Soil Fertility Seminar

I am at a Soil Fertility seminar today. My husband went to this seminar last year, got all inspired, gave me the brain dump, then said "Next year you have to go".

Since during the entire year the best we've done for our soil fertility is build a compost heap, here I am.

The seminar is intense, and goes right into microscopic details of micro biology, and chemistry. I'm keeping up, just. The overall message is clear. Don't ever ever ever use pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers ever again. Yes, those 20l of MCPA 500 we bought last year are heading for the bin. You don't need them. Just make your own compost, compost extract, and compost tea, and you're self sustainable. Yes, it's that simple. And Dr Elaine Ingham has heaps of examples to prove it. Oh, and did I say reduce your garden's water consumption by 70%? Yes. It's true. Have a draught year and don't water. Not one drop.

Don't believe me? Go and attend the seminar. Or, come and see us at the farm some time after we've done our first spray.

The method can be applied to a garden, a pot, or thousand acre farm. And anything in between. It's based on maintaining healthy soil. What's healthy soil? Well, depends. Depends on what you would like to grow in it. What's healthy for a weed is not healthy for a vegetable. What's healthy for a vegetable is not healthy for a tree. So yes, where you have trees you spray a different mix of compost tea than your lawn or your vegie garden. If fact, you may spray a different mix for carrots, and different for broccoli.

I must admit I am a bit wide eyed about this. I put up my hand. "So say you spray a compost tea on your paddock full of capeweed," I ask. "What happens to the capeweed?" "Well, assuming you got your mix right, the capeweed wilts", says Dr Elaine. Wow. This I want to see.