Salty Soil Microbes, Fermenting Gorse for Feed, Cannabis Terpenes
A caller asks whether cheap JADAM microbial solution (JMS) is safe on salty, high-pH soil. Drake says yes: any soil benefits from more microbes, since they go to work fixing what's there. He also brings up John Liu's Loess Plateau project in China, where terracing and replanting turned a goat-grazed desert back into living land.
Willie, an urban grower near Auckland, New Zealand, joins live. He says only about 10% of New Zealand's land is still living after decades of heavy fertilizing, with the Lower South Island the healthiest ground left. Losing his health-sector job over the vaccine mandate pushed him from rural land back into a shaded, two-story-townhouse backyard with about 30 square meters of sun.
Drake and Willie talk about turning invasive gorse into animal feed: grind it small, pile it like an IMO4 batch, and let fermentation and lactobacillus break it down before feeding it to pigs, cows, and sheep. On chemtrails, Drake says the fix is building soil's own buffer with biochar, humic acids, and fungal networks, the soil food web, so microbial life can absorb whatever falls on it.
Later they cover plant secondary metabolites, the CBD, CBG, THC, and terpenes that only show up once a plant's basic NPK needs are met, and how KNF inputs improve flavor and aroma in cannabis and food crops alike. Willie admits to making too much FPJ and WCP, pouring the extra down the drain, and spraying his neighborhood from a squirt bottle. Drake closes with advice for beginners: start with FPJ and brown rice vinegar, and learn by asking questions rather than chasing quick fixes.
Questions answered
- 11:13 Is it okay to use cheap JADAM microbes (JMS) on salty, high-pH soil? — Yes, put microbes in the soil no matter its condition and they'll work to make it better.
- 11:54 What is the John Liu Loess Plateau story? — Chinese farmers penned up overgrazing goats, terraced the land, and replanted to turn desert back into living land.
- 19:18 What's the state of New Zealand's farmland? — Willie says only about 10% of New Zealand is still living land, with the North Island mostly dead from over-fertilizing.
- 23:51 Can invasive gorse be turned into animal feed? — Grind it small, pile and ferment it like an IMO4 batch with lactobacillus, and pigs, cows, and sheep can eat it.
- 27:19 Why do gardeners reach for synthetic quick fixes instead of natural remedies? — Drake and Willie say people want an instant fix rather than committing to a long-term soil-healing process.
- 36:34 How do you offset chemtrails and airborne pollution landing on soil? — Build a microbial buffer with biochar, humic acids, and fungal networks so the soil food web can absorb the imbalance.
- 41:38 How did COVID change Willie's farming path? — Losing his health-sector job over the vaccine mandate forced him from rural land back into a small, shaded urban backyard.
- 47:58 Does switching to KNF actually save money? — Drake says once you learn to make your own inputs, KNF saves thousands of dollars compared to buying synthetic products.
- 55:49 What are plant secondary metabolites and why do they matter for cannabis? — Once NPK basics are covered, plants make secondary metabolites like CBD, CBG, THC, and terpenes, the source of flavor and quality.
- 1:01:37 What happens if you make too much FPJ? — Willie made more FPJ and WCP than he could use, gave bottles away, and sprayed extra around his neighborhood with a squirt bottle.
- 1:04:46 What advice do you give someone just starting KNF? — Start with the basics, FPJ and brown rice vinegar, and learn by asking questions instead of chasing quick answers.
KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.
In this episode
- 0:00 Stream Start
- 2:30 Intro and Welcome
- 4:14 I Ching Reading: Fellowship with Others
- 8:46 Setting the Scene
- 10:07 Regenerative Ag with Cows
- 11:13 Salty Soil: Is Cheap JMS Okay?
- 11:54 John Liu and the Loess Plateau
- 14:13 StreamYard Link for Live Callers
- 17:43 Willie Joins Live from New Zealand
- 19:18 New Zealand's Dead Land
- 23:51 Gorse Takeover: Turning Invasives into Feed
- 27:19 Quick Fixes vs Long-Term Healing
- 31:30 Willie's Introduction to KNF
- 36:34 Offsetting Chemtrails with KNF and IMO
- 41:38 COVID, Job Loss, and Food Security in NZ
- 47:58 KNF Saves Money
- 53:08 Healing the Oceans
- 55:49 Plant Secondary Metabolites
- 1:01:37 Too Much FPJ
- 1:04:46 Advice for Beginners
Transcript
Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.
3:00 so hey good morning good morning welcome to office hours for korean natural farming let's see, July 30th, July, almost, almost end of the month here. That means my birthday must've just happened. Woo. Yeah. So switching it up slightly in terms of
3:48 using a slightly different technology today. So I hope everyone can hear and everyone's tuned in and volumes good. If it's not, let me know. I can turn it up a bit. Hey, thanks. Yeah. Happy birthday to me too. Yeah, it was fun. Did some good stuff. Okay. Well, let's see. Start off with a little bit of higher wisdom for today before we get into it. So today, how fitting, how fitting. Fellowship with others. In fellowship with others, embody the principles of the sage.
4:39 This hexagram addresses the proper basis for relationships with others. It generally comes as a sign that some kind of self-correction is in order in this arena. Proper relationships, whether in love, work, family, or friendship, must be founded on and conducted on proper principles in order to succeed. Our model for how to behave with others is the sage. In relating, we are obliged to practice kindness, humility, correctness, equanimity, and openness.
5:24 wherever we depart from these we lose the aid of the higher power and risk an encounter with misfortune the fundamental rule of the I Ching for the conduct of relationships is that they take place in the open this means that every facet of a relationship should be seen as fair and correct by everyone concerned, not just yourself. It also means it's improper to continue in a relationship with unspoken reservations or hidden intentions.
6:09 Exceptional things can be accomplished by those who come together correctly in fellowship now under the guidance of an enlightened leader or leaders. seek that role by powdering yourself after the sage meet others halfway in a spirit of sincerity and receptivity give trust where it is due where it is not do not resort to harshness reserve and reticence are adequate measures avoid the formation of factions and clicks and correct your errors in relationships as soon as you become aware of them.
6:55 In this way, you can accomplish magnificent deeds now. So, cool. That's good. I've been trying to establish better fellowship, you know, doing the right thing, fellowship with others. um and yeah that's the uh that's you know what are you up to each day it's like trying to build better relationships right trying to build better things trying to host a better office hour um yeah so it's good to see everyone here um you know we got folks from seattle what's up
7:44 rainbow possum sue i think from um brazil yeah he's telling me he's into stuff with pedro got cyclopath from belgium wow belgium stonemason from indiana and um it's uh goofman always up in new york let's see i raised my chair up a little bit too oh matthew from fresno caro california fresno that's uh that's where my dad was born in fresno been through there a few times seeing those oil wells pumping pumping pumping doing their thing he said it used to be like uh orchards back in the day when he grew up but now i think it's uh
8:28 cities although there's still a lot of fields out there right um yeah so hey thanks um what's up George and um yeah and Ishmael's uh Daniel in the house what's up Ishmael um so uh let's see here we got um I'm gonna just see because uh um I was um going to talk with um Tinfoil Hat Scholar here um so you know i asked last week if anyone wanted to jump in on the office hours and be part of the conversation kind of expand these things out you know create a little bit more fellowship with
9:15 others and um joseph jumped in here and uh put up you know he had suggested some great topics to talk about and a bunch of things um but not sure where he is uh i thought he would you know i sent on the link to get into here. Oh, man, it's funny because, you know, but not sure exactly where he's at. So if he doesn't jump in here in a few minutes, I can just put the chat there. They'll link it to the chat, and whoever wants to jump in can because we'll generate some fellowship with others. Did not want to archive that. I just wanted to send that.
10:00 Sometimes. this thing does it all so i'm not sure if he's doing it but uh we were i did want to talk about you know he was mentioning uh alan savory which is something i've been getting into i've had um you know been doing a bunch of regenerative agriculture here via the cows you know instead of i've been mowing for a while you know mow mow mow get everything down in the tropics, things grow so fast. You got to mow like every, at least once a month, if not every other week, um, to try and get in there. What's up Tanzania in the house. Um, he was also mentioning,
10:44 you know, he was, he lives out in the desert, right? Uh, well, right. Um, he's out in Taos, New Mexico. And so his, you know, one of his things is really about trying to regenerate the forests. And, you know, I think that, I think everyone, I don't know, show of hands in the chat, who's into regenerating the earth and regenerating forests and those things, right? um yeah and if you got salty soil with high ph uh is it advisable to use jms in the area um so yeah um if you have you know whatever soil you have whether it's good it's bad
11:32 um creating disgustingly cheap microbes the jadam microbes solution yeah is the, um, is the way to, you know, you're just going to put more life in the soil and then the microbes are going to go into the soil and try to make things better. Um, so yeah, yeah. See, I was talking to him about, um, John Liu. You guys familiar with John Liu, the Los Plateau guy, this Chinese guy that did this huge regenerative project in the Los Plateau in China, which was just basically turning into this arid desert from overgrazing from goats that
12:20 weren't managed very well. So he basically, they convinced all the people to put the goats into captivity um and then go out there and terrace the thing and then plant all these plants and slow the water down and you know if you look it up which i can't i can't screen share because i put it on this um because i'm in uh using stream yard you can see it up in the upper corner up there right below with right above master cho and the pure knf logo but i'm using stream yard and i haven't figured it out of screen sharing i mean i probably could but then who knows what's going
12:58 to happen um so anyway i'd screen share a little bit but um but yeah so it looks like rainbow possum goof daniel cyclopath you guys are all and stonemason ben all into regenerative egg and the goofman nice nice arrows up um so not sure i'm gonna give him one more minute to jump in if he's not i'm just gonna post this link and whoever um because i really i really want to talk about this he was talking about um of course on redox with oliver hassan on john kemp's platform um he's talking about Gaia theory uh Lynn Margulius May Wan Ho for biology
13:53 um and the neo-Darwinism paradigm I don't know all these cool things um Ray Archuleta he a huge guy uh used to be I think I think he passed away did he I don't know maybe Ray's not dead, but, um, but he was huge in, um, you know, NRCS getting the soils all showing all those things. Gabe Brown, I've met him, talked to him about, you know, what if we could poly crop without, um, polycultures just trick the soil into thinking it's polyculture via natural farming. he's talking about Rudy Garcia Alejandro Caraleo so all these great people
14:40 I was looking forward to talking with but you know if you don't get here on time so I'm going to take this link and just post it in the comments here and I don't know maybe create some fellowship with others so if you want to jump in click that link and it will take you to the thing and you'll pop into this thing and then I can put you in the thing and then we could talk about stuff. Unfortunately, it would have been nice if we had talked about stuff ahead of time to know what topics to dive into. But I think if you jump in,
15:19 we can just talk about what's going on in your area and how those things, how KNF's affecting what you got up to so that little stream yard um chat that i threw in there i'll just show it on the screen right now it's this one so just type that sucker in stream yard's kind of cool you can do a few different things like that right there um but on the whole i'm uh you know oh man check this out in the meantime ben's about to go fishing hey what's up willie how you man um so let's see if we can get some fellowship with others who's
16:06 brave enough who wants to jump in be uh show yourself to the world here it's pretty easy with streaming i just need a camera and a mic and then i can put you into here but um and then yeah so other than that you know jms the world disgustingly cheap microbes for the win put them everywhere make them happen do the right thing for the earth spread microbes every day so i don't know if the link is the link working for you guys this this link right here it's working for you guys. I don't know. Maybe no one wants to jump in. I know lots of folks sometimes
16:49 are shy, but, you know, that's actually one of the things I've been doing is, um, you know, because I was not shy, I was able to organize this whole Korean natural farming group and get all this stuff together, you know, you know, if you're shy, it's okay. You can just, uh, get in. What is these things? They have extra cameras, slides, video file. Oh, I can share a screen right there. So, yeah. Let's see. Oh, I got to open all this. I'm not going to do that right now. because there are too many things um yeah so anyway if anyone wants to jump in please somebody
17:43 save me willie what's up okay we'll get willie on the stream what's up willie how you man i can't hear you let's see we'll get you in here though don't worry man edit your mic settings um like volume looks like you're already there what about now yeah i can hear you hey it's kind of apropos that you jumped in because i don't know if you can see my shirt maybe it's not but um this do you know so you see what's on that tractor
18:34 i'll just give you a hint it's a sheep oh i was gonna think it was a pig yeah so do you know where this shirt came from yeah it's from new zealand my friend uh actually my mom and dad went down to new zealand couple uh couple years ago and they brought me back this shirt of the sheep driving the tractor because i hear that down in new zealand that that's like a common thing they used to have just tons and tons of sheep. Is that right? We still do. You still do. Still do. That's good. That's good. So, yeah, so it's, you know, having this here, the agriculture,
19:24 regenerating the land down there. How's that? How's that going for you? I think there's a few people that are really heading in that direction. I suppose it's been a whole new shift from traditional agriculture to looking at a more natural way of farming in New Zealand. That's my emphasis anyway. So what would that mean? Before they were kind of just like running sheep on land and now they're shifting to like what's the difference now? No, in terms of livestock, there hasn't been truly any changes, to be honest. people are still farming the old way.
20:11 When I say old way, it's a traditional way of agriculture. I noticed, travelling through the country, that there has been a lot of dead land, so to speak. They've fertilised it so much that there's actually no grass in quite a lot of spaces around New Zealand. so there's yet to be any transition into natural farming from what i've seen or observed is if it's dairy if it's sheep it wouldn't matter what type of livestock it is they're so entrenched in traditional agriculture so so i mean isn't that isn't that the irony of
20:57 all this that people have basically fertilized their land so much that now it's infertile. Absolutely. Absolutely. As you know, we have three sort of islands in New Zealand. These are North Island, South Island, and there's the Stewart Island. As much as I know, the only pretty much fertile land is the Lower South Island. So that's what I've noticed. Is it fertile because they were less intensive or is it geographically different? Geographically different. There's not too much happening down there.
21:41 That's the big difference is where the North Island predominantly, through my observations, have been over farmed, over fertilized. I can travel throughout the North Island and see pretty much just dead land. Oh, man, that's, you know, I mean, I hear that. I know that. I know it's like the story of the earth right now of just in general. Like, unfortunately, almost everywhere, you know, like we're just so like industrially going at it. Some places still are productive, but there's not that health aspect to it.
22:27 It's almost like dead, but still some areas are giving. There is. I would say, to be honest, I would say only 10% are living land in New Zealand. Most of it is. we've had a lot of the hurricanes come through and decimated some of the east coast of the North Island. Quite a lot of erosion and flooding that's happened, especially at the beginning of the year. My garden took a whack in the beginning of the year and I lost all of my crop, corn. I had a whole corn. I'm just an urban type farmer trying to regenerate.
23:08 A lot of the challenges I have is surrounded by townhouses, which are two-story townhouses. So the sun challenges to get on my backyard, let alone just to get in the house. The aim always is to head to rural. However, I haven't really seen where rural I want to be into regenerating rural land. a lot of our dairy farmers are selling off chunks of their land but it's so dead and barren that there's so much work that has to be done on it and i wouldn't say work i mean it would take time to regenerate there's a lot of gorse right across yeah i'm i'm familiar with gorse we
23:58 we have it on this island um largely up on our mountain i i live you know on a 14 000 foot mountain i'm down at 600 feet you know where where it's nice but um but the upper part of the mountain it was a combination of like over grazing and then you know decimation of the environment that then the gorse takes over and that stuff is so nasty i mean it's so sharp and you can't even walk through it and it's just um however um they did just develop a project here as a feed mill to go up and harvest that gorse and then bring it down and they're going to try
24:39 and pelletize it into animal feed oh but but they kind of did it backwards in terms of they built this whole infrastructure to turn gorse into animal feed and then it turns out is it even nutritious for animals yeah i wonder whether it is i mean being an invasive species so to speak i i just i question whether it's going to be any any good for animals if it's not good for us then how can it be good for animals i'm sure there might be some nutritional value but i don't really know to be sure well i think i think the whole key for this you know master cho talks about it
25:21 and the whole key for basically anything to turn it into animal feeds is through fermentation. So by harvesting it, by getting it, by fermenting it, by enabling the microorganisms to get in there, to break it down, to incite, you know, lactobacillus, you can infuse it with fermented plant juices, those can of foods, get those in there, get the microbes to grow. And then you end up with something that would have been non-nutritious, now the animals have this ability, especially if you're pigs and cows, they can handle that.
26:00 And I'm sure the sheep, too, to a degree, you ferment that and feed them silage and things, and they would be into it. And like you said, once it's fermented, obviously it has some nutritional value for that. But how would they, if fermented, feed that? Would it be liquid or would it be solid form? That's kind of a solid form to feed the animals. You know, you're taking a large amount of material. And, you know, one key is if you can mechanically grind it to make it smaller and then let the fermentation happen,
26:40 happen then you then you have you it's almost it's almost like think think of like you know um you make a big pile of gorse and then make 10 of that like the im04 so you have the the the microorganisms plus the soil and that goes in and then they kind of um you know you ever seen like when you when you pile up grass and stuff it kind of gets this like um mycelial like turns into a mat where you can kind of pick it up. Like that, that, that microorganism growing within your food material in a pile will then, will then do a transformation to it. Right. And I, some of the
27:21 discussions I've had in some of the other groups and other platforms, what saddens me is when they ask questions on how to deal with things, the first go-to is spray poison, spray synthetics. uh that's always the first go-to and and i've been trying to encourage them um you you realize that it's actually poisonous for the plant and then you want to feed yourself with these vegetables a lot of people want a quick fix remedy rather than a long-term healing process so so is that is that um you're talking about the poisons is that is that for like gorse control
28:02 type of thing or are you talking about other other crops other crops sorry other crops as well um a lot of people that have gardens and for them for themselves um i know i'm a part of a group that's probably it's got quarter of a million followers followers in it but every every question um that people ask because they're new to gardening and they want to know what works so a lot of the time it's like oh i've got a problem with um with aphid so to speak is is one of the um quite invasive species here but the first go-to someone says is oh you spray it with such and such
28:49 It's not a natural remedy. And then after that, someone else gives their concoction. Oh, if you used this fertilizer, most of it is synthetics. No one offers organic or natural fertilizers. And I find every time I'm offering something, people say, you don't know what you're talking about. We want it fixed and done straight away. And I say, yeah, that's fine. um however what you're trying to do is there are species underground that are going to be killed off that is not going to be valuable to your plants so try to re-educate people as a challenge
29:28 in New Zealand okay okay so so um yeah yeah I mean I I encounter that as well you know as as as you know like where where where i'm at you know if you go to like a a gardening store or like a um you know like grow shop type of thing predominantly what's going to be there are these very highly concentrated chemicals yes and in a plethora of them and if you ask somebody for for advice they're going to advise you to say okay you know this chemical this one this one this one
30:05 And very, you know, a lot of different products that are very specific to something, but also highly concentrated where it's not focusing on the microbiome and it's not focused on the holistic health. It's focused on like, okay, you have a copper deficiency, so you're going to put this on it. Yes, yes, yes. A lot of people don't understand when I'm still learning about the nutritional cycle of a plant, so to speak. and when people see probably their leaf or their foliage changing different colors they they automatically think oh no it's lacking in calcium oh no we need some cow mag on it
30:48 and stuff like that rather than if they had started a the nutritional cycle from the beginning it wouldn't be sufficient in so many minerals or anything like that right and and also also you know using uh the fermented plant juice the can of food because you're getting it from a plant it's it's whole and it has everything that's necessary and the thing is like you know if you're regularly applying that to your plant on you know it depends on what plant it is but on a in a decent frequency it's like eating whole foods yes and then it's adding to robust health absolutely so have you
31:31 seen that in your own experience? Because you've been following Korean natural farming for a while now, right? For you, yes, for a while. I got introduced eight years ago. A friend of mine sent me one of your posters of all of the core products. What am I talking about? From IMOs all the way through and when he sent me that eight years ago i was thinking what is this what are we doing here okay and like and he wouldn't respond he allowed me to do my own research so so i come across a lot you know i was thinking what is this all about i've only got a poster and
32:16 this is fpj and this is lab all of that but they weren't called that your poster was saying it differently um there was police it was food it was fuel it was it was all of that uh and that's what he sent me through email and he goes check this out and then i struggled for four years to try and get my head around and i said i don't really know what this is so so it took me on a quite a good journey to be honest i i had four years of trying to across uh chris trump first when he was doing the how-to, how-to LAB, how-to WCA, and I started, oh, is that what this is?
32:59 And got in more depth and detail about it. And then I eventually found you, and then I saw the poster that I was given actually came from you. And I was thinking, oh, this is a dude. Let me start following this dude. So I was able to make all of them in terms of all the fermenting. so it took me I would say a good three years to try and craft it properly to understand it but then I didn't know what to do with it after that so to speak I was struggling so how do I put this together you know where does it all fit I've got these fertilizers I know they're natural and it's taken me at least three
33:44 years to try and get the right way, I wouldn't say the right way, to be accustomed to be able to understand how to make fertilizers or fermented fruit juices and all of that stuff. I still didn't know how to apply it, so to speak. I lacked that knowledge until I figured out, or not figured out, until I came across the nutritional cycle of a plant. Then I began to understand where they fit in. I did watch a lot of your level one course yes I did watch a lot of your level one and level two courses that you've done and I sorted to understand I had a greater understanding and then I thought
34:25 I should have made FAA first because that's going to take forever to make so I was going round about face I needed the FAA with the WCP with the meat on the bone so to speak and all of that So as my journey progressed, I started to really implement it into my own gardens and saw noticeable differences when I was preparing my garden because I have a method. It's just I do no dig, really. I don't dig any soil up and I just cover it with compost. And noticing huge differences because there was a lot of good bugs and bad bugs. You know, bugs were attracted to it.
35:11 Whether in the past I had no bugs come into my garden. It was just slugs. And I was wondering, why aren't the bugs around? He's like, there's got to be some good bugs around here. Why aren't they eating my plants? Only to realize that the synthetics I had been using in the past, they didn't like the taste of it, obviously. And now it's not that I'm afraid of bugs or pests, people say. I enjoy them coming in because then I know that what they're eating on my corn, on my cabbage, on collies, and even carrots, some of the basic vegetables that I grow,
35:47 I notice they were actually starting to eat the foliage. And I thought, oh, no, hang on. There's too much of you. How do I manage that at the same time too? So what I did was I allowed one section of my garden to allow the bugs to deal with it because they wouldn't move across. What I found is I'd deal with the pests in one section and then move to the next section of the garden, and there was mill food, and then move to the next section of the garden. They just kept on moving. I was like, what am I doing wrong here? So I decided to leave them being.
36:19 I accepted the fact that a percentage of my garden is going to be overtaken by pests. But, however, another percentage of my garden And we're thriving. We're actually thriving quite well. The only challenge we have across our nation is so many chemtrails come across us all the time. It's just constant. It's just a constant thing. And I know that has an effect on anything. So my question really is, how do we balance those chemicals coming from chemtrails that will eventually fall in anything else? How does IMOs or the like help balance all of that that's falling down?
37:08 That's really my question and challenge is how do I counteract all these chemicals, all these airborne chemicals that come down and just land on gardens? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's actually a global issue for all of us. And the thing is, the more robust your soil is, the more it can handle imbalances. So if there's some aerosol, whatever it is coming down, it's going to land. And if you have enough microorganisms and you have enough soil humus in the ground, then it acts as like a buffer.
37:51 You know, the more like biochar, carbon, humic acids, you know, and what makes the humic acids are the fungal networks, the bacteria, all that working together, you know, the kind of, are you familiar with the term soil food web? Yes, yes. I've been following her as well, Ingo. Yeah, yeah. Elaine kind of coined that term of kind of how there's, you know, I mean, lots of people have talked about this. But she really talks about that, that mesh, that kind of thing. And the more functioning that is, the more resilient it is to any type of aerosol coming down.
38:32 You know, and the thing, the thing about like the, you know, chemtrails and, and, and also, you know, just even airplanes burning fossil fuel at high altitude. dude, they're ubiquitously putting these pollutions, these toxins into our upper atmosphere, which is a fully living ecosystem. Like there are microbes in the air. Yes. And so it's like we're poisoning. You know, like I've talked about this before, but just like, you know, if you turn on a car and you go in an enclosed space, like in your garage and you leave your car on, people commit suicide that way. Like they die.
39:12 absolutely you know and and so if we think of that and we're just like burning these things and putting these chemicals everywhere and and into the air and it's landing on our soils this is having the effect you know you know not only not only in tandem to to folks like um you know putting putting chemical fertilizer on their field but i think this is this is a contributing factor to why these other soils are dying because they're not they're not thinking about building this buffer they're not thinking about building this life and then their chemicals are landing
39:46 plus these other chemicals are landing we have the challenge because we're in the flight path to the Auckland airport so we have planes constantly coming across us constant because I live in Auckland or South Auckland where the Auckland airport is and that's unfortunately we're in its flight path every day, all day It's that on top of chemtrails, on top of everything else that's falling down. It's been a huge challenge to regenerate just the backyard in itself. So I'm just doing it in small patches.
40:21 I have probably only got about 30 square meters of available light that reaches my backyard to grow any decent food. The rest is all shaded. That's the challenge I have. Cool. Well, I mean, you know, you can grow tender, like shade, shade tolerant plants, you know, and get those things going. But, but yeah, I think, you know, as, as you get your soil better, you know, it's just someone in here was asking, you know, about their, their sandy high pH soils, you know, and so putting, putting in the, you know, the microbes anywhere, just, just anywhere
40:58 and everywhere and trying to, trying to regenerate this, trying to bring back that microbial life buffer. you know in in earlier when you were mentioning you know you wanted to get more rural out it's like you know what a what a better time than right now where people have dead soils and and it's like oh this is a wasteland it's like oh well then maybe you should lower the price a little bit because you know you know it's dead anyway and and if you have the natural farming tool set this may be a perfect time for you to pick up some rural land Well, we, before COVID happened, we were rural.
41:41 And unfortunately, mandates made me come back to urban living again. So a lot of us lost our jobs because of COVID, because of mandates and all of that, because I come from a health sector profession. and my refusal to get the jab causes me and many others to lose our employment, our profession. So I had to change from what I used to do for many, many years to I eventually became a truck driver as well. So it really changed the landscape for me personally, coming from rural, fresh air, a lot of good soil and redeveloping on the west coast and in southern Waikato. Waikato was sort
42:31 like south from us maybe two three hours south of us so everything changed since COVID for for me and a lot of people globally at the same time too and we we were thriving rurally we didn't rely on water because we had our own natural sources of water so there was available water to really do something but unfortunately things changed and we're adapting New Zealand's huge but it's also an island and here I'm on Hawaii Island did you also have kind of like a food scare type of thing where absolutely yep absolutely um especially um in in first stages
43:23 of lockdown we were going through there was only one place we could actually go to get food and that was just ridiculous um the amount of people who were just lining up in queues after queues and by the time you get into a supermarket there was virtually nothing there um i had to try and depend on building a garden so we could sustain ourselves for vegetables so to speak that was a big challenge it gives me chills man i just you know um yeah so i have um there was a there's an airbnb guest thing you know at our place right now and she was talking to me about you know just
43:59 the the food security she went to some ag tech food securities uh thing on oahu the other day and just this idea of like, you know, is there kind of like a renewed interest of folks wanting to put in more urban gardens like you're doing? Yes. I mean, I've noticed that change from a lot of networks that I come into who want to go back to homesteading, who want to go back to natural methods and all of that. I'm heading to Wellington, which is the bottom of the North Island, to talk to some people about natural farming. They're into viticulture, permaculture,
44:42 so there's a bunch of people down there that are interested because it was just developing these friendships with them and allowing them to understand, hey, have you heard about natural farming? They have in a sense, but they don't really know about natural farming or Korean natural farming, so to speak. What they don't know is, it's not what they don't know, It's more or less they're more face-to-face. They don't actually just go online and do their own research. It's about how can they do it practically rather than just go online and immerse themselves in a lot of research like I did,
45:19 which I like anyway. They're more practical people. They want to say, hands-on, how do we do this? Come down and show us how to do this. I say, look, I'm not one to train you how to do this. I'm just sharing my experiences with it over the past. coming up to nine years, actually, of understanding it. What I'm challenged by is I'm always having trouble with IMOs. That's always the thing that goes right and it doesn't go right. You know, that's been my challenge. IMOs has been my challenge to maintain around that. Because I don't have the space at home to be able to do it,
45:57 it's always been my challenge making IMO. I can only, when I tried it and I got it and I thought, okay, I don't have shelter to combine this all together. I would need to build a shack at the back, but I don't have space for a shack. So that's the ongoing challenge for me. Well, I'm looking forward to you coming here to visit, to learn, because if you're already establishing these networks, I mean, it's going to be crucial.
46:27 Like, like, you know, because you, yeah, like learning, learning online, learning those things, but seeing, smelling, tasting, doing, immersing, getting into this is like, you know, and then, and then when you go back, then you have these networks and now you're going to be able to connect with all these folks and be like, hey, look, you know, like, let's do this and let's, let's make it happen, you know, and, and have that, that like confidence that like, you know, and, and, and, and as you say, those, those other folks are hands.
46:57 on, right? So you can be this conduit to be like, you know, come on over, let's, or go down there and be like, let's do this. Yes, yes, absolutely. That's why I'm looking forward to coming over. It would solidify things that are known and have learned over the years. It would give credit to when I'm speaking into a group of people, hey, I learned this in Hawaii with Drake. Here's my certification to say I can actually train you to train people eventually. That's been my goal and motivation. I do have a capitalist view. I'd like to monetize it, absolutely, without a doubt. And knowing how
47:37 the solutions mix together in certain stages of a plant's growth and putting that into a... Actually, can I just show you something? Give me a second. i'll show you something yeah yeah yeah well uh you know while while he's while he's out in a way uh here you know um i guess maybe he should hear this but but there's i i was i was uh so i just just once i want to just like on that thing of like saying you know capitalistic make make the thing i like there's this kind of idea around natural farming that it should be like this thing
48:11 of poverty and people should just do it for free and and master cho every time we'd visit him he'd always go to the farmers and you'd say, you know, how much money are you making? And they'd kind of blush and they'd be like shy. And they're like, I'm making a lot of money. And it's like, that's, that's one thing about natural farming. And I don't think these other folks realize this is that once you learn this, it's going to save you a thousand. Like if you're already farming, it's going to save you thousands and thousands of dollars to switch to natural. You're going to get,
48:39 it's like building your wealth. You're going to get better. And then sharing this and making a living to like do it it's it's totally it's where it's at it is so so i i was in the development stages of trying to do things and and then i and i come up with packaging cool so and i wanted to get it out there um yes people yes uh in this form so they're able to do their own measurements and in the back i've got all the information on how to uh yes so that was been my development especially in the last two years and then I got to a point where hang on I need to be certified to
49:19 do this I need to have some recognition that it's not just all me around that I need to give credit back to what I've learned over the years and who I want to be involved with so I made a lot of these little bottles they're only 500 mil bottles knowing that these concoctions solutions so to speak that can last forever so i didn't want to give them huge amounts and thinking i wouldn't have any return customers from that perspective yeah yeah well you got i mean some some people need a lot of it you know but but but matching matching the scale to the customer and then
49:56 and then something like that like i always think that like you know the cool thing about natural farming is that you're not trying to like hide or proprietary the thing you're actually what you're doing is you're making it easier and more accessible for people and it's like here here you know go if you want to make your own go for it but if you want to buy it from me i'll get it you know i'll get you high quality really good stuff and it's immediately available and and that's like the whole thing behind this is just like that's so cool for me to see that you're you're out doing
50:28 this and like that's the mission there's another guy there's another guy in the chat uh the is his ishmael family or uh ishmael's farm he's inspired by daniel quinn's book but his name's daniel and he's also doing that here in hawaii and he took he took my class uh last year i reckon might have been early this year but um but he's doing the same thing of like trying to make this available to farmers and trying to make these blends and it's like you because because like like you said you go to the grow store or you go to the store and it's like chemicals or you go get
51:04 advice online it's like chemicals and or if you say a solution to someone you're like oh this but you got to learn how to make it and people are just like oh can't you just you know but if you're like hey try this and here it is and you give this to someone and just like just try it you know just you know and then their garden kicks but it's like yes now you're going to get people that are going to be like into it and that's how you're going to make the change of Of course, absolutely. I'm enjoying the journey, to be honest. I really am.
51:34 And finding you has really motivated me more to share the message in New Zealand, particularly. There are pockets of people that do natural farming, but I find they're gatekeepers to that information rather than spreading the message. So I wanted to do it what I am, not want. I'm going to do it on a bigger scale right throughout New Zealand. That's my mission. I really enjoyed the IMO baths that I saw with Master Chai. I really love that concept. I didn't even realise that could happen until I came across that video on YouTube and I was thinking, wow, because we have a lot of elderly folk
52:14 that would benefit from that. And that was my sort of like vision of looking that way. A lot of the things I want to do is to help farmers transition to natural farming and then i've got a couple of farmers who are keen to have a chat but i've had to step back and think actually what if they ask for my qualifications what do you know about this other than just a whole eight years of research and practice and application well yeah well and and but the you know your enthusiasm and the proof is in the pudding and
52:49 like you can show people and like you know like there i mean there's there's a lot to it of like Like what is, you know, what makes you, you know, like I can just see it from you. Like I trust you, man. Look at you. Look how much you do it. I'm so passionate about this. I'm passionate about the philosophy is about healing more than anything. That's what I'm passionate about. You know, we're healing the soil. We're healing the plants. We're healing the animals. We're healing ourselves. and especially we're healing our oceans because of the creep that goes into our oceans.
53:30 You know, that's what I'm really passionate about, about trying to balance that out. And I know that natural farm, Korean natural farming solutions is that solution. I know that for a fact. And a lot of my research tells me that's true. Yeah, well, I mean, it's all based on nature. And it's just it's kind of just putting the pieces in the right place and enabling nature to, you know, like if nature it's like, you know, like nature is trying to bake a cake and it doesn't have an ingredient, then it has to go find it somewhere else and make it.
54:04 But if we put all the ingredients out, then nature is like the master, like, you know, chef to make to put all the ingredients. So that's what I find to be natural farming, like those analogs to understand that idea of like put the pieces in place and nature will just slide along. You know, it's like it's not like saying to make nature like go over here or do anything faster or better. You know, nature's already it's just putting the pieces there so we get this regeneration. And yeah. Absolutely. it's been my goal to adapt or to help people transition completely it's a long term goal but that's
54:46 been my goal I know in the next three years I would make an impact especially from now on for that throughout all of New Zealand so my goal is to spread that message that's my goal obviously monetise it on the way too because you know people want to buy this product I do I do belong to a cannabis community at the same time too and I'm concerned about the synthetics they use and say oh we've got your medicine for you and I say hang on, you're using synthetics, how can you say that's medicine? So that in itself is my passion at the same time too because they all want to extract
55:27 to make pure medicine from it but I say how is it pure when you're using synthetics? How is it truly? Oh we flush it! I was like yeah but to a point, the synthetics isn't there. How can you actually tell it's all natural medicine? Because you're giving this to people who depend on it. Wouldn't you want a natural way of growing this? Are you familiar with the plant secondary metabolites? No, never heard of that term. So that's where a lot of the, you know, so a lot of like, like let me like in a real elementary sense like the npk makes the plant itself okay yes and if
56:07 you're working with um you know medicinal cannabis you'll have a plant there but it's the plant secondary metabolites that are all of these cbds cbgs you know uh thc's these different things those are the plant secondary metabolites and it's only once your basics are there that then the plant can develop the secondary plant metabolites and that's that's where the medicinal quality comes in is it's it's not it's not the main plant it's these subtle other things that only develop once it's there and and yeah someone someone's saying terpenes here those those are
56:45 those those those things that give the flavor the aroma these different um you know and all those flavor aroma are indicating better health plant you know and so yes if you're using something for medicine but itself isn't healthy yes like the like it it breaks the link right and so so understanding this and um understanding uh you know like like natural farming puts out more secondary plant metabolites in in everything from from apples to broccoli to cannabis to anything you get it puts the medicine back in our food yes yes yes definitely and and i grow myself and i've
57:33 noticed the difference from switching from synthetics to natural quite a huge difference uh phenomenal difference in in flavor and smells the aromas it was quite phenomenal when i switched over two years ago uh thinking that oh no i can use synthetics because it's going to help me grow faster and then because it's illegal in our country still we're sort of underground growers ourselves at the same time too it's still medicinal for myself and my family personally so but we get these labels oh you're just a stoner I'm not using THC I'm using CBD what are you on about
58:13 there's no psychoactive aspects in CBD, CBG, all of that I understand all of that I try not to say too much about it because the fear of being persecuted, the fear of being arrested, all of that is quite a huge fear in our country. We did have a vote in the last election on making it legal. So only 49% of the population voted yes and 51 voted no. So that referendum was taken off the table. However, the portrayal of cannabis was dark ages. That was promoted more than the benefits of it. So it's still an ongoing challenge.
58:57 We still try and walk that walk and saying, hey, this belongs for some of us in our society, maybe not for a lot of people. So that challenge is still ongoing. My encouragement to many of the friends that I know that are growers, legacy growers, is to say, look, try this product. I will send you some down, give it a go, and let me know what you think. So a couple of them have tried it out, and they're expecting big, huge crops. No, no, no, no. It's not about that. It's about transitioning from synthetics to that. Yeah, you know, one of my friends, Logan, he's a medicinal grower,
59:40 and um it's it's just no there's no difference like you know i've noticed uh you know like yeah i i just you know and like the the thing you know i always i always i kind of joke about this because the like if you have a great tomato it's good and you're like that's a good tomato but you're not like like several weeks or several months later you're not like oh i just had the best tomato, you know, but, but if you have a good smoke and, and then you're like, you're like, it's unforgettable. You're like, Oh, that. And, and, and I find that, um, through, through the,
1:00:15 the natural farming with the cannabis, it's like one of those things where you're like, Oh, you know, like it is, it is, it's memorable. It's, it's, it's like it, it, um, and it's so much more because your body is such complex and it's these plant secondary metabolites that are activating all these things in your body and it's the same for any any plant anything you know the more you do the more you like brighten up the more it's just like your your whole life um is activated because you're you're like we as humans we crave the the subtleties of the plant not the macro
1:00:51 the macro like is is is but it's the micros and and so having a a little bit of goodness is better than a whole bunch of junk, is my thought. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So I'm really encouraged by finding you many years ago and really walking this journey. And it's really motivated me more to actually get out there, network with people with a lot of walks of life, different Ghanas, maybe not so many types of Ghanas, but encouraging them to, if you're spraying something, why don't you use this spray why don't you make a concoction of fpj some other concoctions
1:01:33 in there and start spraying i found that one time i made too much and i'm thinking i'm not going to use this all that one so i started pouring it out down the drain because i had so much of it the only purpose i poured down the drain was because there was just too much i was giving it away and and then i still had too much fpj i had too much ffj so i thought oh no if i poured it down the drain, it's going to make its way eventually to the ocean. That was my idea about it. That's the reason. So I made quite a lot of solutions, and I thought, I'm not going to use this all at once.
1:02:11 It's just going to stay in there, and I'm never going to make any more. I just had far too much, far too much, actually. Well, you've got to get a – Some of it turned to vinegar, especially the WCP, was just like, oh, no, it's gone off. because I couldn't use it in time. I just had a small bag. I was thinking, why did I make so much? I should have just taken my time. Yeah, we got to get you. You're going to be famous. People are going to be hitting you up, man. And then you got to get a sprayer for your car. My truck, I got it hooked up,
1:02:44 this little 12-volt thing that runs right off the car battery, and it sprays. So everywhere I'm driving, I'm just inoculating the world, man. i i tried to walk around my walks around the neighborhood with a spray bottle and i was just spraying every plant i was going past and i thought oh hang on people might think i'm poisoning them you know they wouldn't know i'm actually spraying natural things in there so i said oh i better stop that practice no no people people people stop me all the time for doing that
1:03:21 And I'm like, you know what, it's a great learning opportunity to tell them a little bit about Korean natural farming. It's like, it's not poison. And usually I'll just spray it right in my mouth and be like, you know. That's the difference I notice is that we can consume it ourselves. Because I always tell my friends, you know, the stuff that you put on your plants, can you actually consume that? And they say, oh, no, no, it's poisonous. So why would you put it on your plants then? Yeah, if you're going to eat it, if you're going to consume it, it's like, what?
1:03:57 Like where, you know, the disconnect of, it's like, I don't know. To me, once I found Korean natural farming, it seems like you as well. It's like there's no turning back, you know. There's only going forward. I've been gardening since I was a child. My dad got me to dig gardens as a five-year-old, and that's where my passion came from. Although I didn't like digging the gardens, however, from that learning, 50 years later, I grew passionate about gardening, quite passionate about gardening, and then wanted to try finding a method that was healthy. And then Korean Natural Farming came along.
1:04:38 I said, oh, this is it. I found it. I don't need to go searching anymore. There's nothing else that compares to this, in my opinion, anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so I got, I'm going to wrap up here, but I want to just ask you, I just want to ask you one more question. Like, and what, like, what, what advice would you give to folks kind of just, just starting out, get, you know, if they just found Korean natural farming, what advice would you give to them? I'm trying not to go down the track that I went down. Far too much research and not application. So for me, it's starting with the basics,
1:05:17 getting understanding with the very basics of FPJ and getting an understanding of brown rice vinegar. I'd probably get them down to the nitty basics of trying to figure out what does this do? What is the fermentation process that this helps your plant, your soil? I can't articulate what I would say, but I would give them the real basics of what benefits natural farming has, not only in their gardens, but in their life, holistically in their life. That's how I would start off a conversation anyway. These are the benefits I've found through my experiences.
1:05:56 My experience is to start slowly, having an opportunity to understand what it is that you're putting on plants or in your soil or in yourself. The only advice I'd give to you is just really give it at a basic level so they ask more questions rather than give them answers. People like to ask questions. I don't like to give them answers. I say I'll give them something to start off with. They were still trying to figure out internally transitioning from, like you said, NPK. Oh, where's the NPK in this? How do you know where's the NPK in this?
1:06:32 And I was like, actually, everything in FPGA is all you're saying, but I don't know how to articulate that to you yet. Hence the reason why I want to come over to have that knowledge, to be able to articulate to people and explain better. For me, it's just being basic. Keep it simple, short. and let them come back for more questions, then I can sell them my products if they still don't understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get them into the coaching. Not my products, our products. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think actually, you know, having that, getting them basic
1:07:08 and having them to be able to walk away with some usable thing and they will get there much quicker, yeah. Absolutely. Look, it's great talking to you. I'm glad we actually have a chance of speak face to face rather than just typing a message out. Say, how are you doing buddy? And my email is getting lost in the ether somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, no. Yeah. Great. Great to talk with you, Willie and looking forward to it. And we'll see, we'll see next week. You know, if you got more questions or want to jump in, we'll see. I try and get on with tinfoil hat, man.
1:07:44 One thing I want to get into with folks is to also, I didn't really get to it too much today, but I want to find out like, you know, what other influences and what other, you know, kind of, you know, on your natural farming journey, like how, you know, who else in this world, this regenerative world of like finding solutions, because that's really what I want to impart to people is like, look, there's, there's, there's this, and there's all these tool sets and there's all these folks, you know? And so I, I'm sure, I'm sure you got more, but,
1:08:13 but we'll leave that as a cliffhanger for, for next time. Absolutely. Great to talk to you, Jack. Oh, okay. Great to talk. Yeah, okay, Willie. Well, I'm going to sign off here. And just, you know, thanks everyone for tuning in. And hope you enjoy Korean Natural Farming Office Hours. So, yeah, Pure K&F Foundation here. Master Cho, making it all happen. Really appreciate you guys. Hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Willie and I. And if you want to be part of the, you know, you want to share and be, you know,
1:08:50 get into this uh let me know you can send me an email drake d-r-a-k-e at pure knf.org and um we'll get into it and uh yeah i really appreciate all you guys tuning in so um i'm just gonna i think i'm gonna hit leave here and i'll see what happens i don't i really ended on stream yard very very quickly but i appreciate you guys um till till next next week aloha long live the natural farmer by now let's see and the broadcast yes bye