And where to buy fertiliser from if you need something in a bag for  the short term.

Building Soil and Growing Nutrient Dense Food Introduction 

How we do our own soil testing and make all of our own Fertiliser 

Over the past few years since the last editions of the Art of Composting, Growing Nutrient Dense Food, and  Beginner Gardener Booklets were published, I have been on a very steep learning curve, finding ways to create total self reliance for building soil health and growing nutrient dense food . I was already heading in this direction, but being unable to get Reams soil tests or fertilizer from Environmental Fertilizers anymore sped the whole journey up.

All of the Koanga seed gardens are now totally off all brought in fertilizer. We are making all of our soil amendments ourselves now for 5 seed gardens! ( 2,000 sq m of  high production beds)  as well as doing all of our own soil testing. 

In this process which has now been trialled for several years in my own garden  I have been able to turn our compost heaps into our fertilizer by paying attention to the compost inputs.

 In the past we did not know how to do this, so although compost may have been adding bacteria (and very low levels of fungi), and  humus, it was not able to supply the right minerals in the right ratios to grow nutrient dense food or build the soil.

We have developed our own testing protocols now as well so we can very clearly follow the soil building process.

I have now updated all three of these Booklets to align with our new understandings  and we have updated our Gardening Masterclass, and written a Best Practice Soil Testing Process for you as well.  to align as well. 

We apologize for still having recommendations to Environmental Fertilizers in many of our publications, and online workshops, it will take a while to sort that out..

Grant has been an incredible mentor for me over many years  and without the knowledge and experience I gained I could not have created the self reliant strategies we now follow. It is not now possible to get Reams Tests done in NZ or get EF Fertilizer so this journey is our answer. Taking the power back into our own hands always feels very empowering. 

If you still need to buy fertiliser I would go to Pacific Biofert in the North Island  online and check out their organic mixes they have been around a long time, and I have known them from the beginning, or Seacliff in the South Island who also have a good name.  

The steps to growing nutrient dense food are well outlined in both the Online Growing Nutrient Dense Food Workshop, the Make Your Own Fertilizer Online Workshop the onsite  Gardening Masterclass at Koanga and the Growing Nutrient Dense Food Booklet. The Art of Composting Booklet has more detail specifically about making compost to be your fertiliser as well as the usual building soil carbon.The learning and new material is around getting the minerals balanced in the compost so that it acts  as fertiliser, as  well as humus building.

In The Beginner Gardener Booklet, we use these new understandings to simplify the plan and processes a lot, making this Booklet far easier to follow.

The refractometer continues to be our main testing tool, however in order to help understand more and make more informed decisions as to next steps we are now using a Sap pH meter, a Conductivity meter, as well as a  Microbiometer.  ( This tool gives us  soil microbe levels and the ratio of bacteria to Fungi.) We sell them all with really good instructions we can all follow, unlike the instructions they usually come with( except the MICRObiometer which has excellent instructions already!. 

These  are way the cheapest option on the market for testing soil health. These tools keep us honest. Our food is not nutrient dense if the populations of microbes in the soil are not at least average and the refractometer results are not up around 12. 

Without  following our Growing Nutrient Dense Food process which is in all the above GNDF publications and workshops, it is unlikely doing ‘ad hoc’ ‘organic’ things will actually get you there. These are the steps we follow in our Booklets and Workshops, and give way more detail and options for doing each of these things.

1. learn to use a refractometer 

2.  get the air in the soil right

3. get the moisture levels right

 4.understand your own soil characteristics.. Follow our Koanga Best Practice Soil Testing Procedure

5. learn to build carbon levels

6. get the right minerals in the right ratios

7. build microbe diversity and levels

Being ‘organic’ is no guarantee that you are building soil or growing nutrient dense food, even certified organic. 

This is BEYOND ORGANIC

​All of our research and experience is geared to home gardeners and small scale local regenerative food production. 

…..These are the strategies that will take us to building soil health, ecological health,  human health and community health …..

Join us on the journey