Best Way to Increase Soil Microbes and Improve Plant Health
Microbes are the key to great soil and healthier plants. Find out how to increase the microbes in your soil.
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Best Way to Increase Soil Microbes and Improve Plant Health
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I don’t think there’s any other KZhead channel that packs so much useful information into the same timeframe. Thanks for keeping my supply list for 2024 nice and short!
When you harvest, leave the roots in the soil if you can. This feeds the microbes and helps aerate the soil as the roots decompose.
Pulling out roots should be citable offense. Unless you have an invasive plant, it counter-productive. If I need a smooth seed bed, I just put down compost next to or on top of the cut down row.
The new plant roots will use the preformed conduits of those old or decayed roots, saving energy and time as well.
After playing several of your videos, I don't think I need to hear what other garden channels have to say. I've been gardening for 50 years and you've taught me things I didn't know. Great information. Thank you for holding this space for us to learn.
Wow, thanks
@@Gardenfundamentals1 Same here. I'm done searching.
Have you ever checked out “self sufficient me” ? He’s also a brilliant one to follow!
Does the same hold true for soulless gardening in containers? Just include compost in the mix, hydrate & mulch?
I agree,I have his soil book and about to purchase the rest of series.Hes one of the legit real Mccoy
Well he’s written several books and won an award for his work seems like he knows what he’s talking about it. 😂I learn so much from him. Lots of us do❤
Thank you.
No-Till Growers is also good. He farms for a living so he's doing something right. He practices regenerative agriculture. One thing I learned from that channel is if you want to know what's in the soil, you have to actually look at it, with a microscope and know what different things look like. THEN you can make things like compost teas which do work because you actually LOOK at what's in the tea before applying it. In other words you are validating that what you think you did is indeed what you actually did when making that tea. For a backyard farmer this is probably too much effort unless you're practicing to become a farmer for a living.
@@johndoh5182 Compost tea is a bunch of BS. No market gardener here I've ever met makes or uses it here in Eastern Ontario that wants to make a living. Nor do they do any other magical practices, like putting skulls in their soil, or anything like that. Science and not mysticism is useful in agricultural systems. Edit: kzhead.info/sun/Z6pupbOQn3aldXA/bejne.html
You have just earned the wrath of many fertilizer companies! You talk sense and by imparting your experiences, you have had helped us save huge amount of money. Gardening or farming is so simple. Do not complicate it, businessmen!
I would add that given everything we don't and possibly will never know about microbes, it's likely beneficial to shoot for high diversity. I say this based on presentations about the Johnson-Su bioreactor, which is a method of composting with air columns and watering (but not turning) where they tested and found leaving it for a year resulted in a wide variety of microbe species in abundant numbers compared to lesser amounts of time resulting in dominance by relatively fewer species, with the resulting compost apparently having extreme positive effects on crop yields at very low application rates (as an extract or top dress). I also have seared into my brain the fact that living plant roots increase organic matter in the soil five times as fast as depositing organic matter on the soil surface (leaves in the forest, mulch, etc.). See presentations by Dr. Christine Jones about that.
This guy is right, he is dead on about the more diversity of plants and grass you grow around your crop. You have more available sugar for different microbes to break down different enzymes and you will have more defense against pests. But he is denouncing actual doctors and soil scientists... Dr. Elaine Ingham has a soil food web school where you look at soil samples under a microscope and you keep actually adding compost tea until you get the numbers up to what they should be. I cultivate IMO in Korean Natural Farming and JMS in JADAM... This video is also denouncing that. I will also say he's right. For example, when it comes to the apple tree dropping its fruit in the fall, that's when you actually fertilize.. But because we harvest most of the fruit, you're taking away the nutrition for itself. Dr.
The best talk on soil maintenance I have ever heard.
I recently read, Soil Science, and it was quite eye opening, and I’ve been a gardener for 40 years. I currently have about 300 sq feet of raised beds and containers. My soil is very good, and my vegetable production is pretty good in spite of just barely getting enough sunlight due to trees on either side of my yard. I compost my grass clippings and leaves, and top off my beds every season with new compost, but I also add both organic and some synthetic fertilizers, plus lime, gypsum, sulfur, crushed oyster shells, and alfalfa pellets.
Plant root exudates feed microbes - always have plants growing and your soil will turn into black gold
That's what any regenerative ag farmer will tell you, and they're correct.
Exactly, and I agree!
Doesn't work for typical tropical forests where the soil is very poor due to heavy rain. But in this conditions where plants thrive exceptionally, shouldn't the soil be very rich because of all the feeding through root exudates?
So the place completely overgrown with vegetation has poor soil ? Seems like the metric for soil quality should be questioned…
@@created.black.soil. I think the problem is the rich vegatative matter minerals are washed away and so soil nutrients reduce greatly. Wait until you see what happens to the cleared rainforests areas - they will likely be desserts in 10 years time.
Thank you sir! This is exactly what I tell my friends who wonder how I “fertilize” my garden. Decades spent on studying micro-algae, and cyanobacterial ecosystems taught me to feed the soil. I tell them grow earthworms in your garden, feed them. The ecosystem will develop and the transition from hard sandy clay to a rich loam will happen. I visit the dumpsters near Starbucks, collect hundreds of pounds of used coffee grounds, plus recycled plant stalks, clean grass clippings, leaves, twigs and wood chips. No pesticides or commercial fertilizers!
Adding molasses is like organising a party and inviting friends. They will leave once the drinks are over
😆 true
I've never tried it but if I were to try it I would drizzle molasses over newly introduced fresh organic matter that I want to breakdown relatively faster?
That was the best video I’ve watched in a long time. I knew mulching and compost was the only thing we need. Like Mother Nature. Decay creates life. My new favorite KZheadr.
Wvey week, I get 5 big bags of discarded produce from a local grocery collection to tons of leaves and coffee grounds .spread it over my garden in winter .I love seeing that black dirt 😊😊😊😊
I garden in sand in the high desert of NM. The biggest help for my garden has been fertilizer (nitrogen and iron,) mushroom compost, and woodchip mulch. We also chop and drop, trying to keep all organic materials we produce.
Keep going, produce wonderful soil for your next generation to inherit.
Adding organic matter to sandy soil is key. Primarily sandy soil has almost no negative charge for cation exchange capacity.
I’m in the same state and conditions. In our soil, the organic matter either disintegrated years ago, floated away or blew away. The guy before me scraped the lot bare for 10 years. I have great geology and very little biology. But I’m working on that slowly. I’m disabled and old so I’m bound to go slow. This morning I made 100+ seed balls with sorghum, clover and oats to repopulate the soil with roots that can tolerate arid conditions. And I’m covering as much soil as possible with wood chips. I’m gonna breed my own biology!
If you are using chemical fertilizers you are helping and hurting yourself at the same time. As long as you're using natural things to give you that nitrogen and iron you're doing the best you can. Using chemical fertilizers will kill living things in that soil which is a downside and that's where you're hurting yourself if you are. With that sandy soil you have the same issue as FL growers. What they do if they want to be 100% organic certified is first bring in a certain amount of organic material (many tons) that they will compost, and then they will work that down into the soil, and yes this means adding a LOT of material, and then plant cover crops to allow that worked area to get broken down more which also means the bacterial life is growing, and then I believe the next year they can use that land, and do the typical thing of always having plants or cover crops growing in the soil, and when you're growing crops to have good compost worked around the plants on the top of the soil. Then add whatever additives a soil test might tell you that you need something, and in your case depending on what you're growing that may still mean nitrogen and iron.
I live in NM. Gardening for 25 years here. Best thing is to Compost Fish or kelp Black tea Pine shavings
I keep a 30 gallon barrel constantly digesting plant matter throughout the year. Not much happens in the winter but every spring I empty out the sludge and put it in the compost or mulch the beds. I just keep feeding the barrel with weeds or other organic matter. It smells awful but the plants like a taste of the liquid. And the beds love the sludge. I’m gonna continue. My garden seems happy and I just built a mushroom bed out there.
"but the plants like a taste of the liquid" - how do you know?
Add a little soil or compost and the smell will be less.
Does the barrel have water in it ?
Because Smell Is the product of microbe activity and microbe and Plant live in sybiosis.@@Gardenfundamentals1
Adding things randomly and hoping that it has a desired effect reminds me of how they introduced so many invasive species in an attempt to solve some problem without understanding the ramifications of their actions.
Read "The New Wild" by Fred Pearce
This is like going to college for gardening. Excellent explanation.
Grow Jadam microbes from soil under an old tree near by or your compost. Very easy and effective.
Korean Natural Farming...works for me..
I guess that explains why my garden does so well, even though I don't fertilize. I mulch as much as possible & add compost and all sorts of organic matter. 😊
That is fertilizer.
@@lksf9820EXACTLY 😂. It's just that we're conditioned not to think so
I haven’t even started your video but the comments speak volumes. Totally subbing.
Finished…. Thanks so much for saving me time and money. I appreciate this video!
I have permanent rows + paths, and I mulch all winter and part of summer, and I use irrigation to prevent drought in the rows. My soil has improved a lot - I can take a bamboo stake and push it down about a foot in the rows, and in the paths I can push it down about an inch
I don’t know why I believe this guy over most everybody else? I just do.
After watching & reading numerous presentations on CEC & micro-organisms, an agronomist gave a simple explanation as to what launches the active sequence of microbes assisting in the chemical transformation of locked-up soil minerals into plant available minerals. While it's true microbes need food (organic matter), plant exudates provided by new roots are what awakens dormant microbes which then feast & excrete enormous amounts of H+ ions material which bonds with the (weak) H- charged soil colloids (unless majority sand.) The H+ (microbes poop) are acidic cations & easily break the alkaline anions in the immediate soil colloid rhizosphere making minerals available. Good roots are the key to a good start.
Yeah the reality is there are two forms of research going on in academia, one based on chemicals and funded by chemical companies and the other based of learning lessons from the failures of using chemicals which has led to REAL scientific research into regenerative agriculture in recent times, where a lot of the learning for regenerative agriculture happened outside the world of college but is now researched in different colleges which is a good thing.
Glue.
I’ve been watching his videos all day long and I just absolutely love this guy. He is so knowledgeable.
Amazing. Thank you for your knowledge.
I have been adding compost and chicken manure every season for more than a decade. The soil is getting better and better. My plants thrive without any pesticide and fertilizers.
Thank you! You made that very clear, great advice!!
Thank you - I bought all these extra stuff to improve my soil & now your way is simplex& a lot cheaper ..
There's one thing that backyard farmers may want to buy, AFTER fixing their soil AND if this is missing because of how poor the soil was and how much people were dumping chemicals in their yards, and that's worms that are appropriate for that area. They can speed up that transfer and conversion of organic material to usable elements when applying compost around the plants and the worms will speed up the process of working that down into the soil after they break it down more and poop it out.
This is my #1 garden YT. Thank you for your knowledge and honesty.
Really great video. Learned a lot and purchased your book 😊
I totally agree great information
Great video. Thanks
Subscribed. Thank you for sharing this knowledge.
Excellent video my guy, just subscribed and I just bought the audiobook. Keep up the good work
Thank you, for making this video.
Thanks great info makes sense
What a concept add oganic material to feed the microbes that feeds the plant and cover with mulch. Rotate your crops to get differient microbe mix...Add a top layer of Alfalfa mash if you can't compost.
Finally I found your channel that cuts to the chase on gardening issues ~! Thank you , Kit
Wow this was more informative than I thought it would be. Thanks a ton! Easy follow ^.^
Interesting. Thank you
just awesome info
This is a great video. Just wanted to add some nuance from my experience as an environmental engineer. We use microbes all the time to degrade contaminants in soil and water. In fact, we sometimes inject molasses or lactate (in milk) to increase microbial activity! This is often done to spur initial growth of microbial populations. After that it is good to use an "extended release" compound like compost to give a sustained food source for the microbes. Some microbes also metabolize and transform inorganic nutrients, but the main focus for gardening is the organic metabolizers. You mentioned soil being composed of roughly 25% air...this is sometimes the case. Porosity of soil varies with sandy soils generally 35% pore space and uncompacted clay or silty soils closer to 50%. Compaction reduces this an additional 15% or so. This pore space can accomodate either air or liquids (hopefully just clean water, no oils). So when your soil is saturated it is completely full of water and the air is expelled. This is why its good to have well draining soil that still remains moist--aerobic microbes (those that use oxygen to metabolize food like we do) need oxygen! Microbes close to your garden are generally aerobic. Anaerobic microbes exist more frequently in groundwater where there is very little dissolved oxygen and no gaseous oxygen. They might be more useful for trees with deep roots. You can compost anaerobically, but generally you should prefer aerobic (oxygenated) composting by turning your compost pile and keeping it moist but not saturated. Thanks for the great video and cheers!
FANTASTIC advice! 💪🏼❤️
I’ve learned so much from your channel! I have a neurological disorder and sometimes have flare ups where I have constant tremors… I have listened to your channel for countless hours ❤
Me too. Godspeed fellow gardener.
You should research into Carnivore Diet which will help you avoid flare ups. The irony is eating plants that are healthy can have high amount of secondary metabolites that poison your body. So you shall totally avoid plants. The concept that flareups are not caused by single meal or single food but cumulative effect of unhealthy diet over many days has to be learnt.
@@otivaeey I actually do keto because of that… I’ve thought about doing carnivore for a while to see if it helps. I have a husband and 3 teenagers so it’s hard to cook just for me. My husband does keto with me sometimes though. I had a seizure Monday morning and ended up in the hospital. So if there’s any time to try it now would be it! Thanks so much!
I see, FYI keto means vegetables are allowed and low carbohydrates. Carnivore diet (no leafy vegetables allowed) is the only diet in mind that aims to cure diseases. Keto is for body slimming mainly. To carnivores, curing seizures is very attainable, just as other common diseases like glaucoma, diabetes, gout, knee/hip replacement, psoriasis, mental health etc. Carnivore diet encircles around 4 ingredients only: Meats, eggs, salt and water. The low toxin list I mentioned is for lesser strict ketovore diet as you have had already stopped the flareups and immune attacks. To make carnivore easier, you can try according to Dr Saladino's low toxin list includes pumpkins, banana, avocado, apple, orange, pineapple etc. You can Google it. Thank you.
I bought the book LET IT ROT years ago. I remember it saying that adding starter to compost was a waste. It said to mix a little soil to it and the microbes needed would be there. This video seems to confirm that.
I was just thinking the same thing!
I think the starters were to generate heat too. In a compost pile, office paper, I.e. cellulose breaks down quickly, increasing temperature.
@@chrisdaniels3929urea
Thank you Robert. Very thorough and logical presentation.
New to gardening here and boy did you open up my understanding greatly. Wow.
Best channel on KZhead hands down.
So well presented and the straight forward, logical and supported info is welcomed. Thank you for your efforts. Cheers!
Thank you for this dearth of information Robert! Love watching your videos and hearing you speak on gardening podcasts along with reading your books! Truly a pleasure to learn from you.
"dearth" ?
Inoculating your soil with fungal dominant samples from local forests is beneficial, the point is not just to increase microbe count and quality but also to have a diverse and well adapted fungal network. When applying an inoculation tea, you infuse that into a biochar so the saturation of microbes in the soil doesn't matter.
I have been gardening for 45 years and every garden KZhead channel I have looked at either sticks to kindergarden level topics or annoy me with errors. This was a very impressive video on this topic. Subscribed. 🥰🥰🥰🇨🇦
Read the book over the winter when I was in the crapper so this vid was a good reminder. Of the the book of course.
This chap is a guru … spot on
The value in these videos is that the content is scientifically based. I highly recommend his books.
Wow love it. I do basically this on our large food forest. I simply didn’t buy anything because I was too tight. But I thought just putting heaps of mulch is basically solving all my problems.👍👍👍👍
Thank you so much, your videos are priceless
You are very welcome
Excellent Video.
Glad i found this channel finally! I now have hope!
Sometimes I put a link to your videos in the comment section of videos disseminating false information (they are well meaning). They generally don’t like being confronted with the truth, they know what they know! It’s a shame that people waste their time diligently doing work that’s meaningless. I think there is a similarity between plants and their microbes and our guts and their microbes. Our micro biome is contained and plants micro biome is gathered around their roots, kind of mind blowing!
You mentioned they don't like being confronted, you mean this channel?
@@otivaeey your channel is unfamiliar to me. Have a good Sunday!
@@otivaeeyOther channels/watchers, usually given links to an episode from this channel for "the truth", often don't like being confronted with this.🤔✌️
Thank you for providing a sound scientific and common sense foundation for evaluating other material on KZhead.
Best information on the interwebs about gardening is on your channel. While there is a great deal of noise, there are few voices. Robert you are one of the few clear, common sense voices.
Thank you for this informations sir
I love your enthusiasm for making better soil. I am preoccupied with removing the recent invasive weed. bacteria needs will have to wait.
good video there goes half of what i was wasting money on thank you
Fantastic!!!! 🔥🌷🔥🌷🔥 THANK YOU !!!!!!!
Great presentation and de bunking of "products" to add to soil!!
Just another fact-filled brilliant video... thank you, Mr. Pavlis. Also love your books and my garden continues to prove you right in all respects.
Many thanks!
You channel (and blog, and books) is the only one that have EDUCATIONAL value, for an amateur pratical gardenner. Tanks.
thank you very much.
thanks much!
this is really fundamental
Hello,thank you for the soil and plant information you provide on your youtube channel and blogs.I follow it with interest and recommend it to my friends.We request Turkisch subtitles for your videos.Greetings from Istanbul.
Thanks you ❤
get imo too after you add organic matter for sure , KNF is awesome Jadam im loving these amazing practices my food forest is BOOMING!
I love the video! Thank you!! I would argue that “tea” is good for plants if you don’t have enough compost to go to a large area. Compost would be better but the tea is something that most people can use to help their plants in between times where they don’t have compost.
Hella sick🔥 thanks bro
I would love to see a discussion between this guy and Dr. Elaine Ingham. They are on the same page except she is a huge proponent of brewing compost tea. She has traveled the world and conducted many studies. They are both very intelligent and convincing. Would be interesting to hear them hash it out.
Well...she makes money of selling courses of her niche. The very much in fashion "regenerative agro" kind of thing, wich is full of pseudo scientific post mordern withcraft, like compostea
Yeah I’d love to see her response to this video
She doesn't do the compost tea for the nutrients, but to add diversity of microorganisms into the soil. This works particularly well in soils that have been sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life. Also, it can work great as a topical application to prevent disease.
We agree on some basics and disagree on a lot of things. 1) She has conducted no published studies since grad school, although she claims to have done a lot. 2) I disagree with most of your ideas about microbe ID with microscopes, F:B ratios, solving weed problems by growing the right microbes - as do most scientists. www.gardenmyths.com/fungal-to-bacterial-ratios/
"sterilized through chemicals so they lack the diversity of life" - that is virtually impossible. Even terrible soils are full of thousands of microbe species.
Absolutely love your science based, no-bs approach. Would be very interested to hear your thoughts on friendly microbes as a means to control problems (e.g bacillus subtilis/trichoderma as "fungicide"). Thank you for your top quality videos - they are gems!
Very helpful info. I am planting trees on my acre of land. It is sand and small percentage of clay. Information that I have I need so much stuff that will cost me money that I don't have. I just plant it, have plenty of water and will use the mulch they produce. I can't even afford to buy mulch around here. I think it will be successful.
So basically do nothing. Great, I had a feeling I was on the right track. Enhances my lazy lifestyle too. :-)
Haha....so true. Everything cancels out everything else so basically just keep waiting!!!
Thankyou
Great video. Regarding the compost tea, I agree that it is pretty low in nutrients by the time most people use it as feed. Still though, I would think that's better than just throwing away your weeds assuming you don't want to leave them on the ground
Very good❤❤
This will save me alot of money and time...
This is the stuff!
Very well educated / informed you tuber; Thanks for this excellent content
I am in Florida with sandy soil, I have been working on my soil for three years, organic matter is the key. I make my own compost and drop leaves, expired veggie plants right back to the top of the soil. I have black soil now. I do not buy microbes in a bag, you just confirmed my thoughts. Thank you, very informative.
Excellent information, but some products do actually make a difference, especially at refreshing the soil. The worms love it too 🎆
There’s a place for many different things. Use them according to your needs. Long term: compost. Mid term: compost tea. Short term: basic chemicals (synthetic fertilizer). It’s that simple folks. Microbes, fungi and plants will adapt to whatever you do. When I start the season, or create a new garden bed, I add some of each, to help establish the bed. I use synthetic chems or their organic counterpart (blood and/or bone meal, etc) to specifically add a type of nutrient (N, P or K) depending on the needs. N early season to guarantee veg growth (blood meal is amazing for that), then I later switch to P and/or K later on for flowering/fruiting plants. Not by high amounts, but just to make sure there’s no lack for the plants needs, and to move the NPK ratio around the standard 3-1-2. This is the most cost efficient way for my home garden. I recycle grass clippings and weed pulls, and kitchen scraps but with minimal work. Let Nature work for you folks! It’s efficient and free.
just got into gardening in the PNW about 3 years ago i started a compost box, i have a hard time with the plants growing in the compost so then i have roots to dig through just to get my own black gold lol
Thanks again for a common sense understanding of all this, good stuff! Maybe it should be called uncommon sense, because it seems to lacking all around us!
I was looking into some biological turf products and questioned what introducing specific strains does to the microbes already living there. You pretty much answered that in a logical manner. I've got more research to do.
You've simplified an already simple process for me. I have really heavy clay soil, it's currently rather waterlogged. This is a new garden at an old property and I know it's had a lot added to it in the past. I spent last year clearing the plot and made enough compost to cover my four beds over winter. It's full of worms and I'm not digging it over. I already have several plants I overwintered, they're suffering a bit from wind, but otherwise doing fine. I suspected it was probably full of microbes already. I do have some nettle tea and comfrey tea brewing, but I'm not convinced it has made much difference. So I shall just carry on making compost and planting things out. As you rightly say, you stick plants in the ground and they grow. Thank you, it's nice to watch an expert gardening video to be told I'm basically on the right track!
Ad 30cm or 12 inches of Ramial Wood chips. Wait 1 year. Then plant into the ground. Moving aside the woo hip where you want to plant. … you will find that the wood-chips- is less than 12 inches 15 cm deep and below this will be rich aerates soil full of worms….. you will have the most abundant cro- ever and your clay soil will be a benefit as it is the most amazing source of micronutrients and minerals
@@DJ-uk5mm I wasn't asking for your woo hip advice! 🤣😁🙃
Hopefully you will do a video in reference to potted plants.
Well, my brother, I have been so blessed by your videos, I think this one has blessed my socks clean off! I had a good gut, feeling that all of those high dollar products were not so high dollar. Thanks again and may you continue to be blessed in your work. I will continue to share your wonderful videos. If you get a chance, read Genesis 1:10- 11. thanks again for your wonderful wisdom. your schooling has blessed me a great deal.
Can you go more into detail on potted plants? That's all I can do in my apartment and my balcony.
Love your work! Thank you! What do you think about blending kitchen scraps with water like making a smoothie and then adding it to more water and then putting it into you soil as compost? Will it decompose fast? Is there any benefit to doing that?
Robert, thank for sharinf your knowledge with us. Its nearly impossible to find information that isnt driven by some financial incentive. Add that in with our addiction/expectation to immediate results with as little energy spent, the very aspect of this goes against nature itself. Not sure if you'll see this but it you could help me with a problem with my yard. There is 79x140 rectaglular area that I'm trying to turn into a community garden. Due to it being a previous commercial area, I put in a decent amount of composted soil. Thing is while I was doing this I found out that the ENTIRE plot was filled with smooth river rocks about 3 inches below the fill dirt. The majority between the size of baseball to softballs (~3-4in diameter). I live in the PNW where it rains a lot, and I noticed that after I mixed in about an additional 3inches of there were signs of poor drainage. Rainwater would pool up and drain out after several hours and even after a couple days there would be sulphuric smell after I dug up some of the soil. I mixed in some woodchips to help but I couldnt but wonder of that entire layer of river rocks down there is creating a perched water table. Do I have to take out all those rocks...or do you think it'll get better once I start planting stuff (right now its just soil). Thanks!
If the rocks are preventing water from running away - it won't get better. You either have to remove them, or this might be a good case for a raised bed.
It's taking me a long time to learn this, but what I put into my garden is mostly based on what I see nature buying or bringing in from other areas. Guess what? It ain't that much. 😎
Listen, I made compost tea for a garden in the high desert in New Mexico. It changed the game. I live in Florida now and gardened without for a while but I quickly came back to it. Anecdotes are votes and I’m casting mine in favor of compost tea. I agree with adding mulch, but think, if you added long term food and microbes to occupy them, how fast you could change poor soil conditions.
Compost tea is a proven placebo. Its best use is motivating gardeners to water more often.