Why Synthetic Fertilizers are Bad + Your Gardening Questions Answered

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for you, coming at you from a beautiful backyard garden. In this episode we're going to be answering your guys' questions. I apologize, I have over like a million followers on all my different social media outlets, so I can't answer any questions directly, but if you do have a question you'd like to ask me, post it in my community tab, link down below in the description, and your question will be selected for next month's Q&A. Any case, on with today's questions, first question is from Robert Miltz, 4644, many people have been on your channel, have gone on to have great YouTube channels of their own. Describe, do you feel knowing that you have helped careers of others, do you keep in touch with them? Alright Robert, so you know, number one, I think it's great that there's more people teaching gardening and doing YouTube, because that's how really information is going to be spread in this modern age. We can't wait for information to come from the top down, whether you look up to political people in power, you know, celebrities or even institutions, you know, they don't have all the answers. And the other thing I will say is that not everything on social media should you believe either. So, I think that I've been helping to foster other, you know, YouTube personalities and help them create their own channels I think is great. I'm glad I could do that just by being on my little channel that I've had here for over, I don't know, 15 years now. Now, the honest truth is that I don't keep in touch with most of them, because I just show up and usually when I make videos at other places, I'm traveling through there and then I like contact them when I'm there, make videos with them, and then I totally bugger out and I'm not the best at like keeping in touch with people, unless I go back there next time and I'm in their area, then I'll call up again and you know, we'll get together and make some more videos. So, that's how I work. Next question is from Glendell85, John, I live in Vegas and I've had a retaining wall made for ornamentals. After viewing lots of your videos, I now want to grow food, however all the retaining walls are 4 feet deep and 10 feet long and are infested with grubs. Is it worth using beneficial nematodes for that much sand and soil, or should I just use pellets to kill them and only grow non-edibles like flowers? I just think it will take an enormous amount of beneficial nematodes. So, you know, here's the thing, like I, number one, I encourage you to grow food in Las Vegas, people think you can't grow food in Las Vegas, and number two, I would encourage you to use organic methods to control the grubs, right. I haven't had, I had like grubs in one of my beds and like I did a thing that maybe wasn't the smartest, I dug out the whole bed to like try to go through every little bit of soil and filter out the grubs, and I still wasn't successful at getting all of them, although that significantly reduced their population, I highly doubt that you want to go through all the soil to remove all the grubs. So, you know, here's the thing, you should call some experts that know more about me than controlling grubs in the soil, because there's probably nematodes, but there's other practices that you can do to control them and get those numbers down organically, and then of course I want you to use your space to grow food. Now, yes, it may be, it may take a bunch of nematodes, but I'm sure there's other practices you can do to control them, I would recommend the experts at Rincon Vitova, I may have already posted a video that I did with Ron at Rincon Vitova recently, if not I'll post a link to my original videos at Rincon Vitova, you want to call them, they'll give you a free consult over the phone, and they've been in the basically organic natural pest control business for like over 50 years now, and they can help you out to get your grub problem under control so you can grow some food. Alright, next question is from Courtney Sigmon 55, what NPK value should I use for bell peppers? Alright, that's a good question, you'd have to ask somebody that deals with commercial fertilizers, because honestly the NPK number is, well every fertilizer bag that you go into the nursery will have a 10, 10, 10, 15, 15, 15, or all 2, 7, 8, or whatever the numbers are right, like I really just, it's not my goal to be a number head guy and like pay attention to these numbers right, so I mean here's the thing, my goal is to not feed like fertilizer to soil, but to build up the soil and organic matter and put the right trace minerals, which are you know some of the numbers on there, as well as more importantly the microbes that basically unlock the organic matter to basically create the nutrients your plants need to thrive. So that's what I would honestly do, is I would try to you know use the practices that I show on my channel, using compost, worm castings, microbes, minerals, things like compost teas to activate it all right, buy some good local soil, that's the most important thing you guys need to do is get some good local soil, because that could make or break your garden, and just grow and not worry so much about the fertilizer numbers, now if you do and are concerned then go out and yes by all means go and get some Dr. Earth vegetable fertilizer, if you're growing bell peppers I might get the Dr. Earth tomato you know fertilizer organic right, I think actually they put it on clearance at my local Home Depot, so you might want to check yours, maybe it's on clearance and I know Walmart also maybe this time of year may be having them on clearance, so you get organic fertilizers for pretty cheap, and then what I do is I would just you know top dress that in after you have your peppers planted, if they're already established or put like a half a teaspoon in the planting hole of that organic fertilizer, whatever the numbers may be, but yeah it's important to get organic fertilizer, something like Dr. Earth is one of my more favorite brands, because a lot of organic fertilizers may just be basically 100% or very high percentage of like peltonized chick manure, which I'm not a big fan of, all right next question is from Michael Booher 612, I noticed one year you started planting in September instead of October for brassicas, do you think planting like 2 weeks before September like about now would work too, I'm just across from you in Bullhead City Arizona just next to Laughlin, you guys are always 5 to 10 degrees cooler than us luckily, yeah so here's the thing man like I have like 24 raised beds to plant out, every year I kind of like look at the weather like hey how's the weather going, this year in my opinion has been a bit cooler than normal, so that means I'm trying to plant earlier than normal, I've already started planting, I planted first started in like September, like 3rd week or whatever into September a little bit past the middle, and I have 3 beds planted out and they are really doing well, so the goal is if you wait too long to plant, then the plants are not established enough and large enough to when the cold hits, you know come late November, December and January and then they're not really going to be growing a lot for you if you get little babies in, so I would encourage you to stagger when you start time, so always do it a little bit some early, some right on time and then some a little bit late, because depending on the weather which always changes right, and the other conditions, you know then you're always going to have some that yeah some might both a little bit early if you plant them too early, but then if it's not that hot then those might be the best performing plants, so yeah I always can't say do it on this date, because I'm just like kind of like hey I'm out of town and then I'm back and I got stuff to plant, I got to plant it, so like yeah my schedule, the weather all different kind of things happen, but yeah very your planting date is very important, all right next question is from Plain Jane 3160, not garden related but very John related, John what are some of your other interests, I ask because some of us just really want you to find Mrs. growing your greens and she may be watching, she may be wondering does John work in his garden, make his salads all day every day, does he like to go to the beach, does he like to play board games, what kind of music does he like etc. etc. all right, so let's see other interests besides gardening, so I mean I like to travel, so that's like the top one of my top interests, and then of course when I travel I like to visit farmers markets, you know organic produce stores, local farms and visit farmers and connect with people, I like to eat fresh foods, that means like preparing my food fresh, of course growing my own food, if I'm traveling sourcing my food I'll bring like equipment with me to make food, which is probably many people may like think I'm a little bit abnormal, but it's very important to me to eat healthily, which is another one of my really things I'm passionate about life is health, I'm constantly researching like some of the latest scientific published studies on health today, I was actually researching studies on like how to cook cassava leaves to reduce the toxins but maintain the highest amount of nutrients, because nobody's really doing that, I started growing cassava this year and I want to learn how to do that, so it's quite interesting to see that, another one of my passions are nature of course, getting out to nature I love hiking, you know whether that's going to the beach and hiking along the rocks on the beach or going up to the mountains, hiking the mountains, going to a forest, you know do some forest bathing, I'm into like natural and organic like body care and kind of holistic kind of health things, I like massage and stuff like that, what else do I like, I like sci-fi and adventure style movies, like period pieces, watch some movies and like some like Netflix and things series, I like both Star Wars and Star Trek, I kind of keep going between the two, I'm like Disney keeps beating Paramount but then Paramount has some newer Star Trek stuff and I'm like you know what that's pretty good, is it better than Star Wars, I mean I like them both, in the past I've liked some Disney, I'm probably grown out of that mostly these days, I mean I'm pretty basic, most days I don't like, I'm not just in my garden all day every day, like you know most days I'm like usually inside working on the computer for several hours in a day and then I will film some content, film videos for one of my channels, I may post content and then I got to prep food for like storage and then I will prep food for eating and for bulk preparing, I got to do some juicing probably later today, I got to cut up some avocados for drying and I always have stuff to harvest that I just can't even get to everything, so that's my life right now and let's see going to the beach, I don't like laying out on the beach, I think that's like the most lame thing to do, I'd rather listen to audio books than read but I do like going to the beach and like going into the surf and then like you know just playing in the water and you know fighting against the waves as they kind of brush you in, board games yeah some board games are fun and then on the music I kind of like more easy listening like Josh Groban is one of my favorite artists, alright so that's all I'm going to mention because this is my gardening channel, so let's move on, Yanboo6xz what is your opinion on plant toxins and the carnivore diet, I watch videos about how they are finding cancer causing chemicals and other bad chemicals in plants, do you think it's true that plants have defense mechanism but unlike animals who fight back physically they produce chemicals to fight back, alright so my ideas about plant toxins are located on my other YouTube channel about the plant based diet, I'll post links down below to some of the videos I made on them specifically because that goes really in depth, so the summary is this, yes some plants contain plant toxins, some plants have more than others, next is traditional cultures have learned how to deal with plant toxins for example cyanogenic glycosides which I just talked about in an earlier question you know in the cassava leaves right, they're quite toxic and yes they can absolutely kill you if you eat them raw but traditional cultures know how to process them properly so like beating them up, breaking open the cell walls, releasing some of the cyanogenic glycosides, soaking them and then changing the water and then cooking them right by boiling out some more glycosides and you get like 97% of them out and then the 3% it's not really an issue, maybe sometimes you can get 100% out depending on the overall process and cooking time, so it's absolutely true that plants contain toxins, now are the plants out to get us, it is absolutely true that plants want to reproduce themselves, they're not necessarily here on earth for us unless you leave a very human centric you know thought process which I would encourage you guys to watch a movie called earthlings to you know remember that we may think of ourselves as earthlings when Martians come but really this plant is an earthling, my fig tree is an earthling, anything on earth is an earthling because we exist on earth together and we should be looked at as a collective species of creatures that we all depend on each other right and we're not going to go really deep on that, so plant toxins are absolutely real, they can be minimized right by traditional processing methods and other processing methods that are now learned thanks to science, in addition they can also be quite beneficial so while they may be there they're not necessarily there to kill us, they may be there to assist us, so we've been eating plant toxin compounds for as long as we've been humans and our bodies have learned to adjust to them and when we eat small amounts of plant toxin compounds or whatever you want to call them, I'll call them phytonutrients right because my goal is to get my plants to produce more phytonutrients by using the special gardening techniques that I do, microbes and minerals right, stressing my plants out a little bit maybe underwatering a little bit, they make more of these plant compounds that then when our bodies eat them our body reacts like oh dude it's a toxic compound then it gears up our immune system for example to like go into reaction mode and then it basically builds our immune system right in moderation right, don't eat too many because yes they're going to be killing you you know but small amounts I believe tend to be a good thing right and it's very important always vary your plant toxic compounds, your very plant phytonutrients, so don't ever only eat cassava leaves, you're eating a whole, cassava leaves one day of the week and then you're eating six different other kinds of leaves and hopefully even have more different varieties right, super important and then my thoughts on the carnivore diet you know I think while the carnivore diet can be quite beneficial short term absolutely because what are you giving up when you're going on a carnivore diet, you're probably giving up all the junk food and the garbage that people eat, the processed foods, the ultra processed foods, even processed vegan foods right, I'm going to say they're junk right, if man starts processing foods and ultra processing I don't care if it's got the vegan label or not, it's a junk food, it's not good for us, at least when you go carnivore you're eating real food, so that is a good thing, that being said the studies that talk about carnivore diet right are not favorable for long term health outcomes for your carnivore diet, so if you don't, if you just want to eat meat because you love meat and you're like okay I will give up 20-30 years of my life potentially to eat carnivore diet, dude it's your right to do that, I mean I feel sorry for the animals that are going to have to lose their lives so that you could eat, hopefully you are hunting them yourself or raising them and slitting their necks yourself instead of letting other people do it for you where you're not involved in any of the carnage that occurs due to that, that's your total right, that being said my personal opinion and I'm here for health and longevity is that I'm all about plants, especially the carnivore diet does not feed your microbiome, that's one of the major problems with it and of course besides plants having toxic compounds so do animals, animals have toxic compounds within them that will react in our body and cause mass hysteria and problems as well, so it's not just a plant problem it's also an animal problem, there's toxic animal compounds as well right and I'm not even going to get into that alright, so yeah so that's basically what I'm going to tell you guys, I'm going to tell you guys you know if you guys don't want to go all plant based which is fine right, you got to eat a lot of plants to get the healthy plant compounds or they're just the plant compounds, I won't put a definition on them because yeah some of them could actually be bad, some of them of course are quite good but we need to reduce the bad, keep the good and give it to our bodies in a slow and moderate more traditional amounts where our bodies could deal with it and actually it makes us stronger, it's like lifting weights right, working out with some plant compounds which I'll call phytonutrients usually. Alright next question is from figtree393, I heard you say to purchase Dulse so then go to eBay, do you have a favorite seller? So yes my favorite seller for Dulse is called Seaweed Kings, I bought them on eBay originally, I think they're a little bit cheaper, I think they're also on Amazon, I'll put a link down below to my Amazon shop where I have all my recommended products that I like to use myself personally. Alright next question is from missladybluesworld, how do I get rid and prevent aphids? So to get rid of aphids, I always try and recommend you guys do the easiest things first, number one is you could get a blow gun and do high pressure blowing on your plants, I have like a Makita drill thing, battery operated blower that blows plants and I've blown aphids off that way, it does work. The next thing you guys can do is you could also take high pressure water so just take your hose on a fan spray and just back up the back of the leaves, spray the water on the leaves and basically dislodge all the aphids. Another thing is of course you could do if there's just outbreaks of aphids, you can just take your fingers and smush all the aphids, I'm not seeing any aphids on mine, I can see a few white flies. So those are the ways to deal with aphids, of course you could also spray something more hardcore, the next thing I'd go up, because I kind of go up in level of severity, I'll do like water spraying for a bunch, if I do that and it doesn't work, keep them all the way off, then I'll use like the Dr. Zimes product, link down below to my video on that because that's like a non-persistent organic pesticide I would say, and then you could spray like soapy water on there, that would dislodge them and help get them off, you could also spray some soapy water with neem oil which is kind of like up to the final stage. Of course there's also predatory insects and beneficial insects you can release, I wouldn't release ladybugs, I'd probably release like green lacewings to eat up the aphids. So those are the ways to deal with them, now how would you prevent them from coming? So to prevent aphids from coming, you want to build your soil, that's the number one thing guys, if you guys have soil that's not that nutritious, the plants aren't making all the plant compounds and the chitinase that basically will help defend the plant against the aphids, and so that's so important right, use the black soldier fly insect grass that I recommend, build up and put the trace minerals and the microbes and compost teas, all the things I recommend in your soil, that'll help make your plants more disease resistant. Much like us, if we eat a fast food diet, McDonald's diet, our immune system's not going to be as strong and be more susceptible to getting viruses or bacterias out in the world, whereas if we eat a plant centric, whole food based diet, lots of leafy greens and fruits and beans and grains and other foods processed in the middle ways possible, then our immune system can be strong because our microbiome is strong, the microbiome in us anyways is 70% of our immune system, and that's why I believe the microbiome of the soil, the rhizosphere is also so important for the health of the plants, and we want to feed that, unfortunately most organic gardening does not even consider it. Alright, next question is from meadowark, worms and raised planters in hot weather. So you know, I have worms in my raised bed planters in 100 plus degree weather all summer long because I don't move them, I don't take care of them, I don't do anything. And here's the thing, the beautiful thing about soil, my beds are open on the bottom, right, yes, the hot, the top layer of the soil is quite hot but if you burrow down, you know, a couple inches, it gets a lot cooler and they can keep going down further and further as far as they need to to stay cool. Just make sure you give enough water to them and they're going to stay alive and thrive during the hot weather. Plus they're in there breaking down the organic matter, making poop, they're castings, putting it right where you need it so that you don't have to move the castings or move their poop later on and distribute it. Alright, next question is from jpits4666, I battle slugs and grasshoppers every year in my garden, I've tried diatomaceous earth, neem, essential oils, and insecticidal soap, they are winning, please help, zone 6B, Virginia. Alright, so grasshoppers, I don't know, I don't really have a problem with any major issues with grasshoppers, I'm sure there are solutions for that. Once again, I recommend calling some people I know like Rincon Vitova who will do a free consult with you over the phone, I put their contact information down below this video. Alright, so for the slugs, I recommend number one, going out late at night with a headlamp and picking off as many as you could find, that's the surefire way to get them all. Number two, I'd recommend using some kind of bait, so you know, I like to use this stuff, this is a sluggo plus, you can just get the regular sluggo without the plus, I've used this for like 20 years, it totally works good, just put the bait all around, they'll eat it, and it's basically based on an iron phosphate, and it's Armory certified for organic gardening, that's my favorite for sure, yeah, good luck. Next, oh and the other thing is like maybe try to keep your garden on the drier side, right, they like it really wet, and that's the other reason why I like to like really kind of not have a lot of mulch in my garden, right, the more mulch and places for slugs to hide, you're creating a nest or a home for them, that's why a lot of my beds are basically just, you know, open to the bare soil, I try to plant densely, that way they don't have any cover to kind of duck underneath and hide from me, and then when I see them, I pick them off and then they, you know, get taken off site. Alright, next question is from viralvideo171, why are synthetic nutrients bad for you? Alright, so not even bad for the plants, but bad for you. So when we eat plants grown with synthetic nutrients, right, it could be a good thing in one instance, but then also can be a bad thing, which is not, you know, super talked about so much. So the good news is that I went to, you know, naturopathic doctor's convention, I met a guy, talked about nitric oxide, talked about eating high nitric oxide vegetables, and he's like, okay, I've identified beets as the highest nitric oxide vegetable to eat, and then he wanted to make a beet powder formulation called Neo40, I believe, and he had to basically test all the beet powders he got, and he found actually the not organic beet powder was better for nitrates, you know, the conventional was better, actually, and then I immediately thought, oh, I knew why that was, I was like, well, because if they're putting ammonium nitrate in the soil, the plants are going to absorb unnatural amounts of this nitrate, have it in the plant, so that when we take it and put it in our mouth, then we can create a nitric oxide reaction in our mouth, so that could be considered a good thing in that one isolated incident, right. That being said, generally I believe this is a bad thing, and the reason why for us personally, if you're eating all this conventional food, is because if they're only supplementing three main minerals, those three main minerals are now super high in the plant tissue, whatever tissue you're eating, abnormally high, non-naturally made high, right. In nature, there wouldn't be these high amounts of these different three minerals, because that's what man believes plants need to grow, three main minerals, and maybe up to 15 or 16 that may be supplemented on industrial farms when they're really out of whack and out of range and they have a good soil agronomist that's going over all this stuff, right. So you're eating unnaturally high amounts of certain trace minerals and then maybe not even getting others. So I think that's a huge problem. So many different bodily reactions, enzyme reactions in our bodies rely on different trace minerals. So what's the solution? Oh, just take some sea salt, John. I could eat all this inadequate food, take some sea salt, because sea salt has got trace minerals. My favorite naturopathic medical doctor told me that. So yes, sea salt, natural sea salt or Himalayan salt or whatever, has a lot of sodium and then maybe small amounts of other trace minerals. So I don't think that's the solution. The solution is, put all the different trace minerals in your garden, spray them on through ocean solids, put ground up rocks in your soil, not worry about the NPK, don't be supplementing with NPK in any large amounts, and then your plants will absorb what they want to naturally. So they can be the best balanced mineral wise, and then when we eat that, we're getting a balance of minerals. And while I eat basically all my homegrown food for the trace minerals, I still buy organic, which once again, you still have the conundrum. While they're not just adding the NPK number super high, they also don't have the trace minerals and hopefully they're paying attention to some of their trace minerals that conventional synthetic growers are not. That being said, I still think that's inadequate. So if you don't grow your own, then I'd recommend getting some kind of seaweeds and eating seaweeds, not too much, but a little bit on a regular basis because the sea still has all the trace minerals. So yeah, so that's why I believe synthetic nutrients are bad for us. It can cause imbalances on our body, and you can look at USDA reports on the trace mineral levels of foods, and it's basically just plummeted into nothing these days. And it ain't getting better, guys. So okay, next question's from Farm to Market Road. How are blood meal and bone meal organic when animals slaughtered were fed GMO feed? Alright, well that's a good question for the OMRI Organic Certification Board, not me. You know, I'm one organic gardening channel that I do not recommend bone or blood meal, right? While they are considered organic because they're an organic product, not man-made, they're from nature, right? They're made in a very non-natural way. They're basically slaughterhouse residues. You know, a lot of the poop that's used to grow organic food is from slaughterhouses. They're trying to get rid of the waste product, right? When they sell you blood and bone meal, they're getting rid of the waste product. That's the undesired product because the main product is the meat that they're trying to sell for top dollar, and they got all this extra blood and bone meal, or you know, bones and blood they got to get rid of, and hey, what better than to turn it into a profit center by selling it to gardeners that are trying to grow organic? Because yes, they are absolutely full of nutrition. I'm not going to deny that, but at what cost, I guess, is the question. And you know, just because it's organic doesn't mean it's veganic, which is if you are into non-animal slaughter things, you should look into veganic gardening. There's not a lot of products that are certified veganic or even just claim to be veganic, but many of them are. Most of the products I recommend, aside from a handful, are veganic because I believe that's a more natural way to garden without any kind of like high amounts of different nutrients that's concentrated from animals. And the thing to remember is this, guys. As much as animals concentrate nutrients, whether that's protein when we eat them, whether that's different nutrients in blood or bone meal in their bones and we slaughter them and then add them to our garden, these are kind of like abnormally high levels. In addition, because they also are concentrators of nutrition, they're also concentrators of things that are not good for us, such as potentially GMO contamination, potentially nuclear radiation, potentially heavy mineral contamination, potentially environmental toxins, forever chemicals, PFAS, and whatever else they're spraying on us from the sky, if they are in fact doing that, right? Microplastics, they will concentrate all these things in their tissues, and when you eat them or whether you put them in your garden, you're getting them in higher amounts than what plants would give you in many cases. Plants could also help you detox some of these toxins, like cilantro, for example. So, I don't know the reason why I prefer not to use those ingredients, although they are organic in my garden. I encourage you guys not to use them in your garden either. Yes, they absolutely could work. Now, the other issue I've seen, especially there's a report years ago from a lady gardener over in, I think it was the UK, that got mad cow disease. She was a vegan, but she used bone meal in her garden. So, that's kind of scary when these diseases can pass from animal to animal, whether that's the bird flu to the humans or cow diseases into us, right? Plants don't give us sooty mold or black mold or fungus powder or whatever. They can't transfer their diseases to us. So, I'm quite glad. I prefer to use plant-based compost and other plant-based nutrients for my garden, primarily. Yes, I have a few exceptions. I don't grow entirely veganic. Alright, so that's that. Last question today is from Darren Kingson9912. Are you doing TD video this year? So, Darren, I've made one TD video this year. I need to send it to TD for his approval. I basically compared the Super Seth garden and how Super Seth grows his cannabis as well as TD. TD's garden is raging this year that I will show in one single episode. That being said, if you guys want regular updates of TD's garden, even watch them already because they're already put online, you want to check out Josh at Boogie Brew. Boogie Brew went to the TD garden and did a couple lives over there showing you guys all the crazy stuff TD's doing and how large his plants have gotten and how he's already actually harvested them and what his harvest is looking like over there. So, that's pretty much it for this month's episode. If you guys enjoyed this month's Q&A, hey, please be sure to give this video a big thumbs up. More importantly, share this video with other gardeners you think it could help, especially ones that are already using the bone and blood meal and how they're, in my opinion, not the best organic garden products to use. I encourage you guys to look towards others. Also, be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss my new and upcoming episodes that come out every 5-7 days. You never know where I'll show up or what you'll be learning on my YouTube channel. Make sure you click the little bell so you get notified as my new videos come out. Finally, be sure to check my past episodes. The past episodes are wealth of knowledge. Over 1,700 episodes at this time on the channel dedicated to teach you guys all about how to grow more organic food, fruits and vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds at home so you guys can get healthier and be more sustainable on the planet. So, with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time and until then, remember, keep on growing.