🥔 Turning Potatoes Into Epic Soil

Fun fact: One tablespoon of garden soil can contain up to 1 billion bacteria and 25,000 species of fungi.

On this week’s deep-dive, we talk about:

🥔 Turning Old Potatoes Into Epic Soil

Over the last several months, we’ve written more about growing microbes than growing plants.

Why?

Because there’s a big misconception about what really feeds us. If you want to nerd out with us, this article gives the full breakdown.

Here’s the TLDR version: Plants, fungi, and bacteria aren’t as independent as we like to think.

Using a modern analogy, you can think of plants as miniature Skittle factories. Fungi and bacteria are the employees that deliver raw ingredients (colors, flavors, etc.) to the factory’s equipment and receive a paycheck in return.

If there aren’t enough employees working in the factory, equipment fails. The Skittles end up misshapen, discolored, or flavorless.

The real world doesn’t differ much from our analogy. We grow plants to produce edible crops — crops that are way better than Skittles, IMO. For the last century, we’ve been trying to run our fruit factories at max capacity while locking our employees out of the building.

Our fruit suffers from low nutrient density, often 40% lower than the same crop harvested five decades ago. The fungi and bacteria that make healthy soil are few and far between. Microbes are practically nonexistent on many commercial farms that consistently disrupt soil with pesticides and tilling.

The situation isn’t ideal, but you shouldn’t listen to the hysterics saying, “The end is near,” either.

You can turn the dullest, lifeless soil into a flourishing food factory with just five ingredients, some heat, and a couple of days.

Harnessing Potato Power to Grow Microbes

Whether you’re a backyard gardener or a commercial farmer, creating vibrant soil from lifeless dust might sound like an expensive, time-consuming process.

The typical recommendations for mending soil are either compost or cow manure. Both are good options, but I haven’t found either to satisfy my criteria for ‘lazy gardening’ — they require a lot of effort to source and spread.

If you’re like me, you want the highest return on investment with the lowest input cost.

Thanks to a friend in the permaculture world, I found the perfect tool that scales to any property size and only takes 30 minutes to start.

JADAM Microbial Solution (JMS) sounds complicated. It’s anything but.

JMS originates in Korean Natural Farming, a practice invented by Youngsang Cho in 1991 to focus food production on soil microbes.

Microbes need sugar and minerals to flourish. JMS is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The best part? It only requires potatoes and sea salt.

Potatoes break down into simple carbohydrates; a small dose of sea salt delivers all the minerals fungi and bacteria can devour.

The Recipe (Chef Hat Optional)

Here’s what you need to create five gallons of JMS (multiply as necessary):

• A 5-gallon bucket with a tight lid

• Cheesecloth or a mesh bag

• A tablespoon of sea salt (cannot be iodized salt)

• A single large potato

• One or two handfuls of leaf mold from your property (or nearby)

• Rainwater or well water (if your water is treated with chlorine, let it sit for a day)

Note on leaf mold: Leaf mold contains what are known as indigenous micro-organisms, aka fungi and bacteria native to your region. To source leaf mold, find the oldest forest on your property (or in your town), and find the oldest tree. At the base of the tree, brush aside the top layer of leaves to expose the dark brown/black earth. Grab a couple of handfuls, and you’re done.

Directions:

1. Boil your potato for 15 minutes. Let it cool for 15 minutes.

2. Add one tablespoon of sea salt to the pot and transfer the mixture to a blender

3. Blend the potato and sea salt until thoroughly mixed

4. Fill your 5-gallon bucket with non-chlorinated water

5. Place your leaf mold and potato/salt mixture into a mesh bag

6. Massage the bag to dissolve the contents into the water

7. Close the bucket, wedging the bag’s opening outside of the bucket

8. Store the bucket in the warmest location you can find

9. Check every 12 hours until the surface of the water is completely covered with bubbles (24 hours if >90 degrees F outside, 48 hours if ~75F)

Note: Once your solution is covered with bubbles, don’t wait to apply it. If you wait too long, it will go bad. This clip shows you the exact method I learned.

Applying The Elixir of Life

Once you have your JMS, don’t wait to apply it to your plants.

Dilute the mixture 1:20 (1 quart JMS: 5 gallons water), and pour it over the base of whatever food crop you’re growing.

After that, all you need to do is harvest delicious bounty.

Have questions or suggestions for us? Reply back and let us know!

See you next week, fellow earthlings.

— Permacultured

The best gifts out of any ag newsletter?

We think so.

We’re all about educating and inspiring people to grow/source better food. If you know someone that would dig Permacultured, send it over. We’ve got some rewards to say thanks 🙂

Forwarded this email? Click here to sign up.