By Graeme Sait

In part one of this two-part feature, we discussed five essentials for successful, home food production. In this second segment, the focus will be on two key, game-changing strategies. These practices can help ensure the production of chemical-free food, with forgotten flavours, extended shelf-life and greater medicinal qualities. This duo includes foliar fertilising and the production of DIY living fertilisers (microbe brews) for the home garden.

Let’s begin with a discussion of all-inclusive mineral correctives. These inputs can be particularly productive because home gardeners rarely conduct a soil test to determine their requirements. In the absence of this precision, it is always wise to cover all bases.

6) Use all-inclusive natural fertilisers in the soil - these inputs can provide the kind of complete nutrition that will help ensure vibrant, healthy, resilient crops. At this point, I need to mention the popular organic fertiliser from NTS called LifeForce Gold. This is a pelletised, composted fertiliser where all minerals have been addressed. This soil and plant food covers all bases, including biology, as we use a cold pelletising process that retains the diverse microbial life found in this nutrient-enhanced compost. The comprehensive LifeForce Gold blend even includes often-neglected but much-needed minerals, like molybdenum and cobalt.

My favourite personal planting blend involves a 50/50 combination of LifeForce Gold and LifeForce Carbon. This ensures the minerals, microbes and humus focus, that is the essence of Nutrition Gardening. LifeForce Carbon involves composted brown coal. The composting process releases the 50% to 70% humic and fulvic acid component of the coal, while also delivering the ancient minerals found in this prehistoric plant matter.

7) Discover foliar fertilising - this practice provides at least ten times more efficient nutrient delivery, compared to uptake from the roots. That’s why it has become something of a revolution in pasture and broadacre cropping. Foliar fertilising is a bit like spraying magnesium oil onto your skin to stop cramping. This direct magnesium injection is ten times more efficient than the gut route in humans.

I can understand why gardeners might resist foliar fertilising to avoid RSI from constantly pumping a small sprayer or backpack. My suggestion is that you invest in a Sthil backpack mister. This motorised unit generates a fine mist blast that can even reach the top of your fruit trees. This mist blast is important because it serves two purposes integral to foliar success. Firstly, it delivers a super fine droplet size that is essential for uptake via the tiny stomata on the underside of the leaves. These tiny little mouths, which are there to suck up CO2 for photosynthesis, are the ideal entry point for rapid response from foliar nutrition. The mister provides tiny droplets that can easily enter those open mouths.

Secondly, the backpack mister blows hard enough to flip the leaves of your plants and coat the stomate-peppered underside with the desired supplements. It can be otherwise be quite laborious to try to physically target the underside of the leaf with the wand from your pump-up sprayer.

With a motorised mister, you can literally spray your entire garden at walking pace, within 15 minutes. In our time-starved world, that means you are more likely to offer your garden some foliar support. 

There is one other fascinating understanding relative to optimising foliar response. Those little stomate mouths open to their full size with certain stimulants. In the wonderfully interconnected marvel that is Mother Nature, the frequency of early morning bird song triggers stomatal opening. This response is designed so the plant can better access dew and perhaps a little dust mingled into that dew. The plant effectively has a drink and a feed amidst that dawn chorus. If we foliar spray early in the morning, we can sync with those little open mouths and optimise foliar uptake.

There is a second stimulant that sponsors stomatal opening. The stomata exist to suck up CO2, and hence it opens in the presence of a sudden influx of this carbon dioxide gas. When we foliar spray microorganisms, in the form of a compost tea or vermicast extract, there are billions of organisms delivered to the underside of each leaf. Like most living things, these organisms breathe out CO2, and that is the sudden influx that opens the mouth. When you combine microbes with foliar nutrition, you always get a better response. This is the basis of my favoured practice of “putting the microbes behind the minerals”. No foliar is ever applied on my farms or gardens without that microbial booster.

Once again, a proven foliar strategy involves selecting a complete foliar fertiliser that covers all minerals and multiple natural plant growth promotants in one formula. I developed such an input for the home gardener called “Life Force Total Cover”. It is a complex formula involving over 60 components, and we receive wonderful feedback about the transformational response.

Increasingly, some of this is coming from cannabis growers, particularly from those countries where this multipurpose herb is legal. Growers are a little more cagey in those countries where it remains illegal. My customer service consultants report phone calls where people are describing their “tomatoes”. When asked what area they are growing, they sometimes drop the ball and say something like, “I’ve currently got 2 cupboards, but I would like to expand to 3 cupboards”. 

Total Cover is available from NTS or from our home garden site, nutritiongardening.com.au.

Nothing's perfect, and there are only two minerals missing from Total Cover. They have not been included due to mineral incompatibilities. This pair includes calcium and magnesium. Hence, we created a second foliar called Trio. This liquid fertiliser contains chelated forms of magnesium and calcium, along with the boron required to activate calcium. It also contains large amounts of kelp and fulvic acid. Total Cover can’t be combined with Trio in your spray tank.

However, when you alternate foliar applications of Total Cover and Trio, you have delivered a complete and comprehensive plant nutrition that always reaps rewards.

8) Plant protection - Virgin Gardeners often dip their toe in the water but withdraw it quite quickly when the cold reality of insect and disease decimation bites. Nutrition Gardening involves a food-producing system that builds plant immunity and resilience, to help increase the likelihood that gardening will provide more fun than stress.

A critical part of this pest resistance involves building cell wall strength. The cell wall is the physical barrier that can blunt the mandibles of the sap-sucking insect or buckle the hyphae of invading fungi. The question becomes, “How can we strengthen that barrier to repel the undesirables. What determines cell wall strength?” The answer involves two minerals of equal importance. They include calcium and silica. 

Calcium, the most immobile of all minerals, is very often missing. This shortage is often magnified because calcium uptake is so readily impacted by excesses of other minerals, including nitrogen, potassium and magnesium. This makes calcium an obvious candidate for the foliar delivery that bypasses these hurdles. Foliar calcium is essential for both gardens and farms if we are seeking to reduce the need for chemical intervention.

The second cell wall strengthener is silica, and this is a mineral that most home gardeners have never even contemplated. It has become the flavour of the month in commercial food production, as multiple published papers confirm the many benefits. These include improved nutrient and water translocation, stem strength, pest resistance, immune elicitation and yield increases. 

In the home garden, this simply translates to less stress and more pleasure. 

So, how do you boost plant-available silica in your garden?

You can apply a couple of trailer loads of basalt crusher dust. It contains 60% silica, but only the very finest particles will be plant available. However, the crusher dust offers other benefits, including other broad-spectrum minerals, inorganic carbon sequestration, biostimulation and a fascinating phenomenon called paramagnetic stimulation. It can cost as little as $15 per tonne, and this is a very worthwhile investment in your food garden. 

You can also source micronised diatomaceous earth. This powder comprises the silica-based skeletons of tiny creatures called diatoms, which were entombed during geological upheavals over the eons. We have a liquid micronised DE product called Dia-Life, which is one of our most popular export items.

However, we also now offer the potential to address the three-legged resilience stool that Hugh Lovell called the foundation minerals. This trio features calcium, silica and boron. It has not previously been possible to combine calcium and silica together, because they are not compatible. However, we have recently introduced a new NTS product, called SiliCal-B, that supplies your crop or garden with the three foundation minerals in a single formula for the first time. There has been tremendous feedback from horticulture clients across the world, but now this new product is available for home gardeners. It is available in five-litre containers from www.nutri-tech.com.au.

9) Introduce a new workforce - your compost and soil foods may have increased and supported all-important soil life diversity, but you can expand upon this “more the merrier” mantra with the introduction of DIY living fertilisers. These include compost extracts, specialist inoculums and beneficial anaerobes. Let’s look at how you might make each of these…..

Compost extracts are better than compost teas in terms of diversity, and they are much easier to make. Vermicast is the absolute best, but any compost can be used. Here’s how you do it:

Recipe for 20 litres of compost extract.

Add 3 kgs of vermicompost to a 20-litre bucket.

Now fill that bucket with water using high pressure, as you blast the microbes from their humus base.

When the bucket is full, stir it vigorously for ten minutes. You can even use a paint stirrer on a drill, if you want to maximise microbe extraction.

Now let the slurry settle before pouring the mix through a stocking, or NTS compost tea bag, to remove the solids that will otherwise block your sprayer or clog your watering can.

This rich and diverse microbe extract can be applied to the soil with a watering can, or it can be the “microbes behind the minerals” in your foliar spray.

Reclaiming Your Mycorrhizal Network

The most important, specialist inoculum you can introduce in your food garden is mycorrhizal fungi. These symbiotic creatures are best introduced onto seedlings or seed, but they can also be watered onto existing crops.

If you are not familiar with these important organisms, I’ll briefly explain.

Mycorrhizal fungi burrow into the plant root, so they can access plant exudates, but they are not parasites. In fact, they give much more than they receive. Once established, they grow a bunch of fine filaments that effectively provide a massive root extension. In fact, your roots now have ten times more surface area to harvest moisture and nutrients. However, that’s just the start. This hyphael maze produces biochemicals that protect from root knot nematodes, and others that stimulate plant immunity. The filaments reach out to harvest immobile minerals, like phosphate and zinc. However, there is another hugely important benefit from repopulating mycorrhizal fungi into your garden; these creatures produce a carbon-based substance called glomalin, which is now known to be responsible for 30% of all humus formation. It appears to trigger humus-building organisms to increase their performance.

Mycorrhizal populations have been decimated in many home gardens through the biocidal effect of years of chlorinated water, along with the over-cultivation that constantly slices and dices their hyphal extensions.

We have a really productive mycorrhizal inoculum for the home garden, called Platform. It also contains a suite of protective bacillus organisms for plant growth promotion. Platform is available in home packs at nutritiongardening.com.au or from the NTS website. You can also place phone orders by calling 07 5472 9900

10) Discover Beneficial Anaerobes

Finally, in our quest to build biology, we must consider beneficial anaerobes. These hardy organisms perform similar roles to aerobic microbes. They protect from disease, build humus, improve soil structure, stimulate plant growth and facilitate better nutrient uptake. The good news is that they are particularly user-friendly because, once brewed, they can remain viable for up to two years. That means they are there to combine with anything at any time. We have a blend of 65 beneficial anaerobes called BAM (Beneficial Anaerobic Organisms). Here’s how easily you can expand these creatures to make 20 litres of these stable beneficials.

20 litre BAM recipe

You will need a 20-litre bucket with a lid.

Source a one-way valve from a home brew shop (for around $5) and plumb it into the lid.

Now add 2 litres of BAM ( available from NTS) and one litre of molasses to the drum and top it up with water,

Stir the mix for one minute before sealing the bucket with the lid fitted with the one-way valve.

In warm conditions, your BAM brew will be ready to use in ten days, but it will take longer in the cold.

It will stay viable for up to 2 years and can be included with foliars and soil foods at any time to increase performance, productivity and resilience.

BAM can also be used to fast-track composting, where the DIY inoculum is diluted with water and sprayed on each layer of compost during the construction of your pile. The pile is then covered with a tarp and weights for 2 months. That’s all it takes to make a wonderfully productive BAM compost.

In conclusion…..

I trust you are now suitably equipped to embrace the production of your own medicinal food. The home garden is your greatest wellness tool, but this practice must be stress-free. We often live our short lives mired in an ocean of stress and anxiety. The garden needs to be your sanctuary, and these tips are designed to ensure you can experience pleasure and joy while feeding the family.

Until my next instalment, enjoy the Spring!

Warm regards

Graeme

Exciting News from the Home Front!

We are deeply honoured that Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS) has been named a finalist in the Food & Agribusiness category at the 2026 Sunshine Coast Business Awards (proudly sponsored by Maleny Dairies)!

From Broadacre Farms across the globe to backyard vegetable patches in our own neighbourhood, our passion has always been getting back to root causes—restoring the biological and mineral health of our soil to nourish humanity. To be acknowledged right here in our home region alongside so many remarkable local food and agriculture pioneers is truly humbling.

A massive thank you to our hardworking team, our category sponsor Maleny Dairies, and every grower who walks this "Soil to Soul" journey with us.

Wish us luck for the finals! 🥂

Life Force® Total Cover™

For healthy, vigorous growth with improved root structure. Broad-spectrum, balanced minerals address the plants’ nutritional needs.

Available in a convenient concentrate, this specialty liquid foliar fertiliser covers all bases. Almost all of the major minerals and trace elements are included in this formulation, along with state-of-the-art organic technology, which maximises mineral uptake while simultaneously feeding soil life. Seven natural growth promotants are included in this blend, which can be used effectively throughout the complete plant cycle.

Life Force® Gold Pellets™

A nutrient-rich fertiliser and soil conditioner with diverse & active microbes.

NTS have developed a complete fertiliser covering every aspect of plant and soil nutrition.
Life Force® Gold™ Pellets are the bridge between conventional agriculture and organics, literally containing the best of both worlds. This agronomically balanced fertiliser epitomises the NTS approach toward high yielding agriculture. Regenerative farming is the key to maximum production and crop quality which builds soil fertility while feeding both the soil biology and the plant.

Product Benefits

• A total fertiliser involving over 20 components
• A 'living fertiliser' where organic acids and microbes have
  complexed the component minerals and nutrients
• Organic carbon and minerals build crop quality
• The largest selling NTS home garden fertiliser
• Australian Certified Organic (ACO) Registered Farm Input 456AI.

 To order or learn more, call NTS on (07) 5472 9900 or email sales@nutri-tech.com.au.

Certificate in Nutrition Farming

Our next iconic, five-day Certificate in Nutrition Farming® course is scheduled for November 2026: Monday 2nd - 6th.

Did you know that government subsidies are available for farmers via the Farm Household Allowance? Check it out here... https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/farm-household-allowance

Our last course was attended by growers and consultants from six countries. It was a wonderful learning opportunity where attendees enjoyed a wealth of education and inspiration from both our presenters and their fellow attendees. We only accept 40 bookings for these courses, so please register if you would like to attend.