A microbe masterclass with Sarah Smuts-Kennedy - Viaduct Harbour

A microbe masterclass with Sarah Smuts-Kennedy

Vision holder of For The Love Of Bees Sarah Smuts-Kennedy shares her top tips for getting the most out of your soil.

Cool fact: There are more microbes in one tablespoon of living soil than there are humans on the planet. These microbes are your work force helping you grow healthy pest resilient plants that are the only ones you want to grow and eat.

So how can you tell if you have microbes in your soil? Do a worm count. Stick a shovel into the soil and count your worms. If you have less then 30 worms per shovel then there is work to be done to bring your worm numbers up. Why worms? They are the last part of the soil food chain, like sharks are in the sea. If you can see sharks then you know there are smaller fish about. Same with worms. If you can see worms, there are the smaller microbes present from the smallest (bacteria) through to larger ones (fungi and protozoa).

Here is how it works; bacteria are eaten by fungi and protozoa and fungi and protozoa are eaten by worms. The waste matter that is produced as they eat each other is food for your plants. No microbes means no natural plant food and that means sad plants.

So here are a few tips to get your soil microbes teaming into your pot plants or gardens:
Use living compost in your soil. The kind of stuff we make at Viaduct Harbour Local Living Compost Hub. Or if you can get your hands on worm wee, dilute it and use on your seeds before you sow them. Dip the roots of your seedlings in the dilute before you put them in a bed, or water the leaves of your plants during the growing season. You can also put worm casting into seed raising or potting mix, or under the roots of your plants. If you want to buy a microbes mineral liquid tea set you cant go past https://biologix.myshopify.com/

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