“Let thy food be thy medicine” - It’s hard to argue with that logic. We eat all the time so why wouldn’t we want our food to be the main contributor to our health?

 

I’ve struggled with gut and autoimmune issues over the years so it has become a necessity and passion to understand what makes a healthy body. I saw Gut Specialists, Doctors, Naturopaths and Chiropractors which all have their place and certainly helped. I listened to hundreds of hours of health podcasts discussing distilled research and experience from doctors and other experts. I got on the supplements band wagon and learnt a bit of bio-chemistry. This all helped get me out of a hole but more importantly I was slowly being led towards the root cause of the issue.

 

As complex as the human body is, it turns out the solution is simple:

 

• We get our nutrition from plants (macro and micro nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, redox molecules etc.) .

• Plants get there nutrition from the soil.

• You can only be as healthy as the soil that produced the food you eat. 

 

There’s no such thing as nutritious plants without healthy balanced soil rich in Humus and a diverse range of biology (micro-riser, bacteria, fungi etc.). Unfortunately us humans have a long track record of destroying the soil and that’s been accelerated over the last 60 odd years with the creation and use of synthetic chemicals and fertilisers.

 

The good thing is that the solution is also very simple. Stop using chemicals that kill the soil biology and start working with the natural system to re-build healthy soil. That’s really the bulk of the work for us in the patch; once the soil health is back in the zone the plants just grow and become naturally pest and disease resistant so the farming is easy.

 

There’s no shortage of solid soil science out there which has been boiled down to some terrific methodology’s, systems and techniques so it’s fun and reasonably easy to build beautiful soil with the right help;

 

Regenerative agriculture is an over arching system of farming principals and practices that work with the natural system to continually improve soil health.  (and also help solve the climate change / planet health issue as well if you want to go there). In the patch we use no-till, only organic inputs, lots of compost & mulch, worm juice, biological stimulants, companion planting and animal integration to get things cranking.

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Nutrition farming  is the icing on the cake that really fine tunes the soil health and allows maximum plant nutrition. We have our soil tested with a specialist lab about once a year to determine the levels of, and more importantly ratios between key nutrients and minerals. The results are sent to a soil specialist who writes a report telling us the type and amount of nutrients and minerals we need to apply to create a soil that's well balanced and packed with plant available nutrients. We then have a special amendment blend made up as per the report, add it to the patch and voila!

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This process is repeated each year with the aim of gradually steering towards the sweet spot! - This is where the excitement is for us. We use Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS)  for all our testing and recommendations. NTS is an Australian company that's leading the way in soil health and plant nutrition. Check them out at https://www.nutri-tech.com.au/about-us

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The soil (and the body and the planet)  has an innate ability to heal or re-generate - to find homeostasis. All we really need to do is stop messing with it, but since were here and we have messed with it we might as well help move things in the right direction. Feels good anyway so why not.

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