When I started eating more healthfully, one of the major changes I noticed was that my allergies went the way of the dodo.
How about you? Has eating better had any effect on your health?
If so, I have a HUGE favor to ask of you.
You may have heard that I’m writing a book. But because of the way my brain works, I’m writing it orally first in a series of videos that correspond to one chapter each.
I’m publishing the next video in the series, and I’d LOVE your feedback.
In it, I discuss:
- Why It’s Impossible to Be Completely Healthy Eating Grocery Store Food—EVEN if You’re Eating Organics!
- The No. 1 Deficiency in America
- The SINGLE Most Important Source of Nutrition (And Why Modern Carrots Are 10 Times Worse Than They Used to Be!)
- The First of 5 Keys to Optimal Health
- Why the Recommended Daily Allowance Won’t Keep You Healthy—And What You Can Do About It
The video is a good bit longer than the ones I usually publish, but it would mean SO MUCH to me if you would watch it through.
Then—and this is just as important— please leave me a comment with your answer to one of the following questions:
- Do you think good soil affects plant health? If yes, what personal experiences make you think so?
- Have you noticed any improvements in your health due to better eating?
- What made you decide to start eating more healthfully?
- What advice would you give to a newbie gardener who is intimidated about starting to grow their own food?
Stories like yours will be essential to helping people interested in better health understand the true value of homegrown food and medicine.
I SO appreciate it!
COMMENTS(293)
I enjoyed your video! Thank you. I would appreciate documentation of the claims that you make regarding the poor quality of “other” (food, vitamins, meds, etc.) so I can review it for myself.
See Lynne’s comment below…
Hi Amy,
Oh yes, I will be sure to address that more deeply. THere are quite a few studies showing nutrient loss in vegetables (meat and almost everything else) over the years.
Thanks for asking though, I am sure others want more details too.
Thanks, I enjoyed the clips and information…I’m very interested in learning how to grow foods in the back yard..please email me how to do that..
Hi Shirley,
Excellent! Just what I was hoping you would say that … have I got a blog for you 🙂
The “Grow Your Own Groceries” video (http://growyourowngroceries.com) is a good one to start with. We have tons of free articles here at this tgn.com blog. And my team is developing a product to help complete beginners get growing.
I am so glad you’ve been inspired to grow food
Shirley,
Check out bkyardfarmer.com. Im learning lots from her even after 45 years of gardening. She teaches how to decide where to plant, what kind of planting style to choose (raised beds, containers, in ground…)
what direction to place your rows/beds, how to build healthy soil, how to feed the soil so it feeds your plants, how to choose what to plant. She provides spreadsheets, explains the composition of soil so you can make smart choices and not just follow directions. She’s organized, sequential and very detailed. I think her class is closed for now. It goes from February into May (online). But you can still get information from her. At least contact her and see what she has planned for the future. You will be glad you did!
Hi Marjory, I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, where the growing season is a lot shorter than where you live. My challenge is to grow what I need for two people in an urban backyard space in about 2 1/2 months of summer. I am attempting to follow a ketogenic diet [high fat, medium protein, low carb – many veggies serve as carbs]. What would be your priorities for plants to grow in this climate? How big a freezer do I need for the year’s crop? Another question is…Are large plastic buckets which have originally held commercial laundry soap, well washed out, with drainage holes drilled in their bottoms, safe to use as container garden planters? I am not at all wealthy and am looking for ways to inexpensively garden, extend the season in the spring/fall/winter and preserve food with the least amount of nutrient loss. What is a way to garden when the temperatures are -40*C or less outside? Does your Grow Your Own Groceries DVD answer any of these questions? I don’t want to spend all my time with my food supply, but the idea of not having to spend the $ amount that I am spending now on veggies is very attractive.
Hi Constance, may I suggest you check out the Garden Tower. Just outside of Saskatoon you’ll find the Canadian distributor and, depending on which part of Sask. you’re in, you may want to check them out. I bought one this year and just about every opening is filling in with growing plants of all varieties. I live in SW Alberta, where the prairie meets the Rockies and we have wind, lots of it, so having a large plot to grow in, which I could do, isn’t all that helpful when it means I must construct wind breaks everywhere, so the Garden Tower was and is an excellent alternative. Plus, we can take it indoors and keep growing stuff under lights all through the winter. So far, the experiment is working great.
Jennifer, I am getting an error when try to access bkyardfarmer.com Who is it that does the teaching on this website?
Jennifer, I’m having trouble getting to the bkyardfarmer.com website. Is the web address correct? Who is it that does the teaching on this website. Maybe I can find the information by looking up the teacher.
I believe you’re right. I noticed a big difference in my health when I started eating better. Weight was what I was trying to improve I was going to Weight Watchers and only ate what was healthy. When I started gardening I noticed a difference in my health also. I still have some health issues, minor ones but guess I need to work harder at living a more healthy life. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Sheila!
Very well said and brought to the point – from personal experience.
A very big issue indeed is soil improvement – what to do best if there are no horses around for instance.
Add any organic matter to soil , grass,hay potato peel and compost on the soil and stone powder esp basalt is good for minerals and leaves contains minerals as well. Trees have deep roots and can collect minerals from the soil and they end up in the tree and leaves.
Good point Magnus,
Werner there are lots of great ways to improve soils without horses. You mgiht want to check out our blog post on home made fertilizers at this post:
https://thegrownetwork.com/15-simple-and-inexpensive-homemade-fertilizers/
As always, a great video. Very informative and to the point.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Dan
Thanks Dan!
Good Morning! What a great video to begin my day with. I am sooooo ready for your book. I hope you will make this a video series we can purchase like the “Grow Your Own Vegetables” one you did a few years ago. What can I start with to make myself healthier today, while at work? As a result of watching this, I am inspired to drink more water. I have a 16 oz. Coke glass and will drink 1 glass an hour. It is a beginning. Thank you, have a great day.
That is an awesome start Loreta. Dehydration is such a huge issue!
Are you growing any gardens yet? Or if that is too big of a proposition, why not try some herbs on a windowsill? Here is a short inspiring post on how to get started with herbs. https://thegrownetwork.com/the-power-of-herb/
I’ll have lots more tips – keep watching!
As I could continue to learn and implement healthier choices I rarely get sick anymore. Growing up in was sick nearly all winter. Now I feel my body fighting it off almost instantly and if I do get it it’s less the a day; while others go to doctors for help and are down for a week or more. It’s a great feeling to know your headed on the right path.
Hi Aimee,
I am so glad you wrote in. Yes! Food is medicine.
Soil definitely affects plant growth! In San Antonio, TX, we have heavy clay soil. I’ve been trying to amend it each year, and I’m just now noticing a difference in my small gardening efforts. The hard part is getting good quality amendments. Relying on big box composted manure, peat moss, etc, to make my own potting mixes is worrisome. I don’t know what “bad stuff” might be in them. Using hay as mulch, then working into the soil the following season seems to help a great deal. I’ve definitely noticed increase earthworm populations, which I had none a few years ago. 🙂
The sad part is that we plan to build out in the country in about 4 years. My 5 acres has sandy soil like yours. It’s located south of SA in northern Atascosa County. So, I’m looking forward to hearing how I can work to improve that soil in order to start gardening there.
We decided to start eating more healthy because I just don’t trust what is being done to our food supply. I’m nearly 60 years old and, as a child, we never heard of all the diseases we have today. There has to be some link. Coming from a large family, much of our food was home grown and my grandparents raised cattle, so that was a large source of our meat. Coupled with good nutrition was the fact that we played outdoors in the dirt all the time. I think that can be just as healthy as eating good food!
A good day for me is when I have my hands in the dirt. Keep up the good work!!!
Debbie, I am in Dallas and we have clay soil as well. We have had good luck with the Back to Eden – no till method. Dress beds with fine compost material if you have it. but even if you don’t, just mulch with wood chips on top. They will break down and feed the soil over time, not to mention block weeds and conserve moisture immediately. You can often get tree trimmers to dump a load for free. BUT DON’T MAKE THIS MISTAKE: the first year we put the wood chips on the garden, my father decided it would be better to till them in. Old habits die hard I guess. That was probably the worst year we ever had with the garden. Turns out that without mixing any green (nitrogen) in with the chips (carbon) it bound up all the nitrogen already in the soil to compost those chips and left none for the plants. So you just spread the chips on the top, which is way easier anyway. I don’t understand why this is, but when we added amendments and tilled them in, they always seemed to wash out by the end of the season and we were back to that darn clay. The top dressing doesn’t dissipate in the same way and the soil just gets better each year. And you never have to till!!! I think my father secretly likes to till. boys and their machines, but I hate the dust it creates on the plants and eventually in the house, not to mention muddy shoes. As a woman, I don’t want to operate a tiller, and a woman can manage this type of garden alone after a couple of years because the soil is so easy to work with.
Catherine,
that’s a great response. Debbie,if you can contact a local tree trimming company and ask them to sump a load of chipped trimmings – it would make a world of difference.
I’ve learned to be very careful about the hay I put on my garden. “Horse quality hay” usually means it has been sprayed heavily to keep the weeds out – and yikes, those chemicals as stopped my begetabgles from growing. LOL, live and learn, huh?
But wood chips are awesome, and as Catherine pointed out. don’t till them under, just leave on top.
I agree with Marjory on the hay! I once picked up a load of compost from a local nursery (in my trailer) My plants all demonstrated “weed Kill” symptoms. You can’t always know what is in your supplies and sometimes you just have to let it leach out and suffer a bad production year! If you contact an arborist to deliver what I call “tree shred” (the entire tree chopped fine) make sure there is no black walnut in it. It’s poison to a garden! Also, if between now and the time you move, you can have loads of tree shred dumped on your property over the next couple of years, it can begin to decompose and become a really good nutrient dense source of food to enrich your soil. Go look at the videos on you tube…back to eden gardening. You’ll understand what we are talking about. You still need good topsoil under the tree shred!
Great job!! Keep it up.
Thanks A!
Marjory, just simply love you and anything you produce !!!!! Everything is practical, important and necessary for everyone at every age!!! Your humor, encouragement is so appreciated !! Thank you !!!!
Samya
Awww Samya, thank you. I really appreciate your support.
Thank you, Marjory! Inspiring, informative and not intimidating. We are interested in growing more of our own foods. We did join a CSA last year but supplement what we get with vertical gardening (not much space and we need to do better replenishing minerals). Also, have future plans of hopefully growing most of our food. Looking forward to the next video. Donna
Thanks Donna, sounds like you are on the right track. Yes, we do have to support our local farmers.
Hi Marjory, great video. I am a 65 year old Canadian woman who recently came back from a 2 month trip to Mexico. I was so impressed with their fresh produce, the potatoes and other root vegetables had so much flavor. I came back to -27 C and wasn’t as cold as I normally am at that temperature. From your video I realize it was a result of the nutritious food I was eating in Mexico. I have had digestive issues for the past 10 years and couldn’t figure out why until I went to Mexico and ate nothing but whole, fresh foods. Maybe those flea markets selling Mexican produce aren’t so bad afterall – lol. Of course there are commercial growers in Mexico too. Anyway, you are so right, what we put into our bodies in the most important thing we can do for ourselves to be optimally healthy. Look forward to your next video, keep up the great work Marjory, it is much appreciated and very helpful.
Wendy from the prairies
The Mexicans that I have talked to tell me they sell us the ones with with more chemicals because they think that is what we want…
Hi Wendy, what a wonderful direct experience – yes, once you’ve gotten that direct wisdom from your body… you now have a compass to navigate with. That flavor and those good feeling – that is what it is all about!
Marjory, what do you think of the “Garden of Eden” soil-building method?
Also, you mentioned your neighbor had 2 feet of rich soil for his broccoli….how long does it take to build 2 feet of soil??
(Maybe you should devote a whole chapter to building the soil.)
Thanks!
Hi Toni,
Ah yes, a chapter on soil building… that is a good idea.
My neighbor was a farrier (horse shoer)_ and his wife and daughter both had horses. So he had stalls full of manure 🙂
It was easy for him!
You can grow that kind of fertility – and it does take years. Or you can buy it (have a dump truck of compost delivered?). But even if you buy it, it has to be kept up with cover crops and good organic practices.
As I’ve said, this isn’t a get rich quick kind of thing… But so, so worth it!
Your points are refreshingly direct and to the point, clearly made and the solution given! I also liked you warnings of what to stay away from or what will not be better than growing your own food! This is a message that the regular mom or dad wanting health for their family can hear and put into action to get started in the right direction. I love your main point: True wealth comes from the ground!!!
Thank you Bob. It is just truth – true wealth does come from the ground.
Healthy soil is key to healthy plants, animals and humans! I experienced this first hand when we relocated our garden space two years ago to a spot on our farm which had NOT been used to grow corn and alfalfa. Previously our garden had been in an area where those crops had been grown with all the conventional methods : (
The vegetables in the new spot were UH-MAZING in flavor and yield. The garden yielded wheel barrels full of white, red and sweet potatoes as well as a bumper crop of tomatoes, peppers, okra, corn and sunflowers. We also used old hay for mulch that year which may have been a factor in the success. The only vegetables that didn’t yield as well were the vines – cukes, squash, melons. It may have been mold from the hay that contaminated those veggies.
The other factor I’m trying to come to terms with is plowing. Since our new garden area had been unsprayed pasture for decades we needed to till the ground. I really don’t like to disturb the soil that way but may have to agree to that practice in the future. I say this because we are rotating the garden between the two plots and last year the yields of potatoes, tomatoes and viney plants were way below average. That garden didn’t get tilled but did get amendments and was located in the previous corn/alfalfa strip.
Marjory, I’m SOOO happy you will share in this book how you know what to eat in order to be healthy and that you point out the RDA is not the guideline to follow. I, too, rely on the Weston A. Price foundation to guide me and have done so since I learned of that organization in 2002. It just makes sense to eat what healthy people ate, doesn’t it? Thank you for pointing that out in your book!
Hi Mary,
Oh I hear you about not wanting to till. I do it very judiciously… usually only when I am first working ground that has never been gardened in. Tilling does completely disrupt the soil microbes, especially the fungal networks which are so precious.
It does make sense to eat wheat healthy people ate – whew! Why didn’t I think of that say, 30 years ago? All right, maybe 50 years ago? LOL
It’s all fine and good and you are certainly right about our food but not all of us are able to grow our own. Some of us live in condos, apartments and there are rules and regulations as to what you are allowed to do. I Eat as healthy as is possible with what I can get but growing your own is not an option.
My husband grew our vegetables when he was alive and we had the space, desire and time but much has changed over the last decade or more.
Hi Christa,
Yes, you can grow even when living in a condo. Try starting with some herbs in a windowsill – here is a short inspiring post https://thegrownetwork.com/the-power-of-herb/
and there are community gardens, shared backyards, empty lots, rooftops…
Here is a small growing container that I like and will fit inside almost anywhere:
https://thegrownetwork.com/grow-fresh-organic-vegetables-at-home-no-garden-needed/
Hmmm, I am looking for the post I wrote a few years ago about how to find places to grow food in the city – there are online websites that match people up.
Christa,
I don’t know where you live so I’m just throwing out possibilities…are there any community gardens near you? That is one way to grow produce. Also, look around for neighbors who might have a backyard they are not using. Propose a partnership where you grow in their space, they pay water and you share what you grow with them. Indoor compact gardens using grow lights are now becoming popular. Look online for ideas on that one. Using a 4′ 8 bulb grow light in a spare room you can grow 3 trays of greens on a rotating basis that will provide you with a huge variety of greens year round. Or you can pick up a couple of Grow Boxes, put those under the grow lights and, again, raise a very nice variety of fresh food. Those are self watering set ups and require a one time investment and will provide years of use. I would also do a search on creative gardening ideas for people with limited space and options. Good luck. I know you will find a solution that appeals to you!
I like it! Good points about the loosely regulated supplement industry, questionable “organic” marketing, and being knowledgable about the farms represented at the local Farmers Markets. THANK YOU!
You are welcome Rebecca. Thanks so much for writing a comment!
Could not agree more. Twenty five years ago my symptoms were running the same as my older sister. She was diagnosed with Lupus. I asked my doctor (first time I mentioned it to him. As I basically did not see him.) He said the test was expensive and he was closing his practice to move to California. !!!??? He proceeded to explain his mother-in-law was from rural China. She was now living with him and told him he was a bad doctor because his patients had to keep coming back. He was moving to work with his sister-in-law and study natural medicine. His recommendation to me was to do the same. I had often used natural medicine. We grew much of our own food. I have grown all my food and medicine since that time. I have NO symptoms and my sister still has Lupus. All creatures need nutrition. Bears climb trees in the spring and eat the leaves. Bears know a good mineral source! I use the leaves and bark to get the minerals not found in the topsoil.
When I was a kid we moved to a farm. My dad planted a garden. It grew OK but not great because the soil had been farmed out. Every fall he put the chicken manure on the garden and every year the garden grew better. I though we had good soil until my husband dug me a new flower bed. He put a pickup load of cow manure in it. My dwarf Liatrus grew 4 feet tall. The red geraniums were 3 foot by 3 foot. The 4 O’clocks were almost 6 feet tall.Everything grew taller, bigger, stronger and more vibrant. He made raised beds for the strawberries and filled them with cow manure not soil. Huge berries filled with flavor. Cow manure is not hot and won’t burn the plants. Never did we have an insect problem.
I am 62 years old and can out work all my much younger co-workers. I am the go to person for lifting thew heavy pots and pans we use in the nursing home kitchen. Sunday I recieved a second degree burn on my forearm. They wanted to send me to the hospital. Silly nurse. I called my son and he brought me birch twigs and I made a decoction for the pain. I put a non-stick pad on the burn and wrapped it well. At home I made salve with coconut oil, burdock, calendula and comphrey. All the pain was gone in less than two hours. It is now Thursday. All redness gone and the new skin has formed. Bandage is now off. Good nutrition and God’s healing herbs did that.
Adrienne,
You are a role model! Thank you so much for writing in. Can I call you to speak with you later?
I would be delighted. Send me an email and I will send you my number. I live in Michigan.
My husband and I really enjoyed your snake bite video. I told him your family was well trained! Keep her out of the hospital and follow her advice. Yep.
Blessings to you
Thanks for the great video Marjory. Great info, keep them coming.
Thanks Cyn! I will keep them coming….
Hi Marjorie,
A great idea, however the problems go beyond the RDIs, as you know modern farming practices have depleted the mineral content of the soils and poison the soils with bio-sludge, also current industrial food production puts many inflammatory chemicals into the foods we buy. Can you address these two factors in your book.
Regards Geoff
Hi Geoff,
Yes, I will be addressing that in the next chapter which is on toxicity.
You are absolutely correct about the bio sludge… and the chemicals.
I believe everything you’re saying makes sense. An adjunct to getting adequate nutrition from the quality of the food we eat can be (perhaps doesn’t HAVE to be, but CAN be) how we interact with the earth itself. I’ve personally witnessed similar changes to what you describe in my own health from the practice of Chinese qigong. With qigong, one takes energy from the natural environment and manipulates in the body to improve health. It is even possible to get nutrition from the environment in this way without even consuming food. Of course, this isn’t the focus of your topic, but when you specifically mentioned the disappearing allergies, I found I could relate to that from own experience practicing qigong.
Thanks for a very informative presentation.
Mark, Wow, I hadn’t know that about qigong. That is a whole other level to explore someday. I am intrigued. Let me finish this book…. 🙂 but you have peaked my interest.
Thank you for writing in.
You are correct! All things are a vibration/frequency….add the vibration, you add the substance. This is the heart of what is wrong with our food sources. Distortion of the frequency.
I lov your down to earth, pun intended, approach. You are a natural at this. I have always has small backyard gardens for fun and because the food just tastes better. I’m concerned with who to make good soil. Waiting to hear from you on that.
Great video!
Hi Wren, thank you so much. Yes, soil is SO important and something we are always talking about here at tgn. I specifically have some presenters lined up for our next Home Grown Food Summit that will address the mysteries of the soil. That Summit is comingin early June – please stay tuned!
Really Amy? Why do you need documentation? You know already she’s right. After you read it all, you’re just going to say yes Marjory was right. You should not have any doubt. She’s the real deal. Have you not read about her tooth abscess debacle or her snake bite dilemma? She’s as natural as they come. When I was young, it was highly suggested that you eat very few eggs because of the cholesterol. Suddenly it was also unsafe to drink raw cows milk. My dad always said, “anything natural that God created is not going to be bad for you”. Sure enough years later, they say (whoever they are) that eggs aren’t as bad as previously thought. We still need to fight about the raw milk issue. “They” still haven’t came to their senses. Even hybrid fruits and vegetables aren’t going to be as good for you because man got involved in its creation. Remember the carrot Marjory talked about? I’m sure it was not a hybrid. My parents used to have cows and goats. They used goat manure in their garden. People used to drive slowly by their place and look at their garden. Those that stopped, wanted to know what they did to have such a beautiful garden. They are older now and can’t handle the animals so they try to buy commercial amendments for their garden. It has never been the same again. Even though what they grow is better than store bought, it is not the same as when nature helped them out. So, keep spreading the word Marjory. You have a voice and people are listening.
Thank you SO MUCH Christi! I really appreciate your support.
I love your video! Can you please let me know where to get ideas for soil enhancement and also the process you talk about for growing your own food AND medicine. I am very interested in medicine especially. In the past I have experienced what you are discussing. When I ate all whole foods rather than processed foods I was so healthy and my hair and nails all grew much faster, my skin was clearer, and I just felt good! Nutrition is very important. I am trying to grow more of my own food now, but it is somewhat difficult in containers.
Hi Alex, Well I am so glad you ‘get it’! Yes, how to enhance soil, grow food, use home medicine – that is what this entire site is about. 🙂 Containers can e challenging, but you can do a lot with them. Definitely stay on our free newsletter which will giv eyou updates on all the articles, videos, etc. that we produce
Hi. This was pretty durned good, Marjory! Can’t imagine (but believe) having to eat 10 carrots to get the nutrition of 1 1960’s carrot.
I would like to share this video with a friend who has a story you should hear, but I think these previews are just between us, right?
Hi Marion, Oh please feel free to share this everywhere!!! LOL. Yes the book is in development, but I am working to build a following in addition to getting all the valuable feedback. Whew I am so grate ful for all the comments that are coming in.
Great video:
Advice to a new gardener: Research. 1. Know what grows in your area. Example: Some things grown in California will not grow in New York 2. Learn about your soil: Is it clay, sand or a mixture. What does it need to be able to grow your plants. 3. Enjoy it! You will be amazed at how much fun and full-filling gardening can be.
Excellent advice Tina. I hope you want to stay and help out with the Grow Network. We will be needing some team leaders and mentors for all the new folks coming in.
Hi Marjory,
As a child (born in 1948), food was more nutritionally dense, so I believe I got a good start in life. After I was married I was a stay at home mom and so I prepared most of our meals from scratch and we did not eat out often. Hopefully my girls got a good start in life as well. For several years while raising my 3 daughters, my husband and I shared a vegetable garden with friends who owned a horse farm. Like our neighbor, the beds had very rich soil. And then sadly we moved away from our wonderful neighbor and from all of that good food. Today my youngest daughter and her husband are organic farmers in the Northeast Kingdom in VT. She was instrumental in my path back to eating healthier again. Then 5 years ago I found out I can breast cancer. After a mastectomy I didn’t want to take any pharmaceutical drugs or have chemo/radiation, so I became even more committed to eating a healthier diet. Wanting to heal thru food, rest, exercise, and less stress was my renewed motto. Still every day I try to learn something new about taking better care of myself and eating live foods and as fresh as possible to live.
Stories and journeys like yours are inspiring, so keep up your quest to write a book not only for yourself but for others like me that need your story to keep up the momentum. I love my local CSA, food from my daughters farm when I visit and I love growing sprouts. Thanks again, I look forward to more videos.
Thank you so much for writing in Karol. It means a lot to me.
That was very informative. I didn’t realize the degree of our nutritional needs. Thank you
Hi Steve, it was shocking to me too when I first realized it.
Good information on soils, RDA, organics, farmers markets, supplements. I used to have a big successful garden in Colorado years ago with nutrient rich cow compost. Lived in Florida for awhile and had experience with poor soil that grew “starving” plants. Now live in California but no real space for a garden except a couple tomato plants and green pepper plant in containers. Not much more. But still looking forward to video 2.
Thank you Dawn. Keep an open mind, you’ll find some place to grow food if you stay open to it. Life is magical and mysterious that way 🙂
I live in a shady subdivision, so my growing space and access to manure is limited, but I still plant as many vegetables as I can. I like the reference to Weston Price–his ideas are underappreciated. Maybe you could look into biodynamic gardening, too, and how to fit that into suburban life.
Thank you Jill. Yes, I need to get a really good presenter on bio-dynamic farming for the next Home Grown Food Summit. Got any suggestions for who I shoulreach out to?
Thank you Marjorie, I love the idea that this is doable. I love the idea of eventually needing less than an hour a day, although even an hour a day would be hard to find right now. I’m hoping for some idea of the transitioning path from store-bought to homegrown.
Hi Lilia,
Yes, I’ve been getting feedback a lot from folks who want to start with much smaller steps. I am working on that! Look for something new coming out this summer or fall.
Thanks so much for your support!
I was shocked about the man/neighbor having 2 ft. of horse manure in his garden. Never thought of having this much compost. Was this a gradual process or did he do this all at once?
live in suburb of Perth Western Australia and that’s what we have just sand so like you know it takes a lot to turn sand into healthy soil. We are also the driest inhabited continent of the planet. Permaculture practices and learning helps to solve problems. Thanks for the video – You and people like you will make a difference and hopefully bring about change and awareness.
Very informative.
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT……I am a DIRTIGIRL…………..and GOOD S O I L IS THE CORRECT
SOLUTION…..to better quality food…….AND great health…
I have been with the Master Gardener Program (should be PRACTICING Gardener) since 1989…..and good SOIL is the single most important element of the process of growing food….I am SO grateful that YOU are out there singing
phrases of the most important element to good health…!!! Composting and Vermaculture are my thing….I often get asked to speak regarding these topics….and if you get a chance to take earthworms to an event in wallpaper trays with compost (tomorrow @ Fresno Fairgrounds with 3rd graders)….and have children pick up worms and giggle….there is a wonderful teaching moment….!!!!
Not very informative
I am certain that good soil affects plant health. We tried to garden in our back yard (way too much shade, very sandy soil). We brought in bags of “good” soil from the home improvement store, but still all my veggies were very leggy and didn’t produce any fruit. Hubby was just diagnosed diabetic, so we have changed our diet. I am not getting enough calories to at the very least maintain my weight, so I am looking at what I can do to gain weight while still making food that will help my husband lose weight. (I am naturally thin and now I am losing weight.) I am trying to incorporate more organic foods into our diet, but really haven’t noticed a huge change yet. I so want to grow my own garden, but our yard just doesn’t seem to be conducive to good gardening. I started cooking from scratch everything we eat several years ago when I was having some major stomach issues (that were never diagnosed – even the doctors couldn’t figure it out). I am feeling better now than I ever have. Although my grandparents made their living selling fruits, vegetables, and eggs from their own farm, and my dad was an outstanding gardener, I never really paid attention to what he was doing. So I am still a newbie gardener. I am soaking up as much information as I possibly can. We will be moving to our property in a few years and the soil there is virtually all sand. Our neighbors have an alpaca farm. I am hoping we can get some of their manure to use to amend our soil. I have read that alpaca manure is one of the best to use because of the length of time it takes to process through their bodies. I am hoping I can get some really good advice to become a stellar gardener myself!
I’ll have alpaca poo envy! It is the best. THere are some micronutrients in it that you won’t find in other poo. And it is never hot so you can side dress new plants and put it in the soil right away. You lucky gardener!!!
Great video. The difference in plant health can be seen and also the taste is far superior. Take tomatoes and carrots flavour of both are totally alive when grown yourself and organically. Regarding soil if we do not take responsibility for the earth they say within 60 years the top soil will be eroded by compaction flooding and drought. We are the custodians of this earth. Time to step up and do your bit and spread the word before it’s too late.
Very interesting and eye opening video. I am on an ever evolving journey to better my health and improve my and my families life’s this is certainly a HUGE step in the right direction. I have noticed an improvement in my health as I improved my eating habits
Hi thought that you had a lot of information which was communicated simply so we can understand it fully
A great video. Most people I talk to about food quality give me blank looks and think I’m crazy for wasting my time growing a garden and actually take time to weed.
A few points, much of the food we buy has been modified via selective breeding to bring out desirable traits (from a producer point of view) such as disease resistance, shelf life, and in many cases fruit to be sweeter. With this there is often a nutritional tradeoff and often a loss of nutrition. When it comes to buying seeds I try to buy heirloom varieties of know origin. I don’t need corn or carrots that is sweeter than syrup!
Good video. The difference in health and taste of home grown organic veg is beyond compare. Not just tomatoes and carrots but all veg are more alive and can be prepared from garden to plate in much shorter time than going to the store. They say that the top soil will be eroded within 60 years if we do not stop it. Causes are compaction, too big machinery heavier cattle drought and flooding. We are the custodians of this earth, time to step up and spread the word.
Awesome! I totally agree that soil health is imperative for great health. We are so nutrient deprived in this world. The mono-culture way of growing, and the application of pesticides has destroyed our soils.
I have been working on improving my soil, and have noticed improvements in my family’s health. I once had asthma, and no longer do thanks to my backyard garden. My husband’s diabetes and Hashimoto’s is improving as we eat our own vegetables and seek out healthier meats. We are planning to add backyard rabbits this year for food and also soil improvement. We legally cannot raise chickens here, which is beyond me illogical. For new gardeners, I would say, start small. Research, read, seek out others more experienced in gardening, ask the right questions about organic and soil health before you implement others’ advice, and realize it takes time to build up soil and see health improvements. Don’t give up. There is great information everywhere these days. I think we are on the edge of a food/gardening revolution and man am I excited about it!
Very insightful video. I am a biologist, PHD ’77 Tulane University and you have been teaching me well these last few months. I would not change anything except the fly on the lens in the middle of the video. May I recommend a book for you. Mark Shepard has written Restoration Agriculture in 2012. I hope you know about it. I have been doing what he did since 2008 but on one acre and with a different set of trees, bushes and vines. This is probably something you would be able to do as well. Trees and other perennials are his focus. They don’t require as much work as row crops; but I have to stop. Many reasons tell me to continue depending mostly on trees, venison, and chickens for food including my age of 71 and a recent attack of carpal tunnel syndrome from trying to grow more Carol Deppe ruby-gold corn without fossil fuels. Keep sending those videos. Perennials can’t give me all that I want to eat. My allergies have also improved to nearly extinct! NE Louisiana soil is alluvial and largely intact relative to minerals. I hope to keep it that way. Last regular checkup at the doctor, the nurse asked for my list of pills! She said I was the first person in her 15 year career that was taking NO PILLS! Sad commentary on our pill culture.
Hi Marjory, bravo, You spoke very clearly and I think that no one should feel intimidated about starting a small garden with your guidance. I have been one of the Grow members and have an 16×24 ft garden patch in my small yard; the native soil is a green clay called marl, the town is known as Marlton. I have not used lawn chemicals for at least a decade.
I wish to comment on three topics you covered: 1) On soil nutrients, we have an early morning weekend radio show on the east coast called Radio Garden Sense (Think I got that name right?). The host has stated that vegetable garden soil can be so over nutrient rich that the plant produces leaves vs. fruit because it does not sense the need to preserve it’s survival. Does that make any sense? 2) I have read a little about Dr. Weston Price; being a dentist his study was initially on teeth and facial structure of the peoples he surveyed. The link to nutrition and health, I believe, was an unintended consequence of his investigations. I fell that is quite ironic – talk about the teacher showing up when the student is ready! 3) My belief is that the modern “Organic” label reflects only use of non-GMO (in some cases) and the absence of Roundup growing it. Hope I am wrong about that, I still buy organic when available.
I agree that modern food nutrient load is very much less than food from the 60’s. I am a product of the 1950’s and I totally agree with your assessment.
Please let me know if I am in error in these comments. Looking forward to the book.
Thank you for the chance to watch as you work!!!
Agree on the soil being major, and also would like to know, like other comment about “What do you do if there are no horses/animals around for manure?”
Also, doesn’t it matter what kind of soil for different plants? Plants that need more acidic, nitrogen, etc.
Just a few questions that came to my mind.
Love the opening with the kids!!
Thanks again and anxiously waiting for your next chapter.
Kathy Lee
Soil is so important to growing healthy food
I grew up on a farm, we grew everything, but when I moved out and started my own garden my plants were not as plush as the ones I grew up on…. My Mom, who was the best gardener ever, told me manure is the trick, we raised chickens and pigs on the farm…so I visited a few farmers that I knew and WOW what a difference Tricks of the Trade
I no longer live on a farm, but my yard has 3 raised bed gardens for vegies and I put my herbs in my flower garden around the house Just love living off the land
Very informational and educational. Good work, Marjory! Looking forward to more. Thanks.
Like you, I have Sandy soil, and it’s been a trial and error. I have to buy much of my foods, which I look for USDA organic. This year I planted 6 peach trees, I live in SC. And what happened, we had a defestating freeze after all the flowers and some of the leaves came out. The peaches, even for the commercial growers is a 100 percent loss. We’ve been trying above ground boxes and logs to retain the nutrients in the soil. And I am also going to try hydroponics this year. Love your incite.
I grew most of our food for 20 years beginning in 1971 and read faithfully the Mother Earth magazine. Our soil was not very good but fall leaves added rapidly increased the health of the crops. As our children left home the garden got smaller and so did our nutrition. We currently eat organic as much as possible but all have allergies. I am so excited to read your book when it is published and start planting the back yard again. Your video was great! Thank you for sharing.
Question:
Is Epsom salt (high in magnitude sulphate) is good to sprinkle in vegetable garden?
Thanks, varda
There is a soil magnesium like epsom salt at the farm store in 50 pound bags. I added it to my older garden boxes last year. It helps prevent tomato rot on the bottoms and seems to make plants very resistant to any issue and fewer weeds and even fewer slugs or leaf eaters. I get a bag every couple of years on top. That and lime(rainy-clay soil) seem to make my plants happy every couple of years.
My neighbors think I am wacky when I collect the street leaves in the fall for the garden. The city doesn’t want them anyways. Oak leaves are wonderfully nutritious to the soil.
I have also had issues with our local Farmers Markets. You definitely have to watch. One basically imports from other provinces and countries and that is fine but it has very little organics, or at least that was the case the last time I was there. Some of the others carry local and some organic but the prices are outrageous. Outside of my budget for sure.
I am trying to grow my own but the soil on my property was backfill and questionable so I am growing in raised beds. My crops are still a bit sad as I am working on building my soil with organic matter. I would love to get chickens to help build the soil fertility but we aren’t allowed here in our city despite its agricultural beginnings. We are allowed rabbits so I may get one or two of those. I don’t need many as I don’t want to raise meat as I am moving towards a more plant-based diet. I had to cut out meat and dairy for health reasons and it has been well worth it. Health has improved and I am hoping that if I can grow more of my own veges that it will get even better.
I am on a constant hunt for knowledge to improve my nutrition and gardening skills and that is how I found you and your website / videos, etc. I have appreciated the information you provide.
I also agree with the comments on the supplements. Apparently, many of them aren’t even in a form that our bodies can utilize. Anyone who wants to learn more should check out Dr. Michael Greger’s nutrition blog … http://nutritionfacts.org ..he’s kind of funny, covers many different topics at no charge, and gives scientific backup for everything he says.
I was outside in 49 degree weather exercising dogs wearing a t-shirt, shorts and flips. Came inside, made juice and opened this video. Made me happy…thank you for good information
Thank you for the video and for writing the book, I think it is very informative and simple enough for everyone to understand. Good job! Can’t wait for the book, a definite for my library.
I believe good soil is important for good nutrition food. The problem for me is how to make good soil or to tell if I have good soil.
Really enjoyed your video and am looking forward to seeing those that follow. The old adage of “getting too old too soon, and getting smart too late” really rings true for me – being born just before 1940. As a young girl, I remember the Victory gardens we had on our block during WWII. Always enjoyed pulling the fresh carrots out of the ground, brushing off the dirt and chewing joyfully the sweet flavor. The warm tomatoes off the vine we would eat like an apple – flavor was delicious, and homemade tomato soup was never better. The smells and flavors of the fresh food are still remembered. In the summer when we spent time at a lake in Indiana, my mom and aunt would take us kids to a farm to pick strawberries, blueberries and raspberries – best part was being able to eat as much as we desired while picking and filling up the little pint baskets to buy and take home. We would also catch fish in the lake early in the morning, clean the perch and bluegills, sometimes sunfish and have them for breakfast. On the 4th of July we would make homemade ice cream in a handturn churner while chipping the ice off a big block that sat melting at our bare feet. Little did we know that those memories would last us our whole lives. Was also fortunate to visit relatives who had farms where we had the job of collecting the eggs, and feeling sorry for the mother hens who protested. We cleaned the ears of corn, and also plucked the feathers from a newly deceased hen. We also got to go to the watermelon patch and select a ripe one for our dessert. There was always fresh baked bread on the farm. We loved to see the baby animals born in the spring, and would get to feed the lambs that needed extra, or were rejected by mom. The baby pigs would squeal and delight in our antics as we enjoyed seeing theirs. We had to learn how to cross the fields without offending the head bull steer or any animal that didn’t want to be disturbed, besides watching where we were walking. Cow pies and snakes were avoided. Sometimes the older boys would go and catch frogs when there was a multitude of them (they had to clean them, us girls stayed away), but we would all enjoy frog legs for dinner.
Trips to the farm later in life with children in tow would have memories of apple butter making at a cousins apple orchard. We all pealed apples the night before, and then spent the next day taking turns stirring the mixture over an outside fire until it was done. It was bottled up and divided among all that helped. All that winter we were able to enjoy it remembering that crisp fall day, the smell of the wood fire and watching the young ones climbing in the apple trees.
One endearing memory that I will always remember about the larger farm animals is a time when I took our young daughter, not yet walking, and laid her on a blanket on the grass near the barn and outside field. I went in the house to get her lunch and when I returned all the animals that had been in the field – horse, Swiss cow and cattle all had their heads over the fence watching her as she looked at them. Wished I had had a camera, but I thanked them for baby sitting.
Shopping for food nowadays is hard – smells, flavors and textures seem to be lost. The last bag of apples that I bought, I ate one and didn’t bother to cook the rest, as it was tasteless and mealy, so they sat in a basket for decoration for over a month before I put them outside for the animals. Always try to buy organic, but food that is freshly grown and brought inside to the table will always be the best.
Very motivational video. Yes. Soil health equals plant health. I am still learning about it. My first garden was a flop. Now i have a handfull of successful crops i grow every year. We haul in a pickup load of mulch every year and cradle our plants with it. I used to have chickens and would rotate the chicken yard with the garden. That was the best garden. But foxes culled them all.
You might try a chicken tractor to protect the chickens.
Hi Marjory, Great talk, very informative, liked your little stories that you told us about.
I am in Scotland and find most of your information very helpful.
Looking forward to the next video already.
Good luck for the future.
Regards David
Thank you!!!! I studied the RDA and tried to implement a diet that included 100% of everything and it was impossible. You would have to eat chicken for lunch beef for dinner and a cup of sunflower seeds at every meal plus like 2 pounds of greens every day. No one eats that much! To hear your statistic on 4 to 5 times the RDA brought me to tears!!!! I am truly in love with my garden but even so it remains barren lately because I had mistajenly accounted it as unimportant. This information has been incredibly valuable to me. Thank you!!
In the video, I am taking you at your word on the subjects you are speaking about, because I have been following your efforts and the information you put out for a while now. I enjoy hearing your passion as you speak to what helps us to be healthier in our foods and the way they are grown.
When it comes to your book, you’ll probably want to add citations for folks that don’t know the basis where you are speaking from. I think that is probably the harder audience to reach past their “knowledge” of what food is and where the good stuff comes from. Pointing out the trail markers on that path to true health and wealth would be an apt metaphor I guess.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next chapter.
Wonderful. Can’t wait for the book. Save the video with the fly on the lens. Don’t edit it out. I turned and listened to part of it as if it were an audio book. It was great. Good job.
Very good information. Im looking forward to the next vid eo
Love it, thank you. made me want to definitely know your system of nutrient dense gardening. Its a brilliant idea to focus on Nutrient dense foods, I am sad about the organic standards failing. What do you think about the Butterfly label?
Very great information. Happy to hear about supplements .My wife has told me to take supplents for years. Now O say no more.
Thanks!
I really enjoyed this video. It is what I’m trying to do with my garden. I don’t have horses, but I have organic compost, five kinds, that will be mixed with perlite and vermiculite for my garden. Our ground is sandy and won’t grow many things. I’ve had breast cancer and have been trying to get an organic garden for three years. My husband doesn’t believe me. I tell him that the food we eat isn’t nutrient dense and he doesn’t believe me. I will can, freeze dry, make soups and just freeze my food. I have everything I like (which is more than my husband likes), and won’t need anything else. I even have organic flour to make bread, crackers, rolls, and a lot more. I know the food I’m eating is not very good, because nothing has changed. I’m overweight, tired, achy. This will all change!
One way to know if your food is nutrient dense is the level of hunger. Are you hungry soon after eating? That is the body’s cells asking for vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats. This is the purpose of hunger. Don’t give up on your husband. It took me twenty years to convince my husband to stop eating sugar. Since then he has had no angina pain or heart attacks. Let him see how good you do.
The information was good. The background for a talk about the value of growing your food was dismal. I’m guessing that it is the end of a growing season or the beginning but the background is barren. Even the indoor plants next to you are spindly. I loved the story about the broccoli including being warm when everybody else was cold, the daughter borrowing your jackets, and the info about how much our food is lacking. You said it was lacking but your info wasn’t especially specific. I’m already convinced – I’ve read Weston Price – I have trouble convincing my husband. Maybe a brix meter would be useful. The first part about pellagra was interesting but I’m a nurse. I have never seen a case of pellagra so I’m guessing that most people would find that information irrelevant. What might be more to the point is our current chronic diseases such as diabetes type 2, osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer. This is a contentious area as you probably know and if you start with paleo, you’ll lose all your vegans, etc. You already have information about remineralizing teeth (and bones) so that would work better than pellagra. I enjoyed your talk but there was a fly in the room that landed on the camera lens twice and somebody knocking around in the room once. That was distracting.
Bring in luscious green plants to surround you, get rid of the spindly ones next to you, show the difference between supermarket broccoli and fresh organic with a brix meter or some other plant that looks great at the store but isn’t as nutritious as it should be. I bet your neighbor’s food is very high in minerals.
What is absolutely fabulous about the talk is that it is so sincere and from the heart. Your goodness comes through and it is so clear that you want to help. God love you for that.
One of the bast please to take ownership of your health is to grow some food. Eating living food builds life in your body. Going out to your garden is a good way to get So going out to your garden is a good way to get Sun and real air. Everyone can afford to buy seeds, everyone can find some dirt and water, if you need tools go to the secondhand store, books from the library!
Thank you for the excellent video. I can’t wait to read the book. After trying to garden in relatively poor soil for years, I would love to learn exactly what to do to improve my soil (besides buying a bag of fertilizer at the local garden store). Learning the science aspect of gardening and nutrition would be great, too, since we can do so much more when we understand something instead of just following directions. Thanks again!
Very interesting. Eager to see your next segment and see what I can do at my own home.
Dear Marjory, thank you for your video/book chapter.
yes I do know soil health affects plant growth and health from experience. I moved to florida and started a garden much like i had in Savannah ga and los angeles ca before and to my surpass my plants were the same seize three weeks after i planted them in the driveway garden. about 1-2 inches of sadness. then i went to the rabbitry and got the manure and voila plants started to take off and i had collards 6 months + form the same plants that did not want to grow in the sandy soil 🙂
I have been working on amending my soil for the driveway garden for over a year now but am not anywhere near where i would like to be. my dream would be to grow enough to share with neighbors and community where i live.
Thank you for your information. It is educational and inspiring!
Very nice Video. I have never heard this information in this way before. I think that it will be a very well rounded book. Thank you for what you do.
Your comments in the video are spot on. You are very knowledgeable about about the food we eat and how it must be grown to maximize nutritional value. We, as a nation, have become lazy about every aspect of our lives and are now suffering for our lack of understanding in our personal health. May your efforts show us all the way to health on a national scale. It is definitely needed. As you say, nutrition is the key to health, health is the key to happiness and wealth regardless of your financial well-being. Growing our own food, or as much as possible, and finding a good source for the rest of the food we eat will solve many of the health issues plaguing this nation. Thank you so much.
I loved your show it was so informative and inspiring I’ll try to keep up with the up coming videos thank you very much.
Great stuff Marjory. I believe that as a society we have neglected our connection to the earth. I look forward to your book. I don’t always respond to your emails but I read them and try to keep them. Thank you for your passion and your work. Sam.
Advise for a newbie gardener who is intimidated about starting to grow their own food.
Start small and simple. Use the resources you have now as much as possible, instead of making big plans, and buying stuff. Much of the best stuff will be found and/or free. (It is an adventure and lots of fun.) Know values, and what is valuable for your adventure. Like manures, compostable plant material, materials to edge beds, tools at yard sales, people who will share plants, seeds, experience, and encouragement, etc, etc.
Use the internet for research and learning, but adapt what you learn to your situation and opportunity.
When you have success, use the produce in its freshest, most natural state.
I believe you are 100% right. I live in S. Calif. near a wash. I have sandy soil with lots of problems (mildew, nematodes, & other
plant diseases), devils grass and gophers. I’ve started raised beds, but not all that happy with the soil and feel limited as to how to
build it up. I miss regular soil. I would love to have information on how to bring a garden back from scratch overcoming all these
obstacles. So far, the available bagged organic compost doesn’t impress me. I eat all organic and take supplements but it’s not enough.
I have health issues so labor intensive tasks are a challenge. Also, there is so much info. out there, I get overwhelmed. Is there a clear
cut way to find the right, good quality products on-line? I love what you do. I can hardly wait until your book comes out.
Marjory Really great video. It could be broken down into headings where you go into greater depth about each of the sub topics. You’ll have to get some of the content approved by your daughter. No need to make enemies with your offspring especially when that part of the subject matter is not essential. You are really good at making the topic about people in general and it doesn’t have to be specific to your life. It could be that you tell stories about other people’s experiences to get better health.
One area I’d love you to discuss is radiated soil such as in Fukushima. What can you grow if there has been nuclear fallout? It does sound a bit glum doesn’t it but the fallout from Fukushima has reached California and will probably spread beyond there. Also the fallout it definitely afffecting farmers right next to Fukushima and that radiated food will be fed to practising athletes in Tokyo from now until 2020.
Can bees survive radiation? Will you be talking about caring for bees. I have a two storey hive and have learned to love my bees in the past year. They really are part of a garden landscape if one is to be holistic don’t you think? I am not going to take their honey for the time being. I just wish to have bees.
What are your thoughts about growing food inside the house ie your home? I’ve got a coffee plant which I bought from Bunnings and it was already half dead when I bought it. It died even more in a pot in the garden so I put it inside my house. It still didn’t thrive and was going to die so as a last resort I put it in my shower. It now gets watered along with two fig trees and I share the space with them when I shower. (The rest of the family has a bigger bathroom with a real bath in which to clean themselves). A miracle has occured and the coffee plant is growing joyously. All the dead leaves have fallen off and there is a new crop of light green leaves and shoots. I am keen to see whether it will produce some berries. Then I have to find out whether I will have to process them or whether the beans can be eaten raw.
Thanks for what you’re doing. I couldn’t agree more about the nutritional supplements. Mushrooms like Reishi might come under a slightly different category though.
Do some research. I believe the berries are filled with antioxidants and have medicinal value. And the roasted bean makes good coffee. Dr. James Duke has a website that lists the phytochemical components of plants. I have found it helpful when looking for the phytochemical in medicinal plants from regions far from my home. I can search for plants with the chemical and then look for local plants. Or, you can look up the plant and then find the list.
My mother had a Norfolk Island Pine. Like your coffee plant they require lots of humidity. She sat the pot on a tray which she had stone and water. The pot did not sit in the water just above it. She also sprayed it with water often during the day. Was hard to find a home for it when we moved. It was huge.
The strong soil is truly the basis of plant health. I have occasionally grown part of my food & the taste alone is enough of a reason to do so. It has been occasionally because of personal situation and the soil available. I have begun eating healthier even why not growing my own food. I’ve seen a great reduction in allergies since instituting regular consumption of raw garlic & honey. For the present, I’m only growing herbs. A beginner should start with a few to several items to gain confidence – there will always be some failures. I’m looking forward to resuming growing some of my food.
Hi Marjory,
Thank you for your very interesting and informative videos. Our thinking is on a parallel path and I agree with all I have heard you say.
Two other things I have not heard you mention yet (but you may be just about to say them ) is that factory farming, depleted soils and organic shysters etc aside, the speed with which vegetables lose their vitality and vitamin content after being picked (without even taking into account suboptimal storage before it gets to the consumer) means that growing at least some of your own food is essential (even if it is only wheat grass in a tray) if you want to get adequate nutrients into your system.
The other thing is the bonus of some physical exercise and fresh air and the mental joy and satisfaction of eating food you have grown yourself.
Then there is teaching your children and friends (as you are doing) to take back empowerment and control of their own health and bodies.
And the list goes on.
Three big cheers for you Marjory, may your influence grow and prosper.
Basic but wonderful! Such good energy, informative, great subject matter with an important message. Thank you.
DEAR MARJORY AND TEAM:
CONGRATULATIONS, WELL DONE! KEEP UP YOUR PRESENCE
AND EFFORTS TO MAKE A BETTER WORLD. I AM SO PLEASED
TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE A RETURNING GUEST ON COAST TO
COAST AM! THERE IS ALSO, ”TRUNEWS,” I HOPE YOU MAY BE
ABLE TO BE A GUEST SOOOONNNNN!
EATING WELL IS AN INVESTMENT AND A RIGHT, HUMANITY,
ALL, SHOULD BE ABLE TO EAT HEALTHY, PURE, REAL AND
FROM THE GROUND. THE GROUND HAS AMAZING MINERALS,
VITAMINS, LIFE, AND MANY OTHERS. ALL LIVING CREATURES
HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE FED FROM THE LIVING FOUNTAIN,
LA FOUNTAIN DE VIE, LA FUENTE DE VIDA. WE SHOULD NOT
ACCEPT ANY LESS. THE BODY IS SACRED.
I NEED TO TALK TO YOU, MARJORY, WOULD YOU SEND ME A
TELEPHONE NUMBER WHERE I MAY REACH YOU, PLEASE!?
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
WITH APPRECIATION AND SUPPORT,
M
So enlightening, can’t wait for the next video
You do a great job communicating on your videos. I love the information on how we can be more connected to nature. At one location where we lived, we started a big garden, and I transported many plastic tubs full of horse manure from a neighbors farm to enrich our soil. The garden flourished. Now I have limited mobility due to a spinal cord compression, but I have my garden on my deck with several “Earth Boxes” and a “Garden Tower”. It isn’t quite the same as my soil doesn’t seem to be as healthy. I will be adding more nutrients from compost as I can. I did feel that your expressed view on supplements was too harsh although you softened it a little as you went along. For the sake of those who don’t have a situation where they can raise their own food, supplements can be a real blessing for filling in nutritional gaps if you find some from a company such as Shaklee. Have you seen the Landmark Study done in collaboration with UC Berkley, the first ever of its kind? It evaluated health markers in long-term consumers (20-43 yrs.) of multiple Shaklee supplements and compared them with two similar groups who used no supplements or another brand multivitamin. The Shaklee supplement users had double-digit advantages in 4 key biomarkers: lower levels of triglycerides, lower cholesterol ratios, lower levels of c-reactive protein, and lower levels of homocysteine, an indicator of brain and cognitive health. So a GOOD supplement can have health benefits. Interestingly, on some of the biomarkers tested, the other brand multivitamin users had worse numbers than the non-supplement users, which I think supports the idea that we can be poisoning our bodies with “junk” supplements. I’m impressed that Shaklee tests for over 350 contaminants on every botanical ingredient. I just don’t want everyone to get the impression that all supplements are bad when that is not the case. Wish we could all grow all of our own food with superb soil and get enough nutrition that way.
Hi Marjory, your video has great content, I do think the soil you grow your food is very important and will affect your plants and the nutrients within them. I lived in New Zealand growing vegetables and fruit trees in the back yard. The soil in Taranaki this is the area I lived, is volcanic and is rich black every thing thrives in that soil, I feel you have so much information for people like us who now live in the city and live on store brought food that we are dependent on like convenience food thank you for educating people to a more healthier lifestyle. Regards Rosanna
I live in Phoenix Arizona = Very Hot. I live in an Apartment 2nd floor with an outside patio (triangle 8 by 8 by about 12)
Any suggestions?
What you eat is your body and what we breath is our blood. Next and equally important is our mind! You right!
Hi I was thinking you could mention the Brix level in store bought food and talk more about Biology. good soil is a living ecosystem. I enjoyed watching you video good luck with your book Thanks for now John
Great input. You make it simple! Just trying to figure WHERE in my backyard is more advantageous. You’ll tell me, I’m sure! Thanks for the inspiration.
Hi Marjory
Love your work, Thankyou. I’m writing to confirm your comments from the experiences my wife had with her health. I think what she experienced in health decline is impacting millions of people eating this western society chemical cocktail of plastic foods. Before I go on, my wife and I ate 90% home based fully prepared foods….but from the supermarket…..as did our dogs, 2 X Jack Russells forwant of a better description. I mention them because I see these guys, our family, as the canary in the coal mine. Their years roll over 7 times faster than ours, so I guess poor health shows up in them 7 times faster…that’s my logic from observations when the 13 year old developed an aggressive fast growing cancer on his leg and went deaf and was generally in poor health, warm grey nose, lathergic etc. and the 6 year old went blind. The scary thing was that till that stage we were giving them supermarket chicken and brown rice with frozen veggies….ie people food, right! By making some changes and pushing beef instead of chicken as a mainstay for our fussy friends, removing the rice and dropping frozen veg in favour of home grown and farmers market….together with the addition of a high quality probiotic….now 2 years later the older Jack is running about like a puppy and they are now both in much better health…
At the same time, my wife at 46 started having massive pain in the abdomen. We saw doctors, a garden variety chiro, and various other alternative practitioners all finding nothing. She was chewing pain killers like lollies to keep going. In desperation we took her to the hospital casualty on 2 separate occasions, fearing the worst, cancer MS or some such fitted Dr Google’s explanation….she was given a party pack of pain killers including, over 100 X panadein forte (codeine and paracetamol), 2 different strengths of Valium, 2 X different strengths of morphine and the strongest anti inflammatories available…..the funny thing was after eating 110 panadein forte in a week and trying all the others, it turned out that simple panadol worked just as well as all the rest……. We had nowhere else to turn at that point. On the second visit to casualty, again after finding nothing wrong, the so called Senior Registra made this statement, “it’s all in her head, take her home and hit her on the head with a big stick”. I kid you not! Now we knew he was joking, but this was no joking matter. The fact is this shows the ignorance and stupidity of the general state of western medicine. We requested an MRI but were told that it would take a month to get one and that it was unnecessary as nothing was wrong with her. This remained their opinion despite my telling them that we had been together for 22 plus years and I had never heard her complain about pain and was anything but a princess.
It was at this point that I started researching things myself. I called my super chiro mate who had moved interstate the selfish bugger and it was not possible to take her to him because she wouldn’t handle the travel. He gave me the names of 2 other great chiro’s. We saw one of these guys and after the first treatment he said this was outside of his scope and referred me to the other guy….who is probably the master of all chiro’s in Australia. He saw her as his second appointment at 7:30 am and at 8:30 had us in for an MRI and he saw her again at 9:30 same morning with the diagnosis. The MRI showed a kinked small intestine, dropped uterus, dropped bladder…and everything was out of kilter.
We can never know for sure exactly the scope of how these matters impacted but the 3 things we concluded as being at the root cause, not in any particular order were as follows;
1. Leaky Gut. From glysophate courtesy of Monsatin, in the food chain, wheat, sugar and supermarket plastic food. Reduced gut biome as a result, hence reduced nutrient uptake from then an already nutrient scarce diet.
2. Dropped Organs as previously mentioned fixed in a series of chiro treatments WITHOUT any surgery or bs harmaceuticals.
3. Complete dropping of wheat, rice and cane sugar from the diet and massive reduction in potatoes from the diet. Essentially a Maleo diet, that’s the families spin on Max’s version of Paleo. Home grown veggies, a rapid but highly pleasant learning curve. Use of high quality probiotics together with a wide variety of fermented foods, kamboocha, sauerkraut, kafir and apple cider vinegar, all home made.
The other factor that is a possibility is that 12 months earlier she had lost a pregnancy, her first and the suspicion is that the body did a phantom pregnancy thing…..all the symptoms were common including a leaky bladder.
Till that point my darling wife had added a few pounds around the butt area as tends to happen at that age. The results have been spectacular, in three months or so she lost in the order of 13kg off her small frame and now looks like the goddess I first met all those years earlier…..actually she looks better and healthier…..to the point that people are now stopping her in the street to tell her how good she looks…even strangers! I’m probably going to have to head to the gym to stave off the marauding hopefuls! She has bountiful energy and hasn’t looked back.
There is a lot more to say on all this but time does not permit right now. I tell this story because, from this and other experiences I have come to the conclusion that western medicine has been corrupted to the point of criminal negligence. We are told that we are facing cancer rates for 1 in 2 by 2030…..but where do you hear of mainstream western medicine speaking out about diet and the poisoned food chain as being at the heart of all these diseases….that is apart from a few brilliant free thinking individuals such as those one hears speak true wisdom on forums like The Truth About Cancer. And these brave and genuine heroes are being poopooed by their mainstream counterparts….seriously folks what is that!!!
Big Aggriculture, Big Chemical Companies and Big Pharma have a lot to answer for.
All the very best on your crusade.
Marjory, Please include in your book how veggies are best right out of the garden. A way to prove that is to pick an ear of corn and put it in your refrigerator. The next day go out and pick another ear fresh and then cook up them both. Mark the fresh one and the day old one so you know which you are tasting. The fresh one will be sweet and firm, whereas the day old one will be less sweet, kinda starchy and generally not as tasty. This happens with most vegetables. That is why our grandparents would only pick as much as the could can in 1 day.
My grandma boiled the water while grandpa picked the corn. His idea was to eat it within 20 minutes or it turned to junk. He had the best corn and vegetables. He lived independently to 97.
Great job Marjorie. Your presentation is so genuine… so real. Nobody would feel you’re being the highly schooled expert preaching the next new fad to them. Plus, your content is very good and applicable to everyone. If there was one thing that could use a little improvement it would be the sound quality. It was ever-so-slightly muffled. Fortunately it wasn’t bad enough to cause a problem understanding you. I look forward to the next video.
Marjory, you are such an inspiration! I love your videos and try my best to follow your great advice. My family just moved to a small country home with a few acres and I’m trying to plan our garden. I’ve always loved growing. Now that I have more space I really want to expand and grow as much food as possible for my family. I’m really looking forward to learning your garden layout ideas. One thing I have learned is that good soil makes a huge difference to helping your garden. Last year I had the healthiest and most productive garden yet and it was my first year using my compost in the soil.
Thanks so much!
Nice video,I would also like to see backup regarding your claims.
For a newbie I would say just start anywhere and if it don,t work try something else
Marjory is awesome! She practices what she preaches and is certainly an example of what healthy looks like.
I would be interested in having a copy of her book, once written and recommending it to my nutrition clients.
I look forward to future broadcasts.
Thank you Marjory!
Hello Marjory,
Thanks for your info on limitations regarding multivitamins.
On that subject, what is your take on Vitamin D supplements for those of us living in Northern latitudes? Apparently the angle of the sun is too low much of the year for us to get vitamin D from the sun.
I absolutely agree that rich nutrient dense soil is needed for plants to be healthy and provide us with the minerals and vitamins that our bodies need.I compost and the plants love it.Have wanted to use manure just need to find a good source.I started changing my diet because I wasn’t feeling good.Read lots of health and nutrition books,still do.Then I developed an autoimmune desease and studied all I could about it and what could be done to fight it.Diet was a big part,changed my diet.Then a couple years later I learned that I am sensitive to gluten.Wheat and grains aren’t what they use to be in grand pa’s days.I now know to eat whole foods,grow all we can and we can a lot too.Another big part of diet is avoiding GMO’s,sugar/sweateners,processed foods and additives.Enjoyed your video,thanks Marjory.
I would like to caution people about herbacide-contaminated manure and compost. It can ruin your garden. We no longer get manure from the public horse stable nearby because we don’t know if the horses might have eaten some contaminated feed.
Greetings: Very enjoyable, I agree with most of what you show. The “organic ” label has been sadly abused. When the Government developed standards to cll something “organic” they destroyed the movement. I don’t know if you are going to touch on these later but in America obesity is right behind (and caused by) poor nutrition. Closely allied to this is lack of consistent exercise. Bone health exercise is found to be only frm gardening and weight lifting. Looking forward to more. Charlie Wolfe (M.D. and M.P.H.)
Enjoyed the video
One huge mistake I made when moving here 14 years ago was starting 3 huge gardens. I so wish the first year I would have
planted a small garden and concentrated on things like a asparagus bed , fruit trees , rhubarb , grape vines , nut trees
ect. Most of these I still do not have and now have to spend most time outdoors tending the vegetables .
So think of all the perennials you would like to have and spend the first year getting them established , once done
most require almost no time to keep them going and many will produce for years.
I have been gardening for years but am getting discouraged. Out of my garden ,I only get cucumbers and a handful of cherry tomatoes. The rest is revaged by the squirrels, rabbits and deer. IT is diffucult to do the hard work only to have everything disappear overnight. Wha can I do?
Irish spring soap will keep away deer. Also thin fishing line around the garden will discourage deer because they run into it and can’t see it. A good fence will deter rabbits… but squirrels? I’d welcome advice on that. We loose much of our fruit to squirrels. Maybe a squirrel hunting dog.
I live in deer country. They eat everything! I run a string (cotton yarn) soaked in used motor oil around the garden. Low near the ground for rabbits etc. Deer 2 feet or higher. I buy a cone of yarn, place it in an empty coffee can and pour the oil into the can. If you have the lid, you can poke a hole and pull the yarn through. This has been the only thing that worked. Keep the string off the ground and your plants.
Hi Marjorie,
Your second video is informative, interesting, and insightful when you personalized your own improved health results. Your enthusiasm and passion shines through.
Thank you for sharing and being an inspiration for all of us who aspire to grow our own food. I am excited that Spring is just around the corner. Tomorrow I am renting a 10′ x 15′ community garden plot with water for a reasonable amount close to my home with almost 100% sunshine. My own yard has mature trees and not enough sunshine for vegetables. My perennial flower gardens do great thought!!
Take care and Happy Spring!!
You are absolutely correct: good soil is key. Too many people – even among those who actually think and care about where their food comes from – think ‘soil’ is just dirt. But as you know, it is so much more than just dirt. Soil is the vibrant interface of the lithosphere (minerals and the dirt substrate), hydrosphere (water/moisture), atmosphere (oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc.) and the biosphere (micro-organisms, fungi, etc. and the organic detritus thereof). All four components are crucial to healthy and nutritious plant growth.
So far in my life I have gardened in at least 8 locations. Virtually all started out with substandard soil, and lethargic, depauperate plant growth was the result. I have worked to improve the soil quality everywhere I’ve lived, and have been convinced beyond doubt that better quality soil yields better quality food. Part of the solution, I believe, is to NOT let bare ground spend any amount of time exposed to the weather. There are numerous online resources touting the benefits of keeping your soil covered year round with some kind of mulch. Whether it be wood chips, leaves, grass clippings, hay, composted horse/steer/rabbit/chicken manure or whatever you have, almost anything (short of nuclear waste) is better than nothing.
A bit off topic, but I have to add: I spent roughly 40-45 years either actively spraying various pesticides, or otherwise exposed to a number of other toxic industrial chemicals in my work. My health suffered severely from that exposure, but when I became fully committed to organic food production (and quit eating wheat, but that’s another story), my health has improved significantly. In fact, at one point I was taking nearly 20 prescription pharmaceuticals. I currently am taking only 4, and expect to reduce that number even further in time. All my ‘numbers’ are back in the normal range, and my overall health is better than it’s been for the last 25 years or so.
Yes, I’d say good soil and home-grown organic whole foods definitely make a difference! Keep up the good work; you are literally improving the health of the nation with every convert you make!
GOD. I LOVE YOU….WHAT A SPIRITUAL WOMAN YOU ARE! I WISH I COULD BE LIKE YOU! SO MUCH TO LEARN….SO LITTLE TIME! THANK YOU!
Very well laid out, clear, and educational.
Thanks for talking so much about the importance of the soil. I am building the nutrient content of my garden using horse stall compost, but I need to add nitrogen because the wood chips extract the nitrogen from the soil as they decompose. Apparently, it takes longer than one year to fully cure. I try to get 2-year compost from the manure pile, but I can’t be sure how old it is because it comes from a nearby horse stables farm.
Keep up the good work! I look forward to your chapters on harvesting and preserving home grown food.
Very good, looking forward to the next video. You are so right on the topic of soil health equaling plant and vegetable health and then of course our health. My advice to a new gardener would be to grow 3 things the 1st year. Learn as much as you can about growing those 3 plants and then go from there.
Do you think good soil affects plant health? If yes, what personal experiences make you think so?
I put a lot of energy into adding kitchen composting, minerals like seaweed and cover crops back into my soil to build tilth without turning it for years except to put seeds or transplants in place. So when we had plumbing issues in 100 degree heat, my garden survived and was barely impacted.
Now that I have sunshine instead of 30 years of shade that soil will really be productive.
I put a lot of energy into adding kitchen composting, minerals like seaweed and cover crops back into my soil to build tilth without turning it for years except to put seeds or transplants in place. So when we had plumbing issues in 100 degree heat, my garden survived and was barely impacted.
Now that I have sunshine instead of 30 years of shade that soil will really be productive.
Do you think good soil affects plant health? If yes, what personal experiences make you think so?
2 years ago we purchased an organic farm. A soil test revealed we had less than 1% organic matter. It was obvious they used organic chemicals. We developed a composting plan to improve soil texture over the next three years. Meanwhile we planted the first year and were humbled by our dismal yields. Our goal for year 2 was to double up on composting and double our yields. While we meet our goals, that’s not saying much regarding our harvests because year one was a dismal year! Year three is shaping up to be a very productive year since attending on online class by Stacy Murphy this past fall. This past year we have composted over 20 tons of coffee grounds, juice pulp, leaves, wood mulch, saw dust and fish carcasses. Why are we doing all of this work? Because I believe the soil lacked living organisms. It was lifeless and could not give the plants what it needed for proper growth. The soil is the gut of the Earth. Therefore it is important to feed it well. Otherwise it won’t feed our plants. Much like our guts, it is important that it is teaming with beneficial microorganisms so that it can fend off the bad guys, chelate essential minerals for plant adsorption, and help bring water to the root system, just to name a few things they do. While increasing our soil health I have noticed we have less diseases, fewer insects and the sugar content is higher in the plants. This was noted with our cantaloupes, they grew out of a melon pit and were the sweetest we have ever tasted. Our neighbors still talk about the sweetness of the cantaloupes. Our collards this past fall were flavorful and sweet. We still have a ways to go with our soil texture but it is becoming much more friable and such a joy to see the transformation.
I have a master’s in nutrition and you were spot on with everything you said. Enjoyed the video. Thank you for taking the time to share this and ask for feedback.
When we bought this home 17 years ago, it was depleted lawn. BUT I had a dream. So I began with a couple of small garden plots. One for food and one for flowers. I recycled pallets and made a fence. I lined the bottom half with chicken wire and made one palette into a gate. I still have that plot and have replaced the pallets once in 17 years. I then began to build up the soil. I had the city deliver many truck loads of wood chips each year for several years. They were worked into the soil around all my trees and along the edges of the gardens. I buried newspapers along the edges also to keep weeds down. Everyone for miles around saved their papers for me. I purchased a large rubber compost bin from the county and began composting everything. I collected all the neighbors leaves and ground them up into my yard. All eggshells go directly into the garden. I also planted over 100 trees and shrubs. At one point I had 29 separate gardens and rotated the crops each year. Now the gardens have become several large plots due to expanding every year. On your garden summit show several years ago you introduced me to a company that had a mineral formula that I purchase every year and use that mixed with other things as my main fertilizer. It works beautifully. I also use all soaker hoses in the gardens. I begin at one end of the garden and water a different portion every day for the week. Resting on Sunday. This also works very well, as I do not waste one drop of water for to me every drop of water is a benediction. My husband and I are 75 years old. I can over 500 jars of food each year. I also fill two freezers. May not be as good as raw, but we think it is wonderful. I am in touch with several area farmers who grow my corn, potatoes, cauliflower. Our grocery bills are rarely over $25.00 per week. We have no doctors, no medications, no dis-ease of any kind. I say an energy prayer over every seed I plant and give thanks for each food harvested. Our life is wonderful because of our gardens. Your book will be so important to the world. Hope you have a chapter on the dangers of herbicides and some fertilizers. That is a big problem. You should have a chapter called: Give Up The Lawn and live longer. Thank you for being you.
I am totally afraid to try to plant a garden. One time years ago I had rich top soil hauled in and spread it around in a small area. I planted my seeds and some came up and some didn’t and none were great producers. The squirrels got into the produce and so did the raccoons. I did have some lovely zucchini squash that came up and the squirrels would come over the fence I’d put up, take ONE bite of the zucchini and ruin it. Then they’d leave and repeat the process. Highly frustrating.
There are many challenges to me gardening now, many years later. I’m much older, have hip and knee issues, monetary issues…the list just doesn’t end. Not only that, now I live in an area with deer as well as rabbits, raccoons, squirrels and other critters. I can’t afford fencing to keep them out even IF I could afford to haul in good soil and get good seeds.
Your presentation peaks my interest, I just don’t have any good experience to even container garden.
The year I did a garden, I didn’t know about plants being friends or enemies in a until I mentioned to someone that gardened that some of the vegetables came up, but didn’t do good. Turns out I’d planted “enemies” together.
It makes me really sad that I’m so garden ignorant. I recall my Great-grandpa gardening when I was just preschool age. He had a metal pin in his hip and he’d take his cane, push a hole in the ground the depth he wanted, lean over a bit, drop some seeds in, use the cane to put dirt over it and move to the next hole. It was impressive to me even at that age how he would go to the lengths he did to plant those vegetables. His carrots were the sweetest things I’ve ever (in my entire live) tasted from the veggie world and I remember that taste to this day some 53 years later.
Sorry to ramble on, but my frustration binds me tightly. The one thing I do know is that hauling in that soil made the difference between the plants growing as good as they did and not growing at all! The soil where I was had lead in it from being on a highly traveled road in the city. Good soil is a MUST!
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Very good.
1. The soil is the key. I have tried to grow blueberries twice and both times they turned a copper color and died. The next time I try to grow blueberries, I will use a container so that I can have control over the type of soil that surrounds them.
2. and 3. My husband and I desire better health and so we have just begun to consult with a doctor who specializes in epigenetics ((DNA) in order to determine what foods and supplements for each of us to use in order for us to obtain optimal health. We will eventually plant our indoor garden and patio garden with the plants (grown in containers) that will be the most beneficial for us to eat.
4. Start small. It is easy to become discouraged and/or overwhelmed.
Ask your doctor if he will teach you to muscle test. Then you can actually test all foods and supplements as necessary or not to your body at that moment. Takes just a second or two to get an answer and might assist you in persuing healthy choices without lots of tests and repeat visits to the doctor. Just like plants, our bodies can go up and down depending on what is needed in the moment!
Thank you for your suggestion.
Jan
Blueberries don’t have any root hairs so it is very easy for them to dry out and turn copper colored. Try adding 5 inches of sawdust to them like commercial growers use to hold water and they like acidic soil like Tomato plants like. I would build the soil with compost and squash plants for a few years then add those blueberry plants to happy soil in a sunny spot.
Finally, the mystery of the copper color has been solved for me. Thank you. Sawdust will be part of my plan next time if I plant the plants in the ground instead of in a self-watering container. I did know about the acidic soil, but why squash plants?
Great presentation would be good to show us how to build nutrient dense soil. I’ve only got a tiny urban plot so don’t have access to or a place to build my own compost. I could get some horse manure but what about the weedy seeds in it I don’t want them in my Gege garden?
Hi Marjorie – you really are a great natural communicator! I am in Australia but your information is just as relevant and applicable here. Plus, they are very enjoyable presentations to watch, which is probably a key factor in getting the word spread. Encouraging and inviting, not overwhelming. Thank-you for your committment to teaching the keys to true nutritional health.
I just want to say that these videos you are doing are amazing excellent beautiful and it is giving me a small start to change my ways of eating right it is a small change but in time I will get there because a little progress is better than no progress at all right an answer to one of your questions what made me start to eat more healthier is because of my health problems I am dealing with damaged bladder damaged urethra damaged prostate and damaged sperm sack and the rest of my private area and nerve damage in legs and feet and arthritis in back so that’s why I started changing my eating and drinking habits it’s a small progress right now but like I said a small progress is better then none at all but in due time I will get there totally but thanks for all the great excellent videos and support God bless you and God bless America love Herschell
Hi Marjory,
I enjoyed your video, so thank you for that.
I found the information very general, but you did cover a bit of territory. If you could provide more specific information on growing food crops, in time, it would be greatly appreciated.
I think good healthy soil teaming with soil life is the basis for healthy nutritious food. When soil is good, you see fewer insects attacking plants. Plants look healthy, crisp, vibrant and alive. I had a period when I was working regularly and left my vege garden to largely fend for itself. I was amazed at how long the garden went without water after having built up the soil with lots of organic matter from used animal bedding (sawdust), compost, hay, coffee grounds, shredded paper cardboard, blood and bone, compost / weed tea and chicken yard compost. You feel and stay healthy when you eat regularly from your garden.
I totally agree, that your best chance at good health is from your own garden. Just being outdoors is refreshing and food for the soul. If I can make a suggestion for new gardeners, it is to read about and watch more experienced gardeners online, see what they do, then put what you have learnt into practice. Start small, compost your kitchen scraps, then apply this to your garden. Learn some basic skills, practice, then learn a few more, and it won’t seem so overwhelming. Before you know it your garden will be producing nicely. Barb
I needed to hear this today ! Thanks for putting it out
there for us. Appreciate your insights and stories. Those
make the GROW story real and interesting.
Hi Majory,
Thank you! Very good video. I think the biggest problem with all of this, the food scam, is that people think the food the buy has nutrition in it. I don´t think it is possible to have too many examples, like your carrot example, in your future book. That I will buy and sell. I am very much looking forward to it.
It is time to educate the masses about how to eat right.
I am not sure if you have used bokashi composting or and EM-A, it has been revolutionary for myself. Improving the soil quality.
I have “developed” my own version of what you are saying but it is more a compilation of information I learn from other sources such as yourself.
I experimented and am continuing with my spare room greenhouse with grow lights. I can walk in grab a few green beans or radish etc for a quick snack. I snip fresh mixed greens for a fresh salad.
In short it has helped my health ( according to my doctor ).
I could go on about this by just dropping you a note that I have had moderate success with taking up this “hobby” and feel better at the same time.
I have many things to learn.
I will definitely by your book when it it is ready.
So greetings from a midwesterner transplanted to TN via the east coast ( ocean front most of the time ) and restaurant manager for 35+ years. ( even after being a EE major at Purdue ).
That was a really good ending for a highly informational talk about a very good subject….”Vibrant health is the foundation of all true wealth.” Nothing can equal a truly organic food especially when it’s personally grown because you are sure of it’s being truly clean…no chemical fertilizers and insecticides.
I had been going around my country (the Philippines) for many years now because I love traveling and learning about the culture of the indigenous tribes. I also loved the way they cook their foods…plainly boiled organic vegetables with no condiments of any kind and which we sometimes make into raw nutritious salads.
It’s hard to say if I could add something to your book about my experiences re vegetables and fruit trees and natural healing which had preoccupied me for some time now but I’d try…if it would be welcome. I had been teaching people about a tropical tree whose leaves are very good in curing urinary tract infection and its complication – hypertension.
My learning had been a diverse ongoing process to educate people about the necessity of going back to nature because our body systems had long been poisoned by synthetics and unscrupulous people who have nothing in mind but to profit at the expense of mostly poor and ignorant folks.
Thank you for the video.
Gerry
While I completely agree with Margory’s conclusions (I do grow all my own vegetables. 12 months worth), I am skeptical about a couple of her statements. Is there science to back up the claim that “most” people get only half of their required nutrients? Even protein? Also, the recommendation that we should get 10 times the recommended amounts sounds a little dangerous to me, especially with regard to the fat soluble vitamins. Toxicity from too much of a particular nutrient can be as bad as a deficiency.
Otherwise, I am so glad to hear someone assert that organic food, even from farmer’s markets is just not a reliable source of good value. The only way to get the very best in taste and nutrition is to pick it from your own back yard.
Very informative.I’m a new gardner and i need info on how to plant in healthy soil. My yard is mostly clay. I really want to live naturally and not depend on industry.
Marjory, this is Great! I think this book will be a bestseller! And then it has to be translated into many languages! Maybe I can help making a translation in Dutch?
Hi,
Very good, please continue your good work. I bought your books (CD) and have been growing in my off-grid solar house a fair percentage of my food especially for juicing.
I disagree about your statements about multivitamins especially as you contradict yourself: we lack the important nutrients from the depleted food we get from the large agro industry. Therefore before we can grow (if ever) all our own food we are better off with quality supplements I believe.
To confirm what you said about the quantity one should eat to get the real required amounts of nutrients, I have a nice chart showing what to eat and the quantities needed for it, its astonishing and would cost most in the US around $33 daily. But who can eat 45 eggs (one of the 11 elements on the chart) to get its daily requirements od vitamin D?
About that, the Usana company has been around for 25 years and produces pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamins and supplements mostly produced from organic sources (not 100%). Its better than waiting for our graden to be ready as this takes years to master a garden as you know, and this provided you can do it and live outside large cities.
Dr Wentz the founder is quite somebody with good ethics which is as rare as the minerals we have in commercial carrots nowadays 😉 Here is a link if you allow me explaining his remarkable endeavor:
Under the microscope
Description
Learn the story behind USANA’s founder Dr. Myron Wentz. From launching Gull Laboratories to founding USANA Health Sciences in 1992, find out how Dr. Wentz is working toward his vision of a world free from pain and suffering.
11:48 mn
https://usanacommunicationsedge.com/p/16b4b2e38c09c1568aae30ac62f37d43/3076831
Anyway that is my 2 cents. I did join the Usana network (my lovely girlfriend was involved) as since my health is my top priority it made sense to study this Usana company and try their cellcentials famous products. I was quite suprised by the results I must admit. In addition I saw an opportunity to grow my web hosting business with this network as succesfull people (and most people attracted to Usana are health AND wealth oriented) are more likely to start their own business, meaning the are the governors of their own lives. Who knows it might be a niche market for you too!
This goes well with your title that attracted my attention: The Foundation Of All True Wealth … Isn’t Money At All.
Bravo!
Etienne,
Take care.
Thank you so much Marjory, your information is so valuable to those that want to be healthy.
I can hardly wait for your book.
Just one question, how do you start growing your own food on a back deck, we rent and cannot use the yard for growing, so we would like to start very small with maybe herbs on the deck. If you can please help.
Thank you,
Find some nice pots. Old ones, new ones, big ones, little ones. Get them from friends, at garage sales, thrift stores, or where garden centers are tossing out dead plants. Fill them up with “organic” garden soil from the local big box. I know, not the best, but if you can source better go for it! Plant what ever you want to grow in the appropriately sized container. Remember you can plant several things together especially in the BIG planters. Check out some of the gardening books on container planting.
I’d also advise you to look up how to grow worms on line. You don’t have to buy one of those expensive worm farms though as you can do it with plastic storage containers, newspaper, a little dirt and a few worms. Then once started all you need to add is kitchen waste. In a year or less you’ll have enough worm castings to start your next seasons container garden.
I have nothing to contribute. I completely agree with everything you said except that I thought the greatest deficiency was Vitamin D instead of water.
I started a garden in 2012 using composted manure added to a former lawn area. Removed sod, added compost, mixed soil and compost by hand with shovel, planted seeds, grew wonderful tasting food. Began mulching once plants were 4″ tall. That first fall we added another layer of compost and deep mulched the beds (8″ of dried shredded leaves). Second year, we planted the same number of plants, but had more than twice the production! Healthier soil makes for stronger plants that produce more food. Comparing the taste the second year to store bought fruits and vegetables was like the difference between cake and cardboard! By the way, we ended up canning some 200+ pints of salsa that second year! What a difference a year makes. California’s Central Valley, zone 9b. Great for tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, summer squash, cucumbers, and dried beans.
Very informative Marjorie. I missed watching the first one, but will make an effort to watch subsequent videos. Good luck with the book.
I am so sorry I subscribed to these posts. They’re wonderful but there are soooooooo many – it’s clogging my email totally. I can’t unsubscribe. When I click on manage your subscriptions, I get a blank screen. Help!
Your article is excellent. The fact that multi vitamins are merely a poor supplement is something not well understood by most people. Thank you for explaining this in a clear, concise manner.
I didn’t know that most organic fruits and vegetables are now produced by huge farms. Thanks for sharing that information.
Your article is excellent. The fact that multi vitamins are merely a poor supplement is a fact not understood by most people. Thank you for explaining this in a clear and concise manner.
Love your work and I’m so glad you’re sharing your knowledge! I would love to know what you eat, maybe a week’s worth of what you eat including recipes.
I have ‘messed around’ with gardening most of my life. Once I was stuck in an apartment and begged the landlord to let me grow something in the patch of soil in front of my parking space. I was aloud to do this and got some nice cabbages. Probably full of stuff leaked from vehicles but still tasty (though likely not very healthy.) Unfortunately most of my food has come from grocery stores, fast food joints and restaurants despite these occasional forays into gardening. I have grown old (born in 1950) on the “All American Diet.” (Canned, packaged, over processed, high sugar, fat and salt)
Old and sick with osteoporosis, allergies, and an immune system that is attacking my skin (psoriasis) and my joints (RA). My doctors put me on a “medicine” that in higher doses is a chemotherapy drug. After about a year on that they wanted to put me on yet another ‘biologic’ drug that would further suppress my immune system. My body rebelled before I could pile that drug on top of the other. I don’t drink any alcohol or take any drugs not prescribed, nor have I had any physical injury to my pancreas but I still came down with acute pancreatius this past February.
All along I had been bothered with the idea of trying to shut down my immune system to ‘protect’ my skin and joints. It seemed to me like putting a muzzle on your best guard dog and then chaining it up. Forever. I asked the doctors WHY my immune system was doing what it was. They never did give me an answer I liked. Mostly it was just, “Well, it happens sometimes. The Immune system just turns on the body.” Just as for reasons unknown my pancreas decided to have a melt down for no known reason.
My personal belief is that my years of “All American” eating has caught up with me in more ways than me being more than 100 pounds overweight despite constant attendance to Weight Watcher meetings.
While I was hospitalized with Acute Pancreatitus I was on IV fluids for several days (as well as antibiotics for a UTI) and of course pain meds. For a few days I ate nothing from any source. I doubt there was even anything other than saline solution and meds in that IV. The swelling in the joints most affected by RA went down despite all the liquids being pumped into me.
i had begun to suspect before this that the guard dog of my immune system was barking and scratching at something that worried it while it attacked my skin and joints. I do think it was saying there is ‘something’ there it don’t understand. ‘something’ it thinks or knows will hurt us! It just can’t get to it!! And I think that for a brief moment there in the hospital when my system cleared of the ‘All American Diet’ and before they let me start slowly eating again my ‘guard dog’ was able to back off from my joints just a little.
Unfortunately, while I now have more than enough land for a great garden and the time, I no longer have the health or the income to make it happen quickly. But I am working on it and trying to stick to whole foods as much as I can. This ‘chapter’ of your book however points out that I really need to ‘get cracking’ on my garden. My hens are hard at work getting it started but I may still need to do at least a little digging in this black land clay that covers most of North Eastern Texas.
I know that horse manure (which I have good access to!) is great for helping to improve the soil. When I was younger and still living in a Dallas suburb I was far enough outside of the actual city ( I had 3/4 of an acre) that I could finely fulfill my dream of owning a horse. Of course, to keep the neighbors from complaining I had to scoop all her poop up and hide it somehow. I piled it up inside a cattle panel bent in a ‘C’ shape and covered with chicken wire to keep the poop inside. To hide it I panted squash, tomatoes and cucumbers around the outside. That soil was just as much clay as what I have here and I was giving away veggies then with practically no work other than picking up after my horse. Needless to say I have treated my hens to copious amounts of what I’ve gotten out of my horse barn as well as enough wood chips to scratch in.
I have high hopes for my soon to be garden. As for advise to total ‘newbies’ to gardening, I know that the biggest fear you probably have is that you will “do all that work and NOTHING will grow!” If you get good seeds or buy decent plants and give them just half a chance they will grow. Nature just loves to grow stuff. Some will be weeds. Just pull them or chop them and pile them around the base of your vegges. Plant some spices as well as veggies and some flowers! Just plant as much as you can and work with old Ma Nature. She likes when the kids help out.
As last time, this chapter was clear and to the point. I look forward to more.
Your points about nutrition are spot on. I always try to encourage others to grow some type of food even if they just start with radishes or lettuce. So far sounds like the book is going to be good. Looking forward to the next video.
Hi Marjorie, I enjoyed your video and the suggestion that we can grow our own veges in our back yards and increase our nutrition and it’s do-able for everyone who wants to give it a go.
Thank you
I see you even have the local insects checking the lighting, make-up and camera lens for you. Good job. I am an amatuer gardener and I love to work in my garden just for the “connect with the earth” feel it gives me. Most of what I grow I give away and in that there is a lot of satisfaction too.
I have read that not only do you need “food dense” soil but the plants themselves need companions besides just many more of themselves to grow with. A mixed garden with a large variety of plants is as a whole much more vibrant and able to survive what nature sends its way. For instance this past year here in Pa. we had an extended dry spell. I discovered that the self seeded ground cherries that were everywhere also had an extensive root system that helped to hold the dry soil in place. This was something I was unaware of and will take that into account when I “weed” my garden this year.
Unrelated plants provide havens for not just beneficial insects but also sources for bacteria, fungi, microorganisms- in other words an ecosystem- that change soil into something a plant can use. Sort of like the old saw about the chinese menu where you can pick one from column A and two from column B and so on. Mono patches of potatoes or corn anything only get to pick from one colunm.
I enjoyed your presentation. I am very interested in learning how to make that fantastic soil. I do put manure in my garden, but do I need salt or minerals, etc. What is the best way to get live healthy soil in raised beds or in my garden?
It could be my speakers but the sound was a little bit blury.
Great work.
Hi. Huge fan of yours, but never a commenter.
How many of us have a story or memory of our grandparents on the farm, or garden? Eating those garden strawberries or crisp peas? The wonderful flavor. We know things are different because we have a reference point. We know how things need to be grown to have the taste we remember.
Who will be that “grandparent” for future generations? So many kids in school have no idea about how food is grown other than sprouting a pea in a cup or plastic bag in a windowsill. We need to grow food not only for our own health, but to educate and make memories for our children! The knowledge needs to be passed on that food needs to taste this good! And it fosters respect for the food and the grower to see how much time and energy it takes. Even if your garden partially fails till you get the hang of it, you have taught valuable lessons.. Patience, perseverance, respect and never giving up even when Murphy’s law triumphs.
Videos are awesome! Keep it up!
I love your videos, they are full of helpful information in a short period of time. I have discovered that the most important thing of gardening is the soil. Every year you have to feed it. It makes the veggies taste better.
Keep up the good work.
Marcia
Good info. I wonder who your audience is: people like me are saying, got that, know that. So the only thing you could add (like Amy said), would be references to studies that show the deficiencies, the epidemic, etc. (so that we could give this book to family and friends). If your intended audience is people who don’t have any idea about nutrient dense foods, it might be overwhelming to them to hear that even eating “healthy” at from a grocery store isn’t enough and they’ll give up.
I like how Dr. Fuhrman encourages people first-eat lots of vegetables. Secondly eat organic version of the most sensitive foods like strawberries and spinach. Thirdly, if you can eat all organic foods.
I liked your anecdotes. Personal experience matters. Perhaps graphs and charts could be in your book as well. Tips on how to shop the farmer’s market – what to ask the vendors to discover the source for their goods.
Perhaps, consider making your book more of an anthology. Collect works that cover what you want that are already out there.
All the best!
I’m ready for more. I agree good nutrition starts with good soil but I never thought of the actual variety of vegetables varying in nutritional value. I own a high tunnel and this will be my 3rd year growing in the same soil only using fish fertilizer. I had a whitefly infestation and it took a toll on my crops. I am just now researching making home-made fertilizers. I am worried about human sludge in compost. I need more good information.
Marjorie: Awesome!! I totally agree with you. It truly is easy to grow in your own space. Which I have been doing however there is always new things to learn from each other so I am all ears to hear your advise. I will be moving to a new location where I will have a challenging small sandy soiled yard to grow my food. Like the sand you showed in your video. Can’t wait to hear all of your advise.
Good video Marjory.
I live in in the Okanagan in Canada. I grow over 40% of my veggies if one counts in the edible weeds. I go to the local farmers markets plus I do a little wildcrafting.I am planning on doing more this year.
I fully agree that industrial farming is nutrient deficient. Many studies have proved that. Because I grew up on a farm eating nutrient dense food I find that most food from the store is flat and tasteless.
Keep on ROCKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Namaste
Fred
I started eating more healthy in stages: I didn’t like the way my parents aged and died young, so I wanted to change that. i always ate a balanced meal as far as what I knew then. As years went on and I became more and more interested in health, nutrition, and good food. I decided to finally become a nutritionist. It took me awhile to do anything with my credentials, but I finally have started my own website helping special needs kids get healthier. It’s rewarding and I’m so glad I cared enough about my own nutrition, then my family’s, and then now other kids that need guidance in that area. I used to have a 1,000 sq. ft. garden and grew just about everything and anything. I loved challenging myself, when someone would say, “you can’t grow that here.” Then I would prove them wrong.
Thank you Marjory! I loved your video!
The short interjections of personal experiences and family really brought your story “down home”.
I totally understand where you are coming from. I had grown my garden in the same plot for years. Each year top dressing with compost and working it into the top layers counting on when I watered, nutrition would be carried down deep to the roots of the mature plants.
After many years I noticed that the same greens, toms and cukes were weak. The soil was tested at our ag dept. A & M. and it was reviled that the manure compost I had been using was actually causing deficiency due to the major imbalances of potassium, magnesium and phosphorus. I was advised to let the garden rest and not amend the soil for 3 years to allow the excesses to leach out!
Lessons are that it is important to rotate crops and locations!
You are fantastic and I hope to follow you for years to come!
When I was born in 1940 my mother was living on Los Angeles oranges and crackers because they were free which se cold afford on her small wages as a dance teacher. I am sure it was the highly refined wheat in the crackers that caused me to be born allergy propensity to many foods first fed to babies. I survived because we ate mostly from what we harvested from the salt water and a garden in forest soil. I did not thrive until at age ten we got goats and I started getting the nutrients I missed in infancy when a mis informed doctor told my mother to stop nursing me. I am still alive and producing a lot of my own food on the farm.
Hello Majory,
I completely understand your desire and goal with this video series and future book. One aspect I hope to address and perhaps you can to is urban farming or growing. With most people living in towns or cities, growing their own is not possible. Apartment living or condo, maybe a patio. Now, my suggestion is to buy into a coop, but still press for indoor garden with grow lights and sprouts. That said, will you touch on that, perhaps in a big way. To me, a back yard garden or green house is an easy sell, but most people live in cities. How do you and I help them. That will be a part of my teaching once my site is up and running. Love your teachings. Keep up the good work. Regards.
Hi Marjory,
Thank you for posting this wonderful video. I’m from India and am able to grow vegetables mostly during the rainy season when my backyard simply blooms with some leftover growth happening during the winter as well. This year I had loads of tomatoes as well as guar and brinjals. Our summers are extremely hot along with water shortage so I let the beds rest, except that I mulch it with the organic compost produced from my kitchen and garden waste. Still nothing much grows during this season, or it burns under the scorching sun.
Another problem I have is a tree which sheds leaves covered with sticky aphids during the summer; left alone these critters simply destroy the perennials. It has even affected a Neem sapling growing under it! I’m not allowed to cut this tree though I do get its branches trimmed. Also, I shoot the aphids with the waterhose gun and spray the leaves with soapy water or a Neem oil solution.
As for my soil, it was almost as bad as yours when I had first moved in and all that grew here and in my neighbor’s yard were weeds! I put in raised beds, lined them with cardboard and added newly purchased soil and cow manure. Since then, my secret for growing strong food plants has been the compost and cow manure which I add in small quantity to the beds at the beginning of the monsoon rains.
Knowing where my food comes from gives me a feeling of control over my nutrition and I hope that in the coming years I will be able to grow more varieties of vegetables and fruits.
Hi Marjory,
I could listen to you for hours. Thanks for sharing this. I have to say that I am glad you are writing your book but also hope that you will also present these video lessons. Such an excellent way to gain knowledge and retain it. As an instructor and developer of training materials I know the value of presenting and creating materials in multiple complementary formats to appeal to the various adult learning styles. So I encourage you to consider this as well. I think you have and are doing a great job with these. I also like that you make me want to know more and do my own research. I have personally experienced some of the miracles of being more conscious in making better choices nutritionally. So fun to have my doctors want to learn from me what I have been doing. (They don’t know this and it is sad because all they know is SAD and even that knowledge is limited.) My challenge is having a decent yard to actually grow things. But I have set up a few pots of herbs on my lanai and have recently taken on sprouting in my kitchen to have fresh nutrient rich greens to eat. Who knew sprouted green peas and sunflower sprouts could be so amazingly delicious! As I say so yummy they make me wanna dance (and I do). Please keep these coming and thank you for asking us to be a part of your journey.
Dear One
Very much in line with my beliefs.Yet I refir to you and the others that were mentioned to remind my self the truth.Living in “Tribal Culture”around my health needs will always be an important part of my daily meditation.
Suduction to easy and fast antidotes slip into my ways just to quickly.
Than I begin scrachy throat & cranky tummy,
Moodiness.Back to square one.
So thank you Sister.
Your book is a healing ministry tool we all need in our arsinal.
Kindest Regards
SusanECarpenter
Localvore Chef
Thank you for an easy-to-understand video about better health. I have a garden every year and love the fresh produce. This video reminded me to upgrade my soil again. I had horses and the horse manure made a great garden! But it’s been a while since then and the quality of my produce has declined.
PS. Marjorie, I’m a ghost writer and editor. If you need help with your book please feel free to reach out.
Awesome information. Thank You
I enjoyed your video. I am a senior living in a small apartment complex in Ontario. My neighbour & I have a vegetable garden in the backyard. Last summer was the first time we had a garden & we shared it. This year we each have our own & I am planning to add a second one. I am using the square foot method which I like & I am trying winter sowing for the first time. I am excited to see what my little greenhouses produce. I am wondering if it is best to use heirloom seed varieties or is that necessary for nutrient value. I make sure I get organic, non GMO seeds atleast & some are heirloom but not all. I am wondering about the nutritional value & whether it is most affected by the soil?
Wonderful talk.
The piece about organic vegetables really hit home. The result. 2 garden beds ready to go this afternoon. Thank you!
Good Job!
My question is what have you learned about the nutritional value of native wild harvested edibles growing in whatever soil they happen to live in. I live in Florida so you know the type of soil here. Looks very much like what you had but yet so many great plants thrive in it
I’m loving this! Can’t wait for more!
Marjory, the MDR, minimum daily requirement is called the minimum amount we need to avoid disease. THe RDA , the recommended allowance is the amount recommended for health. ( I agree it’s not enough)
Love your videos and blog. You are an inspiration. Thanks for all you do. I now have a backyard garden and it’s my happy place.
I loved what you had to say but the video keep getting light and dark and there was a fly or something flying around in front of the camera getting in the spot light lol.
Well done as always Marjory! I can’t wait for the book! I compile everything I get from the grow network because in one year I will retire (I work in the restaurant biz in Ft. Myers, Fl) and I plan to buy a couple acres and a little house somewhere and put all your wonderful knowledge into use. I just don’t know where to go to have a community of like minded people. Any advice would be much appreciated !! I am much like you, full of enthusiasm and boundless energy. Thanks Marjory….can’t wait for the next video !!!! Jennifer Metz
I am willing to relocate anywhere in the U.S. to live among people who know true wealth comes from the soil !!!!
I do think that good soils affect the health of plants. My grandparents in New York City had a backyard garden and my parents had a tomato garden in Ohio and my ex-husband and I had a vegetable garden in Iowa. I do have to give him all the credit for the garden, because I watered it and weeded it occasionally, but he was the one who prepared the soil in the Spring, renting a power tool to turn over the soil and break up the large clumps of soil and clay. He was from Spain and so he knew that we needed to incorporate “natural” fertilizer into the soil. He bought cow manure to do the task. We grew tomatoes, peppers, onions, eggplant, green beans and zucchini. The most successful were the zucchini. We couldn’t keep up with it. The worst were the lettuce, they were just too small and puny. Our broccoli didn’t look like healthy plants, but more like broccolini, the spindly type. I do believe what you say that it is becoming more important to grow our own food. However, now I am 70, a Parkinson’s patient living in a small townhouse in Arizona. How can I do this? I enjoyed this video much more than your first one.
spring
I liked the video. I often wondered about the soil used for growing veggies and how we were losing out on the quality of products produced.
Water is also a major concern; I’m thinking of using rain water collection for my bucket farming. Is that good or bad?
I’ll keep watching the videos.
I am a firm believer that soil plays a HUGE part in affecting plant health – planting in poor soil usually prompts poor growth, (if any growth at all). I have been a home gardener for over 50 years and I think I’m confident enough to say this, through my own experience – I usually keep a well nourished compost pile close by, so that I can incorporate this goodness into my garden soil, and believe me, it does make a big difference on how plants grow when given good soil to grow in. It’s like feeding your child, if you feed him/her store bought processed food, what do you get, a child that is usually mostly unhealthy and always wanting to eat something as they seem to be always hungry – why – because the processed food is unhealthy and lacks the nutrients needed for a healthy body, in my opinion. Same goes with growing food in your garden, if you feed your plants the nutrients they need, then you will be blessed with full-bodied, deliciously-tasting, healthy food that you are proud and happy to put in your body.
As for question two, I am over 60 years old and have only been in the hospital 3 times in my entire life (and 2 of those times was to have children). I am a firm believer in growing and processing as much of my own food as possible, where possible, because it does make a big difference in one’s health.
I have always been a healthy eater, whether home-grown fresh produce from my own garden (or from a good friend or relative who so generously share their extras with me) and eating privately owned farm fresh eggs, meat, and poultry and anything else I can get my hands on that has been locally and naturally produced. I believe strongly that how our ancestors ate and what they ate is a very good indication on where we should be focusing our attention on in order to produce healthy people. We are a very sick and unhealthy society any more and it is very heart-breaking to see this wherever you live or look. Our society has to take a very strong view and stand and start changing the quick-to-eat-the-cannned-and-pre-packaged foods and fast foods that are so abundant and tempting all around us and make it our choice to eat the healthier, less health-destroying products that we can grow on our own, whether from a farm or acreage or even if you live in an apartment, we can all produce at least some of the nutrient rich produce that we eat.
The advice I would give a newbie gardener – get down and dirty in your own garden – play in the dirt, and have fun, knowing the rewards will be so worthwhile. If you are intimidated, take a beginning gardening course, or better still search out the best garden in your own neighbourhood and get some hints and tips from that garden expert, they love to talk about their gardening experiences. We all had to start some place and the best place to start is right where you are. Don’t be afraid to jump in with both feet, there’s nothing in that dirt that is going to say ‘you’re doing it the wrong way’, because in my opinion – there is no wrong way when it comes to gardening!
Thank you for the opportunity to watch all your wonderful videos, Marjorie, love them all and love all the hints and tips and expert advice you and others so freely give. Keep up the great work!
Marjory’
We have recently started square foot gardening as developed by Mel Bartholomew several years ago. Do you have an opinion on this method growing your own food?
I CAN;T SAY ENOUGH GOOD ABOUT THIS ARTICLE. MAKES ME SO ANXIOUS TO GET MY HANDS IN THE SOIL.
can;t saY ENIUGH GOOD ABOUT THIS ARTICLE. MAKES ME SO ANXIOUS TO GET MY HANDS IN THE SOIL.
Good job, Marjory, on every thing but the Vitamin and Supplement Section. You might want to rethink where vitamins (vital minerals) stand in your hierarchy of health. I under stand the Passion you have for what your doing but your passion changed to disphoria as soon as you started speaking of them.
The doctor I told you about Andrew Saul PhD, is an avid gardener, by his words his whole back yard is an organic garden. He juices and drinks by his own words a quart and a half, daily, of carrot/apple, carrot/celery/kale….and does some serious supplementing.
You need to find out What and How many vitamins and supplements he takes? I won’t tell you but i will tell you that his mentor Dr. Abram Hoffer PhD took 51 doses a day and his friend(Hoffers) Linus Pauling Phd took just a little less.
Your home work assignment(a little Mission Impossible music here) is to get the movie Food Matters and then his (Andrews) movie,That Vitamin Movie.
I would love you to have success in your venture, that is why I am giving you, my Honest assessment of what I heard you say.
God bless and Gods Speed
PS You would SCREAM if you knew how many supplements I take and I juice a quart a day,ooah!
Hi Marjory,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about growing nutritious food, and also for inviting comments.
** Do you think good soil affects plant health? If yes, what personal experiences make you think so?
To start, I am partners with my son, John, on an organic farm. My son is the brains of the outfit, but I’m learning. Our primary products are grains (oats, wheat, millet, amaranth, and more). We use mostly heritage seeds. Our vegetable garden is based on double digging.
Double digging, as taught by Jeavons, removes a one-foot deep row of soil, then turns over a one-foot deep second layer. Compost and any other materials are mixed into each layer separately. The upper and lower layers are not mixed because they provide a home to different microorganisms.
Cover crops are grown to enrich the soil and then to contribute to compost (for carbon enrichment).
If you know about John Jeavons, you know that building topsoil is a key to growing nutrient-rich foods without depleting the soil of nutrients.
Our farming is organic and biodynamic. My son studied biointensive farming with John Jeavons and studied biodynamic farming at a Rudolf Steiner school.
Our basic philosophy is to feed our customers the best nutrition possible from a local source. This nutrition starts with feeding and grooming the microorganisms in the soil. Healthy plants resist pests and illnesses through their own natural defense systems, and they need a little help from time to time to compensate for weather conditions and rainfall.
Biogeometry also plays a role in our farming. Maintaining good energy helps plants to grow strong and healthy.
Your presentation was mainly about the benefits to eating nutritious food, but it made me think about the care and feeding of plants, and therefore about caring for the soil.
** Have you noticed any improvements in your health due to better eating?
Yes! General good health and the fading away of allergies.
** What made you decide to start eating more healthfully?
While a student (getting BA degrees in biochemistry and biology), I became interested in nutrition (1978). This started with discovering the loss of nutrients in packaged foods and escalated with learning about soil destruction in “modern” agriculture. I wanted to feed my family good food without poisons (reflecting on “Silent Spring” and advice from Adele Davis).
** What advice would you give to a newbie gardener who is intimidated about starting to grow their own food?
Start small with one row, a growing bed 4 or 5 feet wide and about 20 feet long. Start with learning about double digging and growing biointensively. And learning how to build productive compost piles. This is not difficult with a few good tools and some helpful instructions. The tools and techniques are described very well by John Jeavons.
http://www.johnjeavons.info/
http://www.growbiointensive.org
Thanks again,
Ed DeRosier
Well,I really enjoyed your video clip. I will be making a lot bigger effort to grow more of my own food in the future.
I haven’t put enough thought into my soil and can see that a better go on my behalf will really optimise my family and my health.
Easy to listen to and understand, thanks for your passion to share this information with anyone who wants to know?
Very good information, Marjory. I liked it, although the fly buzzing around was a tiny bit distracting. I hope in your book that you site the supplement companies that are doing a good job with their products. To answer your questions, Yes, I believe soil is incredibly important. I’ve been feeding my awful soil for the last 4 years and have had some of the richest foods come out of it. I am currently using the Ruth Stout method. My goal is to grow all of my food, one way or another even though I have a rather small yard to do this in. This can also be tough living in Michigan, but one step at a time.
I suffer from an inflammatory disease, and have been following a Paleo for Auto Immune diet for the last 2 1/2 years. I’ve never been more healthy in my whole life. I attribute garden to table eating as a key component in this health.
My advice to newbie gardeners is to just dig a whole and start planting. It doesn’t have to be perfect. The second you see something coming up from the ground, I promise you will be addicted. It’s amazing.
Thank you for the work that you do, Marjory.
Loved the hand slap! Too many people believe that supplements ARE the ultimate option for optimal health. And you presented that as a fallacy with humor! I enjoyed the the video, now I’m waiting for the next. Thank you!
Linda in Bastrop
This was an excellent video. Years ago I had done extensive research into the work of Dr. Price, and I can say for a certainty that you are spot on. I have struggled to grow an adequate garden, for about 15 years now, due to the fact that I have soil that had stripped down to the gravel. I had read and invested in more gardening books than you could possibly imagine, only to discover that it’s all the same rhetoric recycled over and over again. There were good tips of course (ie; add more organic matter ), but never the connecting information or serious steps to make it applicable to the real world of having soil that was so bad that weeds wouldn’t grow in it. I became disgusted. Eventually I gave up, and my health suffered for it. Then, last year I had a similar breakthrough that you had, and I decided to ignore every rule of gardening and composting, except one: add organic matter. Only it wasn’t the thin layer of manures, hay, mulches or tiny tributes of coffee grounds we are told to do. I rallied my friends and family to give me their field dressings from hunting and fishing. I added the Soot from my wood stove, ashes, weeds, and anything I could find. As much as I could get my hands on. A miracle happened. Tiny remnants of potatoes sprouted, from plants I had tried to grow organically over a year prior. From those grew beautiful, disease free plants, that gave a generous yield and survived freezes, heat, and drought.
That being said, I would love to grow most of my own food, but have been overwhelmed at the prospect of having a garden capable of doing so, and the amount of work that would be required. Where would a person even start, especially if their health is poor? I feel confident that you will explain how.
So back to your video, I give it 5 stars because : 1) it is clear, and concise 2) it is informative and accurate 3) it is usable information that can be applied to worst case scenarios 4) it is inspiring and gives hope that anyone can succeed if they know how 5) you come across as an excellent teacher: you convey authority and enthusiasm. Thank you for making this, and sharing it. I look forward to the next one!
Tying in the research from the different sources is difficult, but you’ve presented it very well.
One tiny suggestion…?
The dehydration/water section is an important point – but might help if it could be tied back to the main soil/plant topic – maybe along the lines of “dry soil is not lively, plants will not grow without enough moisture and your body can’t utilize any nutrients without enough water”. If that’s not feasible perhaps the water references could be moved up or down in the discussion?
I am super excited about the book. I’ve just started selling at a tiny farmers market – I can see where your book on my table might help as a reference when I talk to people. Thank you.
Enjoyed this video too. Good information. Started gardening again after not doing it for several years. Have some health issues and hoping that eating our own food we grow will help that some.
Interesting concept. I have been able to feed our family real food. We raise our own meat and often have our own milk. Our children are healthy. No allergies no chronic diseases yet.
Hi Marjory,
I’ve been gardening 45 years now and every year I learn many new things. This year I signed up to take an online class from Stacey Murphy of bkyardfarmer.com. She started by asking people in Boston if they had a backyard they weren’t doing anything with and would they like a garden in it?!
In this class she makes a distinction between feeding plants and feeding soil. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I’ve always fertilized my plants. Now I’ve always built my soil and added lots of organics to break down and enrich the soil. So now after 45 years I’m exclusively focusing on soil biodiversity/health and doing more with less! Build the soil and the plants will thrive!
Advice to a newbie gardener? START!!! Start with just 2 or three things to grow. REad about them, learn what they need and then PLANT. I had a friend who was desperate to garden. But the more he read, the more confused he became and the more he became quagmired in information overload which paralyzed him from even starting. No ground? Get some pots, top soil and compost and plant something! Not enough sun? Get a grow light and supplement the plants needs. But above all…START!
I just thought of a story that I enjoy.
While our 2 boys were growing up, they had to help in the garden. Often times that meant weed pullilng! One day my oldest (about 12) said, “mom, I’ll clean the whole house! Just don’t make me work in the garden!” Years later when he was out of college and living in Seattle he called and asked me if I had any extra grow boxes “lying around”. I said yes. And then he asked if he could have a couple for herbs and tomatoes. I was so surprised that I loaded them in the car and drove to seattle with plants and dirt in tow.
I planted three boxes for him and got weekly updates and pictures on what was growing and what he was cooking with it.
Two years later he was in Iowa and called and asked me what was the fastest way to get a garden going. I replied, “put in a lasagna garden.” I sent him the book and he and his roommate put one in!
When he moved to Salt Lake city he immediately surveyed the backyard for growing opportunities. I headed to SLC, went to a local supplier and we picked up top soil and compost and went to work ammending a heavy clay soil. It took us three years of modifications to create loam but my granddaughters were always rummaging through plants looking for things to eat from “noni’s garden”. The oldest didn’t like tomatoes until she tasted a garden one and then was convinced that she could only eat Noni tomatoes.
Now they are in Boise, the girls are almost 4 and almost 5, and they’ve been “digging in the dirt with Noni” since they could walk. Josh converted the side area of his yard to raised garden beds, set up a spot for his grow boxes and grows a fabulous garden. I usually go down and plant it for them with plants I’ve started. I even carried 4 tomato plants on the plane one year!
Just goes to prove that though our children may depart from their upbringing for awhile, they may eventually return to it. He now understands the health benefits he grew up with and took for granted! The apple certainly fell close to the tree!
As a kid in early years, grama and grampa grew so much for us in their garden. The dirt was black; today, it’s tan.
A good help for so many of us, would be “Lead times” in your book, where possible. Here, in Northwest Montana, at 3,000 feet, with a realistic growing season of three months, I wasted so much time (in years) planting corn. I finally asked a girl at a greenhouse how to plant corn? She said to start the planting in a container, under a heat lamp, in the garage, in mid May, while the ground outside is still frozen. At the end of June, the land is workable, and the corn can be re-planted outside. By the end of September/October corn stalks should be 7-8 foot high and loaded. Kid deserves a medal.
Great information. Keep up the good work. We need you! Jen Australia
Hi Marjory, I have a small group of woman that meet at my house usually twice a month. We teach each other about canning, gardening, and health. Especially if there is a disaster. After watching your video I am going to play it for our little group. I think that your information will be helpful to all of us. Can’t wait for the next one.
Loved the video and can’t wait to see more. I have been fighting sandy soil for 6 years. I have been hauling my goat and rabbit manure and straw to my garden spot every year and my plants still do not do well. I think I must have bugs of some sort. My plants turn yellow and leaves are eaten. I think maybe slugs, any who I will not give up. It sounds like perhaps you attended Rabbit stick in Rexburg? I live nearby and went last September. I learned so much and had the best experience ever. Thank you for sharing. JoLen
Now I forgot one key ingredient to my success is to use lake water or tempered so in the morning I filled my water cans, leave them out in the sun and you water every night. So oldest manure and equal amount of dry leaves mixed in the fall use in the spring and pow you’ll be the best green thumb on the block very simple and very efficient you will also experience gardening at its best ,my tomato plants grow six feet high and produce 20 to 30 tomatoes each year per plant
Thank you for raising awareness of what we truly should be thankful for and good health is so much more important than so many things I waste my time and money on.
I can’t wait to hear the rest! Great information and a wake up for me as well that does grow my own food, but in the winter months relies on organics from the grocery store. If you could include some food preservation too that would be great. I can a lot, but I know a lot of nutrition can be lost when high heat is used. What do you recommend?
Thank you for all you do!
-Kelly
Another excellent video! I agree soil health is so important for growing as I found out last year with our property we acquired last year, which needed a lot of work (and still does) to bring it back, but with our chickens and goats we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we started from. I love being able to feed my animals from our land and then having them give back to it with their manure 🙂
Excellent information. I say buy local, as much as possible. But make sure you grow your own, grow things that are expensive elsewhere.
When the body doesn’t get the proper nutrients it will start to break down. Like our cars need oil, without it the engine seizes.
Nutrition is the key to optimum health.
Fantastic video. I know more then ever it is time I change the foods I buy and where, I buy them. Thank you.
New to gardening some years ago I was prepping my beds for spring. I ordered some “organic compost” from a cut rate company here in Dallas to save money. I top dressed my beds several inches thick with the stuff and eagerly planted my store bought baby plants and watered daily…. after more than a month, none of the plants had grown at all, literally. And quite a few had simply given up the ghost. I inquired about my problem with my friend Val ( whom I lovingly dub my “gardening guru”). She said test the soil. Spot on, she was. Wacky ph that was completely unfixable. I scraped it off and threw it all over my accursed Bermuda grass lawn in hopes it would kill that nasty weed and started over with a reputable company who’s base was turkey litter. What a difference! The parable of the seeds in the Bible reached out and touched me. I want rich, healthy soil… physically AND spiritually which means I gotta feed it the best stuff, no short cuts! It pays to read the fine print. My friend Val Nolan in cedar hill Texas I highly recommend as an organic gardening resource…she actually studied under Rodail…and she knows Texas’ gardening idiosyncrasies. Two items rarely packaged together. Thanks Marjory! Keep up the good work!
How many times have I heard Val say, “if it’s not in your soil, it’s not in your food!”
I was really surprised that the RDA is so low compared with the actual need for a healthy body. ( I am hoping you will perform a damned miracle for me, all those bags of best compost/potting mix and manure just become sandy rubbish by the end of a growing season. I will really try to keep the soil up, mulching with alfalfa or sugar cane, etc. Being fairly ancient (80) and beset by physical crap) I took heart from your talk that undernourishment, even “organic” may not sort problems unless I actually KNOW what the vegetables have had to eat before I eat them. OK I put off listening to the first talk because I don’t actually get much time to study meaningfully. I perch my laptop on my knee and try to get useful notes. I think you kept the narrative terse and interesting. Quoting the need for organics but mentioning that all “organics” are not equal or even what they purport to be was a telling argument for preparing your own soil and managing one’s own food. Looking forward to the next excerpt…
I’m working on growing my own food, to address my moderate ME/CFS. Unfortunately the ME/CFS gets in the way of bed prep, but I persist. If all energy fails I just throw seed about, see what happens.
I saw a soil map of the UK (where I am) that showed that most soil was polluted with lead, cadmium etc, particularly in the cities. I imagine this is the same everywhere. I’m hoping that soil fungi and bacteria will lock this away somehow, but do you have any information/recommendations on this issue?
I have been trying to do this for a few years, but there seems to be only a few things I can grow well. I can’t wait for your next video and the book. Thank you for all your hard work and ringing the bell to let people know we are being poisoned.
The world is a very scary place, I want to be able to take care of my family and help my neighbors. At 57 my health may not be repairable, but if I can help someone else, that makes it all worth it.
Thank you again!
Thank you. You have excited me and I am thinking at 80 I am going to grow my own veggies! Marjorie is going to show me how.
A helpful addition would be “how you made good soil”? What did you add? Should you not have a source of healthy horse manure, what would you add to soil to have all the nutrients needed?
You are so special. Thank you for all your teachings, enthusiasm and sharing.
Blessings
I too have lived most of my life in Florida – also from Miami (a few years before you!). About 10 years ago, after fostering and then adopting special needs kids, my wife did lots of research on food and behavior, hiring Julie Matthews (before her book came out), learning about leaky gut, reading Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride and Elaine Gottschall. Then we came across The Weston A Price Foundation. My wife became a chapter leader and teacher of Dr Price’s work. We’ve done so much more, but the short of all our research is we now eat healthy and feel so much better. I’ve retired from the Air Force and bought a small farm in Pennsylvania – as far from “Monsanto-Monocrop-BigAg” farms as possible!
The work you are doing is critically needed. But how to get your message through the fog of misunderstanding about food/ nutrition/health to a group of folks who don’t even know they are sick? Heart and being real – which is what hooked me to your camp a couple of years ago as I was making the transition from “desk job” to “farmer/gardener”! I thought the message of your first video was spot on, so I expect the book to be great!
Soil health oh man do I have a story. YES soil does make a difference!!! HUGE difference. Here is my story Feel free to contact me if you want more info.
Several yrs back I decided I would try a garden again. Living under 37 huge fir trees with rocky soil made gardening a no go for the most part. ( that isa story all it’s own) Well I figure the only sunny spot was a flower bed in the front of the house. Like most people that was filled with ornamentals. After all that’s the way you do things right? Well desperate for a garden I took my little car into the front yard. Hooked up a chain with one end on my bumper and the other on the bush and hit the gas. That bush popped out of the ground so easy. Of course the roots broke off but I didn’t really care. I transplanted them any way. If they lived they lived. (which some did sorta yet another story)
With all the bushes gone and transplanted I proceeded to dig and till the soil. At least the best I could with all the rocks and big root balls. I added peat moss & some manure. Even a bit of sand. Well I still needed to build up the soil as I had to fill in the spot. Raised bed would be nice. Shoot I didn’t have that kind of money. As luck (good or bad? to be determined) would have it a friend told me there was a ton of fantastic dark rich compost where she worked. I could have all I wanted FREE! Even FREE delivery! WOO HOO Yes send me a truck load. I was going to have a raised bed garden yet.
Well the truck showed up the next day. Backed in and dumped the darkest compost / soil I had ever seen. Oh it was so crumbly with little bits. Broken down very well. As the truck dumped the smell of diesel made me cough. That truck sure had strong exhaust. That big beautiful pile took my attention away from the smell. As soon as the truck left I was on it. Shovel and wheel barrow in hand. Moving load after load. I would get a few inches layered down and then till it in. I wanted to mix it with all the clay soil and other amendments I had put in. After days of working it was time to plant.
Now I tell ya that soil was so fluffy and smooth. It was if a true zen master had raked it. (well he did hubby) Since I did not have to spend big $$ on the soil I broke down and bought some veggie starts. It was getting late in the season and dang it I wanted fresh veggies. I bought maters, peppers, melons, and several other plants. I also had seeds to plant as well. It took me a whole day to get everything planted. Then I set up a drip line with great care. I had waited so many years to have a garden. I just couldn’t stand the thought of one more failure. Every morning I went out and inspected the plants and eagerly watching for any signs of sprouting. I also went around with a bag and hand picked up slugs. So gross. Carrying around 1/2 a grocery bag full of slugs. If I saw a slug and didn’t have a bag I would stomp it. Now that is gross. Guts go shooting out and you have to pick the skin off your shoe. Yeah supper gross. Hey my garden was at stake, nothing was going to eat my garden. Then the day came I saw sprouts. Oh I was so happy. Wouldn’t be long now.
As the sprouts came up the 2ndary leaves would start to form and the seed leaves turned yellow and dropped off. That was baffling as I had never noticed that happening before. I just figured that maybe I had forgotten that’s what happened. Even more baffling was the pony pack plants I had planted were not really any bigger. They looked older. Had more leaves. Just not much bigger. Now the squash plant had a flower on it and with closer inspection there was even a small squash. I also noticed there was grass growing in the bed near the squash plants. Thinking that is what it was I weeded. However when I pulled up that grass it looked very familiar. Like a corn plant. WAIT that is an ear of corn forming on that blade of grass! I looked at the squash plant and sure enough there was a fully formed squash nice and green yet only an inch long. Down the bed farther there was a strange little leaf weed? I pulled it up and it was a radish! A radish fully formed only it was just a bit bigger than a pencil led.
My whole garden was growing but it looked like a Lilliputian type garden. Every thing was micro small! The strangest thing I ever saw. Not knowing what had happened I figured well maybe once again not enough sun. So I got my shovel to dig up some plants. Thinking if I transplanted them to a pot I could move them around and get more sun. One good shovel full and the problem hit me square in the face like a baseball bat. The very strong stink of diesel, exhaust, gasoline, oil, It was the smell of a mechanics garage. I called my friend and asked her where exactly this dark rich “compost” came from. Well turned out what it was, was the scrapings off the saw mill parking lot! As well as the mechanics shed!
Talk about contamination! Now what was I going to do with all that soil? I couldn’t just dig it up and dump it else where that would spread the contamination. Needless to say that was a huge mess. Took a few years to clean up but we managed to heal the soil. Today it’s clean and grows things quite well. Now you would have thought I learned my lesson from getting things from outside sources. um yes that would have been nice. See I am a slow learner. Good thing I never give up.
A few yrs later I put in a wonderful garden spot. I built that thing like fort knox. Once again I needed top soil & other soil amendments. Since I built it on a slope. I had no other spot. It was far enough from the contaminated soil that I was not worried about that. I got what soil I could from our woods. Then went down and inspected some at our local equipment rental shop. He promised me this was the best stuff ever. I was not going to be fooled by dark color this time. Once again I had truck loads brought up & did the shoveling process. By the end of that summer I could call him and he would deliver faster than dominos plus I could run a tab. Now that was nice. Dangerous but nice. Nothing like starting from scratch year after year. We built a retaining wall. Fenced the area. Built new beds. Filled them all with this “promised” black gold. Planted. Waited. POOF that garden took off like a shot. Radishes were almost as big as the palm of my hand. Strawberries were HUGE. I had never seen squash grow that big. Everything sprang to life. Even if I forgot to water it didn’t phase the plants any. That was the best garden I had ever had. I know it was the soil.
Now I had also been digging a bigger spot since shortly after the diesel contamination we logged. Once again I went down to order truck load of compost and top soil. Now I don’t know what was in that soil but things just did not grow that well at all. They grew just not like they should of. My guess was there was some kind of herbicide after all most of it came from urban lots. So I mixed the really good stuff (from the other garden) with the not so good stuff and that seemed to help quite a bit. Now by this time research and studying on different methods was in full swing. Plus I wanted a green house. No more trees & 100% full sun all over I was planning and digging like mad. That’s when I learned about double digging and adding compost. How to make compost. All that good stuff. During the process of double digging I hit our drain field pipes. CRAAAP. I thought I had measured correctly and would have missed that run. Well I didn’t. All that laundry detergent and what ever else had been used in the house would or could explain why my garden didn’t do so well. Not to mention our well got contaminated so we had to clean it. That meant dumping a gallon of straight bleach down the well head. Then we had to run the water from every faucet & spigot we had, so we could sanitize all the pipes and kill all the bacteria. We had to run that water until it tested clear of bleach. Of course that meant all that bleach water was going into the leach field. So much for that soil. So much for that garden that took 3 summers to put in.
I could say that was the summer of temper tantrums and tears. Shoot anyone could. Only it was short lived. As it was more a summer of discovery. I found tomatoes on our property! There was a spot in the back yard that was a huge steep drop off. Now over all the years we have lived here I had always thrown stuff there. Stuff like grass clippings, goat pen muck, brush, branches, the science experiments from the fridge. My goal was not a compost pile but to build up that steep drop off. Over many many years of dumping there I had done just that. Now the spot was all but level. It is also the best soil on our property. Tomatoes, green onions, lettuce, celery, potatoes& leaf lettuce, all grew there all on their OWN. No water no weeding no planting, no seeding no tilling, no building raised beds, no work at all. Apparently the stuff I cleaned out of the fridge grew! I had even threw out an old house plant that I thought was dead, and it grew. Boy did it grow and grow and grow. Humm now I am learning about invasive species hahaha. (that would be another story)
I was also at that time offered a pile of “top soil” from the neighbors. Free. Course I was not going to fall for that again. They assured me that it was just the soil they had dug out when they put their pond in. Ok I went down to look at it. Hubby was shoveling into the wheel barrow like a mad man. FREE can motivate him like that. As I am walking around looking at it something didn’t seem right. STOP! no we don’t want this dirt. Look at it. What is missing? humm a pile of dirt and no worms? ding ding ding. A pile of dirt that has sat in the same spot for several years and not one weed?! Major red flag. If it is not going to grow a single weed how is it going to grow a radish? Hey I was not going to fall for this again. Even though we were assured that the soil was perfectly fine I turned it down. It would be a few weeks later driving by and the answer to what was going on would be reviled. The owner was out there spraying Roundup on it. He didn’t want the pile to get covered with weeds in case he was going to use it. So several times a year he would go out and spray it with Roundup or Diesel after all we must kill the weeds. Whew that was a close one.
Now 2 summers ago during our drought we still had voluntary pumpkins, squash, tomatillo grow. We did not water at all from April until late Aug. The whole pasture and yard was brown brown brown. Everything was in very sad shape. Everything that is but the compost hugle bed pile we had made. It was green and lush with all those veggies growing. Still didn’t get to harvest any the pigs broke in and had a feast. What they didn’t get the deer did. This year we are trying something different and will just have to wait and see how it goes. We are doing raised beds. Not my fave thing especially after what I have learned. But there is a chance we may decide to sell the house next year and for marketing in our area cute over production will win out every time.
To answer the question does soil effect plant health YES soil does make a HUGE difference! HUGE! So many lessons learned. So, luck to be determined, good or bad? I say it was all good luck. I have learned so much that I otherwise would not have. I just hope I never have to clean up toxic soil again.
Is there any way to read the information that you share in this video?
Thank you
I am sorry, there is just the video for now, Mary. But, thank you for the feedback on what you might like to see moving forward. 🙂
Thank you for this series. I’ve just completed the first video and will be starting the second. My gardening journey began last year with a small plot and is now a food making machine complete with a composting process and a greenhouse. I am absorbing all the knowledge I can get to help me produce the ultimate in nutrition and optimal health. I look forward to video #2.
Excellent! So happy you have enjoyed what you have seen so far. There is more to come, so stay tuned! 🙂
Marjory, as a nurse I have an understanding of the nutritional needs of the body. In practice I do not pick the best foods for myself or my son. The reason I am seeking more information is to produce more of my own food. Knowing the origin of our food really makes a difference in the nutritional value of what we eat. Your GROW-1 video brings it to light, and opens a path to finding better worth from the food choices I make
What made me decide to start eating more healthfully was my allergies. I’m allergic to yeast, black pepper, cranberries, blueberries, sesame seeds and coffee. It was frustrating to always feel sick after eating, not being able to breathe through my noise due to reaction-related inflammation and dread mealtimes. Why I am unable at the moment to dive into homegrown food as much as I would like (it is a goal of mine!), I have noticed a huge difference in my overall wellbeing switching to all organics even as I still rely on the grocery store (aka, unsustainable food system) and hope to change that as soon as possible. I’ve even reduced the severity of some of my reactions.
I’d love to hear answers to the last question – what advice would a seasoned gardner give to a newbie – as I am definitely a complete beginner but am hoping to become much more self reliant in general and especially as it relates to food.
Honestly I think you hit the nail on the head with this one, I have heard other gardeners (and myself included) say the food tastes better. One huge change is taste. The more you ingest healthy foods and taste one of the ‘old foods’ you used to love regularly… I can say it will repulse you, bore your taste buds and disappoint or even scare you knowing this is what you used to eat all the time and its worthless.
Awesome video! Just one quick question: You mentioned the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium mixture. What percentage is each one of those will make the mixture to grow healthy food?
Yes I live in rockwall and was going to the farmers market every sat on the square to find out that most are shipped in produce. So I know grown and buy from a select very few venders. I’m curious where you are located in tx.
I have already learned much of what you have been saying but I enjoy that of which I have not known. Thank you for caring about people and their needs. I am a avid gardener and have been for many years. But, like you and many others I still enjoy learning. So, again thank you for these presentations.
A rural-development foundation in northern Ecuador has designed a 5 x 5 (meters) plot that will feed a 4-member family.
Of course, as W.C. Fields pointed out, “if it’s worth having, it’s worth cheating for!” This is in Ecuador, where we have no killing winter; they do have flats of little seedlings ready to plant where they harvest from, to avoid empty, unused space; they have lots of food hanging from the fences around the edges that keep the animals out.
But 5 x 5 (15′ x 15′)? That sounds like it would fit in a backyard!
Thanks for this chapter!
Over half a century ago, Adelle Davis, who made the science of Nutrition available to the public, titled a chapter in Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit, about nutrient-poor foods, “What Peach? Grown Where?”.
All well and good info Marjory. But right now it’s too durned hot to even work outside for an hour. Even when we get up at the crack of dawn it’s in the mid-80’s or above. So we are taking the Summer off. Cleaning up the backyard mainly, And letting the garden beds lie fallow for now. The soil has improved considerably over what we started from. Come Fall we will try again when things cool down. In the meantime we will check out the new “Sprouts” food store here in Yuma, AZ that opens in a couple of weeks. We will eek it out till then with crummy organics available at the Fry’s market. We try to avoid GMO, try to be gluten free, and use as much toxin free water which I treat with ADYA to precipitate the crud. What supplements we use are from Mike Adams’ (The Health Ranger) organic products.
Hello Marjorie,
Great video. I really enjoyed it. I have lived in Bulgaria for the past two years, and the home gardens, orchards, and vineyards are absolutely amazing and inspiring. I have been privileged to enjoy many fantastic meals where everything on the table came straight from the garden, even including red wine and fruit-based bourbon. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law was just diagnosed with “incurable” bone cancer. We don’t believe that it is incurable, and are searching for alternative natural treatments for her, including Hulda Clark’s biofrequency methods, cannabis oil, medicinal mushrooms, and ozone therapy. My mother-in-law is the ultimate organic gardener, home chef, and expert in different food preservation methods. She has been doing these things her entire life, and I have learned a great deal from her over the past two years. Her cancer diagnosis really surprised all of us, and I came to the realization that good health depends on more than just growing your own food, although it is absolutely a strong foundation. The reality is that we are all daily faced with an overwhelming amount of toxins from every area of our modern lives. We have to focus on realizing and minimizing these toxins when ever we can. A great place to start is filtering your water and refusing potentially harmful vaccinations. We have to learn how to detox our bodies as well, especially regarding heavy metals like aluminum and mercury. In order to have the best possible health, and to avoid devastating diseases, we also must be conscious of internal parasites, and learn how to cleanse our kidneys and livers at least once a year. There is not much information out there on her specific condition (multiple myeloma), even on websites like Natural News and The Truth About Cancer. If anyone has conquered the unconquerable, which is our mission, any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Best Regards,
Greg Carpenter
My advice to someone just starting to grow their own food is to start small. Just start with a small area and grow one or two things. Once they see how that works out, and they eat what they grew, it will be like their eyes are open for the first time. The next year add one or two more things. Etc as the years go on. Pretty soon, they have a huge garden and are sharing it with their friends, family, and neighbors.
Way to go Marjory. What you say has a real ring of truth about it. I thought you might enjoy these instructions from the Virginia Company to settlers of Virginia.
” Neither must you plant in a low or moist place because
it will prove unhealthfull. You shall judge of the good
air by the people, for some part of that coast where the
lands are low have their people blear eyed, and with
swollen bellies and legs, but if the naturals be strong and
clean made it is a true sign of a wholesome soil. ===12 VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON.
From: https://archive.org/stream/historyofvirgini00neil/historyofvirgini00neil_djvu.txt
I really admire you and everything you do. I have been getting your emails for a few years now and I just love the content. It coincides with other health info I get from quality sources (not the ‘corporate-for-profit-only…at-the-expense-of-the-planet-and-all-living-creatures-in-it’ sources). The sad thing is I have never had a garden and I still don’t (I have an aloe plant I’ve managed to keep alive for 2 years now). I’ve read and watched videos on gardening and growing food so much that I feel I should be an expert, but I have yet to put any of it into action. I don’t own land, and I move too often to put down roots. I’ve considered trying to grow using containers so I can move them with me, but haven’t tried yet. I’m having health problems that are getting worse and I know if I could get out of the city, grow my own food and live and work closely with the land, open air, less people around, have animals around, I will truly heal. I have used supplements and they do not help much. Food is medicine, and I must make it mine. In the meantime, I use whole food supplements and buy organic animal products at the grocery store. I have avoided farmers markets because it ends up being the same food that’s being sold at the grocery store for the same price, at least around here they are (Toronto, Canada). Thank you so much for the suggestion to go buy from local farms directly, it’s a brilliant idea. I had looked into many of them years before but never got around to actually going to any. I think that’s what I’m going to do now, until I get growing myself. Please keep these videos coming, I will start growing something one of these days. You are awesome!
This is a good introduction. I agree that one should visit the local farms before buying. Gardening is time consuming for me because I use horse manure from my horses. I have a ton of weeds. I spend many hours weeding but I do have great crops. I need to devote more time to learning how to manage my soil. Our soil is naturally pretty good so I get lazy about it but I pay for it in time spent weeding. The good news is that even when I don’t weed much I still harvest a lot.
I went back to teaching in a public school after 15 years away and some time teaching in a private school where most of the students had home gardens and a very healthy life style. The difference in the students was amazing as well as sad. Anxiety had become a huge issue as well as IBS and lots of serious health issues like cancer. I think that there are a variety of reasons for this but less nutritious food is probably one of them.
Very good, I had a gut feeling some of this organic labeling wasn’t real you just verified it thank you I try to do the best that I can and I live in an apartment upstairs but I do have it a balcony with no sun what do you think?
Thank you
Dear Majorie,
I don’t know if this will help but it is an observation. I am a 74 tear old Caucasian male who from the age of 22 has spent most of my life in East and Central Africa. When comparing my health to that of many of my peers back in the UK I have far less health issues.
How much this is genetic and how much lifestyle I do not know. What I do know is that apart from the occasions when on leave back in the UK and infrequent visits to local restaurants, we rarely ate fast foods or processed meals but only home prepared meals using local, seasonal, fruit and vegetables together with meat (occasionally) and fish (frequently) purchased until recently from small local shops.
Clearly this was not always organic but it is likely that much of it was. To the best of my knowledge, no GM foodstuffs have ever been consumed.
Only in recent years has the supermarket store become the source of much of our foodstuffs, something I intend to change shortly having just purchased 4.5 ha of potential farmland in southern Zambia, a place which I now consider my home.
Kind regards,
Lots of really great information in the video. I will be sharing the video on social media for all of my friends and family to watch.
Please give me some advice on how to grow a garden in the backyard that is taken over by Japanese Beetles (currently using natural methods to try to rid them from the yard), and deer.
Well I came to America 40 plus yrs. ago , the shape of people at the time were not like now , what went or going on now? I think we are more inflamed now than ever so over bodies selfprotecting oranigsms react and we grow bigger not healthier. So what we should do now ,no choice but go back to the land or be sick ( medicine is just business not your health/ help and our Gov. isnot doing its job of protecting us fully) I thank you for taking this initiative to help us all to go back to the land-thanks for your teachings.
My best advice for a newbie food grower is to pick one or two foods you REALLY LOVE and try growing those. My first love was tomatoes, so I grow those, and also strawberries because both taste so much better if they are home grown then if they are bought in a grocery store. Then as you learn you can add more things!
thank you for the video. what struck me most was what you said about the temperature, and not feeling cold. I’ve eaten pretty healthily all my life, although the longer one lives, the more effort has to go into it because of what the store sells. I do garden, but don’t have that much success, so most of my food is storebought. But I strive for variety, lots of fresh foods, little meat and lots of nuts and seeds. So even though I have a sweet tooth, I am still pretty healthy, and I definitely notice other people I work with always being cold or hot (and having to turn on the heat or the air conditioner) while I am just fine with the temperature. So yes, I agree, it makes a difference what you eat!!! (and drink, or don’t.)
Loved it! I could use some good horse manure for my garden! One thing I look for is a pastured horse that isn’t grazing in a Roundup treated field.
Having grown my own garden and orchard now for over 20 years, I am a big fan of growing your own, so I’m delighted to see someone like yourself pour so much of your knowledge (and your own special personality too: I enjoy your presentations!) into helping others.
While it is good to be as self-sufficient as possible, I have found this a goal that is too tough for nearly everyone, including myself. A better way to achieve self-sufficiency is to team up with like-minded friends, and help each other. This is not something I have managed to do very often, unfortunately. However, as more people are encouraged to grow their own food, sharing will become an easier goal.
I think it is good to encourage people that even if they can only grow half of their own food – as you say you can teach them to do – that has reduced their toxic burden by half.
Keep up the great work!
Hi Marjory,
I saw your first video what a great start on a very worthwhile project!
I jumped the gun and put together a response to the big question, Where did the minerals go?, before I read all the instructions at the end so here is my garden story at the beginning.
When I retired I was a hundred pounds over weight from eating junk food that was always available at work. This was not good for me especially. Besides all the usual reasons I had polio as a child and never had the strength to cary that much weight. So I decided to start a garden to stay active, eat better and loose weight. Well I was successfull at all three and my garden is now four times larger than when it started and I am 100 lbs. lighter.
One of my favorite vegetables is Blue Lake stringless pole beans. They are also the favorite of pillbug. I had never heard of pillbugs till I lived in California. About 10 to 20 pillbugs will gather around the base the plant and chew through the outer skin of the stalk. The pillbugs then drink the sap as it runs out and are soon joined by the ants. The whole plant soon withers and dies before I get a complete harvest.
This yearI came up with a new idea! I purchases a package of the cheapest one use plastic cups. I cut the bottom off each cup and placed them firmly in the ground around each seedling as they came up. Then I poured a half to a whole inch of used coffee grounds into the cup around the base of the seedling. Pillbug can’t tolerate even the slightest amount of caffene. As a bonus the coffee grounds are a great fertalizer for green beans. I now have a years supply of green beans in the freezer with almost two months left in the season.
That’s my garden story. Now about that happened to the nutrients in the soil and the vegitables.
You brought up the lack of minerals and nutrients in the soil and therefore a serious lack of nutrients in our food. What happened to the nutrients in the soil? Here is my answer:
In a perfect world seeds are planted they germinate and grow sending a whole network of roots down into the soil and a stalk with leaves and branches into the sky. Many plants have a leaf structure that not only collect sunlight for photosynthesis but also direct the rain toward the center or the perimiter of the plant; depending on wether the plant has a tap root or a widespread root network that reaches out to the edge of the canopy.
The roots then draw up the nutrients that have ben made bio-available by the billions of microbes that live in the soil. Without the microbes the minerals and nutrients would not be as available to the plant.
In todays world most livestock that is ninety-nine percent of all land animals eaten or used to produce milk and eggs in the United States are factory farmed”. Because of the close quarters and unsanitary conditions they are fed large doses of antibiotics. The antibiotics and the unnatural diet of corn and soy causes the animals to put on weight quickly. By the time they are sent to the slaughter house many of them close to dying from leaky gut syndrome. The corn and soy fed to livestock is GMO and has ben sprayed with glyphosate (Round-Up)
1. Glyphosate has ben patented as a chelator. That means it binds to minerals and makes them unavailable to organisms. The weight of a bushel of corn has ben offically lowered by 2 pounds because of the missing minerals.
2. Glyphosate has ben patented as an antibiotic. As an antibiotic it disrupts the micro biome in the soil and in your gut. It’s these microbes that make the minerals bioavailable to plants and animals!
Avoid manure based compost unless you know the animals that made it were not fed lots of antibiotics. Most compost sold at the big box store garden centers does have antibiotics in them. Also don’t buy any soil or soil admendment that has the word Biosolids in the ingrediants. Biosolids are sewedge sludge from water treatment plants which contain everything flushed down toilets.
I live in Santa Rosa CA so I grow a year round garden. Something is always finishing and being pulled out and new plants going in. My compost pile gets all the finished plants from my garden. I harvest a cauliflower and I have a 3 foot tall stalk with very large leaves that I chop up with my machetti and put in my compost pile. About once a month I turn the pile and sift out some finished compost. I seem to always have a wheelbarrow full of finished compost waiting for the next bed thats getting turned over and replanted.
I try to keep a hot compost pile going by adding fresh greens regularly that keep it cooking somewhere between 100 -110 degrees. This is usually too hot for worms so I have a worm farm that gets most of the kitchen scraps. The worm castings are a great fertilizer because the microbes in the worms make all the nutrients bioavailable
Manure, Antibiotics, Compost
https://www.planetnatural.com/manure-antibiotics-compost/
Crops absorb livestock antibiotics, science shows
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/antibiotics-in-crops
Glyphosate was patented as an antibiotic … is this contributing to antibiotic resistance?
http://www.naturalhealth365.com/glyphosate-roundup-2170.html
“YES ! GMOs ARE DEFINITELY TOXIC” : DR THIERRY VRAIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVolljHmqEs&t=2363s
This last video is long but worth watching if you haven’t already seen it.
My husband and I both were born and raised in a big city. When we married we decided it was better to raise our family in the country. We bought a cattle ranch. Through the years we learned that to have healthy cattle we needed healthy grass that only came from healthy, living soil. We then applied that thinking to ourselves. We needed to have healthy, living soil to have healthy garden plants that repel pests and diseases. It has taken us a lot of time and study to get our garden where it is today, and we have a much more to learn, but we get better every year. That is the key for new gardeners, I think. A beautiful, bountiful garden with all varieties of vegetables is daunting for the beginner. The beginner needs to be encouraged to start with a few plants, to start small, then add every year as he learns more. Also, what you said about supplements is so important. When someone first learns that he needs to improve his nutrition, he turns to supplements. I think that is partly from our current medical conditioning – take a pill to fix what ails you. But one thing you didn’t say is even if one takes a good supplement, if that person’s body is not healthy, there is now way to know what his body is taking from that supplement. An unhealthy body can not assimilate all that the supplement has to offer so it is not doing that person the good he thinks it is. Gardening is not my favorite pastime, but i will keep with it for the sake of my family. Also, even if it is not my favorite pastime (not that I hate it), I have see a love for it develop in my children. That is the best.
That is a great point. We must begin to adopt a healthy lifestyle if we want to be healthy people. Pills won’t magically make us healthy; proper nutrition, exercise, and sunlight and fresh air will. It is a commitment to living better and more responsibly.
Good soil is essential for growing healthy food. I live in Arizona and our soil is very, poor clay. My best plants grow where I have been able to amend the soil to provide a well-draining, rich compost that supplements the native soil and gives the plants what they need. I know the soil is good, not just because the plants do well, but because many beneficial insects live in my garden. The proof is in the healthy trees and plants currently growing despite high temperatures for months on end. If Papaya can survive in the desert, we all can grow (with a little knowledge and hard work) what we need and want to be healthier, happier people.
I started a little raised garden in the Arizona desert to bring delicious back into the veggies we weren’t finding in stores, after finding a book for an organic gardening class in this local environment. Coupled with a strength training class, and knowledge gained from sustainable food systems courses, I can no longer eat, buy or participate in shopping for food the way I used to for me or my family. I am still learning (and failing is learning!) to grow things well, but it seems to me it shouldn’t take years of education to understand why our conventional food system is failing us in so many ways. I have Farmer’s Markets that I love and depend upon to source healthy food; it’s an injustice to see so many people trying to live healthily and following government guidelines as I did before finding out I had cancer. For years I wondered what had caused me to have cancer – I thought I was doing everything right and mindfully so! Now there is no doubt in my mind how, but also now I feel I cannot be complicit in handing my health over to anyone else. I believe it has to be people taking back their health and this sense of community is what we need more of in helping to find the resources everyone needs to accomplish these goals. My life is so much more enriched by the nutrients and effects on my health that I want more of that for my family and anyone who wants to feel the results of being in the know and in control. Talk to the people who you get your food from and you’ll soon see that your trust needs to be where you get the answers to your questions. It doesn’t take all your time, either, because it becomes a priority. Once you turn the corner you won’t want to go back. Thanks for the insights, Marjory, and I’m going to keep coming back to learn more, just as I do most days from so many good sources.
Bravo Jeanne!
You have very eloquently explained the main cause of illness, which is individuals not taking their health into their own hands! The next step, as you also mentioned, is easily accessible (and affordable) nutritious, health-giving foods. Our governments can be short sighted believing that it is “cheaper” to fix illness, rather than invest in the infrastructure that would be required to help their citizens maintain their health through easy access to these foods.
On a more sinister note, there is also the possibility that there are many who gain financially from the way the current system is run and who, therefore, are unwilling to allow the change that would be required. Toxins from the environment and those that are in our foods are the other part of the picture. Education about eating pesticide-free foods (by knowing where our food comes from) along with detoxifying the body in the spring and fall (we take better care of our vehicles with seasonal tuneups!) would also help us to stay healthier and avoid diseases like cancer.
All blame aside, the point about growing our own food is something almost everyone can do. Even living in an apartment, container gardening on balconies and/or utilizing other devices like wall gardens are possible. For those who these are not an option financially, foodbanks are teaming up with farmers who donate excess produce for a taxable receipt (here in Canada for a charitable receipt 1/4 of the market value of the produce; I’m not sure about the USA but farmers can lobby their governments!). Another option is to start, or volunteer for, a garden in your community that grows food for a local foodbank. I volunteer for one in my community that is run by our local social services department. It provides weekly fresh produce such as carrots, beets, potatoes, lettuce and other greens, onions, leeks, tomatoes, etc… It is a great way to meet other people and there is often someone knowledgeable about gardening employed to overlook the process. They are a valuable resource to learn about growing food from and it feels great to be able to give back!
Lastly, in Canada we have the NFU (National Farmer’s Union) and I believe there is a simliar organization in the states, which lists online, and in a publication, contact information for farmers to assist consumers in accessing healthy foods.
Thank you and keep up the great work Marjory!
Excellent video, Marjorie. It follows much of what I am also finding with the food sources we are offered in the typical grocery stores. I do grow a vegetable garden and enjoy the seasonal produce right at my fingertips. I do, however, take several vitamins. Tests reveal I have a digestion issue and don’t absorb nutrients that I should. I am taking HCL, probiotics and enzymes at each meal. But I am usually still low in a few things, and supplement to bring those levels up to an optimal level.
Keep up the great work!
Great video! I also have very sandy soil and have chosen to got with raised beds filled with my own compost and other natural amendments. One tomato plant filled up the whole entire 4X6 bed and produced all season long!