OUR STORY

Jess and I’s journey to soil health started with human health. It is common for those with a holistic perspective to have had an uncomfortable experience somewhere along this continuum - soil health, plant health, animal health, human health. A pinch of curiosity and hope will bring one to expand beyond their initial starting point and to explore the connections between those four. In our young marriage, we strived to make healthier choices in the kitchen. From there we slowly learned things about subjects like nutrient density, the gut microbiome, and the ways in which our ancestors would have approached diet, ailments, and overall vitality. Once I dove into regenerative livestock production, it was not long after I understood that pasture diversity and quality of forage translated to better beef, that I plunged into soil health. I took full advantage of the proliferation of podcasting and YouTube “University” to consume every morsel of technical information I could find on building resilient soils.

My other job is vineyard management, cultivating Central Coast wine grapes. I began to identify and perceive various dysfunctions and shortcomings in the soils that I was farming. It was hard to reconcile that some accepted practices may be sacrificing the long term productivity of our soils for short term outcomes. I began to make tweaks to my approaches and began to learn a new framework through which I would perceive problems and develop solutions. One tool that I had at my disposal was liquid Vermicompost Extract from Black Diamond. Through all of my reading, research, and learning, one input that seemed to be indisputably revered by all of the elders and pioneers of ecological-agriculture was vermicompost. I reached out to Cristy Cristie, former owner of Black Diamond and had to see the operation for itself.

I was in awe of the vermicompost production and was intrigued when Cristy told me the business was for sale. I shrugged it off as pipe dream and when I shared the experience with Jess that evening, she lovingly ordered me to quit the spiritless attitude and to urgently notify Cristy of our interest and qualification. Thank you Jess! The good Lord has been making a way ever since and here we are! We are working to expand production volume and wish to impact as many acres as possible. We have shipped all around the country and our worm castings have seen the likes of vineyards, orchards, cattle pasture, ornamental trees, gardens, and the list goes on. Call us anytime!