YouTube: How to Apply Beneficial Nematodes to Control Pests in Your Garden
This week's YouTube video shows you how and why to use beneficial nematodes to solve pest and disease problems in your soil. We always come back to the Soil Food Web
Prune dead and diseased tomato foliage
Ask Gardenerd: Lumpy Tomato Roots, Root Nematodes
A timely question came in to Ask Gardenerd this week from Catherine: "My garden went gangbusters this year but I noticed...the roots of all plants (4 tomatoes and 2 cucumber plants) were bumpy, like they had grown lumps all over. I read something about 'root nematodes' but the link wasn't very informative about what causes this, or if it is a pest or an organic condition, if I need to treat the soil before planting anything new, etc. Any thoughts…
Read all three of Jeff's books.
Podcast: Soil Fungi with Jeff Lowenfels
We just returned from the Heirloom Expo where we interviewed eight great guests for upcoming Gardenerd Tip of the Week Podcasts. Our first guest from that whirlwind experience is Jeff Lowenfels, author of 3 books including Teaming with Microbes: the Organic Gardeners Guide to the Soil Food Web. We chat about gardening in Alaska, his newest book on soil fungi, and his project Plant a Row for the Hungry. More Than Just Fungi Read all three of Jeff's books to…
Custom Biologicals has 20 years experience creating beneficial biota amendments for garden and agricultural soils.
Shop: Custom Biologicals
We're thrilled to offer a new product line in the Gardenerd Store: Custom Biologicals. If you've always wanted to apply biologically active compost tea (ACT) to your garden but don't have the time to buy all the ingredients to brew your own, this is a shortcut. It's not the same as ACT, but it's close. It's not the whole Soil Food Web, but a few key members. Custom Biologicals has been creating biological soil amendments since 1992. "Biological soil amendments…
Fungi growing on wood chips. Used for making fungal-dominant compost.
Fungal Wood Pile for Compost
If you have issues like powdery mildew and blight in your garden, chances are you need more good fungi in your soil to combat the bad fungi. Our latest YouTube video shows you one easy and free way to inoculate wood chips, which can be used later in your compost bin to create fungal-dominant compost for your garden. Fungal is good! Dr. Elaine Ingham, who coined the phrase, "Soil Food Web," recommended this trick, so we tested it out last…
Compost ingredients
Soil Food Web Intensive – Part 2
In our last episode, we shared the wonders of Dr. Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web Intensive course. Today, we'll continue with more tidbits and tricks that will help you build better compost (and compost tea) for a healthier garden. In my opinion, every gardener should have a compost bin. It's not only the best way to reduce what goes in the garbage, it's the best way to improve your soil for all eternity. What is compost? I've said it before,…
Soil Food Web
Soil Food Web Intensive – Part 1
I've just returned from spending 5 glorious days with Dr. Elaine Ingham, the soil microbiologist who coined the term "Soil Food Web." It was, indeed, intense. Even though I'd been circling this information since 2009 when I saw Jeff Lowenfels speak about the Soil Food Web and his then upcoming book, Teaming with Microbes, at the San Fransisco Garden Show, there's nothing like getting it from the source. Dr. Elaine Ingham has been solving soil issues around the world, soil…
Dr. Elaine Ingham shares the amazing restoration work she's doing.
Urban Soil Summit Review – Part 1
If you've ever wanted to know how soil works and what's going on underground in your garden, a Soil Summit is a great place to start. It is impossible to summarize the whole of the Urban Soil Carbon Water Summit (Soil Summit for short) that I attended last week in one blog post. So I won't. I can, however, share the highlights from the first part of the first day which featured talks from Dr. Elaine Ingham and Ray Archuleta.…