to make sure nothing gets
deposited in the,
on the top of the container that might cause, uh,
the biology to be thrown out of balance. Um, and,
and I'm not like entirely certain what that would be like, I was,
I was trying to think of like, you know, you know, passing animals feces, like,
you know, a dog or something like that. But, you know, I, I would,
I would tend to think that the pot would be able to,
to deal with that very likely. But then I was thinking about like, you know,
one of the farm hands laying their, you know,
a can of soda that's partially drank and then it gets knocked over by the wind
and now suddenly you've got half of a diet Coke in your soil. And so,
so you probably just want to like, like just be aware and, you know,
occasionally walk your field and just make sure that that, you know,
chaos has not arrived on the top of your containers.
Yeah. I, when you mentioned that just now, I was thinking of somebody, uh,
tossing out the last little bit of coffee onto their plants thinking like, oh,
here's some nitrogen. And it's like, okay, that's,
that might be fine here and there, uh, in really small quantities, but if you,
if it's always the same plant that's closest to wherever you're standing in the
field at the time that you finish your coffee , like, it,
it can become a, a problem. So just, you know, being mindful. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
. Um, what do you think about the idea of home growers?
Because like, this is, this isn't something that scales Well, probably, um,
but I've got a neighbor who actually, uh, has got a hole dug in their,
on their yard and they do, uh, five twenties every year. Um,
and they, they put their 20 gallon pots, like they bury them mm-hmm.
. And so, um, in their, in their thought,
the geothermal temperature will keep the rhizosphere in the pot like
safe.
And it also allows the migration into the pot of
other diverse life forms that are already in the soil because the,
the ho the ho the hole that he dug, um,
is deep enough that, um, he's got about, I don't know,
maybe eight or 10 inches of soil that he puts on top of them. Oh. And so it,
by his theory, it's actually he says, he says it's,
it's inviting all of these, um,
soil inhabitants from his yard to like, come on in,
come on into the container for the, the winter. There's all sorts of like,
interesting foods here that you don't normally get.
And so he attracts all these things and then when he pulls 'em out in the
spring, um, they don't have to wake up. They're,
they've kind of been awake all winter and they've got more biodiversity.
What do you think of that?
That's cool. I, I like, I like the idea of that for sure. I think it all,
it all is is sound to me just hearing about it. And I think there's,
yeah. The,
the only reason that that would work is because he's taken good care of his pots
and created a habitat for organisms to be interested in
enough in, uh, joining . Right.
So. Right, right. The invitation is good.
Yes. Yes. I I think that's really neat. And the fact that, um,
it's buried and able to stay warm and much warmer than if it were
exposed above ground is, um, I mean,
it sounds labor intensive to dig such a large hole, but you know,
if you have the means and, um, I, I say go for it.
Yeah. He's, he, he's a, uh, retired person with a lot of time on his hands,
uhhuh, and he loves, he loves to tinker and experiments. So I,
I like going over there all sorts of odd, odd labor intensive things.
So the good neighbor to have.
Yeah, totally. Um, so earlier in the show we, we talked quite a bit about, um,
how to devise a fall compost tea. Um,
once it gets really cold and things are, you know,
things are frosting over and maybe we're starting to get, you know,
nights in the thirties and stuff, um, I'm guessing we,
we wanna stop adding compost teas because we don't wanna be
packing our containers with water once they start getting
cold because that extra water will expand and,
and could actually cause damage to the pot. So I'm thinking we,
we want to do what, you know, the, the,
the big compost tea before the frost and then don't add any more water.
Or is the position like actually making sure they get watered over the winter is
good because they're less likely to cyst up? What are,
what are your thoughts on that?
I think you wanna be mindful of moisture levels because if they get too low,
you will have some loss in your,
your microbial populations. But, um, you know,
I'm holding space for the idea of it freezing through,
which is hard for a Texan like me to really empathize with because I,
I've never, uh, experienced it firsthand, but I,
I'm sure that happens up north. Um, and it's probably when you least expect it.
So I, I'd say trying to find some kind of middle ground.
Um, and if that means keeping things pretty moist on the front end,
but as those temps get colder and colder and there's a greater risk of freezing,
then yeah. That you back off and you make sure that, um,
priority number one is that you're not, uh, complicating any of your equipment.
Um, by, by freezing and also not killing off any of the organisms,
uh, that are freezing the, it's kind of like,
are you gonna lose them to freezing or are you going to lose them to them not
getting enough water? Yeah. And your,
it's your job to be in tune enough with when you choose to
pull which lover.
And that's probably a big Biore question as you pointed out in my head.
Um, you know,
pots never run out of water cuz I live in the Pacific Northwest and my winter
is all rain mm-hmm. .
But if you happen to live in the part of the country where your winters are cold
and dry, well then, you know, you actually might have dehydration issues.
So it's good to,
it's good to make sure that you are cultivating for where you live.
Certainly. And you could just as another option you could consider,
uh, removing the soil from your pots.
I don't know if you tell me if this is a feasible idea, but, um,
having that in contact with soil,
whether you're slightly burying it or just kind of mounting it somewhere, uh,
in a really thoughtful space, maybe behind a wind break or an area that's like,
pretty well protected, but you'd, you'd be able to, um,
again, have migration occurring in that scenario and, uh,
have a better chance of the, the microbes surviving in,
in some capacity and, and less concerns about freezing.
The only downside to this is the amount of disturbance.
So then when you come in in the spring, you're disturbing that soil in order to,
um, put the soil into the pots. Um, and, and that's not ideal, but it's also,
again,
comparing that reality to what happens when you leave that pot
exposed all winter long. And I'd say that that disturbance, um,
might actually be the, the lesser of two evils there.
Yeah, that's interesting. When you, when you first suggested that,
my thought was, oh my gosh, it's just gonna wreck the mycelium networks mm-hmm.
. But if let's say you live somewhere that gets really cold, like,
um, like I imagine Montana to be okay. Right, right. Like I,
I've seen enough movies where, you know, know nature just seems too free solid.
And, and so if you've got extreme situations like that,
a a 10 gallon container on your deck, it,
it probably doesn't have a chance. Right? Mm-hmm. and so,
and so if you were to make a pile of all, you know, 10 gallon containers of the,
just the soil, yeah, you'll beat up the mycelium networks,
but at least they'll all, all,
they'll all essentially be huddled together for the cold season.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I agree. It's, it's again,
just kind of thinking critically about these things and comparing one option to
another and not getting too dogmatic about it.
Just because you saw someone on TikTok swearing by their method of over
wintering their pods doesn't mean it's the best method for.
You. Yeah. Right on. Um, alright, so, uh, let's go into this, uh, last area,
which is let's talk about waking up the pots, uh, in the spring. So, um,
let's assume that we, we did all of the things right. Um, we did a, uh,
a late season Fung Lee dominant, um, uh,
compost tea. And then we also did a, uh,
protozoa infusion in the fall.
And then we had a really nicely blended, uh, top mulch,
and then we were growing a cover crop that was helping keep the,
the microbes fed over winter.
And so now we find ourselves in the spring and,
um, uh,
we want to transition our pot back to a position where
it's ready for us to, uh, bring in our clones, um,
or our seed starts. And,
and we want them to just like immediately get into this wonderful relationship,
uh, and reform a rhizosphere and take off. So what,
what hints would you give us to, uh,
ease that transition for the microbes from where they're getting their food and
the plant to be, uh, warmly embraced by the soil.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah, so,
so it's important at this point that you're not providing too many
synthetic nutrients. I mean, really we,
if we're thinking biologically,
we don't really wanna be using many stu synthetic nutrients at all, um,
because they can kill microbes,
but especially during this early establishment phase, it can be tempting.
And so I just want to note that, um, when we,
when we provide those nutrients directly to the plant,
it's disrupting that engagement between the microbes and the root
exudates. It, the,
the plant is only going to generate those root exudates if it has needs that
need to be met mm-hmm. , um, by the microbes.
And so that's why I just wanna caution against getting too, uh,
tempted by providing some kind of synthetic nutrient boost and instead
focusing on, um, yeah, maximizing the inoculation.
And your job is to make introductions.
You are bringing in the microbes, um,
so that they can start responding to those exudates. So similarly,
you don't necessarily need to be all that focused on providing a lot of
microbial foods because we want them to be getting their foods now from the
plant and start creating that relationship.
So would that make a suggestion that we,
we don't wanna do a heavy spring compost tea.
I think you, I think you can do, um, you definitely wanna do a compost tea, uh,
but this time be more focused on the inoculation.
And so this is where extracts might actually be become, um,
of greater interest to you. Mm-hmm. , um,
doing more frequent extracts rather than
big batches of like nutrient rich tea. Um,
and, and I say this in terms of may, you know, you can certainly do a tea,
but don't go,
don't go too heavy handed on it because your goal is if you find yourself
tempted to be adding tea, um, super regularly in the spring,
maybe start alternating with an extract. And again,
an extract is just the microbes. You're not adding foods,
you're not having a brewing cycle. Um, you're, you're just it's.
Less inoculate. It's less dense. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, uh, Jeff Lowenfels, uh,
says that early in the season, you, you want your microbes to be,
um, you don't wanna make 'em lazy, you don't wanna make it mm-hmm.
too easy for them. You want them to get to work. Exactly.
And that sounds like what we're describing here. Um, exactly.
And same with the plants.
Yeah. We want them building, um,
not not laying around because there's all this easy free food.
Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , that's, that's right on. Right.
On. Um, i, is, is there anything that we need to do or,
or is there anything that we can do that can support them changing the food
source, uh, from the compost teas to back to the, the,
the roots exudates and such? Or, or does that just,
they probably prefer the exudates and so as soon as we put a plant in there,
um, it will, they, they will naturally just switch on their own,
you know?
Cause we're just trying to decrease as much transition time as possible. Right.
Right. And,
and there is a level of patience that's always required here because you're
taking a very young plant that's not yet pumping out lots and lots of
oxidates. And so, um,
be because of its limited capacity to photosynthesize since it has
a small surface area to do so. Um,
so I think just tapering off and knowing that,
like leading up to planting day, um,
to go really light-handed like little to no microbial foods are being added
during that time.
You did that work in the winter to get your microbes through winter and have
food, um, to, to sustain them.
But now as you're transitioning into planting, um, you're, you're going to,
um, back off on in terms of feeding the,
the microbe foods again so that um, when that plant gets in in there,
they can start creating their relationship. And once it gets to a certain stage,
um, you, there shouldn't be a limiting factor anymore. So you, you know,
you might, in, in terms of using my microscope to look at these things, um,
of what's really going on in the root zone,
you might see like a drop in your biomass during a phase where you've put a
young plant in, into the container, but it,
it kind of turns a corner at some point, uh,
once it's really photosynthesizing and pumping out those sugars to feed the
microbes.
It's funny because it's, um,
it's fall and I am not thinking about you, you know, growing right now.
Right now I'm feeling tired from the summer, and I'm glad I'm not like,
you know, farming right now. Mm-hmm. , however, you know,
you talking about these like healthy thriving pots and these young plants,
and I'm like, Ooh, like start the season. Start. I love, I love thinking about,
and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got, we got five months, man. Like,
chill out. Like, we've got a while. But, um, you know,
there is something inherently exciting about thinking ahead to the fresh
season every year. Oh.
Yeah. You'll,
you'll look like you have imaginary plant friends if you're out there tending to
your pots with no plants in 'em, but I think that's, uh, just as well.
Right on. Um, well Andy, thank you so much for being a guest on Shaping Fire.
This is, um, I, I've,
I've always been interested on things that I can do to get a,
a jumpstart on the, on, you know, next year. But I,
I'm usually am thinking about, well, let's, let's make an f pj,
let's make a fertilizer, let's make sure that the compost is going. And, um,
the idea that I can, um,
pay attention and use intention, uh,
with the soil that is in my containers and the earth so that,
um,
I don't have to put in as much work every spring to get the micro
machine pumping along. Um, I'm glad to have, you know, a,
a better understanding of how to do that as well.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I think all of these things too, the,
the cover crops, the mulching,
the adding of the microbial foods and the inoculation that the biology itself,
they're all contributing to so many different areas that benefit us.
So it's not just about plant nutrients,
it's also about that soil structure we talked about earlier. And I,
I think that's really undervalued or,
or it kind of goes unrecognized a lot of times come, come springtime,
just how valuable that it can be, um,
to have a pot that's been nurtured and has a really healthy sru structure
that's prepared to become home to that young plant.
Um,
it's kind of like moving into a neighborhood that has a good vibe and lots of
friendly neighbors as opposed to something that's, you know,
a neighborhood that's been really neglected and and desolate.
Wow. That's a great example. Excellent. Right on. Well, let's, let's,
let's all get to making good neighborhoods for our, uh,
for our plants to move into in the spring. So thank you so much, Andy.
I I really enjoyed our conversation.
Me too. Thanks for having me.
If you want to find out more information about Andy Marsh, um,
there are two great places to go. Um, first, uh,
you can go to her Instagram, which is at Soil is Sexy.
And, uh, her Instagram's a lot of fun. Not only do Will you learn lots of,
um, you know, good best practices for taking care of your soil, um,
but there's all sorts of interesting, um, uh, microscopic posts and, uh,
great, like pictures of, of slides and such.
And so if you are, uh, either interested in,
in microscope science or, um, actually don't know much about it like me,
uh, it's a great place to start where you can,
you can pick up interesting things without it, um, you know,
necessarily like you happen to read a whole book, you can get,
get little bits here and there and it's, it's, it's fun to follow along. Um,
now if you are more serious than that, um,
you definitely want to check out Andy's, which is, uh,
rizzos.sub.com. So that's Rizzos,
R H I Z O S, where you are gonna, um, uh,
find more of her, uh, uh,
writings and scientific thought than the kind of, you know, Instagram,
which is a little bit sometimes Science Light ck is,
is is where you're gonna want to go, um, when you decide you wanna,
you wanna read something serious. That's rizzos.sub.com.
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