Humans: Earth's greatest CARETAKERS? Regenerative gardening and worry-free-eating with William DeMille

Wondering what is actually in , on, or missing from your food? How can we get what we need for health when healthy food seems expensive, soils are depleted, and so much food (especially in the US) is sprayed with chemicals we know are bad for us, or animals are raised in unhealthy environments and pumped with chemicals themselves? YOU ARE FAR FROM ALONE in asking these questions, and William Demille is on the show today to share insights related to all of it. 

He is a master regenerative gardener and the creator of the Georgic Schoolroom and the Georgic Revolution, which offers courses and boot camps for regenerative gardening and agriculture no matter what environment you are trying to grow food in. He is the author of “Worry Free Eating”, a book chock-full of information for restoring the soil, growing, and harvesting food, whether you are growing in a pot on the porch or hundreds of acres of land. 

In this fascinating episode we cover: 

*what changes the taste and nutritional content of our food

*why tilling up the land may be one of the WORST things you can do for your garden, and how it creates MORE weeds and ultimately MORE compacted soil

*what the microbes in the soil need and how we can feed them with the least hassle.

*how some very common traditional gardening and agriculture methods may be CREATING our biggest problems in the garden

*a different take on humans and the ecosystem, and why William thinks we are magnificent at RESTORING ecosystems, not just destroying them. Also, shout out to Beavers…and what makes them amazing.

*can humans help it rain more in our areas and help the soil hold the water? Let’s talk about bringing in the RAINFALL and limiting flood risk!

*using types of bread as a visual aide for how our soil can hold more water on its own (limiting waste and cost of water!)

*what happens downstream if a soil DOESN’T retain water or nutrients

*bringing back grasslands that have turned into deserts, and what made them turn into deserts in the first place

*How do cattle and sheep really impact the land? Should we remove them if a land is struggling or put them back on? 

*When raising livestock on your land how can you move them to help both the animals and the land thrive?

*A snapshot of schools of thought in regenerative agriculture and permaculture, who does what best and how William combined their views into a georgic view of the whole

*How when we care for the land it cares for us back, not just in food, but in community and character. 

This is the first of 2 episodes with William, the next will cover usable measures for soil rehabilitation before and during spring planting. Tune in then as well!

You can access all of William’s links, courses, patreon, socials, and you tube resources here:
https://linkfly.to/williamdemille
Worry Free Eating book link:  https://a.co/d/funSlTZ

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the WhatReally Makes a Difference
podcast.
I'm your host, Dr.
Becca Whittaker.
I've been a doctor of naturalhealth care for over 20 years
and a professional speaker onhealth and vitality, but
everything I thought I knewabout health was tested when my
own health hit a landslide and Ibecame a very sick patient.

(00:22):
I've learned that showing up forour own health and vitality is a
step by step journey that wetake for the rest of our lives.
And this podcast is aboutsharing some of the things that
really make a difference on thatjourney with you.
So grab your explorer's hatwhile we get ready to check out
today's topic.
My incredible guest network andI will be sharing some practical

(00:45):
tools, current science andancient wisdom that we all need,
no matter what stage we are atin our health and vitality.
I've already got my hat on andmy hand out, so let's dive in
and we can all start walkingeach other home.

(01:06):
​Oh, I am so excited to sharethis conversation with William
DeMille, with you today.
The reason I'm excited to haveWilliam DeMille on the show is
because I think a lot aboutfood.
And I know some of you do too.
I think about what's in my food,what's been sprayed on my food,
what is missing from my food,about the soil that I'm hearing

(01:29):
more and more about beingdepleted and how our food
doesn't have the nutrients thatit used to.
But what are we supposed to do?
to do about that.
I also know about agriculture,about the horrible conditions
that, that our livestock issometimes raised in and how the
antibiotics they're pumped withand their general unhappy

(01:50):
chemicals can also be affectingour meat, which affects our
brain chemistry and our gutchemistry and everything.
buT what are we supposed toactually do about the problem?
We are not big pharma.
We are not big ag.
We are not big food industries.
We're regular people.
What I love about talking toWilliam DeMille is it puts the

(02:11):
power back in our hands.
For so much of what we can do onthe scale that we are able to
do.
Whether you have hundreds ofacres of farmland and are
farming or doing livestockagriculture for a living, he has
principles and methods thathelp, that help the land, that
help the soil, and that help thenutrients get back into your

(02:34):
food.
So you know what you're eatingand it's full of more of the
content that we need to help ourbodies be healthy, which helps
our minds be healthy, whichhelps us in productivity and joy
and relationships and the wholegamut as I found his work and
started to apply his work thislast I have been floored at the

(02:56):
value that it has given mypersonal life as well as how
much food we were able toproduce and in a fun way that
was way less annoying and wayless terrible hard work than it
ever had been before.
So if you're interested in food,if you're interested in
regenerative gardening, ifyou're just wondering what all

(03:17):
of the buzzword is about,William DeMille is one of the
most efficient places that I cantell you to start.
So with no further ado, and fora fantastic conversation,
continue to listen, and I giveyou William DeMille.

Track 1 (03:33):
Hello.
I am so grateful to be having aconversation with William Demil
today, and so grateful that Ican finally share it with people
that I love or anyone elsethat's interested in food and
soil and nutrition and how the,how those all relate together.
So I'll, I'll let William startin just a moment, but I wanna

(03:54):
explain to you why I am excitedto share William Dim Mill's
work.
So, I grew up in the middle of afamily with seven children, and
I was, we gardened every year.
It was in a big garden, but Ihated it.
I felt like my dad just hadchildren for slaves, for
gardening.
hated it, didn't realize what wehad until I went to college.

(04:18):
And I remember when I bought myfirst tomato from Walmart and I
took a bite, which I had paidfor this thing with my
hard-earned money, and Ithought.
This is not even a tomato.
This is like eating a cardboardmildly tomato flavored, weird,
squishy thing.
I could not believe thedifference.

(04:38):
And I started to understand whymy dad wanted a garden, but, and
so, and so, I tried, you know,to have smaller gardens as we
were moving to different places.
we Had a little patio garden.
When we were in grad school.
Everything died.
We didn't remember to water itenough.
We had tried square footgardening when we had kids and

(05:00):
what it always ended up beingwas me weeding most of the time.
And then as soon as I got tiredof weeding was when the stuff
actually started to grow.
And then I got busy and didn'tgo out intended and squash bugs,
ate all the rest.
We moved to another house.
Chickens ate all the rest.
I was Pretty much about donewith gardening.

(05:22):
So this last year I was notplanning on doing a garden.
I was gonna give myself themental and physical rest and
just gratefully celebrate myfriends at the farmer's market
that could grow vegetables.
And then I heard William Demilon a podcast and he was talking
about soil, how it relates tonutrition and how some of our

(05:45):
current gardening practices areactually tearing apart the soil.
That sometimes the traditions offarming or gardening or
agriculture are different thanwhat the science is supporting.
Now, because I am a sciencenerd, I literally just stopped
what I was doing, sat down on arock and listened very carefully

(06:06):
to what he was saying on thepodcast.
That, and I started to apply.
I decided to give it one moretry and.
I was hooked.
The things he talked aboutreally actually helped.
I've never had a garden that hasgrown so well.
We just tore the flower terracesout and replaced it all with
this jungle variety garden offood and color and vibrancy.

(06:31):
And what I found was, what hesaid was true.
As I learned how to nourish theearth, the earth ended up
nourishing me back.
The time in the garden was fun.
I wanted to be out there, andthe food tasted better.
It truthfully was one of thethings that began to bring me

(06:51):
back to my own health and to abetter mental, physical state as
well.
So I'm, I just cannot share hisinformation enough.
We went to a bootcamp.
Which was incredible.
And so if you're near a rockpull up a seat and really pay
attention to what we have tohear from William DeMel.
So thank you for joining metoday, William

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-20 (07:14):
You are welcome.
Thanks for having me on.
This is exciting.
I.

Track 1 (07:18):
Yay.
So let's start by talking about,you say in your book, which I'm
gonna hold up for those whowatch on video later, but it's
called Worry-Free Eating.
And I am really, really lovingit.
I'm planning on just working myway through it while we're in
our winter cold months, so thatI'm even more prepared for next

(07:39):
year.
But what is it about gardeningthat makes worry-free eating?
And what is the deal with our.
Food.
Why would we even need to worryabout growing our own food or
what's in it?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (07:52):
Yeah.
You know, that's a greatquestion.
It is a fun title.
I've just noticed over the yearswhen you go to a grocery store,
You'll stand there in theproduce aisle, and if you stand
there for maybe 15 minutes, ifit's busy, you will see several
people go through, they pick upan apple and they look at it and
they turn it around and theyhave suspicion on their face and

(08:13):
they wrinkle their nose and theysquint their eyes and then they
put it back and they walk by.
And if you ever ask one of thosepeople what they're thinking,
first of all they think you're aweirdo.
But if you can have a a adiscussion with them, they will
say, well, I just don't know.
I'm afraid it's been sprayed.
And people are worried about thefood.

(08:34):
And it's true the apple has beensprayed.
If it's on the grocery storeshelf, the question is, what was
it sprayed with?
I mean, even organic food getssprayed, you know that's just
the world we live in.
So it's so true that people areworried about their, our food
supply, but I named the bookthat because we don't have to.

(08:57):
Completely participate in all ofthat worry.
If we understand food where itcomes from, the way Mother
Nature creates food and whatfood really is and our
interaction with the food, thenwe can have an experience where
we're not worried about the foodsupply.
Now most people don't grow theirown food, but most people can

(09:20):
grow some of their food andpeople don't really realize that
or think that that's real.
A lot of people have a garden.
They may struggle with it, theymay like it, but it doesn't
really impact the food supply.
But what I try to teach peopleis that no matter how much land
you have or how little you have,you can significantly increase
your food supply.

(09:40):
I mean, people can grow a lotjust in a few pots on the dead.
They just don't know it.
So, and there's ways to make thefood more nutritious and the
way.
To make the food the mostnutritious is to mimic Mother
Nature and doing what MotherNature does.
I've had quite a fewfrustrations over the years with

(10:03):
education in gardening andfarming because we are educating
people to grow large yields offood.
That's what we learned in theagricultural sciences is here's
what you do to get the mostbushels per acre, the most
pounds per acre.
And you know, I, that's kind ofa good idea a long time ago, but

(10:27):
what that has evolved to now islow quality food and low quality
nutrition.
So as we're eating food, we haveto eat more food to get the same
amount of nutrition outta itbecause the nutrition in it is
less dense.
So that's, you know, and some ofthese points can be argued.

(10:47):
And it's hard to quantify a lotof these things, but there is
some really great researchthat's showing that this is
actually true, which is reallyexciting and great.
But I think it comes down to ourtaste.
I think we, over time, we haveyou know, changed over the, the
centuries, the Melania, that ourtaste buds will tell us whether

(11:11):
or not we are eating nutritionor not.
So if we're eating from thegrocery store and it doesn't
taste good if you're feedingkids vegetables, they don't like
them.
There's a couple of things thatplay here, but one of them is
the fact that our body is notrecognizing nutrition, our
nervous system, our brain, allthe components of our body.

(11:31):
We just simply are notrecognizing the nutrition and so
we don't want it.
I also think that there'sprobably allergies at play there
and there's probably addictionsat play there.
So there's other things goingon.
For the most part, if foodtastes really good and you know,
and you are just excited whenyou're eating something like an
apple, it tastes really good.
And we've all had apples thatdon't taste good.

(11:54):
Well, I think most of the timethe things that taste really
good to us is'cause it's higherin nutrition.
It's something that our bodyneeds and CRAs.

Track 1 (12:03):
I also think, I think the tasting good.
There's a difference between asugary taste good, like a high
fructose corn syrup.
To me, that feels almost like afrenzy.
Like I have to have more.
Right?
But it feels empty, but like Ihave to have it But when you are
eating something that Is reallywholesome, that's full of

(12:26):
nutrition and has the naturalsugar in it, and plenty of
water.
It, it feels good while ittastes good.
I went to a bootcamp at Williamsfarm.
The place where he lives is on areally amazing cattle ranch in
northern Nevada.
But we ate food that had beengrown there and for every mill

(12:49):
stuff that, for every mill foodthat was prepared using healthy
practices and straight out ofthe ground, out of good soil
with good minerals.
And my body, I swear, was justresonating.
I felt so good.
And the more that I ate it andthe more that I relaxed, it's
like the more my digestivesystem could handle even, even

(13:12):
better quality and more of it,it, it was healing to eat
instead of.
worrisome to eat.
How else to explain that?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (13:21):
Yeah, for sure.
And I mean, I, I love what yousaid in the beginning of that
was that our body feels thenutrition, you know, it's not
just the taste.
There's more to it than that.
And when, when you're exposed toreally great food, that
certainly happens.
The question that people havefor me, which I love to answer,
is how do we do that?

(13:42):
How do we get food that's thisgood?
During my bootcamp, Selenausually does all the cooking and
people are, oh, are so excited.
How, how did you cook this?
I've had this recipe before, buthow did you do it?
'cause she shrugs her shshoulders and smiles and says,
well, it was pretty easy.
We just put it together.
But and I think it goes back tothe quality of the food.

(14:03):
When you get homegrown food, youknow, 90% or more of your entire
ingredient list is coming fromthe source.
Instead of going throughpackaging and processing and
factories and storage and all ofthe things that our modern food
system does when we simply getit from the source.

(14:26):
And we picked it today, or maybeyesterday.
It's, it doesn't get any fresherthan that.
And our bodies tend to recognizethat.
So, you know, everybody justraves about the food when they
come here at bootcamp, they'relike, man, that is so good.
Have you ever, are you gonnapublish a book cookbook?
They don't ask me that, but theyask Selena and it's like, yeah,

(14:49):
I'm working on one.
You know, I love food Network.
I, I don't watch TV very much,but when I do, it's often Food
Network.
I just love to see what thechefs have to say.
And they always say the recipedepends on the quality of your
ingredients.
You have to have goodingredients to make good food.
And so that's, that's prettyexciting.

(15:10):
You know, I, I have young peoplehere for classes they often will
just get a cabbage and I, I doweird things just to have fun
with young people, but I'll picka big cabbage and, you know,
it's a big old, giant thing,bigger than my head.
And I'll just take a bite out ofit like an apple.
Just, just to goof around youngpeople like that.
If, if we're laughing duringclass, then it makes life

(15:31):
better.
And, and then they're inspired.
So they bite the cabbage andthey're always amazed, you know,
it's been picked for eightseconds.
We just cut it out of the field.
I pick it up, I bite it, they'relaughing about it'cause it's a
weird thing to do.
And then I have them taste itand, and they're amazed.
They're like, Hey, this isreally good.
I didn't know cabbages tastedlike this.

(15:53):
And I hear the one thing I hearfrom visitors, from students,
from everybody who comes here isthis statement, if I knew
vegetables tasted like this, I'deven eat'em all the time.
And it's true because vegetablesdo taste good, but we have to
grow them in such a way thatthey're filled with nutrition.

Track 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
I feel like just saying hazah,because I think sometimes the
vegetables that our kids don'twanna eat, I mean, if we buy
them, they're out of season,they're sprayed with a stuff,
bunch of stuff.
We shove it in the microwave,we, I mean, it's not good but it
can be kinda hard to know whatto cook if that kind of food

(16:34):
that does resonate and isfreshly picked is not available.
So how can you, how can, how canwe help our food be nutritious
like that if we don't, ifgarden, if farming is not gonna
be our full-time job?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (16:50):
Okay, so I think everybody should have
a garden.
That's just my bias and it'sprobably not true.
I'm sure that there's studentsgoing to medical school and or
law school and other things, andduring that time of life, you
probably need to be focusing onthose studies and not worrying
about a garden.
But for most of people's lives,they should be doing some type

(17:11):
of farming, you know, even ifit's just some herbs in a pot,
but the way that you make thefood the most nutritious this
whole endeavor growing food isyou've got to mimic nature.
And so there are some certainkeys to mimicking nature and is,

(17:32):
it's different.
It's very different than what wehave learned in the gardening
world.
In the gardening world, we fightagainst nature and then we have
plants that don't taste as goodand they are lower in nutrition.
And we know that because ofmodern science.
So we can, we can send off leafanalysis and they come back and

(17:54):
tell us what minerals aremissing and so forth.
So when we mimic nature, what weneed to do is we need to grow
the food the same way the plantsgrow.
When you walk into a forest orout into any lush, beautiful.
place, you know, if you want tobe there for a, you know, like a

(18:14):
beautiful camping experiencewhere there's lots of plants and
lots of water around, that's howour gardens should look.
So when we garden, the firstthing people think of is, oh, I
need to go tell up my garden.
Well, that's the first thing Itell people to stop doing
because mother nature doesn'ttill there's, there's, no

(18:35):
tillage out there when we're

Track 1 (18:38):
you told me that Yeah.
When you told me that I couldjust picture my dad with like
the tiller behind him and howhard it was and everything, I'm
like, what?
We could skip that step and itwould work.
I mean, I live in a, the highdesert and I know how hard the
dirt can get and how full ofclay the dirt can get.
So I know me and all the peopleI ever gardened with thought

(18:59):
that was the only way you canget water into your soil.
And you have some differentthings to say about that.
Can you share why we don't tilland, and what other way we can
soften up

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (19:09):
Yeah.
So the, the thing that makesplants grow are the beneficial
microbes in the soil.
And when we till the soil, itkills the beneficial microbes.
One tillage pass can kill 50% ofyour beneficial fungus.
we need the fungus to help theplants grow.
But that is not what we hear inmost of the gardening books.

(19:29):
It's not what we hear in theagronomy classes at college.
It's not what we're hearing frommost of the master gardener
classes at the universities.
And because we're still thinkingthe way we've done things in the
past, we haven't come up to thethe new modern science, but
we've gotta get the microbes inthe soil so that they are
functioning so that they aredriving the mineral cycle,

(19:51):
they're keeping the water cycleworking, they are keeping all of
the ecological processes workingproperly.
And that's what I mean when Isay mimic nature.
We have to have all theprocesses working so that the
plants can grow without peopledoing very much.
So after, you know, three tofive years, you can get your

(20:12):
soil to a spot where you don'thave to do much.
The main thing you'll be doingis planting some species you
want.
And then harvesting.
And you'll, you'll need tomanage weeds a little bit, but
not a lot.

Track 1 (20:27):
And that's three to five years

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (20:28):
guess all I.

Track 1 (20:29):
in William lives in the high desert in Nevada.
And it's not a place where likeit is in, I don't know.
Oregon where plants naturallygrow lush and beautifully.
And I live in the high desert insouthern Utah.
And the same like when I lookout at a field, it's full of

(20:50):
weeds and packed dirt.
That's hard So I was interestedwhen you said that, but also
wondering if that just onlyapplied in easy farming
communities that you reallywouldn't have to put big amounts
of nutrients on it and that youwouldn't have to put fertilizer
on it and that things could justgrow naturally.

(21:11):
But you really mean three tofive years even in, even in the
really hard climates.
And I know you do things to helpthe soil repair and regenerate
itself.
So can you talk about how youcan make it so, so can you talk
about how we help the microbesin our soil to grow more than
just not killing them bytilling?

(21:32):
How do you make it so they can.
be propagating and growing andmaking it soft enough that we
can dig in it.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (21:41):
Yeah.
Perfect.
So the microbes are like anyother animal.
They want some basic things.
They want food, they want water,and they want a house to live
in.
So what we do is we feed them,and there's two sources of food
for them.
One is a living plant growing inthe soil will it'll do
photosynthesis and then it willput sugar down into the ground

(22:05):
and it will exudate those andout the soil.
And they, and the plants do thaton purpose.
They like to do that.
A healthy plant does that, andthe reason they do it is to feed
the beneficial microbes.
So that's the first source offood for, for the beneficials.
The second source of food isdead decaying plant material or

(22:28):
even an animal material.
But mostly we're dealing withplants and gardens.
And so animal manure on theground, that's dead, decaying
plant material leaves that falloff your trees in the, in autumn
time, those leaves come down,they decompose.
That's the dead plant material.
So those are your two sourcesfor the microbe food.
And then water is comes fromrain, snow, and any irrigation

(22:53):
that you may do.
And so you would never reallywant your ground to dry out.
So how do you keep thesemicrobes healthy and happy?
Keep the ground covered withwhat we call a detri.
Sphe, which is the dead plantmaterial on top and always keep
growing plants in the soil.
A lot of people say, well, I canonly grow plants for like 80

(23:14):
days.
I live in the high mountains.
In fact, that's what our growingseason averages out to be.
It's 80 days between our lastfrost and our first frost.
So most of the year is cold.
But you gotta think about that.
Is it really your growing seasonor is that just the growing
season for a tomato and apepper?
Because your growing seasoncould be the entire year if you

(23:35):
have living plants that areperennials.
They live, you know, way beyondthe frost like grass.
It will green up months beforeyour last frost and it won't go
dormant until it's covered withheavy snow.
So it could be, you know, itcould be late December in some
places.
I mean, I'm looking out thewindow here right now.

(23:56):
We have snow on the ground, butthe grass is still green

Track 1 (23:59):
oh, okay.
It's fun.
First of all to think about theplant taking in sunlight and
then pumping out nutrients tothe, to the microbes.
Like here you go, I think it'sfun to think of one mistake.
I know I did.
I looked around and I didn'treally know why I should put
wood chips on top of the soil.
I just knew the people I knewthat had the best gardens did

(24:21):
that.
So we went and we, we got the,it turned out to be pretty
expensive.
We went and got the bags of likethe wood bark sort of chips from
our local farm store.
And we didn't just put them ontop'cause we thought they needed
to be in the soil to soften itup and break it down.
So we tilted in the soil andwhat it turns out is those

(24:45):
would, this was before I metyou, those Wood bark.
Things were sprayed withchemicals and so we tilled and
put poison in the soil and itmade it so it was like a rotten
sort of consistency.
And they did break down in thesoil, but they did not seem to
help it much So tell me why youput stuff just on the top of the

(25:09):
soil to help the soil breakdown, and what is different
about that than trying to shovenutrients into the soil?
How does it come from the topdown?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (25:16):
Yeah.
Here again, it's a principle ofmimicking nature.
If you put all that detristratosphere on top, then the
microbes in the soil know whatto do with it because they've
been dealing with dead plants,falling on the soil surface for
who knows how long, millions ofyears.
But if we till it into the soilthinking that we're helping it,

(25:37):
the microbes don't know what todo with it when it's been tilled
in because they haven't had thatcondition.
They haven't adapted to thatover the millennia.
So I just put it on top becausethat's what we find in nature.
A lot of times if you till itin, it further compacts the
soil.
And so the kind of decompositionyou get would be anaerobic,

(25:59):
which is, would be bad for yourplants.
You want everything to stayaerobic, which means lots of
oxygen.
You don't want that.
Lack of oxygen because oxygen isthe number one most important
nutrient in our soils.
And the microbes are thecreatures, the, the mechanism
that makes the soil soft andbeautiful.

(26:22):
So we will take a rotor tillerout there.
We till up the ground and it'ssoft and beautiful as soon as we
get done, but it actually makesthe soil more compacted over
time.
They have giant machines whenthey build highways that are
these big, huge tillers andthey'll we'll till up the
subsoil.
Where they've been doingconstruction to compact the soil

(26:44):
hard enough to make a, ahighway.
And so if engineers know thatthat's how to make a really
compacted highway to drive, youknow, whatever, to build a
freeway on, why are we doing thesame thing in our gardens to try
to un compact it?
It makes no sense.
So it's not compacted for awhile, and you may get, you
know, three or four or fivemonths, but just think about it.

(27:05):
How many times have you tilledyour garden, you know, for three
or four or five years?
And it gets to the point whereevery spring, your garden is
just like a rock.
It's just like a, like concrete,you know?
And so you have to till, andthat's what I hear all the time,
is people say, well, if I don'ttill it, it's just like planting

(27:27):
in a, in, in concrete.
Well, that's because you've beentilling every year.
And so it gets more and morecompacted because you're killing
more and more of the beneficialmicrobes.
Over time.
Anyway, that's that's thedetriment of, of tillage.

Track 1 (27:44):
And you also said, and I saw to be true, that when you
till, as the soil is trying torepair itself, it actually grows
more weeds as a way to healitself.
So the more weeds are the, whatyou call early succession
plants, and it's what naturewill do to help the bacteria to
come back after you've killedthem all.

(28:06):
But the early succession plantsare things we think of as weeds.
So we're doing a lot of thereally hard stuff to ourself.
We're tilling, which ultimatelyis gonna make it harder soil
next year.
And also it's meaning that weare gonna have to fight a lot
more weeds because nature istrying to pop up those

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (28:25):
Yeah, for sure.

Track 1 (28:26):
you said I wouldn't have to

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-20 (28:27):
you know, it's we do create most of
our own problems.

Track 1 (28:31):
So you said I would need to weed less and it almost
sounded too good to be true forme, but when I did what you
taught me to do, I really spentso much less time weeding
truthfully, almost not at all.
And when I was weeding, I wasn'tpulling anything out of hard
compacted soil either.

(28:51):
I was just chopping the tops offso they wouldn't go to seed.
And on we went, it was so muchfaster.
And just so much more pleasantSo it's interesting that we do
these things to ourself thinkingthat we're helping it be softer
soil, when really it's making itharder and full of wheat.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (29:07):
Yeah, it's true.
You know, we really do createour own biggest problems.
We have, we till and then wehave to keep tilling, and then
we burn up all the organicmatter in the soil that starves
the beneficial microbes.
yOu know, I've been sayingthroughout this today that it
kills the beneficials.
It actually kills the fungusreally well, and it kills a lot

(29:29):
of the other microbes.
It will kill your predatormicrobes, your protozoa, and
your nematodes, which are verybeneficial.
We need those, but it increasesa lot of the bacteria and so you
get way too much bacteria in thesoil and then you are creating
more, there's a lot morenitrogen in the form of nitrate,

(29:53):
and that's what wakes up theweeded seeds.
But if you have high levels ofnitrate in the soil, then the
weeded seeds will germinate.
Where if you have a balance ofnitrate and ammonium, then the
weeded seeds don't germinate.
They just stay dormant, which ispretty neat.
And that's that's one somethingthat we've just learned in in

(30:15):
recent science in recentdecades.
So, you know, the more we till,the more weeds we have, we
compact the soil.
You know, years ago, ThomasJefferson said, we can clear a
forest and we can grow crops for15 years, and then we can't grow
crops anymore and we don't knowwhy.
just have to go, you know, tillor clear more forest and start

(30:40):
over again.
Well, the reason why weunderstand it easily now, that's
about how long it takes to killoff your soil food web, which is
what Dr.
Laningham calls it, to the pointwhere the soil's not functioning
anymore.
And then you have to start over.
With plants that we call weeds,they will come in and they will

(31:01):
restore the biomass of deadplant material to the soil
surface, and that brings in thebeneficial microbes again.
And it takes another, you know,it could take up to a decade or.
It centuries.
If Mother Nature does it, whenmanaged by humans, it takes
three to five years to create.
So it's pretty exciting that wecan do that.

Track 1 (31:22):
Yeah, I am.
In your bootcamp, you talkedabout humans as powerful
caretakers of the earth, andthat really struck me because
I'm used to thinking of humansas destroyers of the earth.
The big companies that arebuying all the land, killing the
soil, making it so we don't havenutrition and humans just
destroy, destroy, destroy you.

(31:42):
Were right.
There is no other animal thatcan care.
Take it like we can once welearn and we choose to do so.
Can you explain a little bitmore about that?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (31:54):
yeah, for sure.
There's, there's two animalsthat are absolutely magnificent
at restoring the ecosystems.
Humans are the first one, andbeavers are the second one.
So beavers will build dams inany water wave that's going and
they restore the water cycle.

(32:15):
So when you remove beavers, alarge number of beavers from a
continent, you tend to starthaving droughts in the decades
that come.
And we've seen that in, youknow, just when you look at
history when you have people whoare ecologically illiterate and
they simply don't know how todeal with the ecology and what

(32:38):
the ecology is telling them whenthey walk out into nature.
They don't, they don't, theycan't read the ecology.
Then we make mistakesecologically that tend to
degrade land so that land won'tproduce plants anymore.
So there is a lot of degradedland.
There is a lot ofdesertification.

(32:58):
I.
There are a lot of the problemsthat happen because people
haven't known in the past whatto do.
But I'm so excited and sopositive about this because we
live in an age now where we dounderstand ecology.
I mean, if a person can becomeecologically literate within a
month, if you know what to studyand you have a good mentor who

(33:21):
can point you in the rightdirection, you can get on a path
in a month to become reallyecologically literate so that
you know what is happening, andthen you probably need three to
five years, just like the soilyou a person needs about three
to five years to practice it,to, to become really good at it.

(33:42):
That's why I teach my classes isto get people on this path
because we can take a piece ofground that most people would
look at and say, oh yeah, well,that ground won't produce
anything.
That land's not worth much from,from an agricultural point of
view, a land, land that's wortha lot is a land that can produce
a lot of crops well.
And so desert land, people lookat it and think, oh, well that

(34:02):
won't grow anything.
There's no water.
That's the first thing they say.
Well then let's fix the watercycle.
And, and the argument is, well,you can't fix the water cycle.
I mean, it just rain.
It's an act of God.
If it's not raining, then we'redoomed, and that's where we're
wrong because humans can do alot to increase the amount of

(34:27):
water that we hold in the soil.
We can even create situationswhere we get more frequent
rains.
So we've got the big water cyclethat comes from the ocean, and
then we have the small watercycle, which are things like
thunderstorms.
So if, if you ever, ever look atthe weather channel early in the
morning, the forecast is.

(34:48):
There's not really a chance ofrain today, and then three
o'clock in the afternoon,there's thunderstorms popping
up.
Well, so where did that raincome from?
Well, it came from your localarea, maybe the mountains around
you.
The, the grasslands around you,the, the swamps where wherever
you are, water is evaporatingfrom wherever, and it goes up

(35:09):
into the air, and then you'regetting precipitation.
So if we can manage our land tohold more water, which we can,
then those local rains canhappen more frequently as the
sun is evaporating water out ofthe ground.
So, and you know, it, it can getpretty technical in the science

(35:32):
of how that works, but we'veseen that happening.
This is not just a good idea.
I mean, the case studies arethere.
We, we, we know people who aredoing this.
wE're up, according to Dr.
Allen Williams, we're up to 38million acres this last summer.
Of people who are keeping theirground covered.
This is big farmland all acrossNorth America.

(35:53):
And instead of doing all of thetillage of bare ground, which
creates a high pressure becausethe the sun hits that bare
ground, the hot air risescreates a high pressure.
If a cloud comes along, the highpressure pushes it further.
But if you have the groundcovered with living plants or
dead plants, which is whatfarmers are doing now, instead

(36:15):
of tilling it in, they'releaving dead plants on top of
the ground.
Now the sun hits that and, butit's not as hot because the sun
doesn't reflect off of deadplants or living plants, the
same the way that it does off ofa tilled soil.
So now you've created a lowpressure up in the sky and a
cloud comes along and we have amuch greater chance for

(36:39):
rainfall.
Alejandro Carrillo is doing thisand the Chihuahua Desert in
Mexico.
He's part of that a, that 38million acres.
He's got 20,000 acres.
And it's awesome when you havethese big landowners, meaning
large acres, because if you cancontrol a pretty big area, then
that will significantly impactyour local region with rainfall.

(37:05):
And you know, but boy, you gotalk to somebody and say, oh, we
can make it rain.
They roll their eyes and theythink you have lost it because
pretty much all of humanitybelieves that things like rain
and wind and acts of nature aresimply an act of God, an act of
nature.
And humans have no control overit.

(37:28):
But the more we are dealing withthe ecology, making the right
decisions, the more we areseeing that we certainly can
have a positive impact on it.
And we look at people who aredoing things to create bare
ground.
And we see less rain, we seehotter temperatures, we see it
going the opposite direction.

(37:48):
And so it points to you know,just, it's it's becoming
quantifiable.
It's pointing to the fact thatthe way we manage the ecology
absolutely has an impact on our,our land.
You know, our livelihoods.
It, it all really comes down to,to finances for a lot of people.

(38:11):
'cause if you have a piece ofland and you're, you are relying
on your paycheck from whatyou're producing from that piece
of land, then you want to manageit so that you get as much as
possible.
And the way we get anything fromland, as far as agriculture
goes, is growing plants.
Even if you're a livestockperson, you are a plant farmer

(38:32):
first.
You're a grass farmer first.
You are a microbe farmer.
Before that.
So it all starts with themicrobes, and the microbes will
grow the plants, and then theplants will support the animals.

Track 1 (38:47):
Yes.
Oh so much in that, that is amessage of hope along with just
super cool science.
So, so much of some of what Ithink of climate change, like
weird hot temperatures and, andno rain and the threat of famine
coming, so much of that can becreated by humans is being

(39:10):
created by humans with currentpractices and then so much can
also be helped that sciencemakes sense.
That doesn't seem like voodoofor me.
Sun reflecting off of bareearth.
I also really something you saidabout, sorry, let me try that
again.
I also really like how you talkabout the water can come down

(39:31):
more easily in areas where theplants, where the, it can come
down more easily in the areaswhere the soil is covered.
but how the water can stay inthat soil.
So you did, at the bootcamp thatI attended, you did a visual aid
that has just really stuck withme.
You had an amount of water andyou had a piece of bread.

(39:52):
Was it two different kinds ofbread?
Can you, can you explain theanalysis you did?
It was showing soil compaction,but because I live in a place
where there's a lot of desertand compacted soil, we got a
huge rainstorm a couple of yearsago that just decimated a small
town next to me because the soilwas so hard it couldn't absorb

(40:15):
any of the water.
So I really was woke, have wokenup and paid attention.
And this year when I was doingyour practices and my soil was
softer, we had thunderstormscome through and a whole bunch
of rain gushed down in the sameway that it did a couple of
years before.
But we had an entirely differentlandscape for it to stay on.
And we had zero problems withflooding.

(40:37):
Where before it was rushing intomy basement and causing chaos
and we couldn't really hold anyof it.
What it meant for me now was Iwas worried to see what was
happening.
I had to swish some wood chipsback in place, but I just didn't
have to turn on my sprinklersfor a few days after that'cause
the water held.
That's only, that's only afterone year.
I'd only been doing it for oneseason, really covering it

(41:00):
different.
So can you tell me, tell me howcovering the earth helps that.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (41:06):
Yeah.
So I mean, you, you cover theearth and that creates the home
for the microbes.
And so they can go to work andthe microbes create what we call
is the gros sphere and the sphe.
And so the aggregate TheraSphereor aggregates, they are these
little balls.
They're pulled together like youknow, think of a jar filled with

(41:27):
marbles.
Okay.
And so the space between thosewould be the aerospace between
all the marbles.
Well, that's gonna be the porsphere.
And so that's where the watergoes.
It's like a sponge.
So we're creating a soil spongethe thing I did in bootcamp with
the, the pieces of bread to, toshow this.
So I have one plate with a pieceof bread on it, and then I have

(41:49):
another plate with flour on itthat you make bread out of.
And then I have a plate with atortilla, and they're all the
same thing.
They're all flour and water,except the bread is filled with
microbes because we put yeast inbread and then the bread rises,
and then as we bake it, itcreates this por ophere and the
aerosphere, and it holds it inplace.

(42:12):
So you can take you know, fouror five teaspoons of water and
put them on the bread.
And the bread soaks it up and itholds it.
And then if you tip your plate,you don't really get any water
coming off until you, it becomescompletely saturated.
You keep pouring water on there,and finally it's pouring off.
But what happens is the watercomes off clean.

(42:33):
And so that's exactly what wewant.
We want that water to come cleanout.
And that is an example of whathappens in our soils.
If our microbes are healthy thesoil, then, and we get enough
rain, it will become saturated.
But as the water runs off of ourland into waterways, it's clear

(42:57):
clean water.
We're not polluting the rivers,killing the fish.
We're wa dirt is not going away.
Taking our precious top soil andpolluting our deltas in the
rivers.
So there's all these benefits.
tHe other plate in thisexperiment that we show is the,

(43:19):
the flour.
Now, when you pour the teaspoonson the flour it com, it runs off
immediately and it's cloudy anddirty.
So that is showing us an exampleof a tilled soil where you don't
have that grottos sphere and porsphe holding things together.
And so a lot of your flour willerode away causing the problems

(43:40):
downstream.

Track 1 (43:42):
another person that I listened to is Dr.
Zach Bush, md.
He does farmer's, farmer'sfootprint where he's also
teaching farmers not to till andto do some of these very same
principles, but they were out,I'm trying to think if it was in
Mississippi or something, andthere had been so much runoff of

(44:02):
the chemicals used for farmingand for big ag, like big food
production, ag that The, all ofthe chemicals had concentrate
concentrated, and the siltcoming from the topsoil that was
just like dead dry coughing,dirt, that these people were
getting all kinds of cancers.

(44:22):
Their children were getting waymore problems with like
attention and autoimmune andeverything because they had to
touch the stuff that had rundown the river from everything
above it.
I just haven't gotten rid ofthat visual in my mind of what
runs off when, when it'sunhealthy stuff on the soil and

(44:42):
the soil doesn't have anythingto anchor to as rains come.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (44:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a big problem.
yoU know, flooding is such ahuge deal nowadays.
You know, that flood therewhere, where you are, you
mentioned a few years ago thatwas it was devastating.
I.
And, you know, that's what weshow on that plate with the
tortilla is you put the water onit and it doesn't soak into the
tortilla.
99% of the water just runscompletely off.

(45:08):
And that's what's happening toour super compacted soils.
All the way up that canyon intothe mountains where the water is
all running down and it can'tsoak in.
And it is because of themismanagement of the land.
Now, I, I hate to blame peoplebecause the people who are
managing the land, they're goodpeople.
I'm not blaming anybodyspecifically.

(45:30):
I'm not out to get anybody.
It's just that we live in aworld that is still ecologically
illiterate.
We simply don't know how to fixthat.
So let's say we have a millionacres in a, in a watershed area
on the side of a mountain.
How do you fix that whole thing,you know, so that we don't have

(45:52):
a flooding?
Well, it's the same thing.
we we encourage plants to grow.
And we let them grow.
And Alan Savory with holisticmanagement, has taught us how to
do that.
And you know, he's been verysuccessful and there's ranchers
all over who've been verysuccessful.
This is how Alejandro did it isfollowing holistic management.

(46:13):
So this can happen in ourgardens.
This can happen on farms,growing crops.
This can happen in orchards withfruit.
It can happen in range land withwhere we're running cattle.
We just have to manage the landproperly.

Track 1 (46:32):
I remember you saying that Utah or this high desert
area used to be a thrivinggrassland, and you were talking
about pictures of some of theIndians that we have from some
of the first photographers wehad out in that area.
Can you tell me.
What you have found through yourresearch to, and the research of

(46:55):
others to be one of the biggestthings that will turn a place
into a desert or a grassland.
What's one of the ways we, whatare some of the ways we manage
that differently?
I.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-2023 (47:07):
Y Yeah.
So we know it's a grasslandbecause of how the soil looks.
If you take a backhoe and youdig deep down into the ground or
you find a gully that's beeneroded out and you can see the
horizons of the, the soil that'show we know it used to be a
grassland in many, many areas.
So the thing that created thedeserted conditions we have now.

(47:29):
Is we removed a lot of thegrazers in the early days of the
European settlement and then webrought in a lot of cattle.
Now I'm a hundred percent forcattle.
Cattle are fantastic, but theycan cause some overgrazing
issues if we don't understandhow to manage them properly.
In fact, we have 2000 cattleright here out, out the door

(47:50):
right now.
They're my ecological tool tobring back the deserts and so
this winter we have'em, they'regoing home the day before
Christmas.
so We brought them in for aperiod of time to do a job.
They're gonna be go onsemi-truck and leave.
It'll take us three days to getthat many loaded on trucks and
shipped out of here.
But cattle are the greatest toolthat we have found to take a

(48:14):
degraded piece of ground, andyou have it grow grass.
But if you just put cows outthere and they're wandering
aimlessly for the growingseason, they will be hard on the
ground and they will over graze.
They will kill out certainspecies.
But if you manage them in such away that you concentrate the
manure and the urine in oneplace, and then you move them

(48:37):
the next day and, and then theynever come back to that one
place for about a year to threeyears, depending on what's
happening.
And so you have to know whatyou're doing to make this work.
If you get a lot of goodrainfall, if there's a lot of
good seed in the ground, thenmaybe one year, it may take

(49:00):
three years if we're in more ofa drought situation.
But what we're finding is thatabout 60% of the cow pies that
are left out there will growgrass if cows don't walk over
them and break them up.
We, we need them to be, to stayintact.
So that the seeds can sprout andgrow out of them.

(49:22):
Generally with normal rainfalllevels, we are seeing the grass
growing within a year and it's,and it's coming back, but we
have to manage it.
So we have our, our big fieldshere divided up into 160 acre
pieces.
And those 2000 steers are onthat for about one day Now, how

(49:43):
long do you keep'em on?
How how many cattle do you putinto an area?
It depends how much food thereis for'em.
So years ago when there was nonothing out there, they couldn't
have been there that longbecause it wasn't enough food to
feed them.
So what would we do?
Well then you need to bring inmore cattle on a smaller piece

(50:06):
of ground.
Now this soundscounterintuitive.
And this is what we did in theearly days.
And I mentioned this in my bookabout the re the Livestock
Reduction Act, when they removedthe livestock from the Navajo
Indian Reservation, which is apretty dark spot in American
history'cause we did the wrongthing.
But the, the Navajo had had thesheep there for 400 years.

(50:31):
They got the sheep from theSpanish, the explorers that came
in.
And any, any culture that hassomething working for 400 years,
they're managing it correctly,especially in these arid fragile
lands.
So anyway, the sheep alreadymoved and then it deserted
quicker than ever.
And there's many, many examplesof this happening worldwide

(50:53):
because scientists.

Track 1 (50:55):
the sheep were removed.
Right.
Because we, the scientists thatwere working on this area for
the government told them, no,it's turning to desert.
The problem is the sheep.
We need to take the sheep away.
This is what happened in Africa,right.
With the, it was deserting.
So they think it's theelephants.
So they say, we need to kill allthe elephants, and surely that

(51:16):
will help it.
And, and, and in neither case,did it help.
Right,

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11 (51:20):
Right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, the, the, the logical thingthat the scientists thought was,
well, the species are the grassspecies and, and the Forbes, the
legumes, all these plants thatare out there, they're getting
fewer and fewer and further andfurther between, there's more
bear ground.

(51:40):
So we're losing the number ofspecies and the density.
We're lo losing both.
And so it's turning into adesert.
What's the problem?
Well, there's too many animalseating it, that's not the
problem.
That's the first conclusion wecome to, but that's not good
science.
And now what we know is thatwhen We remove the grazers and

(52:03):
it doesn't matter what they are,they, they can be any animal
that grazes.
But when we remove thosegrazers, then the grant land
recovers the next year reallygood.
So you have all this growth andthen everybody says, oh, see,
it's the grazer's fault.
But then two years down theroad, it still looks pretty
good.
But seven, eight years down theroad, a lot of those species

(52:27):
have killed themselves outbecause the light could not
penetrate through the deadstanding material.
And so how do you remove it?
A lot of the Indians all acrossNorth America, they would burn
the, the grasslands.
And so fire is a tool that youcan use to do that.
The problem with fire in ourclimate today of we're being

(52:51):
worried about pollution.
bUrning grasslands releases alot of the, the greenhouse
gases.
If people are worried about thegreenhouse gases, then fire is
not a good solution.
So what's the other solution?
Well, it's eating that off andtrampling it down with grazers.
And when you do that, the manureand the urine, the hoof action

(53:14):
and the saliva, the, thegrazing, those contributors of a
grazer will make the grass growmore.
And we can have a whole class onthose, those impacts that an
animal has.
But that takes too long for forthis conversation.
But when you have all of thoseimpacts, it makes the grass

(53:35):
grow.
So where you are growing the, adesert, trying to, to make it
more lush so that you have somefood for the people who live
there.
You, you need to encourage asmuch grass as possible.
And, and the best way to do thatis with livestock.
And if you have a multitude oflivestock, it's best mixing, you
know, mixing up cattle, sheep,goats deer, elk, you know, all

(53:59):
the different animals isfantastic.
If you only have one species, itdoesn't do as well.

Track 1 (54:05):
So on a big landmass like that, where there was
initially a problem, likesomething is deserting and
scientists think it's thegrazers.
The grazers, like the somethingelse was actually wrong and the
grazers were just kind ofholding it together.
But the thing that was wrong isthat actually the micro balance
in the soil, the porousness ofthe soil, things like that, like

(54:28):
what is actually wrong that theywere pointing at the grazers
for,

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-2023 (54:31):
Y you know, I don't know.
And I don't think that data wasever captured back then.
Nobody was, nobody was out theredoing a good scientific study to
actually figure that out.
You know, I don't, I I wish weknew.
We don't know.
And, and that's kind of atragedy.
Here's what we do know.
If you have a population ofpeople who depend on the land

(54:54):
for their food and for theirculture and their livelihood,
which is pretty much everybody,everywhere on Earth, but when
you have people depending onthat land, you need to make that
land productive.
And, and we know how to do that.

(55:14):
And we didn't know this 50 yearsago.
This is new science.
We, we know that we, if if youcan't grow enough grass to
sustain a hundred cattle, thenyou need 200 cattle.
No, that sounds nuts.
Well, you don't even have enoughfor a hundred.
Let's cut it down to 50.
You cut it down to 50, and infive to 10 years, you won't be

(55:37):
able to have 25.
The way you grow more grass iswith more livestock managed
correctly.
So you wouldn't take you know,50 cows on 300 acres and then
double that number of cattle onthe same acres and do it the
same way.

(55:58):
You would need to, instead of 50cows, let's get 300 cows and put
them on 10 acres and move themtwice a day, and then they never
come back to that area for ayear to three years and allow
Mother nature to sprout thoseseeds and, and get them growing.

(56:21):
And if nothing's happening, thenlet's say that the Cal pies have
been there for a year in an aridplace and, and there's no grass
coming out.
Then maybe you need to flashgraze your herd through there,
which means they never stopwalking and you move them
through very slowly, slow enoughthat their heads are down eating
what there is and their hoofaction going through there will

(56:45):
stimulate seeds to grow.
And that's what happens.

Track 1 (56:51):
So if people wanna learn more, say you have a piece
of property and you want to turnit into a vibrant piece of
property, or you know, forpermaculture or for joy or if
you are depending on farming forpart of your income or you're
doing agriculture, then they cancontact you, which we'll have

(57:12):
show notes that will list all ofyours.
There's other people that I knowyou mentioned that they can
learn like Alan Savory.
Is he the biggest one you wouldlook at for land management with
cattle or goats or,

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (57:23):
yeah.
Alan Savory the Savory Instituteis fantastic.
Yeah, the, there's, there's abunch of people.
yoU know what, let me just tellyou quickly what I've done in
my, in my class with the, andthen, and then this will lead
into the people to study, but I,in one classroom, I bring in
holistic man management, whichis all savory.

(57:45):
I bring in permaculture, whichis Bill Moison, and then Jeff
Lawton made it he evangelized itand made it really popular.
So study Jeff Lawton and he'sfantastic.
And then you've got biodynamics,which is the teachings of
Rudolph Steiner.
And then you've got SilvaPasture, which goes back 10,000
years if you look at thearcheology in, in England.

(58:06):
So you have all these differentgroups and ways of doing things.
Well, I bring it all into theGeorgia School room where we can
see the benefit of all of these.
And it's, it's interesting'causeyou go to a permaculture
conference or a biodynamicconference or any of them.
And they all kind of are alittle bit negative about the

(58:27):
other groups.
And I would really like to seepeople get over that because
we're all on the same team andwe all really have great things
to offer.
Look at biodynamics.
What do they have to offer?
They have the best soil thatthere is, the highest soil test.
The outliers on the soil testthat we're off the charts of the
best soil in the world is thebiodynamic farms.
And then you look atpermaculture.

(58:48):
What do they have to offer?
Well, they offer the very bestin the design.
You have a piece of land, oh,well what do I do with this
piece of land?
The permaculture people are theones who will maximize the
ecological processes on yourpiece of land.
So it would produce a maximumamount of whatever your goal is.
You know, normally it's a foodproduction system.

(59:09):
And then you look at SilvaPasture.
Well, what does it do?
Well, it's, it maximizes theamount of food you get per
square foot of land.
So, not only are you growingyour garden on the ground, but
you've got your bushes and youhave your overstory of trees,
and, and how do you use thosetrees?

(59:31):
Of course, permaculture talksabout that all the time.
But Silva Pasture maximizes theuse of those trees in such a way
that nobody else even compares.
So there's all these differentgroups, and those are just a
few, there's several more thatwe talk about in our class, but
it, it's, it's so important, youknow, if, if you really wanna
understand how to make the mostnutritious food from the like

(59:56):
big agriculture, like if you'redealing with hundreds of acres,
you'd be studying people likeJohn Kemp and Nicole Masters and
Gabe Brown and Ray Archuleta.
If you're looking atpermaculture, you're gonna take
a good look at the, theteachings of Bill Mosson and
Jeff Watton.
And there's many others.
Oregon State has a fantasticprogram, and there's, they have

(01:00:18):
a lot of videos for free onlinethat you can, can look at
biodynamics, you know, looktheir stuff up.
You got Lloyd Nelson they havea, a meeting you can go to once
a year.
They have their, theirbiodynamic workshops.
So there's all kinds of placesyou can go to learn these
things.
But I, I've been looking fordecades for the book that tells

(01:00:42):
the things that I wanted to seeand I could never find it.
You had to read a library to getit.
So that's why I wrote my bookWorry-Free Eating is because it
brings it all together into oneplace, one classroom, and my
focus was ecological literacybecause all these groups I've
mentioned today, they areecologically literate.

(01:01:04):
And, you know, so well, why doyou need all of them?
Well, for the reasons I justsaid, because you don't wanna
have a really great design, butyou're, you're struggling to get
your soils where they need to bebecause it could take 10 years,
it could take 50 years if youjust let Mother Nature do it.
'cause you could plant the rightthings, but if you don't know

(01:01:25):
how to jumpstart it, you'regonna be waiting.
So that's why you bring inbiodynamics because now with
permaculture and biodynamicsworking together, you can have
the best soils in three years.
I mean, you, you saw what youdid just by covering the soil
in, in like a year.
You were, you, you had heavyrains and you're already
infiltrating lots, we say threeto five years.

(01:01:48):
'cause nobody believes this.
When we say, oh, you can havemassive impacts in a year.
And a lot of times we're workingwith big agriculture who have
extremely degraded soil becausethey've been tilling for seven
to years and they've beendumping on chemical fertilizers
for that long.
And sometimes it can take threeto five years, maybe even eight

(01:02:08):
years in a really bad situation,especially in low rainfall
years, to get that soil to whereit needs to be.
So erring on the side of, youknow, I mean, we don't want to
be liars, so we say three tofive years, but within one to
two years you can do an amazingamount.

Track 1 (01:02:26):
I remem.
So I went to a bootcamp out inNevada, like we said, but during
part of that, you bring out themicroscope and we look at a soil
sample from people that attend,can bring a soil sample.
And you talked about someonethat had Wasn't in my class, but
the class you did just beforewhere they brought a soil sample
from a farmer across the roadfrom them that had been tilling

(01:02:49):
and spraying fertilizers for, Ican't remember how many years,
but a generational farm and saidthat soil was basically dead.
Like not much living in it ofany sort, which is why they then
have to fertilize and then haveto do soap.
So things that a, a slice ofland that has been managed using

(01:03:11):
traditional schools of thoughtwith fertilizers and tilling and
everything may take longer torehab, but my big flower beds
had just had nothing happeningto them except for, I mean, I
was growing weeds and feelingguilty about not getting out to
do the weeds, but not gettingout to do the weeds.
So we would just cut them downand leave the grass there, which

(01:03:33):
made me feel guilty at first,but now I know.
Oh, I was actually slowlyhelping, just at least not
poisoning it.
And that's probably why minerehabilitated.
I'd like to talk about whatoptions people have for more.
So we talked a lot aboutagriculture or growing things on
big swaths of land, but what Ilike about what you teach is

(01:03:56):
there are the principles, andthey are similar principles for
whether you are on a 2000 acrecattle ranch or whether you have
flower beds.
So I really, I think it's soworth learning from William who
is pulling these differentschools of thoughts together and
then choosing what works for youwell in your life.

(01:04:18):
So you have YouTube q and asthat you do, you have a Patreon,
we'll have links for all ofthese things.
You also have boot camps thatyou do for fall gardening or for
spring gardening.
I had never fall gardened in mylife, but we did indeed plant a
seed mixture and at least gotsome living things in the soil
to help them through the winter.

(01:04:39):
You'll be happy to know, but youalso have something that, gosh,
I wish I would just love toattend if, if I was a younger
person without so manyresponsibilities for four
months.
So can you tell me about yourGeorgic school room, what you do
with mentoring?
'cause wow.
If you know any, any people inthe teenager or twenties age

(01:05:03):
that, that this might be a fitfor William is who I would, who
I would send them to.
So tell me what you do.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-2023 (01:05:11):
I started a class called the
Georgic School Room.
Georgic is an ancient word.
It comes from the Roman poet,Virgil Geo meaning earth or
meaning work.
So to work to the earth or tofarm.
And there's this georgictradition of writing about
farming and poetry.
And then there's the other sideof it, which is the work aspect.

(01:05:33):
And most of the old time farmerswho have been generational
farmers would be Georgia Classicpeople.
That's kind of the way they'velived their life.
And but the word itself ispretty much obsolete.
We don't really hear about it orin our vocabulary today, but I
call it Georgia School Room forhistorical romantic reasons,
because I like that stuff.

(01:05:54):
The class is four months long.
People can come here.
They live here on site.
They get up every day, they workwith me in the gardens.
Each student is assigned agarden plot that is 15 feet wide
and 50 feet long, and we planthe garden together, and then I
mentor them on how to grow thesoil, grow the microbes, grow

(01:06:17):
the most nutritious, flavorfulfood.
And then towards the end of theprogram, the students are
responsible for feedingthemselves from their garden for
the last month of the program.
And this is the,

Track 1 (01:06:32):
pause you there.
I I, I mean, truthfully, thatmeans they are only eating the
food that they have grown.
And on your kettle ranch, you,you are, you and a friend is how
it started really.
Right?
He, during COVID when there wasfood supply chains issues, and
you're out there and he, well,he and his large family and his

(01:06:55):
cattle ranch people that workedat the cattle ranch, they're all
out there.
And the food supply chain couldmake it very difficult for them
to get what they needed.
So he knew he needed a way togrow food for the, to support
his family and the ranchers onthe ranch.
So didn't he bring you out tobuild a w Pini and help him kind

(01:07:16):
of solve it and then hired youand you now help grow that?
The food for the workers, forthe family, for your family.
It has grown on site and eatenand, taken care of so that it
can last through some of themonths where you're not growing
as much now you're still growingin the winters.
Right.

(01:07:36):
Different kinds of foods, butyou know, not as much.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (01:07:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Track 1 (01:07:42):
mostly supportive there.
So you're, so you, when you comeout there, you're on site, on a
place where they are growing thefood.
That is literally what they willsurvive on.
So you gotta get it right.

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (01:07:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we, we do gross.
We, We, grow a lot of food herefor our students.
We do go to Costco and buy abunch of groceries, you know,
for, we're, we're not growingenough food to feed everybody,
everything.
But that last month that's whatyou live on.
And last year the students,they, they were funny because
they were getting ready for thisduring the growing season, and

(01:08:15):
they're harvesting things andputting stuff in the freezer.
They're drying stuff and they'rescared.
They're like, we're gonna starveto death.
And obviously I'm not gonna letanybody go hungry or starve to
death.
But, but I highly encouragedthem.
I said, you need to really takethis seriously and eat from your
garden.

(01:08:35):
The very first week of classhere, they write down a menu of
what they want to eat the lastmonth.
Then that's how they plant theirgarden.
And so what they plant is in thegarden comes from the menu.
And then, and then we work ongrowing the garden together.
And we had hailstorms that werewiping people's plants out the,

(01:08:57):
the first month we had excessiverain that we normally don't get
in this climate.
So things were different.
And every time that we hailstorms, it did damage, it did
significant damage to littleplants that had been put out.
And I told the, I just looked atthem.
Every time that the hail wouldcome, we would look out at the

(01:09:18):
hailstorm and I would say,welcome to the Georgia
tradition, that's what theliterary tradition is about, is
about how hard a farmer worksand how he has to fight mother
nature.
And that's a lot of the, the,the ancient literature about it.
So it was pretty funny.

Track 1 (01:09:35):
You're also learning composting, worm, composting,
adapting, how to make a smallscale, how to make big scale,
how it's just such a well-versededucation in, in real life, real
food, real soil.
Do you turn a patch of land thatwas not producing into a

(01:09:56):
vibrant, beautiful, producing,producing piece of land in, in
action in person.
So

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (01:10:02):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
We, we do tailor this to thecontext of what the, the
students' needs are.
We have the students identifysomething in society that they
don't like, a need, a societalneed.
So what is something that speaksto you that you don't like?
Have you ever known somebody whowas hungry?
How are you gonna feed them?
I mean, just identify anyproblem in society.

(01:10:22):
What can you do with your giftsand talents to make it better?
So there's a wholeself-development part of this
because we can learn all theskills in the world.
About any, any subject.
But if we are not a person whocan follow through and make
something happen, we're, we'regonna struggle in life.

(01:10:43):
So there's a lot of that selfimprovement that we, that we
really focus on in this class.
And there's no better way toself-improve yours, your, your
life than to be in a garden andhave to take care of a bunch of
living things that can't askyou.
They can't tell you what'swrong.
A a, a child that's old enoughto talk, they can at least tell

(01:11:05):
you what's wrong.
You know, if they're crying, youknow, a five-year-old, that's
crying, you can say, what'swrong?
My belly hurts.
Well, well that narrowed it downto a lot of things.
But when you're sitting in thegarden and your carrots aren't
growing, you, you can ask thecarrot what is wrong, but it's
not gonna speak English to you.
And so you, so it really helpsus to become ecologically

(01:11:27):
literate.
So we have to start surveyingthe entire situation.
Is there a bug?
Is there a disease?
Is there a lack of nutrients?
What is going on?
We can pull soil samples.
We look under the microscope.
Are the predators in there thatare driving the, the nitrogen
cycle?
Or are they, is this systemactually working?

(01:11:49):
And so we can do all of thisstuff?
It, it's, it's prettyremarkable.
It's, it's very fun to see the,the students struggle and
thrive.

Track 1 (01:11:58):
I went to a class by Dr.
Shannon.
Help me remember his name, Dr.
Shannon

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-1 (01:12:04):
ShAnnon Brooks.

Track 1 (01:12:05):
Dr.
Shannon Brooks.
The, that leads MonticelloCollege and he.
Was saying how strange it isthat we have specialists for so
many things in our towns and ourcities.
Specialists for teethspecialists, for eyes,
specialists, for all kinds ofthings, but not for the soil.
Like not someone to teach uswhat is happening if our parents

(01:12:29):
aren't growing.
And there's almost, there's verylittle more basic need than us
knowing what is happening withour soil if we need to be
growing food.
You may not have to grow yourfood now, you may not have time
now, but let me tell you,that's, that can be really
important in some situations.
And what I think about yourmentorship program or the boot

(01:12:50):
camps, or your book or whatever,is like sending networks out of
people into their cities andtowns that now can speak this
language a little bit better.
And I see as we speak thatlanguage better and get
information out in.
Formats that are easy tounderstand and apply.
We can have some more literatepeople and maybe even some

(01:13:11):
specialists that people know togo to if the tomatoes aren't
growing or this is alwaysgetting blight or bugs or
whatever.
'cause they are typically helpedby knowing what's going on in
the soil.
So we need to come to the end ofpart one just for time.
William has agreed to do twoparts with me, which I'm so
grateful for.

(01:13:31):
This was more laying thegroundwork for why this is
important in talking about someof the things happening in
agriculture and gardening andfarming and in the current lay
of the land, I guess you couldsay.
But part two is going to go intomore how we use this information
into what we do with ourgardens.

(01:13:52):
So I am really interested nexttime in having William walk us
through what we do to prepareour garden and to grow a more
successful garden.
With spending less.
So I would urge you, please donot lay out your plot of
gardening and go to your localnursery and buy all the things

(01:14:12):
you normally buy until youlisten to our next episode.
But until then, since this willbe releasing in the winter,
William, can you answer with ourlast bit of time we have, what
are some things you can be doingin the winter to help your
mindset or to help your soil sothat when it's time to start

(01:14:34):
growing, we could be a littlebit more prepared?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (01:14:38):
Okay.
So I think the first thing to dois start studying some of the
people that I mentioned today.
You could get my book and readmy book.
You could study some of theother names.
Physical.

Track 1 (01:14:51):
Free Eating, right?

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11- (01:14:53):
Yeah.
Worry for eating.
Yeah.
And it's available on Amazon, soit's easy to order.
A physical thing you can do isstart rounding up lots of
organic matter.
If people are still rakingleaves, you know, that's kind
more of a fall activity thanwinter.
But if you can find old rottenbales of hay straw, barnyard,
manure, any kind of organicmaterial start collecting that

(01:15:18):
so that you can use that in yourgarden.
That is the number one thingthat's missing from all the
gardens that I see is there'snot enough organic matter.
So you need to have grassclippings, wood chips leaves.
all of that kind of stuff isfantastic.
So, and that's a good thing todo in the winter.

(01:15:39):
So collect that and, and read,read, listen to podcasts, and I
have all kinds of things.
You could go to my YouTubechannel if you, if you're an
audio visual learner get on myYouTube and start watching
videos.
If you want more, if you wantthe UpToDate stuff that's coming
out right now, then you join myPatreon.
The, the videos on YouTube are,are a year old.

(01:16:02):
I mean, they're still valuable.
They're still relevant becauseall we ever talk about are
principles.
But the new releases are onPatreon.
Read my book Thursday nightsevery Thursday night at seven
o'clock Pacific time.
I am on a free q and a and youcan get the link from my website

(01:16:23):
revolution.
And anyway, I'm here to help.
I just want people to have themost nutritious food in the
world.
We've talked mostly aboutgardening and land regeneration
today, but the reason is to havenutritious food because when we
regenerate the land and we havea beautiful soil, that's when we
create the most flavorful,nutritious foods.

Track 1 (01:16:43):
Thank you William.
I got, I gotta tell you, itreminded me when you were saying
gather up the leaves if they'restill still there.
So we have had snow on and offthe ground now, but we still
have some of the leaves that wehaven't gathered up from our
neighbor's trees that alwaysdrop often.
I just feel guilty and like sadthat I don't get the time to go

(01:17:06):
rake up the leaves and put itout, and I should make my yard
look better by taking care ofall these leaves.
But after attending yourbootcamp, I knew those leaves
are wonderful mulch for mygarden.
So my husband came home one dayto find me just smiling ear to
ear and kind of giggling tomyself with a whole arm full of
leaves.
I had just gone to get mygardening gloves on and I had an

(01:17:29):
extra 20 minutes, so I went outand was just scooping up
Armfuls.
And he's like, what are youdoing?
Why are you so happy about it?
And I said, well, what Williamsaid is it's sometimes crazy
that we as humans rake up theleaves, which is natural mulch,
and we'll create naturalfertilizer as the microbes eat
it, and then we put it inplastic, take it to the trash,

(01:17:52):
and then we buy fertilizer andput it on our gardens when we
are just throwing away a betterfertilizer.
And I'm like, I am.
I don't have to shove these in abag.
This is my precious fertilizer.
I'm laying it on my garden andtelling it.
Good luck.
Hi microbes.
I love you, I'm saving

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11 (01:18:13):
right.

Track 1 (01:18:14):
It's making my yard look better.
It is just a win-win win, whichis how it feels with every
principle that I follow that youteach.
So.
I wanna thank you for making mesmile even when I'm dealing with
soggy leaves in my yard, and wewill see you next time on a
recording of episode two.
So thanks for joining us today,and thank you so much, William,

(01:18:34):
for the wisdom that you'resharing

squadcaster-fggc_2_12-11-2 (01:18:37):
Hey, thank you.
It.

Track 1 (01:18:40):
Until next time.
Isn't that a cool conversation?
I think some of the takeawaysfor me would be when William
talks about some of thetraditional gardening and
agriculture, habits that we haveor traditions that we have may

(01:19:02):
be creating some of our worstproblems like compacted soil or
weeds, and I love that he haseasier answers for that.
I'm so excited to share more ofthose usable, functional answers
in episode two, which will comeout in about a month.
I loved what he had to say abouthumans being a force for
restoring the ecosystems.

(01:19:24):
Like I said in the conversation,I'm used to thinking of humans
being destroyers of the land,but he's right.
We can also be caretakers of theland more efficiently than any
other species here.
So it's neat to be learning howto really do that, how to speak
the language of the ecosystems,how to speak the language of our
environment and our areas, andto help Mother Nature speed up

(01:19:47):
the process and help her repairinstead of consistently
destroying.
So neat.
I loved what he talked aboutrainfall, about how we can
actually help through thesepractices, bring more rain into
our area and help the soil holdon to that rain.
How cool is that?
Super cool.
And especially since I'm in thehigh mountain desert seems even.

(01:20:10):
More fantastic to me.
We are always praying for rain,but sometimes it comes in big
swaths and we think maybe we'veprayed too much jokes aside, we
really would love to hold on tomore of our water in our soils
and hold the nutrients in oursoil.
So I'm so grateful for what heshared and it's fascinating to

(01:20:33):
think about areas that aredeserts now.
That were grasslands and aboutsome things that we have done
that have made them desertifymore quickly, but what we can
also do to bring back thegrasslands, bring back the
healthier soil and, work to makeit healthy again.

(01:20:56):
So thank you so much for joiningme on this episode.
I hope you'll check out hislinks, which are in the show
notes and his book.
And I'm really excited for theinteresting conversations that
all of what William DeMilleshares can spark.
There's just so much to learnthere and be empowered by.
I'm also looking forward tohaving you join me next time.
I am in conversation withAbigail Levi, who is one of the

(01:21:20):
founders and creators ofAbigail's Oven, a fantastic
sourdough company.
The twist on that is she startedthat when she was 10 years old.
In her parents kitchen, and itgrew and morphed and is an
amazing company today.
We talk about what she learnedalong the way regarding wheat,

(01:21:40):
gluten, business,entrepreneurship, family, and
it's a fascinating conversationabout what she learned in life
as she went.
So join us next time on WhatReally Makes a Difference.
We'll see you then.