Jealous of your neighbor's garden?
We’ve ALL been there. You pull a handful of cherry tomatoes off the vine and smile with pride at the harvest you cultivated. Then, you look over your fence and see your neighbor’s tomato vines, leaning from the sheer weight of their produce!
How is that possible? You KNOW they don’t water as frequently as you do. You’re sure that they planted weeks after your plants got in the ground. Your garden should have been just as amazing this year, so why wasn’t it? If your homestead isn’t providing the way you think it should, it might not be your technique, it might be your soil.
Three key elements are responsible for building a cycle of health in your garden: minerals, carbon, and biology.
The carbon-biological cycle is a system that allows nutrients to be extracted from the soil, exchanged between plants and microbes, and utilized by your plants to grow bigger and better produce. You feed life above your soil, by focusing on what’s growing below.
Farmers and master gardeners are familiar with the secret world within your soil—the intricate network of microflora and fauna responsible for providing nutrients to plants. When your microbiology is healthy, your garden can get more out of the soil. Conventional gardening techniques don’t replenish and revive the microbiology in your soil, which can deteriorate the quality of your soil and lead to lower yield over time. Janet from the HOA who has bell peppers the size of a chihuahua? Her soil is probably bioactive.
This leads to the question of the day: How do I add microbiology to my soil?
There are many things you can do to support diverse and healthy microbes, from changing your gardening techniques to switching up your fertilizers.
Farmers rotate crops in their fields to prevent long-term nutrient loss. Following the same idea, you can rotate your garden placement to keep your soil fresh! Tomatoes are happiest in a sunnier part of your garden; however, they pull a LOT of nutrients out of the soil. You can’t play catch-up with tomatoes, so when you see signs of nutrient deficiencies in your plants, it might already be too late. Setting up your garden for success at the beginning of the season often means giving back before your plants go in the ground. A small change like rotating your plant placement can provide your soil with a season to recover. Try swapping where you grow your tomatoes and your greens or plant a nitrogen-fixing plant like peas where you grew heavy-feeding plants last season.
Limiting the use of pesticides, especially fungicides, is another easy way to support your soil biology. Fungicides don’t differentiate between beneficial fungi and harmful fungi, and long-term use of fungicides can do some damage to your soil. Cultivating a diverse soil ecosystem is a natural way to control pest populations and can help you grow stronger and more resilient plants.
Adding biologically driven soil amendments to your garden is an easy way to not only support your existing soil biology but can restock your soil’s natural population of microbes that might be in low supply.
The first thing to add to your garden’s arsenal? Activated Compost! Because compost is rich in diverse microbiology and organic material, it adds microbes to your soil while providing a rich environment for them to survive.
Gardeners that grow a lot of heavy-feeding plants rely on a hearty granular fertilizer that can supply essential nutrients. Our BIOACTIVETM All-Purpose Fertilizer goes one step further. All-Purpose Fertilizer is inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi to improve nutrient uptake and root development. If you’ve peeked around the organic segment of the fertilizer aisle, you’ve probably heard of mycorrhizal fungi. It is a type of beneficial fungi that builds a symbiotic relationship with plants, acting as an extension of their root system. This allows plants to naturally increase their ability to take in nutrients, as well as promote healthy root development.
Brand new to the Purple Cow Organics product line, our BIOACTIVETM Liquid Biology Bundle is a liquid soil amendment program that gives diverse microbiology to your soil, along with an essential nutrient source that feeds and boosts your existing soil biology. Get your soil to full health by simply mixing one tablespoon of each liquid, and one gallon of water, directly in your watering can! It’s easier than ever to build back biologically-active soil.
Contact us here to learn more about improving the yield on your suburban homestead!