THE GOOP
Our signature product The Goop is the essential component of your Living Soil growing system. It is a concentrated Soil Food Web extract.
This product delivers hundreds of species of beneficial fungi, bacteria, protozoa and nematodes into your soil. This complete soil food web is essential for your plants to grow to their fullest potential by providing your plants all the nutrients they need and when they need them without our interference. The glues that the microbes produce to prevent getting washed away, creates soil aggregates and structures that facilitate moisture retention and maintain the aerobic conditions of the soil. These aerobic conditions help to prevent the proliferation of plant diseases. Soil rich in fungi also has a suppressive effect on weeds. This product therefore allows you to grow plants in a nature-friendly way without the need of synthetic chemicals.
We do organism count on each batch of this product and ensure that it contains at least 500 micrograms of fungi per ml and at least 500 nematodes per ml. Each batch of the Goop will come with its individual certificate stating the fungal and nematode counts. We don’t provide the counts of the beneficial bacteria and protozoa as these are easier to establish than fungi and nematodes, but we can guarantee that there are plenty of them in The Goop.
We invested in a large batch of goop because we planted a 400 tree shelterbelt in very sad looking soil in an extremely exposed spot. In the first year we were delighted and surprised to only lose 10% of the trees, which was impressive and we put it down to Daniel’s product. Ordinarily we may well have lost 30%. We are also grateful that he shares his knowledge and encourages shared learning at his weekly online gatherings.
Having just moved to a new property that had been regularly sprayed, I wanted to add biology back to the soil before growing. Soil Smiths were recommended by a Soil Food Web graduate and after an initial enquiry, where they gave me some great advice for preparing the land, I decided to take the plunge and buy a litre of Goop to spray on 0.25acres before creating veg beds. I haven’t tested the soil under a microscope, but I don’t think I need to! The proof was in the pudding! Not only have I had good strong growth but I am yet to have any pest damage. I will now be spraying more Goop on our fruit trees and borders.
BENEFITS
- Increased mineralisation rates of nutrients available in the growing substrate. Leaves grow larger with more sheen. Yields are better against controls with the same setup.
- Increased suppression of disease causing microorganisms. When the substrate is raw, disease has free reign, but when you apply hundreds of species of beneficial microorganisms from the Goop, they have less of a chance to take over
- Increased drought resistance – use less water, or water less frequently
- A chance to restore soils battered with chemicals in the past
- Faster germination and legacy effects when used as a seed coat.
The goop and biologically complete compost are both excellent products that have helped my plants to grow more healthily. The support and advice given by the team to explain the results from the bio-assays and how to make positive changes to my gardening practices has been excellent.
I used The Goop in a domestic garden situation on my herbaceous borders, bog garden, woodland area, roses, shrubs and trees and the growth rate and health of my garden showed a marked improvement. I used a 200ml tub of The Goop on my front and back garden covering an area of about 150m2. To give some idea of my location and soil type, I am situated in the south of England in West Sussex about a mile from the sea. My soil is mostly PH7 and is very free draining, however, there are a couple of areas where the PH is 5.5 – 6, which is near 2 very large Western Red Cedar trees. After using The Goop I experienced less mildew on my perennials, especially my phlox and helianthus, which in previous years were covered in mildew. I also noticed that for the first time in 6 years my peony had more than the one flower, in fact 9 flowers, amazing! I do not use any other chemicals on my garden.
I was introduced to The Goop by garden designer Bunny Guinness on her Youtube channel, who I know has had great success with The Goop on her vegetable plot. Daniel always keeps me up to date with the latest news and research and all the information about his products are on his website Soilsmiths or on LinkedIn. Happy Gardening.
HOW TO USE THE GOOP
As this is a natural based product, the application rates are flexible. As general recommendations, you can add 1-4 teaspoons (5-20ml) per litre of water and mix well by stirring. For any plants, use the dilution as seed coating and/or to water the soil/substrate using a watering can.
The diluted Goop can also be applied as foliar spray, if the leaves/the fruits are not for direct raw consumption (e.g. not salads or berries).
Any leftover of the diluted Goop can be poured to the soil or added to the compost.
Repeat the application every few weeks for best results.
I really liked the concept of the goop and I recommended you to my friends. All of us who used it came out with brilliant results. I will be honest and say that there were a number of different products tried and so without a true control it is hard to say how much benefit it gave by itself, however the soil health only improved after applying the goop and plants gave a positive reaction to it. My latest purchase has been Welsh worms vermicompost and so I have my eyes out for what soilsmith bring to market in the near future to keep trying out the latest and greatest growing ideas.
STORAGE
Keep in the fridge or cool place for up to 12 weeks. Avoid drying out.
Goop is Great. I loved microbes, and then I bought some goop and I was introduced to soooo many microbes I didn’t know what to do with myself. There’s compost nerds and then there’s compost nerds, and I’d put myself in the latter category. And I can tell you, this stuff is the real deal, no BS.
WORD OF CAUTION
All care is taken to create conditions where pathogens don’t survive our composting process, but as with any living product, please wash your hands, avoid ingestion and contact with eyes. In case it occurs, wash with plenty of water.
I have found the Goop to be a convenient and effective product to inoculate a growing medium with microbes. I was surprised how little it took to cause a huge increase in yield in a controlled radish trial. Highly recommended for its convenience, efficiency and content – I don’t know of any other source of such microbial diversity in one go.