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How did you evolve as a grower?
When you talk on the phone with organic gardeners everyday you start to get a sense of where they come from and what makes them similar to each other.
When I first set out to Create BuildASoil, LLC it was to create a lifestyle for myself working with people that I look forward to speaking with. If you have spoken with me via chat or on the phone than you know how much I really love talking about soil and growing. It’s with that unique perspective that I’ve identified a similar path that many of us have followed. This isn’t a statistic for vegetable gardeners, this is a path that many indoor Organic Soil Growers have followed….. Did you?
I go from first person to second person and it’s a little scattered but you’ll get the idea. This was one continuous flow of writing and I don’t want to edit it.
The Long way around, 10 steps to becoming an Organic Grower.
Step #1:
I saw some really cool photo’s and videos on the internet forums and on youtube that showed how to grow massive plants. I thought to myself, okay cool, If they can do this…. Then so can I.
Step #2:
I figured that I might as well research the best way to grow plants if I was actually going to spend money on this project. I signed up for one of those forums with all the Cool Banners of Seed companies and sales stuff on them. After reading a few forum threads I knew EXACTLY what I needed to buy.
PH pen for sure or at least PH drops.
Grow Light… Maybe LED but not sure yet.
Grow Tent…
Home made Hydro System or Pre-Bought System guaranteed to get me LBS of food and medicine.
Step #3:
Wow, there is a hydro shop close by, I’ll just go there and ask them about all this confusing stuff.
(Weird they had tomatoes growing in hydro systems that looked awful…. I wonder why?)
Leave there more confused with backwards information and a whole crap-load of Advanced Nutrients and a new Truncheon EC stick along with Bales of promix etc.
I was going to go hydro, but just in case of user error, I was going to use some of the same nutrients for Soil-less… you know for the moms and stuff.
Step #4:
Proceed to constantly compare myself to the other guys getting 1 GPW or something crazy all the while not understanding that genetics, lighting and environment are KEY…. Spend more time buying different nutrients and wasting money on products that are the next silver bullet that will double my yields.
Step #5:
Some Random organic grower online has beautiful plants and says he uses water only the whole way through and does all of this while following some sort of organic procedure. Get all excited because Organic is already something that I cared about…. I ate organic food and just didn't know where to start with growing organics.
Step #6:
Super Soil and True Living Organics
Mind BLOWN – Reading stuff about growing organics makes sense I just add TONS of different stuff into the soil and then Cook the soil for awhile…. After that I have soil that will practically force feed the plant without using any nutrient bottles…. Haha I have the system beat. Not only that but TLO is a an actual book!
Go to the Grow store with the ULTIMATE mix that was custom designed by me with slight tweaks to improve upon stuff I hadn’t even tried yet…. I’m smiling ear to ear and I start telling the Hydro shop guy that Super soil and True living organics is where it’s at and that I need all these items.
I give the guy the list and he says that they won’t be carrying any of it except the liquid stuff. Then I find out the little boxes I need online are ALL OVER the place at different websites with lot’s of money in shipping. I get all sad because I love Instant gratification and Farming just isn’t that way….
Hold on!!!! The Hydro shop attendant, who is eager to help…. Says check out these new bottles of organic nutrients. You will Love them… they are organic just trust me and don’t worry about the confusing labels…. Besides now you don’t have to mix soil so you should probably get Coco and grow huge plants.
Step #7:
Commence growing partially organic Grow Bottle Fed Coco and Worm castings grow while learning more about organics. Ship everything from everywhere and make some supersoil and other mixes.
Eventually run several supersoil runs and find out there are many challenges to this style and recycling the soil is not as easy as it looks. The laundry list of ingredients works okay the first time but then starts to cause havoc as time goes on.
Step # 8:
Start reading real books about real farming and find out about No-Till concepts of cultivation. Start hearing about people using No-Till Living Organic Soil indoors just like real farmers without the whole hydro industry marketing stuff to them….
Start to see people with real results using soil that had a simple mix with a few ingredients and some of the healthiest plants ever….
Started asking questions and getting real answers with references and proven results from people that understood the Soil Food Web better than I did.
Step #9:
AHA!!!!
All the sudden this intense amount of reading and studying and learning about the entire natural process comes full circle and smacks you in the face…. BAM. All the sudden you just get it and things start to make sense from a larger perspective looking at the system as a whole.
Conclusions are made:
- Plants are plants and there is nothing particularly special about how they grow when discussing medicinal plants and vegetables etc.
- Yields are more genetic driven and the goal is to prevent yield loss from the given genetic potential instead of trying to give them steroids and produce something for nothing.
- Quality organic matter in abundance is a very powerful buffer that will allow you to have more room for error when building a soil to grow your plants in.
- The Soil Food Web is way more powerful than I currently am capable of describing.
Step 10:
Effortless Gardening with beautiful healthy plants everywhere. The organic practices start to spill over into every part of your life and you find yourself wanting to eat better food and treat yourself better. You feel more connected to the source energy or whatever you want to call it… because you are literally watching the grass grow. After learning about plant nutrition eating healthy becomes easier and you start drinking some aloe and giving some to the plants. Growing sprouts for the plants… and some for yourself.
Hopefully by now you have already found yourself at LivingOrganicSoil.org and are now cultivating relationships with people that also love organic soil.
This was the path that I was followed…. With a few generalities because this wasn’t supposed to describe me…. But many people learning about organics.
If you know anyone that is currently at step #1, help them skip all the other steps and encourage them to sign up for our newsletters to get blog posts just like this one.
Are you currently in the middle of this path? Chat with us live online or just call us on the phone. Once you understand each part of the process it all makes sense and you can finally trust that it will all work.
Are you already ahead of the game? If you are, did you go through any of this? Or did you take a different path?
I would love to find out more, email me or post a response up here.
