It’s Alive (or rather it should be Alive!).

Since I started gardening for others (1956), I knew that the soil was alive. I saw things growing in the soil that was both fascinating and scary both at the same time. I knew that there must be a relationship between the soil and all things (including us humans). Besides the obvious connections (roots?), I knew there was much more than meets the eye. I knew that when I started to care for my home that the soil did not like any chemicals being “dumped” and have it forced to eat. The livings things in the soil rebelled by simply dying and leaving. When they left, plants started to look and behave funny. Insects would come around and prey on them. I saw this over and over again in my neighbor’s gardens and the school’s landscape as well as in the city landscape.

I knew then that the soil was being attacked not just by the chemical fertilizers but also from all the toxins we humans produce from pesticides, herbicides, fungicides,  biologicals, human waste, as well as waste that is concentrated and then sold as compost?

I also found it interesting that the word soil is so close to the word soul that I started calling the top soil the soul of the earth.

Within the soil lies an amazing being, one that is millions of years older then humankind and even all life as life sprang forth from this being. I am not talking about God; rather I am speaking about Mycelium.

I have a personal relationship with this being (as we all should have). We walk and live upon it and then start to think we are the ultimate being on this planet and that everything is under our control.

Well, surprise! We are not. Mycelium will be here long after we are gone and will start over again in producing new life. The earth will clean itself as it has in the past. I often tell folks that we are the cancer, we are the disease. Look at the way we are infecting everything around us. Look at the waste we have produced from plastics to sewer to radiation, sounds like cancer to me.

What is interesting is that we are not just cancer. Cancer in the body is just a way of the body to clean itself from the invading toxin. We are not cancer. Instead, we are the toxin. The cancer is the earth trying to remove the toxin (that’s us, its source). Now, not all of us follow this path, some of us realize that we are also part of the solution. The earth is our body and we can and must respond appropriately to restore the health of the earth soul (soil).

Way back in 1956, when I started gardening, I looked for local sources of compost and could not find any. What I did find was that everything was being dumped and thrown away. In Miami (actually Homestead where I lived), I started to make my compost. I would go out into the countryside, and once I found a piece of land, started mixing the various sources, I would bring back to make my compost.

I used everything I could find, from chicken manure, feathers, egg shells to horse manure, cow manure, sheep, rabbit, you name it I blended them. Forget to try to find rock dust, but I did find an innovative company (Fertrell) selling a mix that was very similar to rock dust especially since they also used greensand.

I noticed that when I used compost that the soil and the plants responded almost immediately. I found that I had to train my customers so that they too would have a relationship with this beautiful being. I realized soon that the white fluffy stuff that grew on the compost was unique and not bad. I soon was getting calls from my customers that mushrooms were growing and they wanted me to come and remove them! I explained to them that this was a good thing. That mushrooms growing on your soil means that the Mycelium was well and growing. To this day, I get calls from folks that tell me they have mushrooms growing in the soil and what to do about it. I tell them to teach their children not to eat them. Pets usually do not eat mushrooms. The mushrooms that grow there are usually not the toxic type. I usually inoculate the compost with safe eatable varieties. Buying live compost has become harder and harder over the years. Store bought compost are void of any Mycelium. They can be inoculated, however.

I started to use what I call “Soil Colonies.” These are clay drain pipes that I add local microorganism along with their support system of rock dust. They are given an environment which allows them to grow and spread out. I usually plant these around trees when I first started as trees are what folks would call me to heal. I noticed that not just the trees responded but everything that was near these “Soil Colonies.” I invented a product called Superseaweed (a microbiological activator) which I add to the tree vents to ensure the microbes live. I also started spraying it all over the properties.

Soon, I started placing them around the entire property. The tree vents as I call them for short are covered with a grate, and a drip head is placed that allows for water. I add a fertigation unit that provides the tree vents with a continual source of compost tea or Superseaweed.

All plant diseases start in the soil. Make the soil healthy, and you control pests and diseases. Just like in our bodies.

City water is terrible for the soil because of the various chemicals which are added to kill bacteria! That’s a no brainer that this is bad.

Look at all the various tree diseases and pests, and you will see one thing they all have in common, lack of healthy soil, lack of mineral availability. Even in a forest, the trace minerals are disappearing. The Mycelium needs this trace mineral sources to continual. Otherwise, the trees will not get their minerals and neither will the animals, etc. that rely on this source of the mineral. When we humans are mineral deficient, we too will suffer.

Any questions? Use form below!

Andy Lopez

Invisible Gardener