Love Your Dirt: Good Green Earth Co.

Maximum Yield: How did Good Green Earth Co. get its start?

Gary Crowell: Good Green Earth Co. started out as a necessity to deal with our own home organic waste. We found that traditional composting wasn’t very effective and our organics green bin had its own inherent issues, including the smell and bugs.

We began work on creating a product that would be specifically for the grower, using probiotic principles in soil and plants. The result is a living organic soil amendment that infuses the soil ecology with essential nutrients, vitamins, minerals and beneficial microorganisms.

We started marketing the Bokashi Compost System and Bokashi culture mix as a sustainable solution to the organic waste and landfill problems, while at the same time creating a premium compost.

In the beginning we started out small, working out of the home, producing the mix in the garage, and then moved out to the farm where there was a lot more room and resources.

MY: What is Good Green Earth Co.'s philosophy?

GC: To provide an environmentally sustainable alternative to chemicals, pesticides, and toxins, and to regenerate our soils with all the essential elements necessary to create and sustain a strong, productive, disease-free garden. We continue to strive to find new solutions to todays problems with regards to our air, soil, and water.

MY: Briefly summarize the products you manufacture.

GC: Bokashi PRO-GRO is a living, organic, fermented, soil amendment that builds a strong disease- and pest-free soil food web, resulting in strong, productive plants. Bokashi Plus Culture mix also is a probiotic soil amendment, compost accelerator and natural odor control using beneficial microbes in a fermented wheat bran base.

Bokashi Compost System turns all food scraps, including meats, cheese and small bones into nutrient rich compost within weeks with no foul odors or bugs. This rich compost has twice the nutrient value and moisture of traditional compost, with none of the inherent issues associated with regular compost.

MY: What makes your products unique?

GC: We produce the only probiotic bio-intensive soil amendment in Canada. We inoculate non-GMO Canadian wheat bran with beneficial microbes, add a plethora of vitamins, minerals, organic whole food complex, amino acids, and special agri-minerals mined in Northern Ontario and then put the mix through a unique fermentation process.

The end product is a true living, organic, soil amendment that can be used with organic or conventional growing methods.

Bokashi PRO-GRO actually kills pathogens and coliforms in the soil and plants as well as create a density of nutrients and minerals that is absent in most soils and in all soilless mediums.

This product can be used through all stages of growth, from rooted clone, vegging, through to flowering cycles. It can also be used with synthetic nutes and will cut down on fertilizer usage.

It also has applications in a soil mix, as a top dressing, or as a tea and foliar spray. The run-off is highly beneficial to the environment.

MY: How has the business evolved over the years and where do you distribute?

GC: We recently partnered with Home Hardware to market our Bokashi Compost systems and Bokashi Plus Culture mix nation wide under the My Good Green Garden product line and we currently sell our products through Homegrown Hydroponics and online through our website.

MY: Where do you see the company in 10 years?

GC: We expect to scale up our Bokashi composting sector to include institutional and commercial organic waste programs.

We want to be a leader in the probiotic gardening products community and educate the public on how to get back to growing our medicine and food the way it is meant to be done. We want to put back into the soil what we take out, leaving no negative mark of our existence on this good green earth.