Are Microbz Probiotics For The Garden Any Good? – Our First Impressions

Overall Rating:

4.86/5

Sustainability = 5.0

Value For Money = 4.8

Ease Of Use = 4.8

Whatever you want to grow in your garden, the soil is the most important component. Healthy soil will produce healthy plants.

For soil to be healthy, it has to teem with life, microscopic life that is. Soil contains thousands of microorganisms that contribute to plant growth. (Compant et al., 2019)

Among other things, they transform nutrients into a form that makes them available for plants to absorb. (Stockdale & Atkinson)

So you want to have lots of different microbes in your soil to give your plants the best conditions to grow in. And adding garden probiotics to your soil is one way to achieve this. We think that it’s the best eco-friendly gardening product out there.

In my Microbz probiotics for the garden review, I will look at this eco-friendly way to keep your soil healthy.

Why We Love Microbz

To ensure we don’t fall foul of greenwashing, we always carefully scrutinise the companies we consider buying products from.

As our aim is to live a more sustainable life, we want to make sure that the products we buy come from businesses that put sustainability at the top of their agenda.

Microbz is such a company. They are based right here in the UK and have brewed their own probiotics from their Wiltshire soil since 2007. That’s one of the things that we love best, because it means that their beneficial microbes aren’t made in a lab somewhere.

They make them the natural way, brewing them from soil and then fermenting them with herbs and minerals to increase the number of microbes naturally.

And the result: a totally natural product that has been created by working with nature. Just what you want when you try to live a more sustainable life.

Unlike with many other probiotic products, with Microbz you get at least 15 different strains of beneficial microbes. This diversity is important, because, as we have already said, it’s key to a healthy soil microbiome.

But Mircobz don’t stop there: they also make sure their packaging is as sustainable as possible. Their plastic bottles are made from 100% recycled plastic and can be recycled again. Even the screw cap can be recycled.

The labels will easily come off during the recycling process and can then be recycled themselves. There is no waste whatsoever. Needless to say, their packaging is also made of 100% recycled cardboard that can be recycled again.

Sustainability is at the heart of all their operations: how they choose their suppliers, how they run their offices, where they get their office supplies from, how they deal with their waste, etc.

And they are always looking to improve further. That’s why we love Microbz here at EcoHomeLife. They are exactly the type of sustainable business we want to support.

Different Products For Different Needs

Beneficial bacteria, fungi, and other microbes are useful in many areas of your garden, not just the beds you grow your plants in. So Microbz has a range of products to use in your garden.

If you make your own compost from kitchen scraps, you will be interested in their Bokashi and Compost Activator. Bokashi is dried, fermented wheat bran that you can add to your kitchen scraps to speed up fermentation.

Why would you need that? Well, the quicker it ferments, the quicker it will turn into compost. And apparently it will also stop your food waste bin from smelling.

The Compost Activator is added to your compost heap or bin to speed up the breakdown of the organic matter. This will turn your kitchen scraps into nutrient-rich compost faster.

If you have a pond in your garden, and every eco-friendly garden should have a wildlife pond, then check out the Pond Balance product. I wish we knew of this product when we had an algae problem.

If you add Pond Balance, the beneficial bacteria will break down the algae naturally and reduce it. They will also increase the oxygen levels in your pond and discourage pests, to make it a haven for wildlife.

Finally, the two products we tried out: Soil Conditioner and Plant Boost. While I’m interested in all their garden probiotics, these two seemed a good place to start, as healthy soil will produce robust, strong plants.

The Soil Conditioner is added to bare soil 4 to 6 times a year to increase the diversity of the soil’s microbiome. If you do this over late autumn to early spring, your soil will be ready for the growing season.

Once you have planted your plants, the Plant Boost comes into action. It can be diluted with water and either used to water plants or spray them if they suffer from pests.

The result: strong, healthy plants that thrive.

Microbz also offer a garden bundle that contains all these products, but at a lower cost than if you were to buy them individually. So if you want them all, this will be the most cost-effective way to get them.

Easy To Apply

As we have said, we bought the Soil Conditioner and the Plant Boost, for now, to try. Over winter, we have been adding the former to our veggie beds in the Polytunnel and outside.

Because their probiotics come as a liquid probiotic, it was very easy to apply to our soil. All we had to do was dilute the probiotics with water at a ratio of 1:10.

We have a 10-liter watering can, so the maths is easy. 1 litre of Microbz garden probiotic per full watering can is required.

To measure out the soil probiotics, we used a reused squash bottle that we use for the worm tea we get from our wormery. It didn’t need washing out because the worm tea is just as natural as the Microbz probiotics and only contained this natural liquid feed.

I marked 1 litre on this 1.5-litre bottle outside so we can measure out the probiotics. Then we just had to fill up the watering can with water.

We used rainwater that we collected in our water butts. This is the best option, but if you have to, you can also use tap water. However, it’s important to let it stand for at least 30 minutes before adding the probiotics to dechlorinate the water.

If you have more than one watering can to make up, this can add a considerable amount of time, which isn’t ideal. So if you can, get a water butt and collect rainwater to save time.

With 17 raised vegetable beds to do, we opted for the 5-litre bottle of Soil Conditioner, as we were sure we would need most of it. We needed four watering cans in the end, so have 1 litre left for the next round.

After one round of adding the Soil Conditioner, you also need to add a layer of organic mulch or compost to feed the microbes you have added to the soil. We did that in spring and used a mixture of our homemade compost and leaf mulch.

The Plant Boost will come into action soon, too, when the first seedlings are ready to be replanted. We will update this review once we have tried it.

Another thing we have to wait to tell you about is the results. Will our veggie grow healthier and produce better yields? We have to wait and see. But we wanted to share our first impressions and experiences with the Microbz probiotics for the garden because we are so excited about trying them.

So watch the space for an update on how well our plants will grow this summer.

What Results Other Customers Got

In the absence of our own results yet, we have looked at what customers who have used the Microbz gardening probiotics for longer have to say.

Microbz are on Trustpilot, however, they only have 18 reviews there. They are all 5-star reviews, though. They mostly talk about the gut probiotics for humans and pets, and some about the probiotic cleaners.

That’s probably because the concept of gut probiotics is much better known than probiotics for the garden.

So I decided to look at their website. Not something I often do, as I prefer independent review sites. However, I have been a Microbz customer for quite a while now and trust them.

I did find some reviews about their garden probiotics. And they were all positive. I was especially pleased to hear that one gardener said they thought the soil conditioner worked well.

Overall, the majority of people are happy with their products, as am I. This gives me confidence that the gardening probiotics will also do well. But I will report back once I can say for sure.

Do You Get Value For Money?

This isn’t an easy question to answer with these products, as there aren’t that many similar products out there. The ones that I did find, were either similarly priced or more expensive.

But what I mostly noticed was that they didn’t really talk about what beneficial bacteria they contained or how they were made.

This lack of transparency puts me off, because I want to make sure that the products I use in my garden are sustainably made, and with Microbz I can be sure of that.

In terms of price, if you opt for bigger bottles and sign up for their subscription service, you can save money. That’s always a plus.

But for me, where the true value for money lies is in getting healthy soil that can support my vegetable plants in a natural way that won’t harm our planet. After all, that’s what I want to achieve in my eco-friendly garden.

Plus, by adding these beneficial bacteria to your soil, you will counteract biodiversity loss, which is one of the drivers of climate change.

Verdict Of My Microbz Probiotics For The Garden Review

I love the concept of probiotics, because it means you work with nature rather than against it. So for me, it’s a no-brainer to use probiotics also for my garden.

The Soil Conditioner is very easy to use, as long as you have collected rainwater you can use to dilute the liquid probiotics. If you use tap water, it will take longer, especially if you have quite a few beds and need several watering cans full.

What I love most is that these beneficial probiotics are brewed in the UK from soil, rather than being synthetically made in a lab somewhere in the world.

For now I’m happy and I can’t wait to see how well my plants will grow. Why not give it a go, too? It’s a great addition for any sustainable garden.