211: Colin Austin on Wicking Beds and Healthy Food

Examining wicking garden beds and bio-intensive vegetables.

In this Podcast: We get to meet a gardening pioneer when Greg talks to Colin Austin who is known world-wide as the man who engineered a simple but highly popular garden bed called a wicking bed. Greg learns why Colin was motivated to create the beds and how the wicking process works. Then they go further to talk about why healthy food is so important to him and his family.

Many years ago, at the birth of the computer revolution Colin learned to write code and set-up a company which grew to become Australia’s leading exporter of technical software. Then twenty years ago, Colin developed a growing system, which is known today as wicking bed technology and has gone feral worldwide. He runs a website WaterRight.com.au and a newsletter which are leading sources of information on wicking bed growing technology around the globe.

Colin’s wife was very healthy and after moving to Australia from China she developed diabetes when she transitioned to a Western style diet. Consequently, he has spent many years studying the causes and remedies for diabetes. This complex disease involves many factors such as genetics and life style stress but the dominating one of course is diet. As a result of this research he is developing a new farming technology for growing in nutrient dense soil which is very biologically. He says living soils are based on recycling waste and are regenerative. He believes we have been destroying our soil and that we are now approaching peak soil.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/03/21/colin-austin/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.