Mark Farmer

Incredible. You are amazing. CASE CLOSED!

Today I learned - there is a time to plant, and a time to mulch.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. How do you make ice with a mattress? Is this witchcraft?

I don't know, they just died so quickly. Just reduced to the stem. All the leaves withered and dead. Even with just using the dead grass from the very same ground. Other plants mulched before, for weeks, were fine. Kale and arugula and so on. They were Indigo Blue Berry Tomatoes if that matters. It's inexplicable. So strange. Eh, maybe we'll just never figure this one out.

The Cash Crop:

This is also worth watching: Richard Wiswall discusses the business of organic farming (30 mins)

So at 6pm that day, I added some mulch around some of my tomato plants, maybe half a dozen or so, out of maybe two dozen total. The next day, every single plant that was mulched was dead or dying. I couldn't believe it. I tested with 3 different materials of mulches as well, from straw to dead grass roots to the fluffy bits that hang off trees. Every one that was mulched with whatever material, died. Every single tomato plant that wasn't mulched lived. I barely mulched as well. It dropped low to 38F that night as well, when usually its in the 40s and 50s.

Now obviously the mulching killed them, but how and why? Could someone explain the science behind what happened?

Hey thanks! Would it be a lot of work to make enough bio-char for a 1/16-1/8 (whats the fraction between 1/16 and 1/8? Maybe 1/10th? Lol. ) of an acre?

I'm in love with soft rock phosphate, I absolutely am. I'm in Orlando every once in a while, and I'd love to pick up a few 50lb bags. Does anyone know where they might sell Soft Rock Phosphate in Orlando, or elsewhere in Central Florida?

The ironic part is that I heard they mine all of this rock phosphate in Dunnellon, literally a few miles from me, and that Florida is the main extractor of rock phosphate and ships to everywhere else, yet I can't for the life of me find any, lol.

Hey everyone! This is a fantastic website. I love you all. There's something so profound and beautiful and simple about what's being done here, in all the different ways and fields. It's full of hope and inspiring and encouraging and beautiful. But anyway, enough of that sentimentalism,

I'm in the middle of nowhere, in Ocala, FL, horse capital of the world, home of John Travolta, a few Wal-Marts, and nothing else. I'm looking to start a little 1/16-1/8 of an acre garden, and I'm looking for organic inputs, and I have been to many nurseries hoping to find a lead, but nothing. I can't afford to pay expensive shipping costs, like $40 for a 40lb bag, but I do have a little pick up truck I'm willing to travel in. I'm looking for basic things like soft rock colloidal phosphate clay, greensand, lava sand/rock dust/balsalt/granite/zeolite/azomite, seaweed, and things of the like. If it were only one thing, I would especially like to find the colloidal phosphate clay. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!