In this video, Beverly Welch is joined by Angela Chandler of The Gardening Academy. Bev and Angela discussed remediation and preparedness for soil before and after a flood.
Transcription:
♪ [music] ♪ – [Beverly] Hi, welcome. I’m Beverly Welch here at The Arbor Gate in Tomball, Texas, joined by my dear friend, Angela Chandler, at the Gardening Academy. – [Angela] Good morning, Beverly. – Good morning. Well, if you live on the Gulf Coast, you got wet, and you got really wet. And even if you did not go under water, we had an inordinate amount of rainfall. That can infect our garden in so many ways, and Angela’s here today to talk to us a little bit not only about remediation of what happened, but by doing this, you’re prepared for the next one. – You certainly are, Beverly. As you can see from the lovely gardens here, good soil biology is going to help your plants recover faster. It has to do with the texture of the soil, the amount of aeration there is in the soil, and also how friendly it is to the beneficial microbes. – And that’s the key. – It is the key. – That is the key. – They’re the ones that do the heavy lifting. – And even, you know, no matter what the contaminants were in flood water, whether it’s salty residue, cars being submerged. We don’t really know what contaminants might be in the water. Not necessarily had to stay on us, just flowing through. – Just flowing through, and it is true. There’s garden chemicals that have come through from other neighbors’ yards, just a lot of things that can come through, and so it’s really a good idea to address that first and understand that healthy soil biology will take care of all of that. Microbes that exist in our gardens will be able to digest all of those things. – Right. So right now, giving the depletion of probably most in the soil, most everything in the soil, we want to start with food. – We do. Even if you got your fertilizer out for fall already, it’s pretty safe to assume that that is all leached out of our soils, so if you did do your fertilizing, it’s time to refertilize. If you hadn’t gotten to your fertilizing yet, then it’s time to get that out. And the thing about slow-release organic fertilizers is that they do support soil biology before they support the plants. In other words, they take care of that, and then the soil biology takes care of the plant themselves. – Healthy soil grows healthy plants. – It really does. And they’re non-burning. They’re going to be taken up as the plant needs them at the right temperature and right moisture. It works the way nature was intended to work. – And then next step would be, after applying the food, would be to come with a light layer of soil. – It does help. And if you have identified areas of your garden that did not drain well…and they were pretty easy to see this time…that’s a good time for you to consider either raising that bed or working something that has good aeration in it like the Soil Complete into that area, so that it improves your drainage for the next time it happens. Because this is the Gulf Coast, and it will happen again. – You never know. So after we do those steps right there, there are some other things that we can do to even add more quickly beneficial. – We really can. One of the things that we notice is that, when we have these heavy rains, plants get stressed out, and just like our human system, they need a little mineral boost to be able to get back into really good shape. So any of the sea-based products are really going to help you get that mineral quickly. Plants absorb them through their foliage very readily. So the seaweed, the folio plus, those two things, and you don’t really need to be cautious about applying them. Use them in a hose and sprayer, and do the whole yard. Your trees, your shrubs, your lawn… – Yes, everything. – …your vegetable garden, everything will benefit from it. – And you know, you’re seeing all these yellowing foliages right now, and some plants, in fact, defoliating. – Yes, they did. – Because lack of oxygen, because of all the heavy rains. So this is a great way to get some things in there really quickly. – It really will. And some of those plants, you’ll notice that they’re probably already setting buds and trying to recover, so we need to give them the energy they need to be able to recover fully before winter comes. – Though no need to panic just yet. – No need to panic. Just get everything back in balance. – Right. Now, for those that did have some water collection, say, on their patios, or in their garden sheds, or even where they store their tools, we do need to make sure that we disinfect that properly. – You do. You want to make sure that you decontaminate everything, so that it’s safe for you to use. And so these products are generally made for household use, but they do have some garden applications as well. Like I say, if you had carpet on your patio, if you had tools in a shed that went under, it’s very easy to spray these items in there. They’re very naturally-based, again, putting good biology to work. And it should be able to take care of all of that and beside the fact that it’s going to make that garden shed smell nice, too. – Right. And you know, this is great for someone that did actually experience flooding in their home. – Yes. – After they rip all the material out to spray their studs, spray their foundation to kill any viruses, bacteria, mold that may be lingering. Another thing that you’ll notice after the inordinate amount of rain is a lot of musty odors, even in your car. So this is an organic, if you will, odor eliminator. – Yes. In fact, I am planning to take two bottles of this home with me today because I have a friend who had to evacuate to Dallas, and she had to evacuate with her dogs. Her dogs didn’t tolerate the trip very well, and so she had some issues with things in her carpet. And so she’s looking forward to having something that will take care of that, so it’s definitely flood-related. So even though it’s in the car and this will take care of it in the carpet as well. – So any odors. We use it a lot here, and I have to tell you it’s a great product. – It’s wonderful. – Well, thank you so much. It really clarifies everything and shows how easy it is to get our soil back in balance, back healthy, and grow that beautiful fall garden. – Yes. Can’t wait to get ready for spring. – Thanks, Angela. – You bet.
