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Two tomato plants, side by side. Same seed, same packet, started the same day. And one stands near twice as tall as the other, dark green and stout, already setting little tomatoes along the stem, while its twin sits there small and pale and bare. It was no luck and no sickness. The strong one got fed something the weak one never did, and it costs almost nothing.
It is a homemade mix you stir up in your own kitchen from what is already in the pantry, and you pour it on the ground, not the plant. A neighbor of mine watched it work and laughed and called it my magic elixir. There is no magic in it, only old sense, but I will admit, when you see the two plants side by side, it does look like magic. Today I will show you exactly how to make it, how to use it, and most important, why it works.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The whole recipe, yeast, molasses, buttermilk, and baking soda in clean rainwater, all of it from the pantry
✓ The one step everyone is too impatient for, waking the yeast overnight, and why skipping it ruins the batch
✓ What each of the four things actu
Two tomato plants, side by side. Same seed, same packet, started the same day. And one stands near twice as tall as the other, dark green and stout, already setting little tomatoes along the stem, while its twin sits there small and pale and bare. It was no luck and no sickness. The strong one got fed something the weak one never did, and it costs almost nothing.
It is a homemade mix you stir up in your own kitchen from what is already in the pantry, and you pour it on the ground, not the plant. A neighbor of mine watched it work and laughed and called it my magic elixir. There is no magic in it, only old sense, but I will admit, when you see the two plants side by side, it does look like magic. Today I will show you exactly how to make it, how to use it, and most important, why it works.
Here is what I walk you through in this one:
✓ The whole recipe, yeast, molasses, buttermilk, and baking soda in clean rainwater, all of it from the pantry
✓ The one step everyone is too impatient for, waking the yeast overnight, and why skipping it ruins the batch
✓ What each of the four things actu
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Two tomato plants, side by side, same seed, same packet, started the same day in the same soil.
00:07And one of them stands near twice as tall as the other, dark green and stout,
00:12already setting little tomatoes along the stem, while its twin sits there small and pale and bare.
00:20A man looks at that and thinks one of them got lucky, or one of them got sick.
00:25But it was no luck and no sickness.
00:27The strong one got fed something the weak one never did, and it costs almost nothing.
00:36I am Elias. My family came over from the Palatinate in 1838,
00:41and we have grown tomatoes in this Lancaster County ground every summer since.
00:46And I will tell you plainly, the secret to a strong tomato plant is not a bottle of blue powder
00:52from the garden store.
00:53It is a thing you can stir up in your own kitchen from what is already in the pantry, and
00:59you pour it on the ground, not the plant.
01:02A neighbor of mine watched it work, and he laughed and called it my magic elixir.
01:08I told him there is no magic in it, only old scents.
01:13But I will admit, when you see the two plants side by side, it does look like magic.
01:19So today I am going to show you exactly how to make it, how to use it, and most important,
01:25why it works.
01:27So you are not just trusting me, but understanding it.
01:32Let me start with the thing that turns the whole matter around, because once you see it, you garden different
01:38forever.
01:39You are not feeding the plant. You are feeding the soil.
01:44And the soil feeds the plant.
01:46This is the whole secret, and almost everyone has it backward.
01:51Folks think a fertilizer is food you hand straight to the plant, like setting a plate in front of a
01:57child.
01:57So they buy a powder that dumps salt and nitrogen right at the roots, and the plant gulps it and
02:04shoots up fast and green and weak.
02:07My grandfather would have shaken his head at that.
02:10He taught me the ground is alive.
02:13There is a whole hidden world down there, little living things beyond counting,
02:18and they are the ones that actually carry food to the root, that unlock what is already in your dirt,
02:25and hand it to the plant in a form it can use.
02:29A tired, lifeless soil has too few of them, and so the plant starves even in good ground.
02:36You do not need to force feed the plant.
02:39You need to wake up the living soil underneath it, and then the soil does the feeding the way the
02:45Lord set it up to.
02:47So this tonic is not really plant food at all.
02:51It is food for the life in the soil.
02:54You feed them, they multiply, and they feed your tomato.
02:59That is why a few cups of it does what a whole bag of powder cannot.
03:05Quick word before I go further.
03:07The old methods my family uses.
03:10There is more of it than fits in any one video.
03:13I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
03:18The book is the long version.
03:21If you want it, it is there.
03:23I will not mention it again.
03:25Now the recipe.
03:26It makes one gallon, and you likely have most of it in the house right now.
03:32You need four things.
03:34First, yeast.
03:36Plain baking yeast, the kind for bread.
03:39A bread starter works, any live yeast works, about a tablespoon.
03:43The yeast is the heart of the whole thing, and I will tell you why in a minute.
03:48Second, molasses, about two tablespoons.
03:52If you have no molasses, plain sugar will do, the same amount.
03:57Though molasses is better because it carries minerals the bare sugar does not.
04:02Third, if you have it, a cup of buttermilk.
04:06This one is not strictly needful, so do not fret if you have none.
04:10But it earns its place, and I will tell you how.
04:14And fourth, one tablespoon of baking soda.
04:17No more.
04:18That one tablespoon matters, and too much undoes the whole thing.
04:24And the water.
04:26One gallon, and the water matters more than folks think.
04:29You want it lukewarm, blood warm, about the warmth of bath water, not hot.
04:36Hot water kills the yeast before it starts.
04:39And it must be clean water with no chlorine in it, because chlorine is put in town water for the
04:46very purpose of killing little living things.
04:49And that is exactly the opposite of what we are trying to do here.
04:54So this is where I catch the rain.
04:57Rain water off the barn roof into a barrel, free and clean, and with nothing in it to harm the
05:03life we are trying to grow.
05:05The same water the good Lord sends down for nothing, while the world would sell it back to you in
05:11a jug.
05:13If you have no rain caught, let tap water sit open overnight so the chlorine lifts off, or use spring
05:20water for a small batch.
05:23Now, here is the step everyone is too impatient for, and impatience is why their batch fails.
05:30You wake the yeast up first.
05:34Take your warm water, stir in the molasses or sugar until it is dissolved, and then sprinkle the yeast across
05:41the top.
05:42Do not stir it in.
05:44Just lay it on the surface so it can spread and breathe.
05:49And then, you wait.
05:52Give it a couple hours at the least, but the first time you do this, leave it overnight.
05:58When you come back, you want to see a foam on top, a tan froth like the head on a
06:04glass.
06:05And that froth is the yeast come alive and feeding.
06:09If you see that foam, your tonic is alive and it will work.
06:14If you see nothing, your yeast was dead and you start over.
06:19And better to learn that from a bucket than from a dead seedling.
06:24That overnight wait is the whole difference between a tonic that works and a jar of plain water.
06:31Once it is foaming, stir in your buttermilk if you are using it.
06:36And last of all, the one tablespoon of baking soda.
06:39And your gallon is made.
06:42Now let me tell you what each thing is doing, plain, because you ought to understand it and
06:48not just follow me blind.
06:51The yeast is the main worker.
06:53It is a living thing, and when it feeds on that sugar, it multiplies fast and it stirs
07:00the whole soil to life, waking the good bacteria and the helpful fungus already down there,
07:07and feeding them.
07:09It speeds the rotting of old matter in the ground into food, and it unlocks the nutrients
07:15already sitting in your soil that the plant could not reach on its own.
07:21That is the heart of it.
07:22The molasses is the food that keeps that life going, and because it carries iron and potash
07:30and a little magnesium and calcium of its own, it feeds longer and richer than plain sugar
07:37would.
07:38The buttermilk, if you used it, brings calcium, and calcium is the very thing a tomato is always
07:45short of.
07:46When a tomato goes black and sunken on the bottom, that ugly rot, that is calcium it never
07:53got, and the buttermilk helps head it off while it strengthens the cell walls of the fruit.
08:00And the baking soda, that one spoonful, gently settles the sourness at the soil surface
08:07and makes it a less friendly place for the molds and blights that plague a tomato.
08:13Every one of the four has a job.
08:16None is there by accident.
08:19Now, how to use it?
08:21And here is where folks do real harm if they are careless, so listen close.
08:27First, never pour it on dry ground straight at the stem.
08:32Water your garden lightly first, plain water, so the soil is damp.
08:38Pouring a strong living brew onto bone dry roots can shock them.
08:44Damp the ground first, always.
08:48Second, you pour it on the soil around the plant, not on the leaves and not right against
08:54the stem.
08:55Out a few inches from the stem, in a ring, where the feeding roots are reaching, so the
09:01life grows out into the soil and the roots grow toward it.
09:06On the leaves it does no good and can invite trouble.
09:11Third, and this is the one a man's pride trips him on, do not overdo it.
09:17You will be tempted.
09:19You will think if one spoon of yeast is good, three is better, and you will pour it on heavy,
09:25hoping to double the magic.
09:28Do not.
09:29Too much, and you throw the soil out of balance.
09:33The microbes crowd and compete, and you get a plant all leaf and no fruit, big and bushy,
09:40and giving you nothing to eat.
09:43The old measure is the right measure.
09:45For a seedling, just a few drops near each one, twice a week.
09:50For a young plant in a pot, a quarter cup.
09:54For a grown plant in the ground, up to a full cup, once or twice a week.
10:00No more.
10:02You still water normal the rest of the time.
10:05This is a tonic, not the drink.
10:08Do that, and over the next few weeks you will see it.
10:13Greener leaves first, within a week or so.
10:16Then thicker stems and more branching.
10:18Then the flowers come, and the flowers are the tomatoes coming.
10:23I will not stand here and promise you some exact number that your plant will triple by Tuesday,
10:30because every garden and every soil is its own thing,
10:34and a man who promises you a miracle by the calendar is selling something.
10:39But I will tell you plainly, feed the soil this way, and your plants come on stronger and bear better
10:46than the ones you left to fend for themselves.
10:49And once you have seen the two side by side, you will not garden the old, hungry way again.
10:57And it works the same for your cucumbers, your squash, your peppers, the whole garden, not tomatoes only.
11:04Now let me tell you who profits from you not knowing a tablespoon of yeast would do it.
11:10Not to rile you, just so you see the shape of the thing, because once you see it, you cannot
11:17unsee it.
11:18There is no money in yeast and molasses and caught rainwater. None.
11:24You already own them.
11:26But there is a great deal of money in a bag of blue powder with a picture of a giant
11:31tomato on it, sold to you every spring, season after season.
11:36And here is the part that ought to make you think.
11:40That fast, salty powder feeds the plant directly and bypasses the soil life,
11:47and over years it can leave your soil deader than it found it, more lifeless, more dependent,
11:54so you must buy more powder next year to make up for it.
11:58A tonic that builds your soil richer every season makes you need less help over time.
12:05A powder that feeds the plant and starves the ground makes you need more.
12:11One of those two is a far better business, and it is not the one that helps your garden.
12:16I am not telling you a man schemed this in a back room. No one had to.
12:23It is worse than a conspiracy because it is a system nobody had to coordinate.
12:28It simply pays better to sell a plant food that leaves the soil hungry than to teach a man to
12:35feed the soil for free.
12:37So there is the whole of it. Wake live yeast in warm, clean rainwater with molasses.
12:44Give it the night to foam, stir in buttermilk for calcium, and one spoon of baking soda.
12:52Damp the ground first, pour it in a ring around the plant and not on the stem,
12:58and hold yourself to the small, honest dose.
13:02Feed the soil, and let the soil feed the plant, the way the ground was made to work.
13:09Now I want to hear from you, and I ask honest because I learned the whole country
13:14from these comments. Tell me in the comments below, what are you growing this year,
13:19and have you ever fed your soil instead of your plants before?
13:23And tell me your county and what your dirt is like, sand or clay or good black loam,
13:31because the tonic does the most good in the tiredest soil. I read every one.
13:37Next time, I want to show you how we make compost that never stinks.
13:42Because most folks' compost pile turns to a sour, slimy, reeking mess that draws flies,
13:51and the old people made sweet-smelling black earth from the very same scraps
13:56with one thing the modern pile is missing.
13:59That is where the life in this tonic ought to come from in the end, your own ground, made rich
14:06by your own hand.
14:07A garden is not a thing you force. It is a thing you feed, low down, where the life is,
14:14and then you stand back and let it do what it was made to do.
14:18My grandfather never bought a bag of plant food in his life, and his tomatoes were the envy of the
14:25township,
14:26because he understood that the secret was never in the plant, it was always in the ground beneath it.
14:33The garden that feeds a family year after year is the garden whose soil remembers how to live.
14:40The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
14:47Now what we found said is history and poetry.
14:47It is a publishing history.
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