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The Sweet Tomato Test Garden
Continues the trials on MICROBES
for veggie gardens and landscapes

Microbes are naturally occurring organisms in soil. Except, we don't have much of a soil here in the desert . . . so, we don't have many, if any, of the important microbes we need to have healthy soil. Healthy soil = healthy plants.

Chemical fertilizers wash out of the soil as you water, that's why the directions on Miracle Grow say to fertilizer every month, or to fertilize weekly-weakly like some gardeners, good idea if you have the money, the time and remember. That is also why there are 'time release' fertilizers, the fertilizer washes out of the soil as the plant is watered while other coated pellets are waiting for the next watering. Poof, pretty soon it's washed to deep in the soil or into the sewer. Plants go a long time between meals if your soil is not biologically active. Do we really want to go through all this?

If you want to lighten your load of duties and have a beautiful yard I would like to suggest adding Microbes. Not just any of the available microbes, but a specifically blended product that has them in spore form called Bio Grow. Unlike other liquid and dry Microbe products on the market, these have a shelf life in the container of over 5 years, or maybe indefinitely. This formula is only about 5 years old and they haven't died yet. Other microbes have a life in the container of about 12 days to maybe 3 months. 3 months tops for some of them, that is because a few are dying every day they are not used. Only 2 people know what the catalyst in Bio Grow is that keeps these little organic creatures suspended in spore form for such a long time, but they aren't telling.

When Microbes are added to your soil they begin working and they stay there, if you add organic soil amendments they will continue to multiply and work, if not they will eventually return to spore form and wait for some organics to fall from the tree.
Tom Jaszewski, Dir. of Horticulture at the Mirage makes his own microbes. In a talk to Master Gardeners in March he told how he carefully 'brews' various recipes of microbes and feeds them to the beautiful landscape at the Mirage. I will ask him to share his recipes with us. However, if you don't have the biologist's mentality for brewing microbes, they come in a bottle ready to use.

In a test on 4 tomato seedlings in Jan. 02; two of the MICROBE treated seedlings increased in size about 500% in 12 days while the two that were not treated with Bio Grow MICROBES grew normally and doubled in size.

I wish I had tested a larger group of tomato plants, however the plants selected were taken from a seed germination test, , , the MICROBE test was just an afterthought. I had no idea I would see such significant growth. I sort of stumbled on to this.

So, I have applied Bio Grow Microbes to almost my whole yard in combination with Grow More's Liquid Kelp Concentrate . . every tree, shrub, flower and veggie, but not the Iris bed. All plants look terrific except for the Iris bed that didn't get treated with the Microbes. These iris are not as big as last year, and some are toast. This was a test and the Iris lost because I could divert the microbed water away from them. After blooming is over they will get their Microbes.

Also, International Bio Clean has other microbe products: Bio Aquarium keeps fish tanks clean and the fish healthier, naturally. Bio Pond Clean will clean up pond water and make lobsters in lobster farms bigger and better tasting, also naturally. The Microbes can cut the water bills and fertilizing costs on golf courses and cemeteries, for example.

April 2002, Leslie Doyle for the Insider's List of Gardening Tips

Insider's List of Gardening Tips