Nigel Palmer’s guide to DIY garden amendments

Let's start 2022 off as the YEAR OF REGENERATION! Join the community call with me, Koen from "Investing in Regenerative Agriculture," and Dimitri from "The Regenerative Agroforestry podcast" at 7pm CET on January 10th. Sign up through this link. Don't hesitate, places are limited to 100. The topic of fertilizers and inputs for farming is a contentious one. Most chemical options either use mined minerals or petroleum products through destructive industrial processes that may improve yields, but commonly pollute waterways, destroy soil life, and are extremely expensive. But what’s the alternative? If you have degraded or poor soil where little will grow, you have to improve it somehow right? Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could make your own fertilizers and soil amendments that didn’t contaminate the ground but rather enhanced biological activity? Luckily Nigel Palmer, lifelong gardener and the author of The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments has been researching and developing just these types of solutions for decades. Not only has he been able to dramatically improve the health and composition of his soil over time, he’s been able to make his amendments easily and cheaply at home by harnessing the power of weeds and household products to create extracts, ferments, and inoculants. The result has been delicious and nutrient dense food that you simply can’t buy.  In this interview from an earlier skill exchange call with the farmers in the Climate Farmer network here in Europe, Nigel and I spoke about some of the most important steps and knowledge in creating your own amendments. Nigel first talks about how to assess the health of your plants to know which amendments to consider. From there we look at a few different homemade products, how they work, and when to use them. We explore how plants take up nutrients in different forms and how to intervene when they need it the most, as well as a lot of other useful advice and tactics that any gardener can use to care for their plants regardless of the context they’re in or the challenges they face. If you want to hear the full unedited interview from the skill exchange call with the Q&A session at the end as well as access the resource packet which includes amendment recipes from the book, just check out the subscription options on our Patreon page. This is really empowering information because the recipes are very approachable and have the power to help break any addiction to chemical fertilizers as you build towards healthy resilient soil.  Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-regenerative-growers-guide-to-garden-amendments/ https://www.nigel-palmer.com/ Nigel Palmer's YouTube channel