Use of Microbes in Gardening

This doesn’t get talked about enough. You hear about nutrients like organic matter and water, and adequate temperature and sun, but it is not generally realized that none of this would matter without microbes.

Microbes have a synergy with plants. They help the plant absorb nutrients by breaking them down, and in return the plant gives them sugar in a form and amount they can utilize. Microbes also structure the soil for the perfect amount of drainage.

That is why gardening techniques that do not till or dig the soil, keeping these microbes intact and undisturbed, bring about amazing yields of large healthy delicious vegetables and fruits.

In truth, it may be the microbes in a compost pile that make the crops thrive more than the nutrients themselves, otherwise we could just throw raw fruits and vegetables on the ground next to our plants to “fertilize” them. We could do that, but nothing would happen until they started being broken down by microbes so the plant could absorb the nutrients.

I once took the advice of a farmer that provided vegetables to the co-op I shopped at. She said she blended up all food waste including meat and bones and she poured it on the ground near her plants and that’s all the plant food she needed.

Since I didn’t plan on planting in the winter, even in Florida it can get kind of cold, I got one of the garbage cans at the house I was renting and put it on the side of the house and every night I would blend the days food scraps and pour it in this garbage can.  We only ate organic and this included all food scraps: pulp from all the juicing and mush left from making potassium broth, dairy, meat, eggshells, peels and roots, chicken bones, beef bones, fish scales and bones, - everything food.

It was pretty uneventful for a few months as the garbage can was filling up. But after the halfway mark, probably because it had gotten warmer, there started to be activity in this fertilizer slop. It was bubbling and I could see maggots in the mix. It was surprising that the mixture didn’t smell bad. But I had decided to fill this garbage can up before starting the garden, so I continued.

By the time the garbage can was filled my marital status was suddenly changing and there went the gardening plans.  

So to scrap the whole project I dug a hole the size of the garbage can and poured the whole thing onto the hole and hosed out the can and poured it into the hole too. Then I patted the old dirt on top. It didn’t look like much except the bald rectangle in the grass was unsightly. So I decided, after I finished moving and all that, to come back with some grass seeds to remedy that unsightly patch.

But before I could do that, I was driving down my old street and was expecting to see the bald patch. It had only been days. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The patch had completely covered over by itself and the grass on the patch was like 3 inches taller than the grass around it!

A few weeks later I drove by the old house and the whole lawn needed mowing but the patch grass was waist high! And 3 months later a full grown man could stand completely hidden on that spot. Then about 10 years later I went back to town for a visit and drove by the house and the lawn was neatly trimmed but that spot had grass on it that was over a foot taller than all the other grass. 10 years later?!!

Well all the organic matter would have been used up by that time. Only the microbes that would perpetuate through time could still be in that spot. I wonder what the landlord and the new neighbors thought about this mystery patch. I knocked on the door, but no one was home.

But that was an education I accidentally got on the importance of microbes in the growing of plants.

It wasn’t the first one though. That same farmer I got the advice from had earlier gotten a hold of some microbe solution that increased her yield 3X. But it was supposed to be some special strain of microorganisms.

Recently, I found different systems of farming that say different things about what to include in compost and fertilizer and what not to include when you are growing microbes, but I think the more different kinds of microbes the better.

I didn’t know anything and I combined unwittingly all these systems together and look what happened!

So now I will tell you about some things regarding microbes I found in some gardening books:

I mentioned leaf mold in the first blog of this Organic Gardening Series. To refresh your memory it is basically fertilizer (Plant Nutrient) that mimics what happens in the forest when leaves fall. They decompose and form a rich layer of dirt that carpets the forest floor.

It can be harvested right out of the forest, or you can mimic this process by stuffing a bag full of fallen leaves, poking holes in the bag for ventilation and leaving it in the garage or shed somewhere for about a year or even two. What you wind up with just looks like dirt, BUT it will have a variety of microbes in it along with the predominant “mold’.

This can be used as an additive to potting mix for sowing seeds or placed around the trunk of a plant as a mulch. It is also used to make other fertilizers or if you put it in the compost pile it speeds up decomposition of the pile and increases the spectrum of microbes which will eventually aid plants in absorbing nutrients. So even if you are not ready to start gardening, you can do the simple task of making some leaf mold for when you do start.

I looked into Korean Natural Farming and JADAM recommendations for sustainable farming because they are both known for making gardens that yield amazing and plentiful vegetables while claiming to be the least work.

JADAM is an association of farmers formed in 1991 by Youngsang Cho of South Korea. Jadam is short for the Korean phrase “Jayonul Damun Saramdul”.  Which means “People that resemble nature”. This group researches new and improved ways to make things in organic gardening easier, more understandable and more inexpensive along with, of course, effectiveness.

Korean Natural Farming, I was surprised to find out, was started by Youngsang’s father who put Organic Farming on the map in Korea. Now there are 3 generations of Cho’s working to simplify and make affordable Organic Gardening so it will spread like water across the earth.  

You see, even Organic Farming has gotten complicated and out of hand. An Organic farmer finds himself forced to buy heavy machinery and various fertilizers and products because he has lost technology sovereignty and is controlled by big companies and he eventually goes broke or struggles greatly.

The principles of both Korean Natural Farming and Jadam are alike. They follow Nature, but Jadam seeks to make it low cost and easy to understand so that anyone can do it and not be dependent on those big companies like Monsanto and John Deer, etc. Jadam believes that food sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, not corporations.

I had intended to go into how collect microbes that are indigenous to your gardens surroundings and how to make fermented plant juice and Jadam liquid fertilizer, but I found that there is such a plethora of things in the Jadam system to cover every different aspect of gardening/farming that I will have to continue it in another blog.

The goal of this blog was to make you think differently about the importance of microbes. By now I hope you see a newfound importance regarding this microscopic workforce in your garden.  

Next time I will cover how you can add to this workforce so you can create many healthy productive plants using inexpensive things that are locally available.

*This article is intended for informational purposes. The statements above have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.