Best Way to Increase Soil Microbes and Improve Plant Health

After playing several of your videos, I don't think I need to hear what other garden channels have to say. I've been gardening for 50 years and you've taught me things I didn't know. Great information. Thank you for holding this space for us to learn.

When you harvest, leave the roots in the soil if you can. This feeds the microbes and helps aerate the soil as the roots decompose.

I don’t think there’s any other YouTube channel that packs so much useful information into the same timeframe. Thanks for keeping my supply list for 2024 nice and short!

You have just earned the wrath of many fertilizer companies! You talk sense and by imparting your experiences, you have had helped us save huge amount of money. Gardening or farming is so simple. Do not complicate it, businessmen!

I would add that given everything we don't and possibly will never know about microbes, it's likely beneficial to shoot for high diversity. I say this based on presentations about the Johnson-Su bioreactor, which is a method of composting with air columns and watering (but not turning) where they tested and found leaving it for a year resulted in a wide variety of microbe species in abundant numbers compared to lesser amounts of time resulting in dominance by relatively fewer species, with the resulting compost apparently having extreme positive effects on crop yields at very low application rates (as an extract or top dress). I also have seared into my brain the fact that living plant roots increase organic matter in the soil five times as fast as depositing organic matter on the soil surface (leaves in the forest, mulch, etc.). See presentations by Dr. Christine Jones about that.

Well he’s written several books and won an award for his work seems like he knows what he’s talking about it. 😂I learn so much from him. Lots of us do❤

Thank you sir! This is exactly what I tell my friends who wonder how I “fertilize” my garden. Decades spent on studying micro-algae, and cyanobacterial ecosystems taught me to feed the soil. I tell them grow earthworms in your garden, feed them. The ecosystem will develop and the transition from hard sandy clay to a rich loam will happen. I visit the dumpsters near Starbucks, collect hundreds of pounds of used coffee grounds, plus recycled plant stalks, clean grass clippings, leaves, twigs and wood chips. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers!

Plant root exudates feed microbes - always have plants growing and your soil will turn into black gold

Adding molasses is like organising a party and inviting friends. They will leave once the drinks are over

Like he said in a nutshell, compost is a game changer for gardening/farming! I’ve seen the power of leaves in my flower beds and annual vegetables.

I keep a 30 gallon barrel constantly digesting plant matter throughout the year. Not much happens in the winter but every spring I empty out the sludge and put it in the compost or mulch the beds. I just keep feeding the barrel with weeds or other organic matter. It smells awful but the plants like a taste of the liquid. And the beds love the sludge. I’m gonna continue. My garden seems happy and I just built a mushroom bed out there.

I garden in sand in the high desert of NM. The biggest help for my garden has been fertilizer (nitrogen and iron,) mushroom compost, and woodchip mulch. We also chop and drop, trying to keep all organic materials we produce.

I recently read, Soil Science, and it was quite eye opening, and I’ve been a gardener for 40 years. I currently have about 300 sq feet of raised beds and containers. My soil is very good, and my vegetable production is pretty good in spite of just barely getting enough sunlight due to trees on either side of my yard. I compost my grass clippings and leaves, and top off my beds every season with new compost, but I also add both organic and some synthetic fertilizers, plus lime, gypsum, sulfur, crushed oyster shells, and alfalfa pellets.

Adding things randomly and hoping that it has a desired effect reminds me of how they introduced so many invasive species in an attempt to solve some problem without understanding the ramifications of their actions.

I bought the book LET IT ROT years ago. I remember it saying that adding starter to compost was a waste. It said to mix a little soil to it and the microbes needed would be there. This video seems to confirm that.

Wvey week, I get 5 big bags of discarded produce from a local grocery collection to tons of leaves and coffee grounds .spread it over my garden in winter .I love seeing that black dirt 😊😊😊😊

Thank you — I bought all these extra stuff to improve my soil & now your way is simplex& a lot cheaper ..

I haven’t even started your video but the comments speak volumes. Totally subbing.

After watching & reading numerous presentations on CEC & micro-organisms, an agronomist gave a simple explanation as to what launches the active sequence of microbes assisting in the chemical transformation of locked-up soil minerals into plant available minerals. While it's true microbes need food (organic matter), plant exudates provided by new roots are what awakens dormant microbes which then feast & excrete enormous amounts of H+ ions material which bonds with the (weak) H- charged soil colloids (unless majority sand.) The H+ (microbes poop) are acidic cations & easily break the alkaline anions in the immediate soil colloid rhizosphere making minerals available. Good roots are the key to a good start.

Grow Jadam microbes from soil under an old tree near by or your compost. Very easy and effective.