Wisconsin Mineral Solutions

Today I'm talking with Gregg at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
Did you know that muck boots all started with a universal problem? Muck? And did you know that it's their 25th anniversary this year?  Neither did I. But I do know that when you buy boots that don't last, it's really frustrating to have to replace them every couple of months.  So check out muck boots. The link is in the show notes. The very first thing that got hung in my beautiful kitchen when we moved in here four and a half years ago was a calendars.com  Lang calendar.

00:26
because I needed something familiar in my new house. My mom loves them. We love them. Go check them out. The link is in the show notes. You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.

00:56
You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Greg Forster  at Wisconsin Mineral Solutions and he's in Wisconsin. Good morning, Greg. How are you? Good morning. How about you, Mary?  I'm good.  I am your neighbor in Minnesota and the weather here is relatively warm for April and sunny. What is it like in Wisconsin this morning? Right, about 37 degrees and  bright and sunny.

01:26
Mm-hmm.  Yeah, we're moving slowly incrementally towards spring. I'm very excited about this and I'm sure you are too. Yes. So tell me about yourself and what you do because I know that you are a genius.  Yeah, like  beauty is in the eye of the beholder so is genius.  Oh, yeah. Well,  over here in Wisconsin I have

01:55
on a 19 acre hobby farm, Homestead, where we've got probably about 30 baby goats born this spring. So that's, that's exciting. And most of those are twins, I guess. Yeah, twins and a fair number of triplets born this year. So that's always fun. And kind of kicks off the spring season with a lot of excitement here around the Homestead.

02:24
And, um, well, we raise  quite a, I guess you could say kind of like a rainbow of fruits and vegetables here. We've got,  um,  a couple of acres actually of elderberries, and then we grow Aronia and blackcurrant and some red, white and pink currants.  And have a small greenhouse that, um, helps us kind of keep things going a little later into the season and also a little bit early.

02:53
So yeah, home setting has been good. We've been  working with Dairy Goats for about 30 years now  and learning a lot.  And my personal background is  I have a degree in physics  and I utilized that for about 20 years  in the world of software engineering and it wasn't until

03:21
2012 that I turned  that education towards the world of agriculture. And now  I have a business called Wisconsin Mineral Solutions, as you mentioned. And I help  produce growers and dairy farmers  more profitably produce  and more sustainably produce nutritious foods. Okay. And that's where the genius part comes in.

03:46
I listened to your podcast with Jill Winger today. I think her podcast is amazing. Like I want to be Jill Winger when I grow up  and I'm trying really hard to grow up fast because that would be great.  Yeah, she does. Awesome.  She's great. She's a lovely human being.  But what I found really interesting is all the science behind  the  making soil work better for you to grow better plants. And

04:13
So  did you go back to school to learn this stuff or what, how did that happen? Well, I did not go back to school.  Um, but a lot of the principles that I've been learning and research that I've  come across,  um, my physics background kind of helps evaluate that and understand more how it,  when the rubber hits the road, what's actually happening down there in the soil and then what's happening in the plants themselves. And

04:42
I've  encountered quite a few really, really knowledgeable people  over the last decade or so that have been instrumental in my learning and growing. And then of course, there are plenty of good opportunities like Acres USA and the Moses Conference and La Crosse, not too far from here.  So yeah, there are lots of ways to increase your knowledge and become more proficient in

05:12
your understanding of how the natural environment works. Okay. I think that you suffer from the same thing that my dad and I suffer from. My dad calls it got to know it is  because for you to learn all of that stuff on your own, to be self-taught  using your physics background, that's got to know it is on a large scale.  Well, I liked the old adage when you're done learning, you're done.

05:42
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think I've heard that out of my dad too. He's 81. I'm pretty sure I've heard every old adage out of my dad at this point. But either way, so Jill was asking you all kinds of questions and she's far more educated than I am on how to ask questions about this because I'm not really the gardener my husband is and he has by hook and by crook been teaching himself how to garden and not use

06:11
pesticides or man-made fertilizers and how to till in a smart way and how to add things to the garden because of what he sees happening with the plants. But it's not a science-based thing for him.  So  for those of us who don't know anything about the science behind good soil, is there an ABC to it or is it far more complex than that?  Well,  it is complex.

06:41
but it doesn't have to be complicated.  We can approach things with kind of common sense and  I think it does help to get a little bit of science going on  our behalf, like doing soil testing and understanding what's going on there.  But you don't have to exactly understand the nuances that the soil test may imply.

07:09
You just have to have some guidance on how to take what shows up in the test and do something  good with that data. So  a large part of my business is working with produce growers  and  quite a few of them market their produce.  Some do directly to grocery stores and  things like that, but  ones that are going through  auctions,

07:38
produce auctions  are able to really see the difference if they change their behavior on their farms, the behavior of the buyers at the auctions changes.  we're able to help produce growers to have,  well, from the buyer's perspective, they just notice that the shelf life is longer and that the flavor is better and that the aroma is better. But what's actually happening is we're helping those

08:08
vegetables become more nutrient dense  and when they're more nutrient dense all of those minerals and flavonoids and everything are just  Allowing the produce to be more sellable and the buyers like them better so we can definitely affect what's going on in the plants by Managing better what's going on in the soil?  Mm-hmm,  okay

08:34
Here in Minnesota, we have a water and soil conservation district thing. And  I interviewed the lady for the county next to ours. I couldn't get hold of somebody in my county. And she was saying that they do soil testing and they will come out and kind of direct you on what the results mean and what you should do.  Does Wisconsin have something like that or are you that?  Wisconsin has that too.

09:04
In my experience,  a lot of that,  and this isn't necessarily true for  Minnesota,  but a lot of that is based on or is focused on how to manage manure. And so it's looking at  how much manure can you put on the land before you end up with runoff problems and things like that.

09:31
To do that, you don't really need a whole lot of detail in a soil test. But when I look at a soil test, I want to see where the trace minerals are at and how they're balanced relative to each other. So you can get a really cheap soil test that gives you some guidance, or you can get a medium-priced soil test, like around, let's say, $30 to $40.

09:59
That gives you a lot more information and can help you  take more strategic action  with your soil.  All right. So I'm trying to drill down to the same thing Jill was trying to drill down with you on.  For those of us who know  nothing, we're just trying to grow a decent tomato that has some nutrient value in our garden.

10:28
The first thing you think that we should do is get a soil test and find out what the soil needs.  Is that kind of step one? That is correct. Yes, that would be the first step. Okay.  And then  once you do that test and you get the results,  is there anywhere online that  will help you figure out what those test results actually mean?

10:55
I don't know of any place online that would give you any kind of personalized help in doing that, but whoever you do your test through, they probably would have the skills and knowledge to get you in the right direction. Okay. Yep. That's what I was wondering because I can, we did a soil test the day after we moved into our place four and a half years ago, cause we bought a 3.1 acre lot and we had high hopes of growing a garden.

11:24
And we did  the soil test for like pH and that stuff but not necessarily I think more in depth like you're talking about and We bought the place without testing the soil. We were kind of dumb. We could have brought the test with us  But we just wanted to make sure that it was a seven point zero because we knew what we wanted to grow which is you know, the usual suspects cucumbers and tomatoes and  onions and things And we were really lucky

11:53
because it's perfect. have grown a gorgeous garden three out of the four summers we've been here. Last summer sucked because it rained and rained and rained. And as you know, wet soil is not plantable  and it's not walkable either because then you squish all the air pockets and everything doesn't work under there right.  So last year was not great and  we've got everything crossed this year that it's not going to rain for six weeks straight and that we will have a beautiful garden again.

12:22
So,  what else can I ask you?

12:30
What really prompted you to get into this? Because I mean you gave me  the rundown before, but what really pushed you on learning about this? Right, well,  in my neighborhood, let's see, this would be probably about 20 years ago  now,  a few of the farmers got together  and were started

12:58
started thinking about how they could do a little more like collaborative type of work  and not have to have all the equipment to do everything, able to share some equipment. And we  formed a little sustainability group together.  And  one of the men that  started that, he  happened to be very, very knowledgeable about soil health and  human health and a lot of correlations between the two. And

13:27
Um, he told me at one point that if I was going to get,  um, the same amount of nutrition as my great, great grandparents did from eating broccoli, that I would have to eat about 12 servings to their one serving.  And so that was kind of like one of the things that triggered my thinking about this and wondering,  um, you know, how could that be that drastic?  And.

13:53
I mentioned just a few statistics when I talked to Jill about a few different things. think I might have mentioned  snap beans,  like tomatoes is one thing that when we look at tests  of tomatoes that are grown,  the most common way like that maybe a university would recommend. And then we look at how Dr. William Albrecht recommended that people manage the soil.  And in his testing,

14:23
You know, he went out, he sent students out all over the world collecting soil samples, and then they spun out the humus and they looked at how the trace minerals were balanced in that humus.  And it turns out it's balanced an awful lot like in a  human body is.  And  we're always trying to improve organic matter in the soil. We know that that helps the soil hold its nutrients and everything.

14:54
Dr. Albrecht thought, well, what if we  tried to balance soil so that it's mineral-wise balanced like the humus is?  And so he started doing some tests and other people have done some experiments too and looked at what impact does that have on the vegetables that are being produced?  it's just staggering.  for like iron is one that we notice a huge difference in.

15:23
tomatoes grown the way Dr. Albrecht recommend have a iron unit of 1,938. If you grow it to a conventional way, you get one. 1,938 to one. That's like crazy difference. also looking at tomatoes, the amount of potassium goes from 148 down to 58.

15:53
and magnesium goes from 59 to  about four and half. So these aren't just like a little bit worse today.  It's like off the charts  crazy.  And in some of the,  so some of these things are like a thousand times worse today. And so when I started noticing that,  that just really piqued my interest that we're

16:21
We're doing a huge disservice to the whole world when we produce food that just can't really support life like it's designed to.  And  that just kind of fueled my interest and my excitement in learning more about the soil and how all of that works.  Because usually if somebody's this deep into something, something really kicked them into it. And I just was curious what it was. So thank you for telling me all that.

16:50
So I, when you say that tomatoes are far less nutrient than they used to be, and sounds like they are, is part of that also that we have created hybrid kinds of tomatoes, they're not heirloom tomatoes, they're not exactly the same as they were in your great grandpa's day? Yes, that is partly true, yes.

17:19
I don't know to what extent it is, but I do know when we look at  tomato greenhouses, some produce growers in the same greenhouse are growing heirloom tomatoes and they're also growing some hybrid tomatoes.  you know, the heirloom tomatoes have a much more gnarly kind of look, know, knobby and  they split a little bit more easily and things like that.

17:49
Um,  we noticed that the  modern heirloom or not  the modern  hybrid types of tomatoes will grow pretty well  on not very good soil, but the heirloom tomatoes, they need you to do a really good job in managing the soil for them to turn out well. And the reason is because they need more nutrients. They're pulling more nutrients up into them. And so just naturally you're going to have.

18:18
a much  richer  product than  with the  hybrids.  Flavor even. Like if you just grab a tomato that's been bred in order to be able to  be transported all across the country and banged around  and still look pretty good.  It doesn't taste the same as a fresh tomato that's  of an heirloom variety.

18:47
No, no, it does not taste the same.  It's really interesting. talk a lot about tomatoes with a lot of people on this podcast, Greg. No, no joke.  But when we grow tomatoes here,  we will grow a couple heirloom varieties and we will grow early girls because early girls grow really well and people want to eat them because that's what they think they're supposed to taste like. Okay.  We grew Brandywine, heirloom Brandywine tomatoes one year.

19:16
and they were as big as a softball and they were really pulpy but they were also really juicy and they were sweet. I don't think that people realize that tomatoes can have a sweetness to them.  The early girls  never have a sweetness to them and I'm assuming that's because they're a hybrid.

19:36
Right. Yeah. The sweetness is,  um, pretty reflective  of the mineral content in them.  And,  um, have you ever eaten a, um,  a black currant before? Yes. I don't love them actually.  No,  you, a lot of people don't, but as soon as you put it in your mouth,

20:00
There's just all kinds of things going on.  And your body is like, whoa, what is this?  And there are so many nutrients in there and complex,  uh, complex flavors there.  And  I think you're going to find that  there are some varieties of plants that, uh,  just  are much better at pulling up nutrients and need really rich soil and others you can kind of get away with, uh, less good soil,  but.

20:29
what you're going to eat is also less good,  less tasty  and less healthy for you too.  had  a tomato grower  that had some friend from the city come out and visit,  a  young teenage kid,  and he was offered some tomatoes, cherry tomatoes by the farmer and the kid said, oh no, I don't like tomatoes.  And the farmer was like, what? You don't like tomatoes?

20:59
No, we'll just try one. And so  the kid just ate one and didn't really say anything. And then a little bit later he reached in and grabbed another one and  pretty soon the whole bowl was gone.  And the farmer was really shocked at how much this person that had only had, I won't call them garbage tomatoes, but you know,  tomatoes that don't really taste like they're designed to.  And once he actually got to taste what a real tomato tastes like,

21:29
Wow, he just loved them.

21:33
Yep, that sounds about right.  We grew kohlrabis. You know what kohlrabis are? Yes.  Yeah, we grew those at our old house in our crappy backyard that was maybe, the garden was maybe 50 by 60 feet.  And it was not great soil. We had to bring in a whole bunch of dirt. We'll call it dirt because I don't know where we got it from.  you know, the stuff you plant plants in.

21:58
And we grew kohlrabi and the neighbor girl had never had a kohlrabi before. And she saw them growing and she said, what's that? And my husband said, that's a kohlrabi. And she said, a kohlrabi It's a kohlrabi. It tastes sort of like a cabbage and a radish had a baby. And she's like, I like cabbage and I like radishes. And he said, well, here, take it. And she, you know, he broke the bulb off for her. He the roots off and the stems off.

22:28
or the leaves off. And she looked at it and she said, how do I eat it? And he said, well, if you want to, you can just bite into it. He said, but how we eat it is we take it in and we cut it in slices like you would a radish. And we just eat it like that with a little bit of salt and pepper, very little salt. And she was like, okay. And she ran in the house. I she was like 10 at the time. And she didn't come out for five minutes and she came back out and she said, how many did you plant? My husband's at 20. She said,

22:58
She said, if I give you 50 cents, can I get another one?  And kohlrabis are really weird. You know, they're not, they don't look like they should be edible. They're a weird looking  vegetable.  And so we converted her on the spot to that. And she asked us the following year if we were going to grow any. And my husband had already planned for this.  And he said, yes, but it's surprise. Come back in a month. I have a surprise for you.  So she came back in a month and there were purple kohlrabis.

23:28
And she said, why are they purple? And he said, I don't know. He said, I just saw purple colorado and thought you might like them. And she took that one home, came back like 10 minutes later  and she said, they don't taste the same.  And I said,  hang on. And we still had the package of seeds in the house. And I looked at it and it's a hybrid.  So I think that she could tell that it was not the original plant.

23:56
just from the way it tastes. She didn't hate it. She was like, the green one's better.  so yeah, humans are capable of discerning things without even knowing that they're doing it.  Yeah. And the animals  are, seem to be even more attuned to that.  We have  done experiments where we set out  GMO corn  and you set out  just conventional non GMO corn and even organic corn.  That's

24:26
grown  with different practices. And you'll see the  pigs or goats  mostly  come up and kind of check out the different piles and they'll eat the good ones. They will leave the GMO stuff unless they're just really hungry and they've eaten up all of the good  organic corn. yeah, sometimes animals are a little more smart than we are, but

24:54
we can  take  these nice brains that we have  and  apply them to our situation and make wise choices. So  I do  really encourage people to do the soil testing.  And sometimes there are just like little nuances going on in the soil that if you can get those turned around,  a  lot of things just start working well in the soil because there is kind of a classic

25:22
tool, well not tool I guess,  an image that people use in the world of agronomy that show the interdependencies of the different minerals in the soil  and it's very, very rich.  And  if you have like just a little bit too little of copper in your soil, sometimes you can have potassium deficiencies in the plant.  And if you don't have enough zinc,

25:50
Maybe you're going to have phosphorus deficiencies in the plant. Or if you don't have enough boron, then all of a sudden the calcium can't do the job that it's supposed to do. And so we just tweak a few things to get them in the right balance. And all of a sudden things start to change. and I've told quite a few people in the past that I really respect homesteaders for getting out there and doing the best they can to produce at least some amount of their own food.

26:20
But I also want them to realize that sometimes they can produce stuff that's not a whole lot better than what they could buy  in the grocery store. And it doesn't have to be that way. They can make changes. Like you were saying, not getting out in the garden when it's too wet and you're squishing out all the air space for the good microbes and getting that soil in balance. And then the food that we're producing is food that's going to be supporting our physical and emotional

26:49
and even spiritual well-being too.

26:53
Yes, exactly. And that's why junk food is so bad for us. Junk food will actually make you depressed, make you not be able to sleep.  And if you're depressed and you can't sleep,  you're cranky and you're mean.  And so I am a big believer in good, healthy, nutritious food because it literally helps you be a better human being. Not that it makes you a healthy, I mean, it does. It makes you a healthier human being.

27:23
But because you're healthier,  you act nicer, you act better, you make better choices because your brain is working better. Right. Right.  So I'm a big believer in growing your own stuff and the more you learn about how to pack it full of the nutrients your body needs because you're taking care of the soil, the better off we're all going to be. Right.  Absolutely.

27:46
All right. So tell me, tell me about your goats. Cause if you've listened to the podcast at all, which I'm guessing you probably haven't, I freaking love baby goats. said you have 30 baby goats this spring.  Yeah. We have miniature Nubians  and so they have the big long floppy ears and the Roman nose  and they bounce around so energetically. It's it just gets you in the mood for spring.

28:14
I've been in the mood for spring since October.  I'm ready. It's time.  So do you,  are you a goat dairy? Do you sell the goat milk? No, we don't.  Most of what we do with the goats, mean, obviously we use the milk ourselves and we're making yogurt and  a lot  of the summer. We pretty much just eat goat milk blended with berries and

28:43
A little bit of maple syrup or honey. We call it utter delight. But the baby goats are used for breeding stock. there's a lot of demand for third, fourth, fifth generation miniature Nubians with strong milking traits. Nice. And they're fun. Admit it, they're fun. They are.

29:12
Mm-hmm.  Yep.  I always try to get the fact that raising animals or growing produce is fun in because for people who  aren't doing this yet, there's a lot of hard work in homesteading and growing things, but there's such fun in it  at points in time. I don't want to say it's fun all the time because it's not,  but those moments of joy when you see those baby goats being crazy.

29:41
or the moments of joy when you bite into that perfectly grown tomato are so worth it.  all  right, Greg, I tried to keep these for half an hour and we're at like almost 29 minutes and I'm not going to lie, I've been up since 3 a.m. and it is now 1029.  So I'm going to let you go because I'm going to really try hard to get some sleep recouped here shortly.  But  thank you for your time. I really appreciate it and keep doing the good work.

30:11
All right. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Thank you, Mary. If you like this podcast, you would probably love Amy Fagan's Grounded in Maine podcast.  You can find her on  all the platforms, groundedinmaine.com.