Grow Your Soil™ soil evaluations are among the best, and are available for all climates and soils nationally and globally where food is grown. Their evaluations done for biologically-intensive food-raising soils are the most sensitive, accurate and least expensive we have found. You benefit greatly from a good soil test and description of what to add to balance soil nutrients. The result is higher food yields and, usually, the need for less, but just the right amount of, nutrients in organic fertilizer form. All this means less money out of your pocket and a much better food-growing experience!
Grow Your Soil™ service was excellent and provided prompt replies to all my questions. Their recommendations to improve boron and magnesium deficiencies in my soil were very helpful, and they insightfully determined the reason for my high level of phosphorus in my soil, which was due to my using waterlogged soil from a nearby spring as one of the ingredients in my compost pile. His detection work and willingness to help beyond simply recommending fertilizers was extremely valuable.
Grow Your Soil™ helped me to understand my soil condition, and which deficiencies are due to the nature of my soil and which ones are caused by my tillage practices. HarvestMore™ was a personal service, we have a deep conversation about optimal legumes for my region. Grow Your SoilTMrecommendations were customized, in other words their recommendations were adapted to the availability of fertilizers in my region. I am very happy with its service.
My farm is located in the mountains of Los Santos Region in Costa Rica, where soils are acidic and very depleted, therefore I have been struggling with fertility during the last two years, trying many things with almost no results, to the point where I felt totally exhausted. Recently I have been receiving advice from Grow Your Soil™, we have been communicating daily, working together to find solutions using locally available fertilizers. I have recovered my hope and energy and I am pretty sure my soil will also be recovered.
I want to share my happiness for being part of a positive path to grow soil, food and life. I feel cheerful with each new knowledge learned. I feel more secure with Grow Biointensive because I have the information and the response to the concerns, I am thankful for the advice that I received.
If I compared my previous experiences, definitely the results that I have with Grow Your Soil are real. Before I could not harvest tomatoes, carrots or onions. I did not understand why I had pests; I thought it was because I did not apply insecticides. Now I know that my soil is like my body: if you are weak, you can get sick, for that reason I have to feed it with organic fertilizers produced from the garden.
As an adult woman, I do not find limitations to implement this method. It is easy to learn and it is easy to apply. Its requirements are a little dedication and willingness to learn. I am happy to have found the way to grow in harmony with the nature and (as a human) be part of the biodiversity.
Establishing and maintaining soil fertility in the tropics is essential for obtaining food security - and food sovereignty. Carbon oxidizes much faster in the tropics and most soils have been depleted of essential and trace minerals or there is an imbalance of these minerals. Consequently, countless “garden projects” in Nicaragua have failed or have low yields due to lack of information about the condition of the soil. Grow Your SoilTM provides technical support to our training center where we demonstrate how - with the sound recommendations on how to correct the balance of minerals and the right amount of organic matter - the small-scale grower can successfully “grow the soil” so the soil can grow nutritionally balanced crops.
What is more, John Beeby personally responds to questions and concerns from small-scale growers in Nicaragua, including how to manage problem soils and helping them find affordable, locally available organic fertilizers. In a country without an “agricultural extension program”, this is an invaluable added service.
Here is our experience with BIONICA and Grow your Soil:
For eleven years our organization's, 'Solar Project Foundation for Nicaraguan Women' (Fundación Proyecto Solar para Mujeres Nicaragüense-FUPROSOMUNIC), main focus has been the use of solar energy with women in rural communities of Nicaragua, and principally the use of solar kitchens, solar dryers for fruits, and teas and water purification with the sun.
Since June 2014, we have expanded our project towards the production of healthy and environmentally friendly food. We purchased a farm near Catarina; the farm was named 'Ecosolar Center of Nicaragua' and will serve as a demonstration farm. Since July 2014 we had received technical support and follow up from the staff of BIONICA; and together we are implementing GROW BIOINTENSIVE farming. We also have received support in our soil analysis from Grow your Soil. The support from John Beeby has been very professional and with only 3 months we started observing improvements in our crops. We try to put in practice the BIONICA's philosophy which tell us that the first step to obtain good results in the crops is to improve the soil improve, and we are trying to do that.
We are thankful for the support from Grow Your Soil and John Beeby.
Grow Your Soil provides great tailored advice based on independent soil analyses. The recommendations are very detailed, practical and geared towards people interested in sustainable practices. John's responses are very quick and he replies promptly to follow up questions. Great deal!
Grow Your Soil has been an amazing resource in helping us understand the dynamics of our soils. Without their help, I would be lost in understanding how to read my soil tests and what to apply. I've worked with them for over 5 years and their fertilizer recommendations and correspondence has helped us address issues of boron, sodium and other soil nutrients that were out of balance and affecting our yields. Their professional advice and organic fertilizer recommendations have saved me years of work in balancing my soils and probably thousands of dollars in unnecessary amendments. Thanks to Grow Your Soil, we have an informed strategy to deal with these challenges organically and effectively and our mini-farm is as productive as ever. I highly recommend their service, thank you Grow Your Soil!
Most of our arable lands in Kenya have soils that are completely dead due to continuous use of chemical fertilizers. Most of our food crops do not grow well and therefore food production is compromised. Farmers are forced to use excess dosage of chemical fertilizers each growing season which make farming quite expensive because these fertilizers are imported from abroad. This prompted me to carried out a 4 years research project on Effects of a One-Time Organic Fertilizer Application on Long-Term Crop and Residue Yields, and Soil Quality Measurements Using Biointensive Agriculture , which was done in 4 different locations here in Kenya and the results were very encouraging. All the recommendations and analysis were done by Grow Your Soil. Grow Your Soil provides correct and timely information to the small holder farmers anytime that they need it. With this site, growing our soils will be easy because the information is readily available.
We are so grateful to have learned of John Beeby and his work early on in our careers as regenerative farmers in Northern California. For more than four seasons we have consulted with John on our soil tests and have been extremely pleased with his recommendations and the results. John always goes to great lengths to answer our questions thoroughly. His thoughtful consideration of our needs has been essential in guiding our decisions for building soil and caring for our crops. We are now going into our fourth solid season as market vegetable farmers and we are productively serving a CSA with over 80 members, two farmers markets, and a seasonal farm stand with organic produce. John’s help was essential in assisting us with turning a long neglected, three-acre, compacted clay horse pasture into a thriving vegetable garden.
John Beeby and his Grow Your Soil program was the perfect gift at a time when it was really needed. I had just begun working on a small sustainably driven farm in Kansas. It was such an exciting time but soon into it I was bewildered by what I was witnessing. Seeds often times didn’t germinate, transplants were weak, productivity was poor. Nothing was thriving as it should have been. Though the previous several years of soil analysis reports looked favorable it was obvious there was a big problem. Something that was hard to fathom was the possibility that the well water that had been so depended upon for so long could actually have become a problem. I had the water analyzed and what I saw in the report was a lot of interesting numbers. I needed someone to decipher what they all meant so I reached out to John and asked him if he would be willing to look at the report for me. John was all over it and quickly responded with the fact that the water’s high salinity, bicarbonate and chloride levels were of major concern. John worked with me with many options to be able to minimize the use of the well water including growing bio-intensively, incorporating crops that were drought tolerant, utilizing a rain catchment system and much more. John also advised me, after seeing the up-to-date soil analysis report, on how to correct issues in the soil the water was causing. Even though the gardens had a very rough start, with John’s Grow Your Soil program and support we were able to see things turn around. With a revitalized hope we look forward to having bountiful seasons ahead. Thank you John Beeby for all of your time and consideration.