Last May, we had the pleasure of meeting a new customer, Mary Wenger, who along with her family raises her own produce on a 1,750 square ft. backyard garden.

We have often written about minerals and their importance to health, vigor, nutrient-density, and yield, and it was a pleasure to share this message with Mary in person.

With this in mind, we thought we would follow the progress of Mary’s garden to illustrate how mineral balance works, and what the results are. Beginning with an examination of the garden’s current quality and productivity, we will chart its progress and follow the improvements in crop nutrient-density and mineral content of plant sap through the use of a refractometer. We will also illustrate how a mineral balanced, biologically active soil greatly reduces and even eliminates weed, pest, and disease problems.

The first step, and it’s always the first step, is to get a standard soil test. You must know where you are to get where you want and need to go. As we move through the process of balancing Mary’s soil, we’ll post interviews with Mary and her family as we monitor the progress.

Let’s begin this journey by looking at the soil test results and the soil Rx showing what we need to bring this soil into optimum balance. Next time, we will examine in detail the soil amendments we use and what we accomplish with them. If you would like to see instructions on how to take a soil sample, and view more soil prescriptions, you can visit our website at: http://sustainablesoils.com/get-started/ and http://sustainablesoils.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SampleSoilPrescriptions.pdf