Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip rictor
so always smell the crazy, can you trim? Just watch him as wood
goes. You did tell us so many pots to see bases gas and again
you did so was couped by chicken, not a sign the sun beam and
starting out of a tree in the bases you did. Everything is all right.
You're listening to yard Line on a beautiful Sunday morning, and it's a
good day for gardening. Which when is it not a good day for gardening?
I say this all the time. But it could be hailing outside,
it could be freezing outside, it could be hot outside. You ever heard
of that time take care of your house plants. Time to plant plants for
fall. Now's the time to start broccoli and all kinds of things. But
most importantly, now's the time to get your soil right. Because for you
to go out and buy the most beautiful plant in the world from the best
garden center in the world and stick it, PLoP it into an unprepared plot.
I like that. It's a lot of peas in it. It's like
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants is going to raise to your
door, arrest you and throw you in the plant jail or something that's just
cruel stuff. We're fortunate today we have Luis tomorrow from Heirloom Soils in and
we are going to talk all things related to soils, organic matter, microbes
and benefits. Luis welcome, So, good morning, good morning, Thank
you, Thank you for having me. Yeah, I hope you're ready.
I know in your brain is every answer to we could imagine for having better
success with our plants. And we're going to dig through there and see what
we can find today. Yeah, my brain is like a soil right now.
It's got a lot of things in and going on. Yeah, you
have a lot of electivity. Yeah, exactly. Well, for those of
you listening, give us a call if you got any questions about soil,
I mean maybe a technical question, you know, why is why do we
do this? Or what works? How do you fix this? Well,
Luis will be happy to visit with you about that. In the meantime,
I just want to talk about getting soil ready. You know, fall gardening
season is the best planting season of the year. Everybody gets the fever in
the spring, and you know, we're excited about that. But my gosh,
if you've got fruit, trees, perennials, if you've got woody ornamentals
like shrubs and trees and woody vines and all those kinds of things fall gives
you that headstart on next summer. That's really important. And so now is
the time to get the soil right because before long we're hitting the prime time.
We're fortunate here we can plan twelve months of the year, but if
you want the best chance of success, that time is coming up. So
tell us a little bit about what do you do you walk out there,
you got heavy clay soil or maybe sand, whatever they have, and what
do you do to make it a place that roots just thrive and therefore plants
thrive. Well, we are very lucky to live in Zone nine B.
It's a zone that by definition, you grow things from February to December.
So you got one one month one January, one week, one week one
week of sometimes two or three sometimes, But in this zone you can grow
vegetables, flowering, shrubs. Like you said, all these different crops,
and for each crop we were lucky enough to have Mark Bowen design a product
and the design, the design of these products is based on the local and
native soil conditions of southeast Texas, Okay, and it expands to you know,
hill country and zone nine A, which is a little in north,
which is a five degree you know buffer. The number one thing I look
at when I create social media videos and content is going to be the compaction
of the of the soils, because compaction is our enemy. It is,
right, And one other ways I explain compaction with clay particles is clay particles
bond. And if you I always explained it this way. If you have
teenagers at home and you want to prevent them from like dating somebody, you
don't want them to date kissing, right, I'm getting or kissing. You're
the parent in between these two these two individuals, these two individuals being the
clay particles. So you're the disruptor, and a lot of a lot of
you know, and in general, most of us don't understand what the disruption
is. And the disruption in this case is going to be organic matter,
a sand particle or expand shell. Right, So once you put in that
organic matter or that expanded shell. Primarily you prevent those clay particles from bonding
and then you start losing the soil. Yeah, so that was number one.
That is the number one foundation for taking care of that compacted area.
And then we start looking at the horizons or the layers of the soil.
So then we start adding the soil designed for the use you're ultimately wanting to
plant, whether it's a veggie, a shrub, a season of color,
a tree, cactus, and so forth. Yeah, you get the soil
right, and then the plant's right. You make it happy. So,
yeah, our soil, the clay soil is so heavy and sticky, you
know that. That's why our streets in Houston are always shifting around and water
pipes are breaking because shrinking and swelling, and you get that stuff like organic
matter in which is just rocket fuel. But then also you mentioned the shale
and the expanded shay. For those that aren't familiar, I think of a
clay product that's been fired super super hot two thousand degrees. It's expanded,
there's pores in it. You remember the days when we have the little lava
rock on the barbecue pit, that real you know, pitted whole rock that's
kind of a microscopic view of what's happening with expanded shale in that now you
can hold nutrients and water, but you keep those particles you're talking about apart.
So the internal drainage is good. You know, it's one thing to
have water run off the surface, but to get that water to move down
into the soil so when it rains, you capture that free, wonderful water
source instead of it running off down the street. Correct. And you guys
do that, and the organic matter is great. It comes and goes,
I mean it eventually decomposes away, but the shale stays there. So that
combination, I think is a real wind. And you guys have products that
do that. They they are an organic matter material like a compost material,
but it's got that shale in it as well. Yes, if you if
the listeners don't follow Heirloom Soils on social media, highly suggest that you go
to Instagram primarily and follow the profile at Heirloom Soils if you scroll down.
I don't know how many how many posts I've done since then, but it
was probably around this time last year I did a post about expanded shell where
I put expanded shell in one glass jar, and I poured the same amount
of volume water into the expanded shell, and I waited eighteen hours, and
at eighteen hours, I took the expanded shell and I drained it into the
same jar that it was full of water, and about a third of the
jar was empty water. And that was what was absorbed and retained by expanded
And days later I drained it again because it released all that water. So
that's what happens inside the soil. But it also helps a lot of promotion
with Yeah, that is that is awesome. Hey, guys, we're just
getting into it. It's time for a heartbreak, but hang with us if
you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. We're going to continue that thought with Luis when we come back
Deever in Pleasantville. You'll be first up Sandy and Cyprus. You got a
question about potted plants and soil. We'll come to you next when we go
wash there. I believes that eagles dirty laundry. You're listening to garden Line
and we are fortunate this morning to be able to talk to Lewis tomorrow.
Luis is an expert on all kinds of things when it comes to soil,
and when you get the soil right, you got the plant right. I
mean, think about it this way. When you put a plant in the
ground, you're about eighty percent of the wa to success or failure. You've
picked a sunny spot or a shady spot, and the plant's can have an
opinion about that. You've got a spot that drains well or doesn't drain well.
The plant's definitely gonna have an opinion about that. You've chosen the species
that he's either adapted or not adapted to where you've put it. But most
importantly, you've either prepared the soil so that the plant can thrive and that
root system can expand and have a huge volume of bank account of water and
of nutrients to be able to supply your plant, or you haven't, so
to not prepare the soil, you might as well just get a revolver,
fill it every chamber but one with a bullet, spin it and take your
chances, because that's pretty much what you're doing when you don't prepare the soil
right. All right, So I'm gonna quit talking. We're here to talk
to Louise. First. We're gonna go out here to Debora and Pleasantville and
Deborah, how can we help today? Oh? Helloo? And Louise,
question to you later. I just called in that just Josh about a image
that I sent you an email on August Assist. I haven't a chance to
get back. Yeah, he mentioned you had an email, and I've looked
and I don't see. I don't see woody weeds and chinchbirds is what it
was called? D D R. Okay, I'll keep looking for it.
Tell me about the call. So it's a it's a dark, dark woody
weed that it's easily pulled up, and he's got a too long tap root.
It's hard and fibrous. Okay, I'm trying to figure out what that
is. Is it is it sort of somewhat of a like a clover looking
leaf, like you know, three three leaflets all together. No, it's
it's it's almost an evergreen. It's it's spiky looking. It's a very dark,
dark green. Huh. When it's in the ground, and when you
put you can pull it up but from the center and pull it straight up
and get the entire tap root up, pulls up easy, all right?
That it sounds like it may be medic or it could be a there's a
mimosa like we that comes up like that. But I tell I've looked,
I've looked through my emails. I don't see it. Will you re send
it? To send it again next week? Well, I'm I'm a mini
may Park right now. Get ready for the game. So it's kind of
crazy. You can do the radio show and let me go to the game.
People, Now, all right, look for Louise. Louise. I
didn't know y'all were going to compact to soil. Louise gave me a Randy
Limon T shirt months ago. I don't know if he remembers, and uh
and I cried, yep, yes, I remember you. Absolutely. You
are lovely, lovely compact to soil. I have people that put a fence
in my backyard and they dug up all the clay and wanted me to spread
it in my grass new way. What do I do for that? I'm
gonna do till and feel and we saw it because it's all clay back there.
Now, Yeah, you want to you want to core ariate first,
and then you want to spread compost and night of an inch to a quarter
of an inch at most and just work it in maybe two to three times
a year and wait for that area to turn around and and that's how you'll
soften it up. Well, kay, well that's what I will do.
Well, let's wait. I got to get on in here. We got
everybody, get all right, Debrah, Hey, thanks for all ghost stros
yell for me while you're yelling for you. All right, all right,
go bye, alright, bye bye. Appreciate that call. Uh luis you
were talking about We were talking about getting so prepared in the importance of that
and some of the steps. We talked about organic matter and shale. What
are some other aspects of preparing a quality bed some some of the ingredients too.
Yeah. So I made a video not too long ago posted on social
media called da excuse me, It's better to plant plant in a five dollar
hole? Yeah, you know, plant at one dollar plant in a five
dollar hole versus the five dollar planet in a one dollar hole. So what
you really want to do is you want to prepare the soil. Number one,
take care of the compaction, which is going to happen over time.
It's not gonna happen right now. Number two, you talk about we talk
a lot about azomite, right, azomite trade minerals. That is a very
important thing to to prepare soil. Why we look at soils and native areas.
Think about it this way. Everybody should do this. Like your body.
If you take care of yourself, if you have the right nutrients in
your body, you're going to have the right nutrient uptake of the foods you
eat, the quality of the foods. So we talk about azomite because that's
the trace mineral that will work hand in hand with the food you're putting in
the soil. In this case, let's talk about organic fertilizers such as microlife
or something from Nelson plant food, and then the soil. The soil is
the base and the foundation for those microbes to do their thing. That's their
new home. That's how they're going to that's how they are going to interact
with those trade minerals and that food in order to give the plant, the
root systems the nutrient uptic it needs. There you go well, and it's
so much easier to get the soil nutrient right before you plant than it is
after. I mean we fertilize our lawns afterward. You know, all the
time. We don't dig up the lawn to put fertilizer in the soil.
But if you can get all that right and putting things like asamite down,
making sure you're nutrient in some case you're phs right, it just gets your
plants off to a good start. But I found that organic matter it has
its own nutrients in it, and it also has a way of making the
soil maybe more forgiving. Like your pH is a little out of whack,
but you've got a good organic matter content and you're going to get the effects
and the release of materials that provide those nutrients even when pH isn't perfect,
you know, correct, that's just another advantage of Yeah, and so the
organic matter component from heirloom soils, we have multiple organic matters that go into
the products. Yeah. So the number one product we make in house,
it's going to be leaf mall composts. How do we make this? We
segregate leaves and we com post them for a really long time, and then
they go through a grinding process and screening process. They turn all the way
down to soil light consistency and that we recommend that a lot for top dressing
lawns. But it has many other good uses. It has many other uses.
You can use it as a mult you can use it as an amendment,
you can use it as a top dresser. You can use it in
many different ways. I put it in my cereal. Sometimes it keeps your
regular Yes, it's beautiful. Good good to know. You know. The
we talk about these organic materials, and it's almost like it's this new topic
for a lot of gardeners. But if you think about it, forests from
the beginning of time have been building their own soil with organic materials. You
know, a little parrot poop thrown in here and there and to help out
with the nitrogen content. But seriously, it's a natural way to do things.
And you know, we can fight nature and try to work the other
way, or we can go along with it. And and it's kind of
cool because as a gardener, you don't have to wait eighty or one hundred
years like a forest soil does to get developed over time. And you know,
building a top soil and stuff, you can just move right in.
You can buy a product or grow in, or you can just move right
in real quick and turn your own soiled into that by adding the right kinds
of products. Absolutely, we don't have to reinvent the wheel on that one.
We use late leaves and organic matter decompose green waste. Yeah, those
of you who listen to Garden Line have heard me say this before, but
I always say, spend spend time and money on the brown stuff before you
spend time and money on the green stuff. Meaning you go to the garden
center. You know there's a big hibiscus with a giant red flour on it.
Everybody wants that, But go look at those bags of the brown stuff
that will help you have the success with the green stuff, and do it
in that order. You can buy them at the same time. But my
point is, don't just come home with plants. Come home with stuff that
will help your plants succeed. Yeah. Absolutely, And and Heirloom Soils is
a product designed for all these plants to make them perform all right and succeed
when you have time. Let's go ahead and talk about cocoa core. Ye,
it's between coquin people. I do want to come to that. Let's
see, we're gonna go right now out to Cyprus and talk to Sandy.
Sandy, I believe you have a question about potted plant soil, yes,
I and the garden and garden soil, and when I first planted my plant,
and then when I fertilize. Oh, now, how are the plants
doing that you put in that soil when I I'm sorry, when I fertilize,
they're timing together. I talked to you last weekend about my bell peppers
being so small and turning, and you said that's normal. But what my
question is is I have black velvet molst on top of my potted plant,
and can I just fertilize over the malt or do I have to push all
the molds on the side and put the soil down and then hit the pet
a lighter down. All right, thank you. I appreciate that question,
and I'm gonna have Louise address that. Luis, have you ever recommended putting
a mulch on a chunky mulch on top of plant pots or what would you
recommend to her about where to go from here? I mean, I don't
think it's something wrong, but if in your case, I would remove the
mulch, like, move it aside and fertilize and then move the mulch back
on top. Why because mult creates a kind of matrix. Right, it
locks, it looks up, Yeah, it looks up. So you want
to you want to remove that mulch, fertilize and then put it back That
way you have the nutrient uptake on. I mean that fertilizer SIPs through the
soil and gives the plant the feeding. All right, does that answer your
question? You bet? Thank you for the Thank you for that. I
appreciate that very much. I'm gonna go ahead and head out to Kennesaw,
Georgia. We've got Michelle with a compost ben question. Hey Michelle, how
are you doing. Hello, I'm doing great. How about you good?
How are you listening to garden Line or are you online or what? Oh?
Yeah online? Okay, Well, we're glad you're listening. I'm glad
to be listening to learning from my brother. Oh man, you know this
guy, no clucy was gonna call, Oh my god. All right,
sister, all right, well, let us have it. Give your brother
the hardest question you can think of and try to stump him. He probably
he probably owes you for something in the past, so let's hit him with
it. Well, I love gardening, and I have two compost bends,
and I am not sure if I'm doing something wrong with my composting or with
my no with seating. I don't think, but I don't think my produce
is you know that abundant? Okay, So I'm not sure when should I
take my compost out of the band either the fault they spring, you know,
to have a better produce, you bet. Hey, Michelle, we're
hitting a hard break here. If you'd like to hang on, we can
come back to that question, or I can just address it when we come
out of break. But I appreciate that question. I was really hoping you'd
give Louise a harder one than that, and you know, a hard time.
I'm sure. I'm sure that we're going to take a break and go
to the Nikki News Network right now, and in the meantime seven one three,
two, one two five eight seven four give us a call and let's
ask Louise a question about anything related to soil and success with plants. Well,
good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. Beautiful Sunday morning to get out
and do some things in the yard this afternoon, A good day to get
out and visit some of our great local garden centers and suppliers to get everything
you need to have a beautiful and bountiful lawn, landscape and garden. This
is a great time to get out and do that. I'm gonna go back
here to Michelle in kinn. I saw, Hey, Michelle, this is
Skip and I heard your question. So let me give a shot at what
I think you're wanting to know. You can harvest compost at any time it's
ready, So you just have to look at the condition. Has it fully
decomposed to the point that you need in order to be able to harvest it
from the ben So it's not a do it in July or do it in
January or anything. Thing. You can harvest at any time of the year
if it's ready. But if it's not fully decomposing, it either needs to
be moistened to keep it voice not dry out, or it needs a little
extra nitrogen, or it needs a little extra carbon. And so depending on
what you've got in the pile, it may be that you need to add
something that's a higher carbon source for example. Awesome, okay, great,
all right, great, thank you so much. Appreciate your answer. Yeah,
but you know, if I had a brother that was in the compost
business and could ship me bags of compost. I think i'd call that in.
Surely you've got some information on Luis that you could threaten him with in
order to get that accomplished, right, Yeah, yeah, what about this
soil so I know? All right? Yeah, so what what you want
to do is you want to do twenty parts of carbon to one part of
nitrogen. Usually that's finished compost twenty to one. It's called a seat and
ratio. Yeah, we'll talk all a soil and compost offline. Yeah,
there's some really good information online on the basics of it. If you do
a search for composting for kids. It's a little side I put together many
years ago and it just shows the basics. It says it's for kids,
but it's really for anybody who wants to learn how to compost. But just
go online and do a search for that and you can find it super all
right, Thank you, maam, thanks for colling. I appreciate that call
very much, so Luise. We're talking about some of the ingredients and there's
you know, we've got the expanded shale and I want to remind people that
when they use it, you don't want just like a particle of shale here
and there in the soil. You want a quantity of it so it can
really do the work. I sometimes recommend three inches of it mixed in deeply
as you can into a heavy clay. I don't know do you have a
variation on that. It just depends on the application, right, like you
said, But in some of our mixes, the most expanded shoal we're going
to see in the mixes is going to be fifteen percent volume. Okay,
So for every one que Carter gonna half fifteen percent in Q card expand and
that does good, but it'll be there for a long long time, so
it'll be there, definitely, Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So expanding shell
is when when you're when companies are extracting natural gays from the ground, they
have to go through the shell layer and when that shell layer comes out,
then it gets crushed and put in a kiln at two thousand degrees faring hate
it pops like popcorn, so expands, it changes chemically and then it becomes
very porous and light. And that's when we use it as a soil amendment.
It was it used to be used in construction materials. To make construction
materials lighter, but it started being used in horticulture. It's also it's also
used a lot when you have like a rooftop garden and you don't want to
extra weight. It's a it's a good component in that overall growing mix up.
Yes, yes, and then rooftops is a very successful ingredient because it
lines the soil. It also creates a lot of prosity and it holds some
some moisture. There. You go, well, you know, we've learned
the overtime that mining peat bogs is not a great thing when it comes to
the carbon cycle that affects our weather and our atmosphere. It's a it is
a limited resource. They don't recover as fast as they get mind, and
so we're looking for other things, and coconut core is one that's kind of
come to the forefront. You don't talk about that a little bit. Absolutely.
So. Peat bogs primarily located in Canada, Lithuania as well. In
Canada, they have a limited amount of peat and also they can harvest in
certain times of year. So when it rains too much in Canada and they
can't harvest enough, then there's a peat shortage. There's also a peat monopoly
and certain companies in the country only use peat and they're the only ones that
have control and they'll release it to other smaller companies that need it convenient.
But coco is a sustainable resource. Yes, a latta coconut grown in Southeast
Asia and now in Mexico. Okay. Now there's a carbon footprint for all
these products because this cocoa has to be freighted in ocean freighters to the US.
But it's compressed and depending on the quality of the cocoa, which we
only source buffered, meaning it doesn't have high salt content, because if you
source something that's not buffered, you will create root shock and the plant will
die no matter why you do. Right, So we have to break down
that cocoa, make a fluffy, wash it a little bit more although it's
already buffered, and then we incorporate it into the soil mixes. But it's
a beautiful product. It's silky, very light, is sustainable. There's no
shortage of cocoa. We all drink coconut water, not all of us,
but people drink coconut water, eat coconut you know, as an ingredient,
and so that that byproduct of that coconut is used in. So so the
little round coconut that everybody thinks of when they hear about coconut, it's surrounded
by a very thick husk material that is all stringy, and that's the coconut
core parent material that it's made out of. You mentioned it being compacted.
It's amazing, you see, and you can see these in garden centers,
little bricks of coconut core, and you put water on them, and I
mean they just expand many times larger. So a little brick we'll maybe fill
a wheelbarrow once you get water in. We get them in and pallettes and
they're eleven pounds per brick or five kilograms, okay, and a five kilogram
brick you put it in a wheelbarrow and you can dump five five gallon bucket
of water and it'll expand to the full size of the wheelbarrow, which is
almost well, not the full size, but usually anywhere between two point two
to two point eight cubic feet, which is one block. And as long
as there's coconuts growing somewhere in the world, which will be as long as
time goes on, there's an unlimited supply of coco core being made available,
so it's not a mind limited resource. Correct. Now Pete Mosque has a
lower phot coconut can also, we can accomplish that with coconut by yeah,
you know, treating them. We can adjust. And now nobody's lift one
hundred and fifty years to say. It takes one hundred and fifty years for
a peatbog to regenerate, right, right, so nobody knows. We don't
really nobody knows. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, you're listening
to garden Line. I'm visiting with Luis tomorrow from heirloom Soils. We're talking
about all kinds of things related to soils. We're going to take a break
here, Kevin, I see you out there. We won't talk about mixing
sand with soil, and Bill and League City won't talk about bio solids.
So we'll come back and you'll be our first two calls up seven one three,
two, one two fifty eight seventy four. We again trying to make
from DAGs dripping. We're again one. Hey, good Sunday morning. You
are listening to guard Line and I'm your host, Skipwricter. We're here to
talk all kinds of things gardening. But right now we have the fortune of
visiting of A Luis tomorrow from Maryland Soils, and we're getting all down and
dirty and nerdy about all kinds of things related to soil, so A products,
how to benefit plants with the right kinds of materials and the soil.
We're going to head out and talk to Kevin right now. Kevin, how
can we help today? Hey, good morning guys. I got a question
about my soil. I have zoysia. I put it in about three years
ago, and I made sure they put it in some lethal compost and tilled
it in and then laid down the soil. But three years later, I'm
seeing some soil compassion where some of the grass is dying off, and I'm
thinking, I did a soil pass. I sent it to A and M.
And when I was doing those plugs, there was still a lot of
clay. And I'm thinking if I if I do the aeration and then I
backfilled that with sand. Usually when I do the aeration, I'll do about
twice a year, and I'll put in the leakmo compost to talk dress it
and it will fall in those holes here and there. But I'm thinking maybe
I should do like masonry sand and then water it in and kind of chilling
two birds with one stone, right, I'll I'll mix in the sand with
the clay, and then I'll also be able to level out my yard.
Okay, I'm over with a realm or so that'll help me help too.
But what do you think about that breaking up the clay? Yeah? Why
don't you address that? And also the types of sand that might be used
in in soil Luis, Yeah, Well, let me ask you this.
When do you start seeing this grass dying? It was right after spring.
I'd take care of my grass like a golf course. And in the springtime
it was awesome. I was getting my stripes in, you know, everything
look great. And then as as summer rolled around, probably about I don't
know June, I've got this strip of grass and you know, the soil
is really hard, and when I try to get some plugs, I mean,
it was everything I could do to get that plug in and you know,
deep enough to get some soil to send off to A and M.
Okay, So I'm thinking, maybe, you know, I need to errate
again. So here's what I recommend. I don't know if you've driven around,
but everybody's grass is looking really rough. Everything's really stressed because of the
heat. I would core, I reate, and I would do a top
dressing with leafmol compost again one eighth of an inch to a quarter inch max.
Before you do the top dressing, do asamte either a microlife or a
fertilizer of choice, but make sure it's organic and try to get your hands
on some biochar are which is a some of that. Yeah, mix it
all in in a spreader and spread that before you the top dressing with compost.
So what are you going to accomplished there? You're gonna do trace minerals,
food, something that will further ariate, and then organic matter with the
with the legal compost, I wouldn't add any more scent to it and just
wait and see what the results would be. But again, you're not going
to see results immediately. We are at one hundred and five degrees every single
day. So yeah, yeah, okay, maybe that's something I'll do in
the springtime in preparation fall, all right, fall, good in the fall,
fall, okay, all right, we'll do September. Thank you,
Thanks Kevin, Thanks for that call. I appreciate that. Hope that helps.
We're gonna head out now to Bill and League City. Bill, Well,
understand you want to ask some question about biosolids. Is that correct?
Yes, I do. I've been listening to your show for a long time.
My grandmother termed me onto it back when I was a kid, and
I'm fifty something years old, so I've just been listening for a long time.
But I'm work in the industry. And then i have a question about
bio solids and soil like the big soil yards you see and by mixed soil
flower bed mixed by the yard or by the trailer load, and I'm seeing
stuff about is you amount of like biosolids, like stuff from the sewer treatment
plants in the soil and that type of thing. So, biosolids are very
popular in this market. And then when I say popular, I don't mean
like people go out and look for biosolid composts or soils, right, but
they're just they're everywhere. Pros and cons cons. You know, it's if
you think aut it, I call it taco bell composts because it's a lot
of people talk about taco bell as causing an immediate reaction to your digestive system.
And the product has to be composted a certain it has to be tested
every two months. For biosolid compost yards, they test for fecal coliform and
also for heavy metals. So as long as those biosolid composts yards and production
facilities are following that testing and that procedure, then the product is already composted
and it can be used as a soil and or you know, a compost
or even in mulches. Most of the smaller mom and pops corner yards are
going to have products that contain bioslids, whether they know it or not.
And also some of the bigger companies may or may not process that. But
I know of four companies in the Houston area which I won't mention names,
but I know of four companies that treat sewers, lodge and bile solid.
Another concern people have is because it's going through the system people that flush things
down the you know, the toilet pills, medicines or I mean, who
knows what it is, potentially could be in there right So potentially it could
be in there through the composting process. It's supposed to get everything out through
the screening process. It is supposed to get anything that is a foreign object
of compost out of that pile. But so far, the industry as a
whole. In the US, there's a group called the United States Composting Council,
and they have a certain standard which is called the STA which is Seal
of Trusting, of Testing Assurance, Field of Testing Assurance, and they require
companies that compost or treat or handle bio solids to test every two months for
again fecal coliform and heavy metals. All right, does that answer your question?
Bill? Yeah, that is answering. I was just one thing.
If they were regulated in any way, or let's just follow the industry standard,
or if there is regulation and heavily regulated to treat pile solids. Hi,
Bill, thank you. I appreciate that question very much, So Lewis,
we're running down short on time here, but I just wanted to kind
of open it up. What are some other aspects of this whole industry preparing
the soil, mulching the soil, all that kind of thing that you particularly
find interesting. So because technology keep moving us forward, Yeah, we keep
moving forward. There is I have a kind of a I think all products
in the commodity section right, and then in the boutique specialty section. Airloom
soils is boutique specialty. There's a lot of products that are commodity that are
just have a lot of filler, a lot of wood, we screen,
we compost. When you see airloom soils, it's like you're falling in love
because this product is just so silky, nice and it's beautiful. It has
all these different ingredients. So I want to say, if this is the
last thing I'm going to say today, I like for anybody interested in getting
bulk product from Heirloom Soils or Warrants Rock and Maul shopping Importer, we deliver
the product, send that text message through social media to us. I'm going
to get that text message and I will give you anywhere from ten to twenty
percent off on your purchase that includes for the product. So you're going like,
go to Facebook or Instagram and look for what account Airlooms Soils Aloms.
Just send us a message and whatever product you're interested in, just mentioned it
on that message and I will contact you and real quick, what is the
deal that you're going to provide for people to do this. I'm going to
provide ten to twenty percent off depending on the product in bulk, not in
bags, because bags you can find in seven different places or on Texas.
Oh man, you're not going to do better than that. And you know,
I say, spend money on the brown stuff before you spend money on
the green stuff. Now we're saying, and you can save money. You
can save money absolutely, all right. So there you heard it. Airloom
soils on Instagram or on Facebook. Just let them know you listen to Louis
today on garden Line and there you go. Man, you're going to stick
around for a little bit. Absolutely, let's come back after the break.
I would like to talk about some of the blends that are put together.
You know, it's just compost is not equal compost, right, And there's
a lot of variations. And we're gonna have people that have house plants and
they want to soil for that. We're gonna have people that want maybe those
flowering pots out on the patio. You know what's the difference there? What
kinds of blends are available that sound good? Yeah, let's do it,
all right. You're listening to guard Line seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. Give us a call and we'll talk soil. We're having
a good time today visiting with Luis Tomorrow of hair loom soils, about all
kinds of things soils. I see some folks on the line here to talk
about other kinds of plants stuff. So if you will hang on just a
little bit, we're gonna finish up on some soil things with Luis. Luis,
there is a there is a lot of different blends that are put together.
You know, it's not just like one size fits all. And so
when someone wants something, let's say for their house plants or maybe plants on
the patio, what are the distinctions of a soil that does really well for
that. It's all blend. Yeah, So we created a product for house
plants called the Works Indoor Putty Mix. It has not gained popularity yet,
but we hope it's going to take off in the next It needs to,
because I've used it and it's awesome. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful product.
So the distinction is the porosity of the product and also the organic matter
content and the size of the particle of the organic matter. For example,
the indoor putty mix has a larger or more screened aged pine bark with more
cocoa fiber. It also has paralyte and expanded shell, so it has a
lot of process, lots of drainage stuff going on there, and that's so
important because we kill more houseplants with overwatering, and it just sort of makes
it a little more forgiving correct. And so one thing we did is we
played with the product before we took it to market to make sure we saw
how many nats we're going to hang out or create start. And so what
we saw is that most based indoor putty mixes kind of get that that is
stagnant characteristic. And then there's a bunch of ads right for outdoor patting plants
spotty plants, we have the work spotting soil, which is a beautiful it's
just one of the most complex soil mixes probably made in Texas. But it's
also one of the most rounded UH mixes. You're gonna have leafmal compost,
cure, coca core, paralyte, h pine bark, basalt rock sand.
You also have expanded shell, humates, biochar, vermi compost, which is
wormcastings, molasses and macraisa. I mean this thing it has everything you need,
right everything, Yeah, and then for the fall because we're in Zone
nine B. We the most popular products so far are the leafmo composts,
the vegin or mix, which are going to be for all your veggies,
your herbs, all your you know, edibles, the roses, the rose
soil, which in the future is going to be called Roses and Bloomer Soil
RAINCO because we call it rose soil and we know, you know, the
Rose Society helped to prove that mix is being a good kind of mixed to
do. But it is good for way more than rosa. Yeah. So
our product is called multi purpose rose soil and you can actually plant veggies,
have hanging plants, you can put it in pots, you can do it
everything with that rose soil and it's a it's a wonderful product too. And
our rose soil is very different than most rossels in the market. Our rose
oil has leapmal compost, the h pine park. It also has coco core
fiber, It has forest humans which is a fungal compost, and as well
as expanded show on torpedo sand with basalt rock sand okay in my creisa.
So the hashtag for heirloom soils we use on social media most often it is
living soils because most of our products have my creisa. They're just full of
life. If you think I'll add it in a different context, imagine walking
into a very busy restaurant where people are dancing. That's a back of heirloom
soils. Music in a bad music in the bag. Everybody's dancing, already's
having a good time, at least the microbes, I'm sure down in there.
Oh yeah, I'm singing. Yeah, all right. Well, that's
a lot of a lot of good information, a lot of good blends and
things. And I don't know, I just I'm a broken record. Just
continue telling people that get the soil right first, and you'll be so far
on your way to success. Absolutely. You know what one thing I really
talk about, especially at the NLA Expo last weekend, this big industry expo
we have in San Antonio, I talked about how at a garden center a
client can come in and ask for a bag of soil, right, and
heirloom soils is not the the cheap option. It's going to be one of
the most higher priced options in the market because of the components. Yes,
so I highly recommend everybody that goes to a garden center, an independent guardian
center like i SA always fertilized for put Cannon's enchanted gardens and also you know
water gardens and so forth. If you need to build a bed, by
fifty percent of the product at different brand that For example, you guys advertise
landscaper Sprite here right, buy fifty percent of your product to be landscaper sprite
and top it off with heirloom soils. You're gonna have a great environment for
those plants to thrive in, Okay, and you're going to cut the cost.
But you're also going to top it off with this boutique high performing living
soil called airloom soil. There you go. That sounds like a good plan.
And I know you guys, you know people can buy airloom at a
lot of places. You mentioned a couple, but all the feed stores we
love to brag on on like Texas Feed Stop, Spring Creek Feed, d
and d N, Tomball League City Feed Quality Feed. And then you've got
the garden centers like Ana Plants to produce by Montgomery. You got Buchanan's Downtown
and Channel for US and Channel. I mean we could just go on and
on on and on. And you know, Bob has got everything ins Southwest
Fertilizer. I mean he's gonna have it too, because there's nothing you need
that he doesn't have. And CNMOS that's another good place. I'm probably leaving
out five hundred places, but it's easy to find and then you can also
do delivery, right. Yeah, I like to suit tell people about this
Supersac deal. Supersys used to just get this big dump on my driveway that
I had to clean up later. Yeah, So supersas are one qubic yard
sacks. I actually started the popularity of super sax in this industry a few
years ago when I worked a at a different place. But supersacks are very
convenient because if you want it to buy a product which is a soil or
a mulch, and then you also need it sandy, a base material,
a gravel, we can all we can put all that in one order and
take it to your driveway, drop it off and then you work at your
own pace. If it's going to raine, you close the Supersac SUPERSYC will
stay dry and then you open open it back up, and then you work
at your own base. It's a beautiful thing. I've never asked this,
But what happens to the sack afterwards? What you can use it to something
else? Yeah, to gather leaves or something like that. You can throw
it away, you can recycle it, or you can bring it back and
we'll reuse it. Okay, once you buy it, it's yours. If
you just want to return it, We're not going to give your money back,
but you can if you just want to disposal in the right way,
we'll take it from you and reuse it. Yeah, sounds good. Louis,
thank you so much for taking time today to come in. I really
appreciate. Thank You's been an honor. Thank you guys for everything you do.
It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure, and I want to tell you
if you guys are interested in finding out more about airloom soils, Airloom Soils
of Texas dot com is our website. But when you're there, I would
say one of the main reasons to go there is because they're a compost calculator
on the site. It is so effective and so efficient. I mean to
be honest, I don't care what soil or compost you're gonna buy anywhere,
go to their soil calculator and just figure it out. I mean, I
was. I was humored by the fact that it can tell you how many
five gallon buckets of yea composter in a qubic yard. So anything you need
to know, you'll know exactly how much you need. Yeah. So I
designed that calculator because I knew there was a need for more information. Yeah,
and I designed it in an Excel spreadsheet, and then I had a
coder quoted to HTML and we posted it on the on the website. Wow.
Well, I think is one of the most beautiful calculators out there.
It tells, It tells you square footage, bolt products, so cubic cards,
Yeah, that is telling bags. I mean, so everything is one
cubic footbacks to cubic footbacks and wheel barrels. Everything you need. Well,
there you go.