Minerals, water, living soil, plants, animals, atmosphere, community, stewardship, and structures:
These are the topics we the staff of Symbiosis will have the honor of sharing with the reader in user-friendly ways through the articles we write. We specialize in designing and installing hyper-local, resilient, and nutrient-dense food gardens and permaculture orchards with nontoxic means. We have worked hard to find methods that feed our ecosystems and work in harmony with land and wish to share our lessons learned to any who are interested. These are our perspectives gained after more than a decade in the field of designing and building regenerative agriculture systems in Central Texas.
Let’s begin deep below our feet and introduce you to the foundation of it all, minerals. I test and amend soils for a living, and if I was only able to use one mineral product that choice would overwhelmingly be Azomite. A quick solution to many plant health issues is to put out an application of Azomite and a dusting of compost on anything that grows. The compost brings nitrogen, phosphorous and the living soil food web of organisms and the Azomite will bring almost everything else.
The genesis of this mineral formation was an ancient volcano in central Utah that erupted and had its ash settle in a nearby seabed. The combination of the fresh water feeding into the seabed, the ocean water, and the volcanic ash ultimately left behind the deposit we now know as Azomite. Named for its A to Z inclusion of trace minerals and rare earth elements, it is a cornucopia of fertility. The law of the minimum states that “growth is dictated not by the total resources available, but by the scarcest resource or limiting factor.” If you have put a bag of any type of NPK fertilizer out in the past few years, these will likely not be your limiting mineral factors. The components of soil all work synergistically, so in order to make the NPK bioavailable, sometimes mineral deficiencies must first be remedied.
This unique mineral deposit not only has the vast diversity in chemistry that unlocks biology but also a rare and beneficial subtle quality called paramagnetism that boosts the growing power of plants.
If you raise any form of livestock, this is also a great mineral to add into their feed, up to 2% of the feed weight, to increase animal immunity as well as improve the feed to weight conversion ratio. Save money, feed the same or less amount of feed, and raise a healthier, more robust animal. The root cause of disease in plants and animals is often some form of mineral deficiency, and Azomite is a great step in the right direction for health for all. Before grabbing that powder or spray of poison; insecticide or fungicide to kill the insect, aphid, fungi, or “pest” of many varieties, feed the plant to encourage health and build disease resistance.
Pro Tip: If you need a lot, Earthwise Organics, of La Ward, Tx will ship a 2200lb pallet to the kind folks at King Feed here in Wimberley. We just purchased a pallet, including transportation it brought the cost per 44 lb bag to $18.75 making the cost half of what it typically is.
Author: Adam Russell
Editor: Michael Wolfert
