Welcome to the podcast, everybody. I'm here with a special guest, Tommy from Detroit Nutrient
Company. We met last year. I was on a quest to find some living soil and just happened to have
a local store said, Hey, this guy just stopped in with a couple bags of soil.
And we need somebody to test out. And I was like, well, hell yeah, give it to me. So I took it home.
There was a number on the back of the bag and it said call for more information. And Tommy answered
we started talking and he ran me through the spiel of living soil and why his product was
water only and the true first and only water only I believe. And he came out to Colorado.
We went to a shop, I heard his spiel and I was so so I brought him on the show. And I wanted to
have him explain because he was the best person at explaining why living soil was superior.
And first, I want to let these people out here know, what got you into cannabis, Tommy? Why did
you start consuming? We had some things in common where we both drank in the past, but we don't
anymore. And we compared life consuming cannabis to drinking and found out that it was a lot more
positive optimistic in my point of view, when I smoke compared to drinking. So when did you
actually get into cannabis and you are from Detroit area or Michigan or upstate New York or Michigan,
correct? So I got to ask you a question. Are you supposed to be appearing and disappearing?
Oh, it's when I back out.
You can see my logo.
Ah, all right. So that's how it's supposed to look.
It's not 100 percent supposed to be like that, but I like the way it works out.
All right. So, yeah, I was born and raised here in Detroit, Michigan. That's where I'm sitting
right now. I own a farm in northern Michigan. I spend in the summertime and I'm a sportsman
as well. So I spent a lot of time in northern Michigan on my farm up there when I can get away.
But for the most part, born here and right in the city of Detroit, raised in the city of Detroit. And
that's where my my journey with cannabis started. So I started out when I was probably,
I would say I was 12 years old the first time, which listen, I'm telling you my story. It's not
maybe what I recommend. Right. I'm not either. I tell you, don't follow me.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long, strange trip for me. And so I'm not encouraging young people to do
anything. But yeah, it started out when I was about 12 years old. I've got older sibling,
our two older sisters. And so so I was introduced to actually, if I remember correctly, I think
the old method of smoking hash where you put a little on the pin through a piece of cardboard,
set on fire, then you put the cup over it, let the smoke build up. And I believe that was maybe my
first experience with cannabis. And then then smoking joints with the older kids watching
the Simpsons. Like, I mean, that was a huge thing. That was maybe 87, 88, when that started going on.
And then I was like everybody else, a little,
you know, hustler on the street with cannabis and some of my older friends. And then and
later on in life, I got into kind of the bar industry. And I had a parallel relationship
with cannabis as well. But alcohol really became my go to drug of choice. You know, when I was
in my late teens and early 20s, like most kids, because there was no because there was there was
definitely a what do you call that you you know, there was an image that went along with weed,
and it wasn't accessible. And you had to chase it down. You go, you know, with a fake ID, go to
the liquor store. And when I was about 1516, I got robbed at gunpoint on a weed deal, you know.
And so it dissuaded me the the nature of it, the way that we went about getting it,
the criminal element, especially Detroit at the time was rough city was a really rough,
rough town back then. I mean, I don't know for people that are old, it was the murder
capital of the world multiple years in a row. And it was it was just riddled with crime back then.
And and so it was hard, you know, you had to deal with just straight up thugs to get weed.
And you know, you're getting Mexican brick weed, you know, and the quality wasn't there. When you
found good quality was really expensive. So so I went, you know, going through all that and then
the easy accessibility to alcohol and being in the bar business. My relationship with alcohol
turned pretty toxic. Pretty quickly. I had a series of setbacks in my life that led me to
overconsume. And I did some damage to myself and physically and emotionally because because of my
relationship with alcohol. And so after, you know, 25 years of that, I had to end my relationship
with alcohol and which was very difficult at the time. You know, anybody that's ever been addicted
to it in the way that I was, you understand, I mean, it's life threatening when you're an alcoholic to
to stop. So kind of the when you're coming out of it, there's like a lot of sweating and shaking
and uncomfortableness. And then I was able to then lean back on my very old friend cannabis
to help me kind of to help get me across some of the those rough patches. I mean, honestly,
I know I don't I can't stand that marijuana has been overbilled as a miracle drug, you know,
and I don't recommend training or trading one addiction for the other. But I can say when you
when you have that level of anxiety and mental discomfort, when you're exiting a relationship
with alcohol, especially marijuana helped kind of soothe some of that it helped kind of
put the shakes to rest and kept me eating and kept me, you know, it kept me off the edge. I mean,
I lost, you know, you lose your identity after an addiction. And it's really overwhelming. And so
I was able to utilize cannabis even more at the end of my relationship with alcohol,
they're kind of offset some of that daily confusion and anxiousness about the change in my life. And
and I know I know you and I have spoken at length about this in, you know, person and multiple times.
And it was rough, you know, it's really hard and cannabis. And again, I'm not trying to book
cannabis as a miracle drug, but cannabis was able to really help me kind of get over that.
Oh, you know, I was I was I was able to crap. Did I lose you there, buddy? No, you're good.
We're still here. All right. I was able to kind of get out of that
rough patch with the help of cannabis really did really did me a big solid.
Yeah, I was on the same boat. It was a wear my body down. It seemed like a normal thing to do
where I was at daily consumption at the university, came to Colorado and drinking at the altitude
here was really hard on your body. You just can't drink at this altitude. And I was living at 10,000
feet and drinking on a daily there will really tear up your body. Oh, yeah. I was lucky there
was good quality cannabis. The first time I stopped drinking, then I was able to stop drinking for
about five years. And then I moved to Spain and it was really hard for me to get cannabis in Spain.
I was relying on pollen hash. They call that there really wasn't the good stuff in smoking just
straight hash because I didn't like tobacco and they would mix it with the tobacco out of a cigarette
and smoke that. So after four years of that and dealing with black market there, and I actually
was pulled over once by the national police just at a random checkpoint carrying a couple of ounces
and sweat and bullets. So I was really lucky to get off of that. And so I ended up drinking again
over there and then came back to the United States and came back to Colorado because in rural West
Virginia, you just couldn't find the good quality cannabis or it was not fit for human consumption
and you're sick when you did consume it instead of making you better. So since I've been here,
I don't even crave alcohol and I find my life is a lot more positive. I'm more optimistic.
Alcohol is a depressant and can take you to dark places and especially if people are mixing those
with antidepressants or other medicines, they are being prescribed to help them with the depression
that the alcohol is inducing or making worse. So I'm glad for that myself and I don't recommend
people smoking cannabis unless it is something that takes them off of something harder.
But just going out and smoking, I'm in your same boat. It's not a miracle drug, but it can help a
lot of people. Yeah, I mean, so I did physical. I have I didn't know it when I quit drinking. I
found out later and I did physical damage to my liver. I have some scarring on my liver because
of my relationship with alcohol. I was three hundred and sixty pounds. I had sleep apnea
because of my size. I was leading a sedentary lifestyle because of my relationship with alcohol.
I was. And not to not to rain on anybody's parade or be a bummer. I mean, I literally at one point
put a gun in my mouth. I was so depressed. I didn't alcohol wasn't. I had my problems that
I was escaping from alcohol and lost some friends and. I was in a hard place and I couldn't get out
of it. And I was doubling down on bad behavior, which, you know, I'm sure a lot of people can
relate to with drinking and it couldn't help me anymore. And so I got to the point where I
got so I got so depressed that I was I was dark for me, man. Like, that's hard for me to admit,
you know, but I've become better at sharing it because not carrying that load by yourself is.
Makes it easier. And I like for people to I like to kind of spread the word on on that.
Alcohol is a depressant. And I'm not and I don't think cannabis is a miracle drug at all. I think
cannabis is really great at a lot of things, but it bothers me when people over sell it as a cure
for everything. It's not a cure for everything. I mean, ultimately, you need to create better
habits. You should probably speak to a therapist or a friend, you know, about your problems and
examine your relationship with other drugs. And in that cannabis can help
let off a lot of the stress. And for me, it did. You know, I don't know that maybe it's
you know, nothing's for everybody. But I felt like I feel like cannabis gets a really bad rep
for a few reasons. And one of is doesn't make cannabis or alcohol doesn't create a good time
to have a drink on where I'm more apt to
be chill when I'm smoking a little weed and be a little cooler. And I don't think I was like that.
I mean, you know, people like me when I drink because they were drinking with me. But
I wasn't as cool. I wasn't as in control as I am. If I smoke if I smoke a little weed,
But the downside of smoking weed is that, you know, you might it might be a gateway
to unhealthy food choices.
So so when they say that cannabis is a gateway drug, it's a gateway to sugar, which is a
drug.
Like, I'm more apt to want to receive candy or, you know, that or a cookie or something
when I'm a little stoned.
But I've never and I don't know how you feel about that.
I'll tell you how I feel.
There's a lot about the gateway drug portion of it.
So you know, I've done a lot of drugs in my life and I enjoyed them.
I liked a lot of the drugs that I did.
I've never smoked a joint.
I've not only have I never smoked a joint and said it myself, I've never had somebody
after just smoking a joint look at me and say we should score an eight ball.
Right.
How many times were you sitting in a bar with somebody that normally wouldn't do blow and
after they have a couple of shots, they'll say, hey, man, I need a bump.
Like alcohol is the gateway drug.
It is for sure.
And all the things that they blame on weed, I can say firsthand that I think you're more
apt to do that under the influence of alcohol.
And also when you're like going out just driving, you sit around smoking like, oh, let's go
out and race.
And I'm like, yeah, man, I'm high.
I get like 12 deep into a 12 pack.
Oh, shit, I can route race you and you're out there racing on the street.
And that's the bad news, man.
I've seen it happen.
You know, when you smoke a joint and you're talking to your chick, right.
Like, and I'm sorry, I don't know if that's politically correct, but you're smoking a
joint you're talking to.
In my case, it's it's it's my girlfriend.
Right.
Or your boyfriend, whatever it is.
You're way you smoke a joint and they say something ridiculous.
If you're a little high, you laugh at like, you don't hear of dudes.
Like, man, I'll smoke like two joints and then I got arrested for domestic violence.
I'm not a violent.
I'm not a domestic.
I don't.
Those aren't my issues to begin with.
But I don't know many potheads that have domestic situation unless they're mixing other unless
they're mixing other things and with the high.
Yeah.
And I think marijuana, all marijuana was in use.
And sometimes it mixed with other legal drugs.
And those are ones that creating it.
Right.
You want to just get the bad rep on the.
Yeah.
Like usually you're just chill, you know, and also, you know, like I am and there's
this there's this taboo with it where people think that it makes you lethargic.
Right.
And so, like I said, when I ran or when I drank, I was three hundred and sixty five
pounds.
I weigh one hundred and seventy one pounds sitting here today.
And I see you run all the time.
And I run.
I run five case, 10 case.
I'm signing up for half marathon coming up here and the end of February.
I run with my goddaughter, who also is a cannabis.
I mean, she's she's 28.
So it's not a little kid.
But I run.
I run competitively with my goddaughter, who is also a cannabis user.
And I would have to say in relationship, you know, as opposed to Elgar, I was much more
lethargic when I drank.
I was much more sedentary when I drank.
And I have a little asthma.
You know, I have I've been hospitalized for asthma in the past.
And and with controlled asthma, I can still run and enjoy a joint now and then.
You know, I'm not a I don't think you should do anything in excess.
Anything, you know, but I think a little well used cannabis, I mean, it helps you with some
of the aches and pains after working out.
It helps you.
It helps.
Obviously, you know, little known fact, I don't know how little known, but if you if
the cannabinoid level in your system is low.
So your cells, when a cell becomes unhealthy, right, it will attach to it's attached to
the cell next to it.
If your cannabinoid level is low, when you're when that cell attached to that other, the
bad cell, the cell next to it will try to save it.
And it will become sick itself.
And that multiplied over time becomes a tumor, right?
Cancer.
That's when your cannabinoid level is low.
If you have the proper balance, the cannabinoids in your system, when that sick cell reaches
out to the cell next to it, the cell next to it will let it die on its own.
It won't try to save it.
And so if you look at if you take that knowledge into consideration and then look at the time
period that was the prohibition of cannabis in the really worldwide, we always say in
the United States, but I mean, the prohibition of cannabis, we set the standard for the for
the world.
Right.
And so when we have this prohibition of cannabis and everybody's cannabinoid levels were low
and I'm not trying to draw connections that aren't there, man.
Like, honestly, this isn't some conspiracy theory.
This is legit.
You can look at the timeline.
You can look at the probation of cannabis products and then look at the explosion of
cancer in the United States.
Autoimmune disorders and various other Parkinson's.
That's because the cannabinoid level in all of us was low.
So I use like some CBD in my morning smoothies.
Right.
And then I smoke a little weed and I'll eat some here and there.
You know, I use cannabis based products and some low and a lot of the lotions that I use.
A lot of it is even more CBD leaning with some THC.
THC kind of unlocks the healing properties of CBD.
But I utilize that stuff and I believe that it keeps me on a healthier, a healthier track,
you know, and I think I firmly believe it's it's it's health care is not going to the
doctor and getting a pill for something after you're sick of it.
After you're sick, health care is preventative measures to not have to go to said doctor
to begin with.
And so, I mean, I get my yearly checkups.
I'm not recommending people turn their back on their doctors, but you should, you know,
reach out to doctors.
And I know it's easy for me and you.
You're in Denver.
I'm in Detroit.
Right.
It's been so legal.
So long here.
When I talk to my doctor about it, my doctor knows it's right on my chart at the University
of Michigan.
It's on my chart that I use marijuana.
And the doctor is cool with it.
I think that you should try to shop your doctors and make sure that you find doctors that understand
your your beliefs and you can.
And if you if you incorporate cannabis properly into your lifestyle.
And I'm not talking about the, you know, dudes, you know, dabbing entire ounces on YouTube,
which is fun and cool.
And I'm not dogging them either.
But I mean for a healthy lifestyle, if you're active, I work out four to five days a week
to try to stay in shape.
I run three times a week.
Right.
And then I run competitively once a month in a 510 or half marathon.
Right.
So in order to maintain that, I can do that with a little bit of weed here and there.
You know, when we're at the shows or when I'm with you, maybe a little bit more.
You saw me when we were in Denver and you hooked me up with a little bit of that thousand
milligram.
Yeah.
You saw you saw me high as a kite that afternoon.
We had a good good old time.
But it was it was a good day.
Yes.
But but but if you keep it in, if you keep it in, I think I went back to my hotel and
went to sleep like right after you dropped me off.
But if you if you keep it in moderation, I think that I honestly I'm not a doctor, I'm
not a mystic or any of those things.
I honestly in my it's my belief that alcohol not that that my relationship with cannabis
helped me to end my relationship with alcohol, which my relationship with alcohol would have
killed me had I not would have killed me within a year of when I've been sober for 11 years.
I would have died.
Congrats.
I would have died within 12 months had I not quit drinking when I did.
And I believe that cannabis has led me down the road to a healthier life.
I also will say this.
I believe that growing cannabis helped.
So I had I was borderline hypertension when I quit drinking.
I had high blood pressure.
And around the same time was when I started really getting into indoor growing.
And and I found that watching that working with plants helped to lower my blood pressure,
which in turn led me to become even healthier and lose more weight.
You know, it was all in cannabis, all part of a bigger picture.
But I think that growing cannabis kind of led me to that growing cannabis led me to
growing more plants than just cannabis.
And and I think that growing plants in general is healthy.
I think growing and being around cannabis is very healthy.
I think cannabis consumption is healthy in moderation.
Again, there's not no miracle drug.
If you're depressed, you should if you're depressed, for one, you should exercise more,
drink more water, meditate.
If those things don't work, talk to somebody, seek a therapist or or a really close friend
that you trust and get your stuff out.
I don't think it's the be all end all.
But I think that cannabis incorporated into your lifestyle leads to a healthier lifestyle.
I 100 percent believe that.
I'm not preaching it or telling everybody to go do it.
But it's my belief.
Yeah, it might not work for everybody, but it did work for me.
Also, we talked about how the the want to grow your own food, grow more plants, grow
your own herbs, eat your own food, eat healthier.
You said you get the munchies, but overall, we both have started eating better, healthier
foods or fruits and vegetables, less fried food, especially if you're in a bar and you're
drinking fried foods.
The only thing on the menu, you're not going to find avocado.
I find some guacamole dip or something, but you're not going to get a salad with something
healthy out there.
I cook a lot of my own food and it really does.
Eating into the plants, feeding the plants a healthy.
You can see a correlation in humans, how they need the same minerals and vitamins that we
need.
The amino acids, the enzymes, it's the root, the same as our stomach.
My stomach was really torn up from drinking.
So your stomach is in a bad shape.
Your brain's in bad shape.
It's another thing.
It leads you down a spiral of depression and eating healthier, probiotics, prebiotics,
mushroom supplements.
Those help rebuild your stomach.
Those are like your roots.
Bigger tops on your butt, stronger head on your body.
There's a direct correlation with eating and prevention and staying healthy before the
illness takes place.
I find a lot of Americans are looking for that quick fix.
Oh man, my liver's going bad.
I could just take a pill for that.
But then that pill causes another pill or another anxiety or another problem.
But speaking to other people about the same thing.
Oh, it's the paradox of our parents.
You know, it was unhealthy diet, unhealthy, like the things they trusted the law.
The food has totally changed from the pro or the pre prohibition days until now.
There were so many like 50 to 75 percent of people in America grew their own food then.
Now there's less.
It's all there's more.
There's more products in a grocery store.
There's less food.
So there's more food products, but there's less varieties of actual food.
Well, I've gotten to see this in different countries, too.
I've traveled to Spain.
I would spend months in Peru.
I've spent time in Canada.
And one of my favorite things is going to the grocery store, you know, and look down
the aisles and you see here in America, one whole aisle is dedicated to potato chips and
sodas.
And then if you go to Peru, they have a whole aisle of just raw potatoes, 300 varieties
of potatoes itself.
Natural.
Right.
And in Mexico, 32 different varieties of maize.
Yep.
And here in America, we have number two corn.
And it's all GMO free.
It's all organic in Spain.
They would not take on GMOs.
They have anti pesticide laws and anti herbicide laws that are a lot stronger than America,
Canada, too.
And it's crazy how little variety we have available to us here in the United States.
If you ever want to get down a wormhole, read every book Michael Pollan has ever written.
I've read one or two.
I like his writings.
Michael Pollan has never written a bad book.
He's super objective.
He tries not to pick a side.
My first introduction to him.
I mean, you know, you know this about me, but, you know, I am a big fan of psilocybin
and dimethyltryptamine.
I think we could have an entire podcast on that.
That's the next one.
I was going to end off with that one.
After we talk about candidates, I'll bring you back to the mushrooms and say, yeah, that
here in Colorado.
And it's a hot topic.
Is a deep is their decriminalized.
So I was decriminalized here and actually psilocybin and DMT are decriminalized here.
They just legalized it here.
It was decriminalized.
Now it's legalized here.
I don't know what the future is going to happen here.
Right.
So, but hey, we are going to have to take a little break here because we're running
around out of time on this little zoom spot.
I have to take a little break and call you back.
But we're going to go into how you like to study because I know you're really a bookworm
when it comes to living soils and mushrooms and you really know your knowledge and you
study it.
So I want to talk to you about what got you into creating your own living soil.
Why is superior compared to some super soils?
Maybe even see how the mushrooms work into that.
You can put that into your soil somehow and then we'll take a break and then we'll come
back and talk about some other things in the cannabis industry that are hot topics right
now.
I love it.
Cool, man.
All right.
Thanks, Tommy, for sharing all that with us.
And I'll be right back, folks.
Thanks for tuning in.
Do you have a business with a product or service that you would like to advertise?
Now you are able to hear on refer the refer the podcast.
These ad slots will be limited to products that we endorse here on refer the refer and
will be a great opportunity for exposure at a cheaper rate due to the fact the podcast
is still new.
So in the future, when new listeners tune in, they will hear about your products and
service and they will be assured that it is a good product that we endorse here on refer
the refer and use it ourselves.
Talk to Little Farmer on his website or send an email to littlefarmer at outlook dot com
for more information.
And now back to our show.
Welcome back, everybody.
I'm back again with Tommy from Detroit Nutrient Company, water only living soil.
And I wanted to jump back into our earlier conversation real quick because I forgot to
mention we ran out of time.
More little time frame with the zoom is only 40 minute parts.
We're fighting after drinking.
I was just watching the news this morning and some they were showing some videos of
the World Cup and there were some bars all lined up on both sides of the street and look
like these hooligans are out there lined up playing Red Rover running across the street,
punching each other, hitting each other with chairs, then running back to their side.
And it just it was like 20 groups of them just going at it for like a half an hour,
beating the shit out of each other.
Right.
Have you ever seen that happen on cannabis?
Go out to a spot where everybody's smoking.
Can you imagine just seeing everybody just started fighting?
I have.
So I'm always careful about this.
One time I saw two old guys at a marijuana event get into a fight, but they were like,
like these were like silver haired guys and it was some personal stuff from like 30 years
ago.
They hadn't seen each other.
Other than that, I've been how many cannabis cups have you gone to?
How many cannabis events have you gone to?
And there was never a kerfuffle.
You like there's never a problem at cannabis events.
It's amazing to me, except for this one.
And it just so happened this fight took place and it ended on my table and broke the table.
I was displaying my products in half.
But but aside from that, I've never seen you just don't see it.
You don't see the hammer bumped into me.
You're looking at my girl kind of stuff at cannabis events.
You just don't see it.
And yeah, so you is it.
It doesn't breed the trouble that that alcohol breeds.
I mean, you know, I'm not beating up on people that drink or whatever.
I'm not one of those people, but he's their own.
But I mean, honestly, if you if you have you've ever just smoked weed and then if you drank,
you understand the difference that you know, that's not there's no argument to that.
You are much less apt to get yourself into a bad situation if you're just a little high.
And the next day, you almost always remember what you did after drinking.
I don't know how many times I've come home.
I was never a violent drunk, but I would come home and I lived the university I was on was
on a hill.
So I would take my dog out three or four o'clock in the morning, end up falling down drunk,
come back the next day, wake up my shoulder sore.
Why my shoulder so sore?
Just don't remember it, you know.
Yeah.
Fights.
The couples arguing don't remember a thing that that following morning anxiety.
So like I do last night.
Yeah.
What happened?
Well, you just wake up with anxiety after you've been drinking and if and cannabis,
you don't give me high as hell.
You don't wake up and go, oh, what did I say last night?
Because whatever you said was ridiculous.
No, you probably sometimes over thought what you said or you were trying to speak your
thoughts like some of your didn't really want people to hear, but you were thinking of it.
It just slipped out.
Yeah.
You have a tendency.
I mean, I do have a bit of a tendency to overthink things a little bit when I'm stoned.
But other than that, I mean, yeah, I don't.
That's not my go to.
My go to isn't to run my mouth and say stupid things or get myself into trouble.
And then like you said, I remember it.
I remember what I said the next day.
And I'd normally have much more meaningful conversations.
I went to I went to a party with a bunch of guys.
Some Hawthorne sales reps were there.
My web developer was there.
And like some mammoth P reps were there and some guys that run some commercial cultivations
here in Michigan.
Like it was a good group of industry insiders that were there that evening.
And and I ended up sitting in this like we were downstairs.
Some people were playing pool.
We had this kind of Thanksgiving meal amongst friends.
My friend Casey throws this party.
And and and we had the quintessential stoner.
I was with a guy named John Burns and or not, John.
I'm sorry.
With this guy now.
And he works in the industry and we were all just blown out after a bunch of blunts and
a big meal.
And we had this quintessential stoner conversation.
There was a couple other girls involved.
And we had all the you know, we talked about like conspiracy theory, like music, conspiracy
theories, like food, health, you know, like all the quintessential things you like to
talk about when you're high.
We had the origins of earth and religion and nobody started fighting each other.
It was beautiful.
It was it was it was amazing.
I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, I love those.
I love those days.
Those conversations and those type of people to hang out with instead of drunk and the
conversations are complaining about everything instead of kind of figure out how to fix a
problem.
Yeah, never.
Yeah, never fixing anything.
Just bitching about it.
Cool.
I want to ask you what actually got you into living soil, creating your own living soil?
I'm sure you tried a bunch of different techniques in your day.
I've tried a bunch of them, too.
And what led you down this path?
So I won.
OK, so.
Years ago, I grew.
Indoors using liquid nutrients when I first began.
Right.
And I started talking to some guys that had been outdoor guerrilla growers for a long time
and they've been doing it since Vietnam.
Right.
And so they introduced me to living soil because when you were guerrilla growing before, it
was legal here in Michigan.
You know, you go put your plants out in the woods and then you didn't want to be going
the way you get busted is the is the stamping down the trail out to your plants.
You know, the more time you spend around your plant, the more apt you are to get yourself
into trouble and draw attention to it.
So you want to make the least number of trips to the woods.
So you're obviously not going to use cocoa and salt based nutrients.
Right.
The best way.
And also, you're transporting everything out there.
So you don't want to be transporting bottles and nutrients and everything else.
So if you could just take some water out there or get some water nearby and you know, you
put them on the edge of swamps, you could keep them pretty much moist.
I wicking through wicking up the moisture living soil.
You didn't have to keep going back out there.
And so these guys have been growing in living soil forever.
And so they they they introduced me to it and they recommended a book by the rev.
And now there's a two point of the book.
But at the time it was one point, oh, the revs true living organics.
They gave me some recipes and introduced me to the places where I could source the materials
here in Michigan.
Right.
In the same time frame, I was ending my relationship with alcohol and getting out of the bar business.
And and I had to change my careers.
And so an old friend of mine that used to score some weed from me in the bar business
called me up and he said, hey, I know you're looking for a new gig.
I have 70 tons of worm castings that I will front you.
Essentially, he didn't use the word front.
But essentially how it worked was they fronted me the money to buy the bags to sell the worm
castings and the worm castings.
If I formulated a way to sell them.
And so this was early on in the legalization phases of marijuana across the country.
And so so I went and they asked me to write a pro forma.
And I said, no problem.
And I came home and looked up what a pro forma was.
And I wrote a business plan for how I was intended to sell these worm castings by just
calling the guy that I bought my gear from here at Ultra Green Hydrobonics, how many
bags of worm has he sell a month at the time he sold one a day, he said on average.
And I multiplied that across the 225 hydro stores.
So I came up with what I thought I could potentially sell.
And so I started selling worm castings and I was working with a breeder called IDK Farms
based out of Conconny, Michigan.
These guys are also organic growers that also grew in living soil.
And and we started running their genetics and using different blends of living soil.
And we I was giving them worm castings for the living soil and they were giving me genetics.
And I entered a cannabis cup with IDK Farms and using what was the original incarnation
of Great Lakes Water only we will and we won a cannabis cup.
But I was only selling worm castings at the time.
I was using living soil to grow selling worm castings.
And so we won a cannabis cup and everybody was on me on how what we did.
Yeah, I won the how do you win the cup?
How do you win the cup?
Because subsequently we broke a record with high tax as well.
And so how do you win a cup?
How do you win the cup?
And we're just using soil and nobody believed in nobody believed in living soil at the time.
So a handful of people that were using my soil to me, there were people that were using
my soils to make actively organic compost or actively aerated compost teas and building
soil with it or putting it in their planting holes in their salt based runs.
All the guys that were building soils using my castings were raving about them and they
were all following kind of the rev truly organic method.
And so I had people starting to ask me for the for the for the recipe that we won the
cup with.
You know, everybody people were starting just very only like super hip dudes were running
living soil back then.
For the most part, it was frownable.
So I took some money that that I had and it wasn't a lot.
And I made my first two skids of Great Lakes Water on living soil.
I had built and building it in a compost mixer in my garage.
And we I was taking burlap sacks and I made a stencil out of one of my posters and we
spray painted the logo on the burlap sacks.
And I took it to a couple of stores that were hip on organics.
But nobody was doing that at the time.
I mean, at the time, advanced nutrients owned cannabis, right?
Like you think people they thought you were crazy.
So you had to go to people that understood farming.
So really, we were starting out in kind of rural areas outside of the city.
It was not popular here in Detroit at the time.
And so I was taking these burlap sacks out to people and like people were running it
and having great results and super happy.
And so I had the first two skids made when I inherited a little bit of money.
It was like, I don't know, fifteen hundred bucks I got or something.
I stretched it into two skids of soil and white plastic bags.
We didn't have labeled bags or anything.
And I took it to this huge conference here in Detroit.
And I had and I had some bags there and I was selling some and all these guys that were
using my castings to build their own soil, they were coming out of there.
Oh, yeah.
You know, hey, you should try the living.
So, oh, no, I make my own.
They said.
And I so to like it was like maybe like 15 dudes.
I said, well, here, just take a bag in case you have a problem with your soil.
And you know, in the turning and composting and the making of living soil, as you well
know, there's many mistakes to be made if you don't do it well.
And so these guys over time would needed some soil and they would use my soil to seed.
And so over the course of a couple of years, all those guys ended up turning into my customers
that were building their own soil.
So we we gave it away and we were beating the doors down on stores and every and a lot
of the grow stores were poopooing it because you because if you sell somebody some cocoa
or some soil is medium and, you know, ABC line, you know, they're going to come back
for all the extra parts and they're going to have deficiencies.
You sell them way.
You make way more money on liquid nutrients than you do on living soil.
And they were worried if I saw them living soil and all they have to do is water it,
they're not going to come back for three months.
You know, we're not going to see them again.
You see, we couldn't get anybody to even stock it back then.
I mean, we had to fight.
So we we went.
I incorporated the help.
I finally started to sell some to some local outlaws here.
At the time, it was all gray market.
There was no legal dispensaries.
I mean, you know, you're from you know, and so some of the big a couple of really big
outlaws here in Detroit is they got they started and they realized they didn't have to pay
dudes to make new mixed nutrients and go be watered 100 times a day and all this other
stuff.
And so we got some guys to use it.
And I made enough money to where I brought in a few more agronomists and I brought in
a doctor that specialized in drainage and aeration.
And so we made what I thought and what I believe today is the best potting mix of soil because
it has the drainage and aeration and we end.
But it maintains the CEC value.
So we created a soil with the help of all these people, these old farmers from northern
Michigan that had been growing since now in this way.
And then we brought in some guys, some local guys that do the mixing and, you know, the
help of the bagging people to help get it so we could sell, you know, get it out.
We brought in all these people.
We created what I believe is the perfect mix of soil.
And it's all based on that first cannabis cut wind.
You know, we just made it so it was more user friendly living soil, as you know, is moisture
attentive, so there's a learning curve when you come off soil as mediums and if we got
it as light as we could, we took out perlite because, you know, perlite floats up in a
lot of applications if you're trying to do no till.
So there's still some perlite in it, but we traded a lot of that out for cocoa and brown
bark and stuff like that.
And it maintains that it maintains that balance.
So it can go start to finish as long as you use some pot size properly.
And we incorporated dolomite lime so people don't even have to pH their soil.
I wanted to make it.
I mean, to me, a lot of the people that I'm friends with, these guys are old dudes and
they'll just grow themselves their own weed.
But they don't need it.
They don't want it.
They don't want it to be complicated.
They want it to be simple.
I just want to water the goddamn thing.
And so so we made it.
So we made a soil that people can honestly water from start to finish.
And then we kept on going back and entering cups and we we were on the strongest strains
in the universe with high times six times after that.
And we were winning regional cup after regional cup.
And the word started to spread.
And I started selling it online and I was selling it at farm markets and I was selling
it at events.
So people get it.
So they finally started beating down the door of the hydro store saying, listen, man, this
is what I use.
You should get it.
I'll buy it here.
And so we were able then to get into the hydro stores and and get the product out and get
knowledge out.
And then over time, now there's people, people saw the hustle in salt based nutrients, you
know, and they they kind of lean back to organics.
It's an organic plant.
Why do we want to think this is a healthy plant?
I think people are a little more health conscious now and, you know, especially home growers.
And so people are leaning back that direction.
And so it was easier than over time now to get people to carry it.
You know, now every lawn and garden centers got it.
But at one time they had people on those salt based nutrients.
They didn't want to ruin that bottle water money.
You know, thank God for Amazon, because Amazon killed a margin on nutrients.
I mean, it hurt a lot of growth stores because they've been making, you know, so much such
a margin on it.
But really, you know, there's a lot of money.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not talking disparagingly about any other style of growing, but people saw the logic
in just running a true living soil and then having an organic product that you don't have
to flush out at the end that has all the phenoceratistics, all the flavor profile that the plant is
supposed to have.
It's not over manipulated.
You're not in charge of this entire life.
You're not chasing down deficiencies or anything like that.
You just have to go in water the plant.
Not too much every few days.
Boom, Bob's your uncle.
You're done and you grew quality wheat.
Right.
Yep.
Before I met you and your product, I was using down to earth amendments on top.
No till that was just put them all on before.
After I transplanted and let it work itself in and do the same thing.
And it was a learning curve.
I had to deprogram myself in from that NPK salt nutrient based timing and stuff.
I want to explain to the listeners out there, why is this different?
How you need to only water it?
Why the plant will exhume or extract the correct nutrients at the right time because it has
a correlation with nature.
So you run through that for me.
Yeah.
So it's an entirely and that's the thing.
You have to realize that it's more than one way to skin a cat.
There's more than one way to grow a plant.
And so every plant on the planet, I didn't invent living soil.
It's not some newfangled idea that I just came up with.
Every plant on the planet was grown in living soil until 1912.
In 1912, the scientists of the world converged together.
They realized that we were approaching a billion people population earth.
The planet can only organically sustain one billion.
So at that point, they started looking for other ways to grow plants.
They moved away from living soil and they started to mind the Guano Islands and look
for other places to source nitrogen.
And so that led to the invention of the Uber Bosch machine.
And the Uber Bosch machine uses pressure and heat to remove our atmosphere is made of N3,
three atoms of nitrogen.
If you remove the N3, you can remove one nitrogen molecule from that and you can extract it
using heat and pressure and you can make synthetic nitrogen by extracting it from the atmosphere.
So in 1932, the machine that was invented that did that, there were huge battles.
Entire First World War was all about food.
Actually World War is really about food more than anything else.
The first naval battle of the First World War was not fought in Europe.
It was fought off the coast of Chile at the Guano Islands because they were trying to
get nitrogen from the Guano Islands, from the Bat Guano and the Sea Bird Guano.
And so there was so much need to feed these troops in these growing populations that they
started over mining the Guano Islands in Chile.
The first naval battle of the World War was set there.
So we learned how to manufacture nitrogen from thin air, which gives us the ability
to do two things humans like to do, eat and kill each other because that's what you make
ammunition from and that's how you grow food.
Shortly after that, we moved into the MPK based nutrients.
All they're doing is in a lab, they take down, they break down the macro micronutrients out
of organic amendments and then they attach them to hard salts.
And then they put them into this water solution.
And as you water your plant, the salts push the macro micronutrients in through the plant
root, which breaks down the plant root and forces the plant to uptake the food that you
give it at every stage of its life.
So when you break down the plant root, now the plant goes, becomes not the person standing
in front of the refrigerator looking for what it wants to eat.
It's more of a life, a person on life support.
You water the plant, you're forcing the food in.
So you, that's why you put the veg nutrient in, you put the bloom nutrient in because
you are in charge of that plant's entire diet.
The soil, the, the pro mix or the cocoa or whatever it is that you have your planet,
it's just holding the thing up.
It's a, it's something to pour the moisture through, right?
So you can grow plants a little faster, but you can grow more plants a year because you
can grow them a little faster that way.
And you don't have to, you don't have to comp like have fields full of compost that you
need to make living soils.
So that's what, how salt based nutrients work.
That's why they were invented.
Now the living soil, you have those same nutrients, but they're not in the macro micro form and
they're not attached to hard salts.
They're in their organic form.
And then you have compost in the soil as well.
And the compost has microbiology in it.
And that microbiology breaks down those amendments.
And as it breaks down those amendments, it creates plant available nutrients, right?
So you're just moistening the microbes and adding the little water for the plant.
You're not dousing your food across the roots.
Instead, the plant is sitting in everything it takes to create those nutrients, right?
So as the microbes are breaking down the amendments and creating plant available nutrients, the
plant uptakes it, photosynthesis occurs.
A byproduct of photosynthesis is these natural sugars that are then expelled through the
still healthy roots of the plant.
When the sugars hit the soil, the microbes, sugars are micro multipliers.
So there's more microbes.
You're creating now more plant available food.
The plant's able to uptake it at every stage of its development.
Because as you've left that plant root intact, the plant is taking what it needs.
It's not taking whatever you feed it.
So that's how, how can something work from clone or seed all the way through bloom?
How is that possible?
Because you're never forcing anything into it with salts, right?
It's like formaldehyde pushes the nicotine through your cell walls into your blood.
Okay.
So think of the same kind of matrix for what those hard salts do for nutrients is it's
pushing it through that plant root in the process.
It's breaking down the root.
And so the root isn't able to decide what not to take at that point.
And so with living soil, the plant is deciding what it wants to take.
It's taking the parts it needs.
It's like when you're, if you, if you aggregate on like a whole food diet, if you get away
from a lot of processed food, you start to realize your, your body will tell you what
you need.
If you need salt, you'll find something salty.
If you need sugars, you'll find.
So the plant knows through veg and bloom, it knows what pieces of that soil it needs
to pull out.
It's been doing this.
The marijuana plant's been on the planet for 2 million frigging years deciding, please
diesel, please.
It's been deciding what it wants to eat it.
Every it's been working this out through natural selection for 2 million years.
There is no way we've been synthesizing nutrients since the 1950s.
There's no way in 70 years, they figured out how to put everything that plant really wants.
So this marijuana plant, they can reach down into that soil during veg.
It knows what it needs.
It takes it out.
Everything's readily available to it.
And then as it goes into bloom, it knows what it needs and it starts pulling those parts
out.
And then it's also pulling stored nutrients that it put in its plant leaves out.
And it's using all that energy to create flowers and pitch, which is cannabis oil, right?
So we can collect pollen.
It's living its plant life the way plants are supposed to live.
But when you have all those nutrients in their organic form, there's all these little tiny
pieces and parts that they don't have in liquid nutrients.
And so when the plant has that all there, it's able to take it because the plant is
the plant that's been on the planet for 2 million years deciding what it needs.
So because of that, using living soil, you can go start to finish without hurting the
plant because it's not hot.
It's not pushing anything in.
It's just providing it as opposed to the other matrix of growing, which is salt based nutrients
where you're forcing the nutrients at the plant, right?
So in this organic form, it's just taking what it needs at every step of the development.
That's how it can get all the way through.
And then you get those better flavor profiles and the better phenyl profiles because there's
these little tiny nutrients, micronutrients that are in the soil that just nobody's thought
to put in a bottle.
So that's why you get that organic flavor.
That's why you get that really good smell, that really banging pow, you know, that's
how you like if you read on Moscow's Raspberry Boogie, it's the inhale is supposed to be
piney and the exhale is Captain Crunch Berries.
And I swear I was sitting in the very room I'm sitting in right now after I'd done a
grow on like right when that strain came out and we we smoked it.
I grew it in living soil.
And when I exhale it, man, we all sat around, we were like, what is that flavor we had?
We couldn't figure out what that sweet berry flavor was.
And so I looked it up and it's that Kevin Cruncher.
That's what it was.
But you get that intense flavor profile because you're not forcing anything on the plant.
The plant is doing what it has been doing on this planet for two million years.
It's taken those pieces and parts out.
Right.
So you get the better flavor profile.
Also you have a healthier plant.
It's more vigorous against disease and infestation because there's chitin in the worm castings
is taking on all these different these different substances out of the compost that helps prevent
infestation.
It's not saying it's going to protect your plants from like you're not going to have
a spider mite free plant, but it's going to be less likely to have an infestation.
You have thicker cell walls.
You have more vigorous plants and then organically derived nitrogen creates thicker cell walls
on plants.
You have a more vigorous, healthy disease and insect resistant plant.
That is what you get out of living soil.
That's the difference.
That's how it differs from the salt based nutrients.
Now salt based nutrients.
If you need to grow more plants in a year.
So if you are running, I mean, we you and I both know I have some commercial facilities.
Harbor Farms here in Michigan are excellent company that I work with.
We've got some guys down in Oklahoma, Tegra, the farms runs our gear.
A couple other ones.
I mean, we've got dudes that run it, but it's more popular.
It's more popular that they're running rock wall and salt based nutrients because they
got to pay for all that money they spent on lux lights.
They have to.
Yeah, they have to bet the common trend with commercial grows.
It's a salt based rock wall based rock wall faster turnover.
Yeah, you get more.
You get a larger number of harvests a year.
Now, so when you hear as the yields, not the same, the yield per harvest is comparable.
It's the number of yields per year you can pull.
You can just force grows faster when you're shoving nutrients at it.
And there's no shame in that.
You know what I mean?
It's all in what you it's all in what your desired outcome is.
So to the home grower, when you're using living soil, you have, you know, you'd water less,
less maintenance, more disease resistant.
Easy.
You don't have to pH in order to do anything.
You don't have to get your pen out.
All you got to do is decorinate your water and then you get this fire organic product
that you don't have to flush any any of that kind of stuff.
This is really easy.
Start to finish deal.
And then the product you get is fire.
I mean, it's so fire that we've gotten the accolades from High Times magazine.
And I'll say this.
I've never purchased an ad ever from High Times.
We won the cup.
We've been in the magazine multiple times and we never gave them a dollar other than
our entry fees.
So it was these weren't bought.
This was back.
I don't know if it's a different.
I don't know.
I'm not saying that it's crooked.
I'm just saying everybody says, oh, you can buy a cannabis cup.
If you can buy a cannabis cup, I got one for free somehow.
But, you know, we did.
We weren't purchasing anything.
The people spoke and we win a lot of regional awards because of the flavor.
And that all has to do with just not forcing anything at the plant, letting the plant grow.
It's you let the plant live its best life.
I've noticed a big difference in the flavor and everything.
The brief level is higher.
That's the sugar level in the plant to say the sugars break down the nutrients, help
it absorb.
It just makes the plant sweeter and taste better.
Same with your fruits and vegetables, too.
If you're one to grow some tomatoes, you want to grow some herbs, you can use this soil
also to enhance the flavor of your basil.
Yeah, anything else grows just as well.
It's not just for cannabis.
It is something you can use for everything.
Hey, we're going to have to take another break here.
Go to a little commercial and then we'll come back and compare it to what a super soil is.
What you can do with the seeds.
I can germinate the seeds in your soil, but there's other soils out there that I can't
germinate them in because they're too harsh and too strong and they're not the same.
I want to explain the difference between a super soil, a living soil.
And then I had a couple other things there.
I know people always want to add stuff.
What can they use to amend your soil?
We talked about the worm casting, which I think you have it labeled as a vermicompost.
It might confuse people.
So if you see vermicompost, that is the same thing as the earthworm castings, but it's
a little bit better than just raw castings, I believe.
Maybe you can explain that and why they should look out for that.
And then what are some signs with the living soil?
If you do overdo it, you have an Epsom salt spray remedy in case something happens and
what to look out for.
I have a couple of people I consult now that are running the soil and they're running it
hot or running LEDs.
And there's a little bit difference with the learning curve with LEDs and the old HPS lights.
We'll run over that just a little bit and we'll be right back.
Thanks, Tommy.
Sounds good.
Would you like to grow your own cannabis at home?
Are you able to now because it's legal in your state?
Are you intimidated by the prices of seeds and worry if you can't even get the seeds
to germinate?
Are you worried it may be a waste of money and time to even try?
This is how I felt when I first started growing for myself.
Hundreds of dollars were spent and wasted because of my inexperience.
Some of them got overwatered.
Some of them were burnt by hot soil.
Some didn't have the right environment and conditions to survive.
If this is the case and you are hesitating to purchase seeds, for a limited time, Little
Farmer is offering 50 random seeds from his personal collection for only $50.
That is 50 seeds for only $1 each.
Prices for seeds start around $10 and some people charge even more than that.
This is a great way to get a lot of seeds without having to spend a lot of money.
This is a great chance for all those who are intimidated by the prices and don't have
to worry about failing on their first attempt for germination.
This is also a great opportunity to see what goes well in your environment.
As we all know, some strains will grow better in different regions due to the climate and
you will be able to see what thrives in your area with the variety that you will receive.
These packs are good for experienced growers as well as I have received nothing but great
feedback thus far.
Some strains included consist of Blue Dream, Gelato, Gelato Cake, Vanilla Haze, Head Smack,
Green Crack, Purple Headband, Grandaddy Purps, Han Solo Burger, Tangy, GG4, DynaChem, Night
Nurse, Golden Goat, Cookies, GMO and many more.
To get your hands on these packs you will need to head over to the Little Farmer website
at www.littlefarmer.com and put in an order.
While there you can browse other items available including the Tree Lock Box to carry around
all your consumption needs around in one handy lockable box.
Hidden in the box is a pipe, a grinder, a container for your herb, a lighter and two
handy tools to help you prepare your herbs and your hash.
My favorite thing about the box is the tray that you can use to break up your herb while
preparing it for consumption.
It is hard to spill and easy to clean up.
I don't travel anywhere without mine.
Finally, if you need any consulting for your home growing needs please contact Little Farmer
from his website's Contact Us page by leaving a message.
We can help you with your lighting, growing mediums and other growing questions because
I not only sell seed but I help you grow them too.
Make sure to take advantage of these seed prices while they last because they won't
last long.
And now back to the show.
Alright everybody, we're back with Tommy from Detroit Nutrient Company and we're talking
about his living soil and why living soil is superior to other forms of growing.
Not to knock anybody else to each their own but this is just what we prefer because of
the taste, the flavor and the outcome might take a little bit longer and it's harder for
people to learn because they're so used to feeding them different nutrients.
And what are some things you can suggest to people if they want to add amendments to your
soil or if they want to add anything, what can they add without overdoing it?
I know some microbes, there are a couple companies that you like.
You can use, on my website I have the recipes for actively aerated compost teas which just
uses organic amendments like sea bird and bat guano and some worm castings and a little
bit of molasses and some fish emulsion and some alfalfa meal.
And then you bubble it for 72 hours and it makes a great compost tea that you would use
like in bloom and that's going to help add a little bit of yield and it's going to help
add microbes to the soil to grow bigger plants.
So I've seen a couple of your tutorial videos where you actually show people firsthand how
to do it.
Yeah, so the videos will show you how to do them.
That's my number one, you know, that's what I would say is going to be your best additive.
You can top dress with a little sea bird guano around week four of flower.
That'll add some frost to your plants.
You can use like mammoth pea at half of the recommended soil dosage.
So like never really more than 0.3 mils per gallon.
You can use there's, you know, there's some other good teas on them like pre-made teas
that you mix up that you can use, you know, like the HTG stump tea is really popular.
People use that with it.
There's, you know, there's a lot of stuff and we put our phone number on every bag and
I answer the phone when people call.
So if there's something that you, you know, you can use fish with it.
And if you're going to use something, you can call me and say, hey, Tommy, you know,
is this would this work well with the soil?
And I'll answer the question.
The thing is, is if you do that, I'm going to ask you what your desired result is, because
sometimes people just want to add stuff because they got free free samples, something, you
know, and they're like, I want to use this.
I'm like, it's not going to do what you want it to do.
So are you could, I guess, use it, but maybe you don't.
And so so I mean, ultimately, I feel like the soil works really well front to back water
only.
And if you want to add some teas, that would be my recommendation, you know, ultimately.
And then there are some other products you can use if you want, you know, I guess that
little man with fear, real growers recharge if you want to push you a little bit, but
don't overdo it.
A little ketchup is good.
A lot is better.
Never more than half the recommended dosage.
And what are some signs of over overfeeding?
The first thing you'll notice on the leaves, it'll turn purple and lock you out.
Purple.
Yeah.
Like if you go overboard, we did it one time with with mammoth microbes and dark green
towards the purple leaves like that dark green purple.
Yeah.
And then like New York tree color.
Yep.
And and and you'll see if you're overwatering, like it's like not even using additives.
If you're older, if you see yellow blotches on your leaf surface, that's a sign of overwatering.
Like I said, compost is moisture attentive.
The molecules of moisture are the compost has like a like almost like a natural silicone,
which adheres to the compost, the molecules of moisture.
And so it holds water deep.
And so if you overwater, you never really want to water living soil more than seven
percent of your soil volume about every three days.
So because you're not pouring your nutrients across the plant roots, it holds the water
longer.
And so the work like the biggest mistake made in living soils overwatering.
And so you'll see like yellow blotches on on green leaves.
And that's how you can tell you have an anaerobic pocket in your root zone.
And you know, plants need oxygen to trans to to move that those nutrients.
And so when it gets too wet, you get a set of wet feet, you know, rot, whatever.
It's just an anaerobic root zone.
And and so don't overwater.
That's something to look for.
So the conundrum with the living soil, it is hydrophobic, which means it doesn't like
water.
So when you first water it, it it puddles up on the top or it kind of runs through to
the bottom really quick.
This is something that catches people off guard.
I've heard you talk about creating a little bowl so the water can sit there and slowly
seep in.
I know if you use a cloth pot, it can run out the sides of the cloth pot because of
the hydrophobia.
Just something to look out for.
So it's organic.
Pete Pete in its organic form is hydrophobic.
So like when you see like pro mix, this is Pete Moss, but they put a they put a synthetic
wetting agent in.
So we want to keep it organic and organic wetting agents like Yucca and stuff like that.
They're really expensive.
So the price of the soil would be through the roof.
And so we we just kept it simple.
And you know, you can add if you're not super insanely organic, you can add a couple of
drops of Dawn dish soap.
It'll help break that to the water.
It'll help break the hydrophobia.
I like to, like I said, build a little bowl.
I disrupt the surface, the static charge on the surface of the soil with my fingertips.
And then I water, you know, if in a seven gallon pot, you're going to water two quarts
every third day.
So I water a half a quart to every plant.
And then once it starts to take the water, then I go back through and you can more quickly.
You just have to let it absorb in a little bit.
And it's that is just organic, Pete.
And so if you let it drain down into the saucer at the bottom, after you've watered a couple
of times, it's going to wick it back up anyways.
So just water slowly is really the best defense against that.
And you could or you could add Yucca or something like that to your water.
You use a hydro pots with these also that automatically waters them when it gets to
a certain moisture level.
Yeah, so I use I use auto pots at micro.
And so auto pots is a wick watering system, you know, keeps some water in the dish at
the bottom and it takes what it needs throughout the plants.
And I know you have more experience with auto flowers than I do.
We talked about that a little bit.
I don't have much experience at all.
I do have somebody I'm consulting using your soil and he's running auto flowers.
Is there any difference in using auto flower or smaller pot smaller for auto?
Yeah, you can use a three gallon pot for an auto flower.
OK, you know, if you're going to do a four week veg on a photo, you want to use a five
gallon pot.
I recommend about a gallon a week of veg, not a week of total plant life per week of
veg.
If you're going to do a four week veg that we say the five gallon pot, you're going to
do eight week veg, we say the seven gallon pot.
If you're going to do a 12 week veg, we say about a 10 gallon pot, you know, and then
you only water at seven percent of that soil volume.
But for autos, you can get away with autos.
You can get away with three gallon pots all day long.
Yeah.
So I always tell people just getting getting the routine of picking up the pot a little
bit, if they're hand watering or if they're using any other system to just pick it up
and see how heavy it is.
And over time, they'll they'll figure out the weight by a deal and just keep doing that.
And you also had a remedy or some kind of recommendation with Epsom salt and Epsom salt
spray.
And what does that so so Epsom salt Epsom salt is not actually salt.
Epsom salt comes from the Epsom mines in the UK and they just call it Epsom salt.
And it's it's basically magnesium and sulfur.
Right.
And so.
When plants are uptaking nutrients, there's a three way fight for potassium, calcium and
magnesium.
And in that three way competition, magnesium is the most apt to lose.
So you already plants have a hard time taking up magnesium to begin with.
So you can have a pot full of magnesium.
You can have enough magnesium in your soil.
But in that competition, the magnesium is suffering is working its hardest to get there.
So now, if you want to really add flavor and smell to your plants, to your finished product,
I recommend and also it helps offset kind of some of the problems that LED lights cause
people.
So but I'll explain how it just in general adds.
So sulfur is what creates the flavor and the smell of your flower.
Magnesium helps assist the plant to break down the sulfur.
So we have a I recommend you do a foliar spray.
You only do it a couple of times in the plant's life.
You do it every about every three to four weeks before flowers form.
So depending on how long you veg, you know, it's usually only twice.
You do it once when you're about five notes high and then you do it once at flip.
And that's and you should be good to go.
But it's a magnesium.
It's an Epsom salt foliar spray.
So Epsom salt is magnesium and sulfur.
You take two tablespoons of Epsom salt.
Shit.
This is that this is the call I got to take.
OK, man.
All right, everyone, we're back after a little break here.
Tommy had to answer the phone.
He's a man of his word.
He always answers the phone if you reach out to him.
We were talking about your foliar spray recipe with Epsom salt.
And you're about to mention how many tablespoons per gallon and then the reason why you get
deficiencies with LED lights in certain soil bases.
Yeah.
So, yeah, as I was saying, so the Epsom salt foliar spray is going to add smell and flavor.
To your flower, because you're you're adding the sulfur and the magnesium that it takes
to break down the sulfur.
And as that sulfur breaks down, that's where your smell and flavor comes from.
So also under an LED light, you have the same amount of light with a lower leaf surface
temperature.
And because of that, you have lower plant precipitation.
So if you're running LEDs, A, you want to run your temperatures a little warmer.
And B, if you use that Epsom salt foliar spray, like I said earlier in that competition for
uptake, magnesium is what generally loses.
If you do that foliar spray as opposed to a drench, that's not that the soil is deficient
on magnesium.
It's that the plants not uptaking able to uptake it.
So if you do that foliar spray, you're adding the magnesium to the plant right where it
needs.
So that offsets that that leaf surface temperature problem for the, you know, the plant to mobilize
the nutrients.
You're offsetting that by putting the magnesium right where the plant needs it, where the
flowers are going to form when you do those foliar sprays.
So and the recipe for it is really, really simple.
Two tablespoons Epsom salt to a gallon of water.
I usually put the water in a little warm and it helps dissolve the Epsom salt faster, it
seems like.
And then I let it fall back to room temperature before I apply it.
And like any foliar spray you do, you want to make sure you do it right before lights
off because when you do a foliar spray, you're making, you know, little magnifying glasses
on your leaf surface temperatures.
You could burn your leaf surface.
So two tablespoons of Epsom salt to a gallon of water.
Dissolve it room temperature, foliar spray right before lights off.
And that is going to help offset that kind of magnesium deficiency, those purple stems
that you'll see under LED lights.
Gotcha.
And you also mentioned no chlorine in the water.
That's pretty important with the living soils because it'll kill the microbes.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, you should be dechlorinating your water no matter what kind of soil you're
using.
And every time you water, you should be dechlorinated.
So the other question that I remember you speaking about, I wanted to ask you was that
some city water is chlorine and you can let it sit for a little bit and it dissipates.
You have some other cities that use a different chlorine mixture of something.
I can't remember.
Chloramine.
Okay.
And the chloramine, no matter how long you let it sit, it will stay in the water.
Doesn't dissolve.
Yeah.
So if you have this type of water and you think it's chlorine, you're letting it sit
out.
Make sure you get your city water source information to see what they're good.
You can Google your county generally and ask the question, does whatever county you live
in use chlorine or chloramine?
And you can generally find that information with a quick Google search.
So yeah, that's good information.
A lot of people didn't know about that.
I didn't know about that.
And so I heard you talking into a Nortges Nursery in Winchester.
Yep.
Here, you grab one of those cheap filters from the hydro store and they pull out just
chlorine and you know, RSO filters or whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, you can get the cheap filters or you could get an RSO system.
Cool.
Thanks for that information.
Other than that, we were talking about super soil.
Some people get super soil and living soil confused.
Super soil is just packed with nutrients and it's not the microbial life is what I'm understanding.
I've tried to germinate some seeds in my beginning days and some super soil and it burned the
roots.
It's not soft enough for the germination or seeds when you transplant them.
Did you explain the difference?
Is it just the microbial difference in the soil?
So a super soil is just an amended soil where they just put compost and amendments in there.
There isn't, it's not balanced like a living soil.
So it doesn't have the, it doesn't have the C, C value.
It doesn't have the correct amount of compost to amendments.
It is actually just loaded up to get you through bloom is more what super soil is.
It's like the super soil that everybody is familiar with is really sub cools recipe,
which has some salt in it and worm castings and you're basically building a nutrient charge
to feed the plant through bloom.
But it's not able, it's not, it doesn't have the compost ratio balanced out to where it
can support the life of the plant.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
You're putting, you're putting heat in and it's more for a mature plant.
You can't germinate seeds in it like you can in living soil.
So it's just, it's, it's hotter and it's not built, it's built to go X amount of time during
bloom.
It's not built.
It's not a living soil where it's balanced.
And so, and that's where like, and to be honest with you, the original recipe for the soil,
I'm, you know, we just went by what some dudes told us.
Like I didn't, I didn't know how it worked or anything like that.
And like, so I went with the outline of what I'd heard.
And, and then, like I said, you read a couple of books and you start to understand more
about it.
And I really, I mean, I work with some really, really sharp agronomists.
They've been in the field doing this thing for since 82.
I worked with them to create this soil that I could guarantee was going to grow healthy
plants.
And, and, you know, it was important to us that everybody was safe and healthy and it
was easy to use.
And so, I mean, the original incarnation of the soil was, was based around just, you know,
knowledge.
And then, and then I worked with a lot of professionals to get really the balance in
the soil so that you can get like, I think it's called Kiss is, is one of those where
you put it at the bottom of the pot and then you have to put a seed starter on top.
That's a super soil.
We sell a start to finish living soil.
Yeah, it's something I germinate my seeds in.
I was totally impressed first time.
It was like you said, I didn't really have to amend at all.
I used it to second around and I started amending after that.
Excuse me.
I had a question with the auto flower and your recommendation for the three gallon pot.
I have a friend who did the seven gallon pot and his plants are really short and you thought
they were stunted.
Is that something that would create shorter batter auto flower plants?
Or is that more of a genetic thing you would think that would be a genetic thing?
Yeah.
The super soil.
I mean, people slay it with autos in super soil.
So and I think like, you know, I'm an old school guy.
So I'm one of those guys that's like, I don't trust the genetics on auto flowers to begin
with.
You know, just like I don't trust the genetics on feminized seeds as much.
I know it's like trick it up north, though, to get a couple more rounds in the in the
year because up north, it's a little shorter season, colder.
Yeah.
I'm all for it.
Like, don't get me wrong.
I'm not against it.
I just don't trust the genetics to be a stable.
I'm not.
But you know, whatever.
That's an old but I'm not saying that like I'm not bashing.
You know, don't blow up my email.
I'm bashing on auto flowers.
I'm saying I'm an old head and it's the stability.
I just don't think auto flowers are as stable.
And because I see a lot of variation, genetic variations on auto flowers.
I mean, you're paying 10 bucks for a seed, right?
Yeah.
I agree with you.
I don't knock anybody who does.
I don't knock anybody who tries to grow no matter how they're going.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's.
Yeah.
And I know guys that slay it.
They love doing it.
A lot of hobbyists.
It's a great way.
You don't have to worry about light timers and all that other stuff.
You know, it makes it takes a lot of the guesswork out.
But.
But I just think that that I just don't think there's the stability in the genetics for
the phenyl characteristics.
So sometimes you get those short stubby ones or, you know.
I think that you get it.
I mean, I see it in box farm and I see it in a pro mix with, you know, salt, bassoon.
It happens.
Well, cool.
Well, thanks for all the information today, Tommy.
I know you're a busy man.
It was a little hard trying to get us all lined up with the zoom and the technology.
I had a bunch of apps.
I got a new excuse me.
I just recently got a new laptop.
So I haven't used zoom on this laptop since I got it.
And I just like, you know, you don't put that together when we were starting to when I was
trying to connect with you and I was like, oh, geez, I got to download the app and do
all the stuff.
So I don't have a day, but we got it in.
I don't have a zoom account pay account.
So it's only 45 minute time limits on the.
So by the time we get connected and do the talk and get it set up, I have to do like
three parts to get to get it all in.
And I go back and edit it all myself and get it all ready that way.
But your advice was great today for those people out there drinking and looking for
a change.
Seek some help.
Talk to somebody.
I know and you know that most people who consume a lot of alcohol aren't honest with their
doctors either about their consumption or worse.
They just don't go to their doctors that too.
And it's something that you should really talk to them, especially if they're going
to give you and prescribe you medication for depression.
If you're depressed and one of your main culprits is probably in the bottle that you're holding
most of the time.
And then you start mixing them and your doctor doesn't know it's not a good mix.
No.
And one of the big things too is just my advice is change the people you're hanging out with.
And you really can't hang out with the people you used to party with and expect them to
be on the same level you are and have them not offer you a drink every two minutes.
Well that's I think for many people and especially, you know, people in small towns where the
majority drink like, you know, we're here in Michigan.
I'm not in the mountains, but up here in Michigan, in northern Michigan, you know, you have a
lot of smaller small towns that, you know, it's cold in the wintertime and drinking becomes
a pastime is generational.
And a lot of times like my case, I come from a family of drinkers.
And so it has to be something you want to do for yourself and honestly does.
And I would hope I can tell you that if you do it, you won't regret it, but it takes a
while to come to that realization.
Yeah.
When it does, it hits hard.
And the same way grandfather, uncle, uncle's family, just drinking a lot, liver problems.
And I just didn't want to go that way.
And I've seen many, many bad issues and bad problems just stemming from alcohol use and
just wanted to avoid it.
And thanks for sharing your story with everybody today.
I know it wasn't easy and some people need to hear that out there.
And that's what I'm trying to get out and normalize the herb.
It could be something to people that they can fall back on, but it's not a miracle drug,
you said.
So it's not going to help with everybody.
The best help is talking to somebody and seeking help from friends and family instead of turning
them away.
Yeah.
Honestly, it's get eight hours of sleep, get some physical, get off of the sofa, go outside,
you know, better healthier diet.
Yep.
Yeah.
Stare away from all the sugar.
Remember caffeine and sugars drugs as well.
And they have an effect on your body.
You should be drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day at minimum, you know, and you
those things, everybody laughs that off.
But that is that will cheer you up.
That'll make you feel better.
Get some exercise or make you feel better.
Get get eight hours of sleep.
It'll make you feel better.
And if all of that would, you know, if all that doesn't do some meditation, sit with
yourself in a quiet room for a while.
And then if you need to get some stuff off your chest, like there's no point in carrying
that load any longer than you have to all by yourself.
I carried a lot of weight all alone for a long time, man.
And it was it was killing me.
And I would encourage anybody that's doing that.
Like, don't do it to yourself.
I mean, it's hard when you're in the throes of addiction to hear that.
It's worth it.
Yes, sir.
Some people need to hear the truth, man.
Your products are available in Virginia.
Oklahoma.
You're here in Colorado, Michigan, for sure.
Your website.
Your website has a a spot where you can locate.
Just put in your zip code and a radius.
It'll tell you the local local store that has your products.
You can order it online also.
Amazon Prime.
I know here here in Colorado.
I haven't seen it on the shelves.
I've been trying to help you get on the shelves.
The market here is pretty fixed.
The companies on the shelves are pretty fixed here.
People don't want to change their ways.
But if somebody here in Colorado on a commercial level or on a small scale wants to get some
of your soil, I can get it for them here.
All they have to do is reach out to me.
We'll get some to them somehow.
And anything else you would like to say to the listeners out there today?
Hey, man, thanks for popping in and listen to our portion of the Internet.
And you know, we do stand behind our product and we appreciate everybody that uses it.
And we put our phone number on every bag.
So if you have questions or problems, you can give me a call.
And we got a lot of information on our website.
So check it out.
Www.detroitnutrientpempity.com and keep on growing, man.
I love it.
It's changed my life.
I hope it brings everybody else as much joy growing plants as it brings me.
And thanks, Mike, for having me on.
No problem.
Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day and schedule to tell your story today,
Tommy.
You got it, brother.
Cool, man.
All right.
And hopefully we'll be able to link up this spring in Virginia.
And I know you're busy touring around Virginia and all these states that you have your products.
So if you see Tommy out there, stop by and say hello.
Pop in.
We always have some fun stuff to talk about.
We always have a good time.
We were down at Horton's Nursery in Virginia this last spring.
Great people.
Winchester, Virginia.
So if you're down that area, Northern Virginia, you want to get some dirt, that's your spot.
Go check them out.
Hopefully we can get down there next spring and set up again and give another class.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you, we have a great following in Virginia.
And if you're up by Winchester, go over to Horton's.
You know, Virginia, Richmond and Glen Allen, there's HTG Supply and Grow Depot.
Yeah.
And then Hydroculture and Fredericksburg and Manassas and down in Virginia Beach.
We're at Grow VA.
Tell all my friends in Maryland, DC area too.
Yeah.
We'll be coming that way.
Hopefully we'll get the tour of that area too.
I got the family in that area.
So yeah, we'll come and hang out and let's go out and run and see and party up in DC.
Yeah.
Shout outs to the mayor of DC for actually changing the laws there and changing up the
game.
It was hard for some sales there for the medical dispensaries.
And he just made it easier for sit residents and out of state to sign up for their own
medical card and say at all usage is medical on their own terms without a doctor backing
it up.
So, hey, if you live in the area, there's your place to get some medical cannabis.
I think everybody in the eastern part of the panhandle of West Virginia going to DC or
Virginia.
Do you know why that happened?
That is a whole nother own other podcast.
Yeah.
Let's have one on that.
Give me give me a call sometime.
Let's talk about that.
Most definitely.
We could talk about the difference of rural and city prices and how the rural area area
can actually grow the best cannabis.
But it's it's you can't take my guns away idea that and they're still in that reefer
madness and I'm trying to spread the knowledge so that reefer madness can get changed back
to reefer facts.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, it's it takes a while for the word to try.
I'll tell you, I live in a really rural area in Michigan, which is, you know, pretty right
leaning and they, you know, God guns in country kind of stuff.
And they are the hippest about marijuana laws that you could believe.
Everybody was a grower there for, you know, 30 years.
And there was there's already a dispensary there.
And like, you know, nobody ever says anything about everybody.
All of my neighbors have outdoor, you know, big outdoor grows in the woods and have since
long before it was legal.
It's they're pretty they're pretty hip up there, man.
Well, it was pretty shunned upon in the 90s growing up during the drug war.
When I grew up, there was a local cop kind of run everybody out of my little hometown,
which is pretty much the same.
But the local sentiment, what I get is a lot of people want to legalize it and grow it.
And they're waiting and waiting, but they're still afraid to talk about it.
They're afraid to lose their jobs.
They're afraid to comment on a Facebook post or afraid to to even mention it.
But when you catch them alone, they want to talk about it.
And that's all they want to learn about.
So best way to get it out is this podcast.
It's on 13 different platforms.
It's out there internationally.
So we're getting out there.
We're getting the good word out.
And we'll talk about those prices and the taxes and everything.
Gouging people trying to jacking up the prices of rent in certain areas to keep.
Keep it impossible for a little guy to make a profit or to even get into the game to start
with taxes from 25 to 75 percent, driving a price of higher than black market, enabling
the black market to thrive or people just to go to another state.
So cool.
That's the next episode.
Also legalization of mushrooms here in Colorado.
And yeah, yeah, we got to take on the Silas Ivan.
We're going to do one on the legal, the legality of the different states.
Yes, we're going to do how it affects the pricing, the mindset, different areas where
it's still black market.
And then we'll then we'll get into my favorite subject mushrooms.
Let's do so.
We'll have to do a Tommy part two.
Yes, most definitely.
So guys, stay tuned for that.
Appreciate you, Tommy.
Love you.
And we will talk soon.
Love you, brother.
Thanks for everybody tuning in, man.
Appreciate you.
All right.
Cheers, guys.
Don't diss the herbal doctors from all those rumors that you heard.
I'm not a drug dealer.
We call them doctor.
But I want.
Put a doctor.