Talk to your team. Recognize options. Respond by taking action.

It's been a few weeks since we walked you through the Soil-less Garden Starting Process. If you have completed the process for your soil-less garden, and waited a full 24 hours, you are now in what Machaelle calls the "recognize and respond" stage. Nature has created a full deck of options, and you're going to move forward one "card" at a time.

The Path to Your Goal

Each step will bring you closer to accomplishing your soil-less garden project.

Watch Chapter 7 of the Soil-less Gardens Workshop DVD, "Moving Through Your Project with the Coning." In this section, Machaelle explains how your team will communicate with you and ways you might respond to what you pick up.

For extra help, also watch Chapter 8, "Asking Questions." It will save you a lot of time, and reduce challenges or hard lessons along the way.

Read page 71 through the top of page 76 in your Soil-less Garden Companion.

If you are considering opening more than one SLG at a time, read to the end of page 76. Then still don't open more than one project at a time when you're a beginner.

Hints and Tips That Will Make This Easier

Most of our Question Line calls about soil-less gardens are from folks who have just gotten started, and others who have "sort of tried" a soil-less garden.

Below is a short list of the things we find ourselves saying frequently during these calls!

Set up a meeting schedule. Open your SLG coning and ask how often you should meet with your team. Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? As needed? Your meeting schedule will depend on the project.

Talk to your team. During your meeting, tell your team what insights, directions and options you've picked up. What options did you see and what did you decide to do? Tell them what's moving along and what isn't. Discuss any concerns or questions you have.

Don't waste time with curiosity. It's not helpful to ask about how things might turn out, or when events might occur. Your time and energy is better spent when you focus on what choices you have and the actions you can take.

To test or not to test. When you recognize a "card" and respond to it by making a choice, you are moving the project forward by staying in the moment. And you're taking full responsibility for your role in the partnership. If you find yourself wanting to (PKTT) test every choice, tell your team about that during your next SLG meeting and ask for help knowing when to ask vs. when to choose. (Your team is not going to choose for you!) And again, update your team on the choices you make.

This isn't a magic trick. If you're looking to win the lottery or make other people do what you want, then you need to take a step back and think about why you want to work with nature in the first place.

It can feel like "magic" sometimes. This process — working with nature and the White Brotherhood in a soil-less garden — is a new way of functioning. Each of you are equal team members with a specific job to do. Machaelle has pointed out to us a number of times over the years that "nature will meet you where you are." Meaning, the level of clarity in your role and intent that you bring to the table is the same level of clarity with which nature can and will respond. When you "nail it" and you experience the results of that kind of clarity, it can feel pretty spectacular.

Remember the SLG Troubleshooting Chart, but don't limit yourself to that. The SLG Troubleshooting Chart is one communication tool among many. Your primary tool is talking to your team. Give them updates on what you've picked up on and what you plan to do next for your project. The SLG Troubleshooting Chart is how you'll work with your team when you hit a wall or snag, when you aren't sure what to do next and need help, or when you have a major shift in your project. Always take the time to ask if a Troubleshooting is needed — don't assume one way or the other. Also, save yourself some wheel-spinning: Read the steps and PKTT (kinesiology test) which processes are truly needed. Don't look at the list and decide what processes to do on your own.

Let things move along naturally, and move with the flow. Try not to let impatience, a tendency to overthink, a desire to "understand" everything, ego, self-worth or lack thereof, fear of success and occasional flat-out, unfettered dopiness get in the way. Sometimes you will be dopey. It's part of the learning process, and can lead to extraordinary insight and experiences you'll never achieve by "thinking it to death." If you recognize yourself throwing up roadblocks like that, tell your team. Then have a good laugh about it and forge ahead with humility, and a better understanding that can only come from experience.

If this is new to you and you are intrigued, start at the beginning of our Soil-less Garden Series here.

If you feel overwhelmed, get stuck or have questions about these instructions, call our Question Line. We enjoy helping you through blocks, and keeping the steps manageable and simple.

Question Hot Line
1-540-937-3679
Wednesdays, 10-8 ET

The Soil-less Garden Series