We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Ferguson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

John, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I used to work internationally in the oil industry and was tired of being away from my family. Since gardening was a hobby I decided to start a landscape business. I went all over the Houston area and could not find good quality soils or mulches and no compost at all.

In college I had a lot of soil science as part of my course work and I had been making compost since I was 8 years old. Hence, I dropped the landscaping idea and decided .to start a composting company and focus on high quality products.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Nature’s Way Resources (NWR) evolved out of a series of events that John Ferguson experienced, some of which were life changing. Over 35 years ago he experienced an allergic reaction to a common fungicide that almost cost him his life and took six months to recover.

As a result he started intensively studying the new research that was emerging on biological methods in horticulture and agriculture. Researchers have found that these methods work better and at lower cost than traditional methods. Many of these new methods require large amounts of organic materials processed into compost, mulch and related products.

John left the oil industry in March of 1993 with the plan to start a landscape company that provided low maintenance and environmentally friendly landscapes using the newer methods. This type of landscaping requires lots of organic materials, so he visited all the suppliers in Houston. He could not find a single supplier of high quality soils or mulches and no one had compost of any quality. This led John to find out what it would take to produce a few thousand cubic yards of compost annually for use in his landscape company.

He spent the next few months doing intensive research into large scale composting. It was not long before he realized that this was an emerging new industry with lots of research on the benefits of compost occurring around the world. As a result of his findings, which indicated the growth and benefits to society of a composting company, the idea of a landscaping company was immediately dropped. Since John had a strong background in soil science, during the next 18 months, John studied everything he could find on compost technology, attended national and regional conferences on composting, and visited commercial and public operations all over the United States and internationally. The visits included operations that were having problems as well as those that were very successful.

NWR was quickly recognized as the leader in the Houston area for high quality compost, mulches, soils and potting mixes. NWR has been recognized in many publications from The Houston Chronicle to The Wall Street Journal for the quality of its products. John’s personal yard and garden has been featured in several garden books and in Better Homes and Gardens.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I was in college, I was taught all about using toxic chemicals and artificial fertilizers to grow plants. After almost dying from exposure to a common fungicide I started questioning what I was taught in college.

I intensively started studying the modern methods based on soil biology that are sometimes called “organic methods”. As I continued to study I soon realized that I was taught a bunch of lies promoted by the toxic chemical industry. The toxic chemical industry in their lies and half truths make the tobacco companies look like amateurs.

What I learned was the organic methods not only worked better, they cost far less, were much better for the environment, and did not harm one’s health.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When I first decided to start a composting business over 30 years ago, I approached several banks for business loans to buy equipment and get started. When they heard for example that I wanted to purchase front end loader to use in composting they told me we are not going to loan me money for that! “Put it in a landfill or burn it, we are not going to loan money to recycle”.

As a result I was able to issue bonds that friends from church could purchase that raised some funds and my wife let me take the savings we had to buy a new house and with that I started the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.natureswayresources.com
• Facebook: Nature’s Way Resources