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STORY

ALL YOU NEED ...

“I feed my compost with old vegetable scraps, garden clippings, ash, the chicken manure, even
newspapers,” Ruth said. “My mother taught me long ago that it was important to feed the soil. Then agro-
chemical companies came and told farmers that fertilisers were better. But new science is showing us
that chemical fertilisers kill many good living organisms in the soil that helps crops grow, which reduce
many nutrients in the plants. Chemical fertilisers also get into the water, and pollute rivers. It shows that
we need to work with nature to create organic fertiliser instead of using harmful factory manufactured
fertilisers.”

She scraped away some compost from the top of the heap and told Martha to put her hand on it. It was
warm, as if there was a fire burning underneath.
“Do you feel that heat?” Ruth asked. “That’s the mighty microbes at work, breaking down the old
vegetable scraps. I gather all the right materials to make compost and then once a month we have a
compost making day. Our heap gets hot and kills any pathogens (the bad microbes) and feeds all the
good microbes, producing high quality organic fertiliser. The microbes in the soil feed the plants and
the healthy plants, when eaten, feed the microbes in your gut. This good relationship between the soil
microbes and the gut does not happen if the chemical fertilisers, bought from the agricultural supply
stores, are used to grow food. This is an important difference between food grown naturally (as our
grandmothers did) and foods grown using factory made fertilisers.”
Mighty microbes… Ruth seemed to like creepy things, Martha thought. But she liked Ruth and was
willing to try to like her creepy friends.

Microbes are very small living organisms, too small to see without a microscope, such as bacteria,
fungi, algae, and viruses. They live in the soil and in plants, animals and humans. Some cause disease,
but most are essential for life, and enable the plant or animal to function and be healthy.
Our bodies have trillions of microbes, most of them living in our gut.
We need these gut microbes to help us:
• Digest food
• Eliminate toxins
• Fight diseases
• Balance moods
• Boost our immune system

Many modern diets with little variety and a lot of processed food are bad for these microbes.
Plants fed by good soil microbes can feed the healthy microbes in our bodies.

“So, the first thing you need to be able to grow ‘food medicine’ is good, living soil.” Martha said, as they
moved away from the compost heap towards the garden. “The second thing you need are these guys.”
She put her hand in her pocket and held it out to Martha. A few dark grains rested in her palms.

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