Archive for Amy Luck-MacGregor
Spread that Fall Compost!
Fall finds me smiling for many reasons, not least of which is thinking about all the Soil Food Webbers out there happily and diligently applying microbes to the soil. Where do those microbes come from? Compost of course! Conventional wisdom would have us see compost as a fertilizer; containing soluble nutrients prone to leaching or […]
Biologically Complete Compost
When we are looking to restore life to the soil, our most important tool is compost. But not just any compost. To increase diversity and restore missing groups of plant-beneficial organisms, we need to create an effective inoculum of these microbes. You could think of the inoculum aspect a bit like a yogurt culture or […]
Health You Can Taste
What a sweet time of year. Well into the growing season there’s such an abundance of produce to delight the taste buds. Biting into juicy locally grown tomatoes, you can detect the difference in flavour across varieties. Maybe you can even taste the difference in the same variety from farm to farm. Contrast this with […]
Capturing Liquid Sunlight
Leaves are like little solar panels. Chasing the sun, they combine solar energy with water and carbon dioxide to make sugary sap. This liquid sunlight, stored in carbon rings, is the foundation of almost all life on earth. We cannot live without it. How well a plant carries out photosynthesis depends on a number of […]
DIY Mycorrhizal Fungi for Veggies
Mycorrhizal fungi are “obligate symbionts”, meaning that they need a host plant to survive. Endomycorrhizal fungi, also called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi or AMF, are essential partners of 70-90% of all plant species, including the majority of the vegetables in your garden this year. AMF don’t produce mushrooms. They propagate via underground spores, pieces of host […]
And a Roof Overhead
I don’t know about you, but it seems like a lot of people are bracing for this summer to be very hot and very dry. Increasing the amount and diversity of life belowground can help plants build resiliency for these kinds of extremes. We rely on soil microbes to make the spongy soil structure required […]
Seeds with Sense
It blows my mind every time: if you look at current estimates of the amount of genetic information in a person, only about 1% of it is human. The rest belongs to microbes (bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa) and viruses, co-operating in groups to form “symbionts.” These symbionts perform the functions needed for human life and […]
Seasonal Sampling
Soil biology numbers change across seasonal cycles. Understanding what mediates the flurries of activity of these wee beings is helpful in deciding when and how to check who is home in your soil. Numbers peak when plants are actively growing and excreting “liquid sunshine” through their roots. Soil temperature, moisture and other types of microbe […]
Winter Composting Tips
At this latitude there probably aren’t too many people actively winter composting, unless you have an indoor space for thermophilic piles (and are hardcore!). Most folks tend to have a static pile out the back, where yard waste is thrown during the warmer months and kitchen scraps tossed year-round. Small worm farms are also becoming […]
Let There Be Air
Compaction is a pretty big deal when you’re trying to grow plants. How far can roots go down before they hit “hard pan” and must go sideways? How far can water infiltrate until it, too, must go sideways, leaching soluble nutrients and potentially carrying precious topsoil away? Compaction can be caused by the weight of […]
How’s Your Soil Structure?
It’s always seemed to me like we have a water storage problem, rather than a drought problem, here on the island. Ask any permaculturalist or regenerative farmer the best way to store water and they will tell you, hands down, that it’s in the soil. Storing water this way requires good soil structure, and for […]
What Is Regenerative Agriculture?
At it’s most basic, regenerative agriculture involves leaving the soil in better condition than it was found. It’s different to the idea of “sustainable” – keeping something in it’s current state or level for the future – which implies that where we’re at is actually acceptable. There’s no denying that agricultural practices over the course […]