>>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.