(light music) >>You want to have living roots in the soil as long as you can throughout the season, ideally all year if you can.

And here in Virginia, it's actually quite easy to do.

So living plants are feeding nutrients into the soil and they're giving the microbes basically a food source to live on and to create a larger population.

>>Pests aren't really there to destroy your farm.

They're not thinking about like, "Oh, I'm going to take this farmer down."

You know what I mean?

"I'm going to wipe his profits."

They're trying to help identify the weaker plants that should be worked out of the system.

>>Production funding for Virginia Home Grown is made possible by the Mary Roper Davis and Robert Poore Roper Memorial Fund.

And by.

(birds chirping) (lively music) (lively music) (lively music) Welcome to Virginia Home Grown!

Today we are exploring regenerative growing practices and we will meet two farmers to discuss the methods that they use to improve their garden soil.

First, Amyrose Foll visited Real Roots Organic Systems in Mechanicsville to see Mark Davis and learn how he grows tomatoes at a commercial scale using natural soil inputs, including worm compost.

Let's take a look.

>>About three years ago we transitioned to all heirloom tomatoes, so we've got some big slicer heirloom tomatoes, we've got cherry tomatoes, and a little bit of mixing in of other types of food that I kind of just grow for myself to eat.

(Mark laughs) >>Where does the food go?

>>We sell to a couple different outlets, so we have a wholesale account and like grocery store.

We sell to the Ellwood Thompson's here in- >>Oh.

>>Richmond, which is pretty cool.

>>Yeah.

>>They've always supported us over the years, which has been awesome.

Also to the north side, Food Access Coalition.

My friend Duron has a black farmer CSA that he sources from black farmers around the city, so I sell into his- >>Oh, wonderful.

>>His CSA as well.

>>And that's keeping the food miles really short, so that's good.

>>Exactly.

>>Can you talk a little bit about the value of keeping your food miles short and local?

>>Oh, definitely.

I think that from what I understand, eating food from around where you are is even more impactful than maybe buying organic food or buying exotic food from different parts of the world.

We got plenty of exotic stuff from right here, which is fun to help people learn and educate people about, but yeah, I think nutrient wise even, how short that time is in between the harvest and when you eat it, is so significant in how your body takes up those nutrients and those minerals, so I think not even just for the sort of future local economy aspect of buying from around, I think there's even a nutritional aspect that- >>Yeah.

>>Supports that kind of- >>Almost like you're stewarding people's bodies as well.

>>Yeah.

>>So- >>Farmer always has.

>>So this is a regenerative farm and to me that means high-quality inputs.

Can you tell me a little bit about your systems that you have in place here?

>>I think the main thing that we practice is extremely low disturbance in the soil, so we try to keep the soil as moist as possible.

We try to keep it covered as often as possible, whether that be some tarps and plastic things that people have seen, or different organic mulches, wood chips, leaves.

We're here in a beautiful deciduous forest, so there's no shortage of leaves at all, and then most importantly, is the low tillage aspect.

The way I like to think about it is if you were a chef and you were in a kitchen and somebody came in at the end of your shift every night and just destroyed everything in the kitchen, opened up all your cabinets, knocked everything out, it'd be pretty hard for you to pick up where you left off the next morning.

>>Absolutely.

>>The soil is very, very similar, so if you come in there and just completely disturb everything at the end of each season or year, then it takes a while for the organisms to recover and then therefore the plants to be able to feed themselves, so first and foremost, the soil, we keep it protected, covered, and treat it like it's a living thing itself, which it is.

>>You have a really unique vermiculture system here.

Can you tell me a little bit about where you get your worms from?

>>I actually harvest the worms in a way, directly from the native soil, so I will set up a small area, like cinder blocks kind of thing, real cheap setup, nothing fancy, and then I will literally feed (giggles) the ground with fruit pulp.

I'll dump those bad boys right in the open pit and then cover it up with a black tarp and basically wait, and after about a month or two, a lot of the native red worms will come to the surface to work that down and I'll just grab some handfuls of 'em- >>I love it.

That's genius.

>>Take 'em to the (laughs) to the hut and go to the next level from there.

>>So what's the next step in that process?

>>So after that, after I, I guess, I dunno, breed, harvest, collect the worms, I will have a area that I just do typical compost, a typical thermo composting, and then I will take that compost and add it to a second system, which is like an above-ground system that you can harvest from the bottom.

I'll add the regular compost in, I'll feed it with a different set of inputs, I'll add different rock dust, basalt, azomite, things like that to add the micronutrients, I'll add the worms' food source, so maybe more coffee grinds, something really dense, high nitrogen content, for the worms to eat, and then right over the top, I'll add the worms in, and then right over the top, I'll sprinkle like little oats 'cause worms like oats a lot and that helps 'em breed and reproduce.

>>That's really interesting.

>>Yeah, yeah.

>>I did not know that.

>>Yeah, they like oats.

>>Oh my gosh.

>>I dunno, I think it's that crude protein kinda thing.

>>Having grown before and after, how impactful do you think that is for your final product and your harvest?

>>Oh, it's huge.

It's basically the only input that I use.

I don't use synthetic fertilizers.

Even things off of the like OMRI lists that are technically organic, I still try to steer away from, not because they're bad or anything, but I've just noticed with the vermicompost that we make on site, using it at the transplant stage and then using it nice big handful in the hole when the tomatoes are planted, and then as an extract, a liquid extract throughout the season, between those three feeds, I've never really had a mineral issue or deficiency in the plant at all.

>>That's really amazing.

>>Yeah, yeah.

It's fine.

>>These are beautiful too.

>>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>>Is this one of the heritage varieties that you grow?

>>That is, yeah.

So that's the Paul Robeson heirloom tomato there.

That's the Paul Robeson variety.

>>So, it's gorgeous and it's nice and firm too.

>>Yeah, which helps, 'cause normally heirlooms are finicky (laughs).

>>So what's your favorite thing to grow here?

>>I would say probably the slicer heirloom tomatoes.

Just like the validation of a one-pound tomato after you've worked for six months and all, doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that over an entire year, and then my grandma would eat 'em like a apple, you know what I'm saying?

So I pick it off.

You don't even really need the salt.

If you do it right, you don't really even need the salt, but it does, it's nice.

>>Yeah.

>>A little bit on there.

Boom.

Just what a feeling.

>>That is amazing.

(Mark laughs) It's so satisfying and it's beautiful that you're sharing it with the community too.

>>Yeah, there's a big aspect of the mutual aid that we have going on here as well, so just on the land in, a little bit about the land in general, we have a collaborative agreement, so I do share the land with a couple different businesses, but we have a area that we specifically dedicate to donation to the church that owns the land and their food pantry, and then different mutual aid outlets throughout the city as well, so we're just trying to show that even alongside a business and production, there can also be, and should also be, a community-based element where we know the food is free, it's supposed to be free, it's our birthright after all, so the closer we can get to that with every step, the better, you know?

>>That is beautiful.

>>So keeping that, keeping the free food close, not just 'cause we are not a charity, you know?

It's a little different, but keeping the reminder that the fact that we have to charge for this is a creation.

>>Yeah.

>>You know?

That's not the natural way, but we're getting there.

>>This is a really beautiful local farm and you have done an amazing job, and your whole mission and how you do what you do is something that people should aspire to, so thank you so much for having us out today.

>>Yeah, I appreciate y'all giving me a little moment to zoom in on some things.

>>Thank you.

>>It's been awesome.

Yeah.

By nurturing the soil.

Mark has turned his farm into a high yielding oasis.

Harvesting lush tomatoes or even beautiful flowers is one of the outcomes of healthy soil, proving the saying, healthy soil equals healthy plants.

Next, Jen Naylor shares gardening wisdom she learned from her grandmother and shows how to use a traditional Korean farming tool.

(light music) >>When I was growing up in Korea, I used to go and visit my grandmother's farm every summer and just pick a watermelon from the field and crack it open and just shove it in my face.

It was the most delicious thing I have ever, ever tasted.

Anyway, what my grandmother used to talk about is that you have to really respect the soil to a point where everything that lives underneath the soil is a life, and you have to protect that.

So whatever you take away from that soil, you have to replenish it.

And several ways you can do that is not to till.

Do not disturb.

And you can rotate the crops.

Tomatoes, for instance, would take away lot of that nitrogen or phosphorus and whatnot.

So next time, on top of the soil that grew tomatoes, you can actually plant beans, and the beans would actually put in the nitrogen and phosphorus to the soil so that next time you grow something that needs that sort of nutrients, you can do that.

Now what I do here is actually I raise chickens, and chicken manure is one of the best source of putting back the nutrients that you took from soil.

You always wanna go and use the aged chicken manure.

And this is about six months to a year old.

So what I do is once I prep the soil, take away all the weeds and the plants that was growing, I take some... Look at this beautiful, beautiful compost.

And I just sprinkle on top about a quarter of an inch to a half an inch almost.

Now, what my grandmother used to do is she used to use this hand tool.

It's called in Korean, homi.

And so she would just go gently, gently mix in the compost into the soil without tilling or digging, and it just makes the soil so happy.

And when you're ready to go ahead and plant things, you just go ahead and using the pointy end and just like dig a little hole and then just go ahead and plant the seeds or transplant whatever you need to transplant.

This thing is just absolutely amazing.

I have a little itty-bitty farm, but imagine my grandmother used to just have acres, acres, and this tool (chuckles) is basically all she used.

So if we can stick with the traditional way which farming has been done for many, many, many, many years, we can really preserve the soil that we take away nutrients from.

Healthy soil is healthy life for us.

So the three things I practice in my farming is no tilling, that I do not disturb the soil, and the second thing is I rotate the crops, and the third is use the high-quality organic compost.

When you use those three techniques, you just can't go wrong.

You'll be able to go ahead and grow beautiful, beautiful plants and food for your health.

(bird squawking) And you should try it.

There is a lot of long standing wisdom when it comes to raising plants and caring for the earth.

I'm glad to see so many of these methods returning.

It means we are recognizing how gardening practices directly relate to fostering a balanced ecosystem.

And now I visited Mountain Run Permaculture in Sedalia to meet Mark Angelini and learn why avoiding soil compaction is important, along with other tips to cultivate soil rich in nutrients and microbial life.

Let's get going.

>>We use a lot of what we call regenerative growing practices.

And that's a fancy way of basically saying we mimic the processes we see in nature to help renew the soil and renew diversity in the ecosystem.

So we practice things like minimizing soil disturbance, so we don't really till or turn the soil if we can help.

>>Okay.

>>We incorporate perennials.

So we have this perennial backbone with things like blueberry bushes, pollinator strip with echinacea, some asparagus.

Then we incorporate a large diversity of different plants, and we also use a lot of cover cropping to help feed the soil, build carbon, and stimulate a lot of biological activity.

>>So you're really focusing on the soil, you're focusing on pollinators and you're focusing on basically diversity within the garden.

>>Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it's really looking at the garden as an ecosystem.

So we have all the different elements.

We have the pollinators and the insects.

>>Right.

>>We've got the microbes in the soil.

And then just trying to do as much as we can when it comes to the work we do in the garden that will help to foster and feed all of those different elements.

>>That's amazing.

What are some of the simple steps that people could take?

Just maybe two or three, just to make some baby step changes?

>>Yeah, the first thing is to minimize disturbance.

So if you're tilling constantly, minimize your tillage to, you know, maybe once a season.

And then really the biggest impact you're gonna have is by incorporating really good biological inputs.

I like to recommend people use vermicompost 'cause that tends to be very safe and high quality input.

I mean, if you start doing that, getting good irrigation's also very important.

>>Very important.

>>A lot of people don't irrigate enough.

>>Yeah.

>>And so without enough water, you can't really stimulate the biology and get those plants to root as deep as you need them to to get the nutrients and minerals that they need to be healthy.

So between those three very simple things, almost anybody can improve their gardening experience.

>>That's fantastic.

Now, you told me earlier that this garden here is one of your newer gardens.

>>Yes.

>>And that you've been struggling with this soil >>A little bit, yep.

>>Yes, but you've got a more mature garden, we'll call it.

>>Yeah.

>>In the back.

>>Yeah.

>>So I'd love to go take a look at that.

>>All right, great.

>>All right.

>>All right, let's be careful to step over the beds.

>>Okey dokey.

>>So we don't compact the soil.

>>No, we wanna protect that soil for sure.

So, golly, you've got beds, definitely walkways.

You know, what do you have going on here?

>>Yeah, so we, in all of our gardens, we use a permanent bed system.

>>Okay.

>>Which I highly recommend for almost any use case of a garden.

And so we have a 30 inch wide bed, about an 18 inch wide path.

And so we keep all of our walking and traffic on that path.

And the bed itself is allowed to stay nice and porous and aerated without being trampled on or using too much equipment on it and so on.

So that's a really key differentiation of the way that we grow, is we, we wanna minimize all of the potential for compacting that soil back down as we've done so much work to build it up.

>>So, Mark, so many homeowners, they don't even know where to begin.

You know, they've got this lawn out there and they're wondering how do they start a garden in that.

So if you just have lawn, you know, where do you begin?

>>Well, there's a whole range of different techniques.

The easiest one that I like to recommend to most people is using a tarp to kill off the existing vegetation.

It's called occultation, or sometimes called solarization.

And once you've killed everything off, you're basically rotting all that organic matter back in.

So you're kind of feeding it.

And then my approach is to test the soil, amend the existing soil based on that soil test.

Bring in your good compost, your vermicompost or your compost extracts to bring in the biology and some organic matter.

>>Right.

>>And then establish where the beds will be, and then put your path down, which I prefer wood chips, they're a nice material.

They break down.

You can eventually put them onto the soil surface to build that organic matter.

>>Exactly.

>>And then refresh them every several seasons.

For this season, we grew a cover crop through the winter.

I cut that down.

I use some of that as mulch on the edges, and then I plant out whatever I'm gonna have in here.

And then I bring in some local straw.

>>Right.

>>And that acts as a really fantastic mulch to keep the soil cool, covered and moist.

>>Absolutely.

Abso, moisture is a key to this.

>>It is key, yes.

>>Yes.

>>It's often an overlooked aspect of gardens that I find is people think, you know, rainfall is enough or a little bit of sprinkler here and there.

But oftentimes irrigation can be one of the limiting factors for success in a garden is not getting enough water.

And sometimes too much depending on your soils.

>>Yeah.

>>But oftentimes, it's usually too, too little water I've seen.

>>Yeah, and you want that water to go deep.

>>Yes.

>>Not just a little bit.

>>Yeah, so that all plays into building the soil up, not compacting.

That allows for the water to infiltrate, allows for good gas exchange with oxygen and carbon dioxide.

And it creates a nice home for all those microbes to live and thrive.

And they're gonna do a ton of the work for us.

They're basically our underground livestock.

>>Excellent.

That's a good way to look at it.

>>Yeah.

>>But how do you deal with, deal with weeds?

You hardly have any weeds here.

>>So we do have some weeds, depending on what, you know, action we might take in here.

So after cutting a cover crop, there might be some stuff that germinates.

So we will use like a wheel hoe.

>>Right.

>>But then we'll knock those down and start mulching.

But there's certain plants in here like this Holy Basil here, or Tulsi.

>>You're right.

>>Which is a naturalized garden plant that has become a weed for us, so to speak.

So I have a, all throughout my garden, there's different plants like that.

We have a amaranth over in the other part of the garden that is another plant that just comes up and I leave it.

It has different benefits to it.

You can eat it.

So that's a really cool aspect of kind of letting your garden be a little bit more wild.

Some people don't like that, but there's a lot of benefits.

This is bringing in pollinators.

We can harvest it for tea.

It's just beautiful and smells amazing.

When you rub up against it, it gives you this nice perfume in your garden.

So a lot of benefits to having kind of naturalized plants that you like that come up as weeds.

And they're not so much a nuisance as much as a benefit.

>>Exactly, you don't have to be such a purist.

>>Yes.

So I'm not, I'm, I like order, but I also like the wildness because of all the benefits that come with that.

It's just controlled wildness basically.

>>Yeah.

So back to the soil.

How do the weeds affect the soil?

>>There's a few ways to look at weeds.

One, they're an indicator of what's happening in your soil.

They're telling a story of what's happened, and they ultimately show up because of whatever's happening in that soil.

And there's different weeds have different callings, we'll say.

There might be a mineral, there might be a microbe that's telling that seed to wake up, it's time to get to work.

And so they have a different root system, or they'll bring up different minerals.

So they're there to really repair the soil and to get it back into balance 'cause generally everything we do in a garden, when we're not thinking more of big picture, can be leading away from the health and vitality of the soil.

So the weeds usually show up and say, hold on a second, you've done too much tillage.

So we need to bring in these plants that grow really fast and build up carbon.

Or maybe that's gotten too fungal.

So there'll be some woodier plants like blackberries, things like that.

>>That will pop on in.

That's interesting.

The soil now that you've been working with here has been eight years.

>>Yes.

>>But where we started.

>>It's about four years old.

>>Can you show us the difference?

>>Yeah.

Got a nice little example here.

So this is a good representation of the just basic soil here without any real attention.

So you can see kind of typical red Virginia Clay.

>>Correct.

>>Has very poor soil structure.

>>Yes.

>>It's got very little pore space, little bit of organic matter.

>>Tiny bit of organic matter.

>>And here is a sample from this garden where we're standing.

You could see organic matter-- >>Gorgeous.

>>Through this whole sample depth.

>>Yes.

>>We've got really good aggregation, nice and crumbly.

That's telling us we have lots of biology working, especially good fungal activity.

There's lots of moisture.

We keep this nice and irrigated.

A lot more vitality, a lot more rooting depth available for the plants to take advantage of.

>>So you can see right here, proof is in the pudding.

>>It works.

>>It does.

>>Yes, it does work.

It does take a little bit of thinking and planning, but simple, small steps every season will lead you towards this.

And you know, this isn't the end.

We're still working on these soils, so we'll just keep working as long as we keep gardening here.

>>Well, Mark, I wanna thank you for sharing your experience and your expertise in regenerative gardening and being able to grow such beautiful plants.

>>Thank you, thank you.

>>And do it in such lovely soil.

I commend you.

I realize the concept of focusing on the soil is new to many gardeners.

We tend to focus on the plants and weather.

But when nurturing the living soil is embraced, the time spent maintaining a garden slowly decreases while plant health increases.

Composting is a great first step.

And if you don't have the space, many communities offer composting programs.

And now Randy Battle shares tips for getting seed started for the fall vegetable garden.

(upbeat music) >>As the summer ends and fall fast approaches, now is a good time to think about what you're going to do with your fall garden.

One of my favorite things about fall gardening is it's much cooler.

It's less work, rather than your summer garden where you have to go out and prune a lot and do a lot of things.

Fall garden, you can just plant things and let them grow, such as your beets, your radishes, your carrots.

There are a ton of things that you can grow in the fall, so let's just get started.

One of the first things I like to consider when starting my fall garden is the soil conditions.

Whether you're a new gardener or an experienced gardener, you always want to make sure you have some good soil.

I take a little bit of my old and I mix it with the new, and it comes out just the way I like it.

And it also stretches your soil so you have more soil for less money.

We're on a budget, don't forget.

Second of all, check your first frost date.

That's the date where the ground starts to freeze up at night, the temperatures reach in the 30s and below.

So you want to make sure you have your seeds started well in advance before your first frost date.

If you don't know when that is, just look it up on the internet.

Type in your city and state and ask, "When is my first frost date?"

and it will tell you.

And you want to plant your seeds accordingly.

So today what we're going to do, we're going to start off by planting some seeds.

Whether you're using cups, containers, take what you have and make it work.

Okay?

So I'm going to fill this up, and this is my mixture of old and new soil.

(dirt crunching) It doesn't have to be rocket science, you guys.

Make it fun.

Get the kids involved.

Get your family and friends over.

(shovel knocking) So once you get your soil all nice in there, give it a little shake, a pressing, not a packing.

You don't want to over compress it because your water won't seep through.

(container crinkling) And then I water it a little bit, (water can clicking) just like so.

So the seeds already have a moisture base just like that.

And now we're going to plant the seeds.

We're going to start off with some radish.

And I always plant two to three per cell, so we're not waiting on plants to grow that are not going to grow.

Okay?

You can also direct sow these in the ground.

But if you're growing in an apartment or in a small space, you can grow these in containers as well.

Then you will put a thin layer (container crinkling) over top, just like so, and just give it a little tap, (fingers tapping) just like that.

Now what I'm going to do is use my seed tray to start several varieties of these.

So I'm going to put that one there, and then I'm going to start another one.

I'm going to plant lettuce.

I'm going to plant some beets.

And I'm even going to plant some beans for my fall garden.

So remember, starting your fall garden can be fun, easy, and you can do it.

We enjoy a long growing season in Virginia, so take advantage of it.

Learn your first and last frost dates and understand how long your crops take to mature so you can plan in advance to maximize your harvest.

We learned today that replacing the nutrients that our plants take from the soil is the key principle of regenerative growing.

And heard some great tips on how to do that.

I hope you try some of these methods at home.

See you soon.

And until then, remember, gardening is for everyone and we are all growing and learning together.

>>Production funding for Virginia Home Grown is made possible by the Mary Roper Davis and Robert Poore Roper Memorial Fund.

And by.

(birds chirping) (gentle upbeat music) (electronic jingling)