Amerindian Magic, Japanese Genius, and Mother Nature.

[jaykush]

In what way is the FPE better from dried roots?

i just dry mine because i don't use the roots that often. i find the roots to be somewhat special compared to dandelion leaves and blooms. drying them stores longer and its easier to crush into a powder. powdered things have more surface area which = faster decomposition.

 

[MrFista]

The percentage of char in a mix does not need to be extreme. Yes there are Terra Preta soils with up to 30% char. But did this all go in the soil at once? - I doubt it. The waste products of a nation do not arrive on an annual or similar basis, rather, a non stop input of much smaller amounts. You can add a bit more char over time, always remembering to amend the char, and always trying to char it as low temp as possible, to avoid all problems and go straight to growing... do it right.

Once you have a char soil up and running you want to be mulching it. The major biological activity of a soil is in the first three centimetres. Mulch allows this region to stay damp and proliferate with life. I do not try to get bacterial dominance or fungal dominance at certain times, rather, I let the ecosystem do it's thing. The soil food web is not disturbed except where I dig wee holes to put transplants in. The old plants are cut, and the new plants are planted immediately in the gaps between them. There is no downtime for the soil food web, plants are always growing in the soil and so the bacteria fungi etc are all kept active within the garden. Worms and root systems keep the soil biologically active by releasing exudates that 'awaken' slumbering fungal spores and bacterial cysts to engage in the activities promoting plant life (Lavellle, Soil Ecology). When you remove/slow this activity you limit your soils capacity to work. Mulching can be very simple. A good base of straw for coverage, a mix of broadleaves for nutritional content/diversity. A bit of chicken bedding for guanos if you can, or add some sprinkled on top, albet very sparingly (1/4 manufacturers recommendation seems about right). All the mulch additions sit on top, it is up to the microherd to distribute this. The plants get taken care of, and I believe in this situation they call the shots. You want a good microherd to bust up your mulch slowly over time...

A compost tea adds composting organisms to your soil. The soil food web, simplified, composts things. Adding well made compost tea to a new garden pours the correct types of organisms directly into and on the soil where you want them to be. But without plants ready and waiting, it is a waste of time. With plants, it is miraculous in what it can do. Millions of helpers arrive at the root/soil interface and with their arrival micronutrient and nutrient disorders begin to vanish. Efficiency of utilisation of compostable substrates begins to occur. Over time tea becomes less important as the substrate is penetrated by worms and arthropods who circulate fungi and bacteria in the substrate with their movements.

If you start with hard clay and other dubious soil and want to 'heal it' - use EM. EM adds porosity to hardpan clay, it brings to life soils you'd think wont grow anything but weeds. Bokashi is an EM product you make yourself that will rapidly break down in your soil if you need a fast incorporation of organic matter. Alternately, bust the clay up good and have LOTS of compost to put in it. Do not use clay and straw as you will make brick, ask me, I learned that one the hard way.

Starting with fucking awful soil then....

Add EM and or some bokashi and let sit for a fortnight. *

At same time make low temp char and amend it in some compost or a worm bin.

Add the char infused with composting life to the crappy clay, add some sand, seaweed, compost, whatever you got. Be reasonable but get that soil as diverse as you can. Let it compost for at least a month.

Plant, water with (properly made) compost tea, then mulch the top.

Continue as above (no till, no down time on planting/growing) and expect continuous improvement for several years if you got it right.

* No root crops in first year when adding lots of bokashi - too rich.

 

[jaykush]

The percentage of char in a mix does not need to be extreme. Yes there are Terra Preta soils with up to 30% char. But did this all go in the soil at once? - I doubt it. The waste products of a nation do not arrive on an annual or similar basis, rather, a non stop input of much smaller amounts. You can add a bit more char over time, always remembering to amend the char, and always trying to char it as low temp as possible, to avoid all problems and go straight to growing... do it right.

this is why simply when you make a compost pile, adding the char then makes it stupid simple. no need to even think of adding char to your soil, just add compost little by little over time the char % will grow and so will the soils fertility.

 

[FreedomFarmer]

Can't seem to find or figure out what "EM" stands for.....?

 

[Corpsey]

EM=effective microorganisms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism

 

[MrFista]

Have chickens now. These lil fookers can eat! So... keeping in mind I am cheap, what have I done/learned to keep the feed bills down.

Acorns - up to 50% of a chickens diet may be acorns. I select large green fruit and put them through an old school hand mincer then feed this direct to the birds. no problems with it at all but it is only about 20% of total diet.
Sunflower seeds - grown here on site, dried in the hot water cupboard, chooks love them.
Greens - grass, silverbeet, spinach, onion tops, watercress and more, a healthy portin of the diet is in the form of greens of which I am never short. Even some young brassica leaves in the mix.
Flax seed - not so popular as the other seed types it seems, but they eat some and this will help get plenty of oils in the birds.
Corn - old dried up husks are plentiful in season and you can dry them further then just give the ears a chinese burn to strip the kernels off. Rehydrate in the evening and feed the next morning - very popular.
Fish - guppies breed like mofos and the excess makes an occasional fishy treat.
Insects - crickets, grasshoppers, black soldier fly larva - catch or culture some insects and your birds will love you for it

and I got some laying mash - about 20% of diet is this stuff. I also recycle some eggshells, dry em out then crush up and add to laying mix. I need some coarse sand for em shortly as well, a trip to the beach will solve this. Quartz and silica sand both efective. This is NOT replaced by shells. Shells are for calcium, grit is for the gizzard to grind shit up.

So now I got these eating shitting machines in the chicken tractor and I move them daily to a new spot. The nesting box gets loaded with crap after a few days I switch out the hay (made on site) and deposit it under plants that might appreciate a bit of extra attention.

This place is turning into a bit of an urban farm and I'm loving every step of the process.

 

[Floralfaction]

I've had good luck feeding comfrey leaves to chickens, so much good nutrition in there. I know that for human consumption acorns need to be boiled a few times or river strained to remove tannins. Obviously chickens have stronger stomachs and if they eat them it's probably fine, just an FYI.

Sounds like you're living the good life, have fun!

peace

 

[jaykush]

dont feed them too much comfrey, large amounts is not the best.

 

[MrFista]

Thanks folks. I can put a little comfrey in there time to time, at present it's a bit precious so gets used for mulches and liquid plant food. Lot of falling fruit hereabouts. The chickens hit the brown spots (fruit fly larva) first.

My black soldier flies are self harvesting into my worm rum bin! Got to finish that colony they're drowning themselves lol. Got to feed em at least every three days to keep em here. Big supply of food from a neighbour once the colony is running. Though I'd finished it but after some thought I wish to increase the ventilation a bit. Be a shame to lose them to lack of detail right when the weathers turning as they'll not be back till next year.

Switched my indoor terra preta garden to a vertical light setup. I had excess off two lights, one light vertical will be more than sufficient for my needs. Made a chicken mesh circular frame to go round the light, plants filled it in two weeks so I flipped em already.

Happy days.

 

[jaykush]

My black soldier flies are self harvesting into my worm rum bin! Got to finish that colony they're drowning themselves lol. Got to feed em at least every three days to keep em here. Big supply of food from a neighbour once the colony is running. Though I'd finished it but after some thought I wish to increase the ventilation a bit. Be a shame to lose them to lack of detail right when the weathers turning as they'll not be back till next year.

lol yea, there monster eaters. i had to start taking the neighbors food trash as well.

 

[MrFista]

Chickens still not laying. Heard a few tips here and there about holding off feed. That a couple of days without food will put them on the lay. I'm not convinced it's the right thing to do but here's some stuff that's related...

Holding off nutrition forces microbes to encyst, slime molds form colonies for reproduction, among other things... This is interesting stuff - hardship leads to more survival effort eg: plants going hermie. The figures stack up with humans too - check birth rates by country and you'll see it is so; higher birth rates in harsher climates (socio-economic, ecological and political).

BUT!!

These are young chickens that are growing, so I'll just keep feeding them well and let them reach potential, let them get to laying when they're ready to.

The chickens favourite greens so far are 1. Oxalis. 2. Watercress. 3. Spring onions/chives.

Of course I do want some eggs sometime to make foo-yong in the stir fry. Damn chickens, get with the programme!


Growing onions, toms, sweet potato and various other plants (from initial slinging seed about) in the greenhouse. I'm adding the old chicken bedding, weeds etc get dried on the greenhouse path and make more straw topping for the grow areas. Looks like I'll be enjoying some food out of there first season. Not bad, the dirt was concrete.

This is a fantastic result. The crucial stuff that made it work, EM, forking the best I could (2 -3 inches) then strewing seeds about. Brassicas took off, no fungi numbers there at this point and brassica don't need em. Then the clover, dandelions and other tap rooters started to come up. As soon as it was making biomass and beginning to join up as a canopy I began trimming leaves and dropping them on the ground also adding straw and weed sources of mulch from outside.

Only just started adding chicken straw and bedding so not attributable to greenhouse soils success but expect it will do a great job in contributing to overall fertility.

EM, seeds n weeds, weed and grass mulch, water. Hard Clay Magic. Compost teas help the plants once they start. Then keep choppin and droppin, make gaps and plant more food friendly species as you go/build OM to support the hungry plants.

Cheap gardening.

 

[jaykush]

i was going to say, its been too long since you posted in this thread.

 

[MrFista]

Those "cheeky" beans I planted are now being cropped daily. A wintery chill arrived at once, several days ago, before that it seemed summer would just keep going. The wintery chill brought up a mushroom that measured over 1 foot diameter. A big pinkish brown thing, as big as any fly agaric I've seen.

Tree tomatoes, guavas and feijoas, walnuts, macadamias, apples... lots of desserts are happening. Pumpkin bases for lots of soups, these are all things I love when the weather's turning. Harvest season extends and extends as I add more food varieties to the garden. If I continue to plant a few types of seed each fortnight or so, and add perennial food plants wherever possible, I continue to pull more and more food out of the garden. It's very simple.

Growth will begin to slow for many plants, this is where all those storage carbs (potatoes, yams, taro, pumpkins) help me through till the next season. It's interesting to think that I am returning to how my grandparents were doing things. Of course, they were a lot better at it.

Food prices continue to climb all over. Most of it crappy food too. I can't believe the grocery bills of non gardening peers, I'm doing myself a huge favour financially, I'm actually saving (a little) as a student.

Cooking is another thing I now have to do a lot more or the gardening is a waste of effort... The status quo of fast food and factory food makes life more convenient for sure, but the health factors, the expense, the lack of energy, the poison sprays, the fucked over landscapes, I got to do what I got to do.

 

[jaykush]

Cooking is another thing I now have to do a lot more or the gardening is a waste of effort... The status quo of fast food and factory food makes life more convenient for sure, but the health factors, the expense, the lack of energy, the poison sprays, the fucked over landscapes, I got to do what I got to do.

i agree, growing your own involves a wee bit more than just growing your own. The way i explain it to people is when you got to the store and buy some product. There was some guy(s) to grow the food, one guy(s) to process the raw food, sometimes another to process the processed food, another to package it, then it finally gets shipped to you in the store where you buy it( and sometimes have to cook it still). when you grow food at home you sort of have to be all those people now. Or have friends over to help be those people. Someones gotta process and jar the 100lbs of tomatoes for winter, chop and freeze all the garlic scapes, de stem the grapes, etc.... the system does has its benefits that go with all the drawbacks, but like your saying 99% of the time its not worth it in the long run.

 

[MrFista]

I've been making 'bulk' meals e.g. whole crock pots of soups, stews, pasta sauces etc then bagging them and into the freezer. This will cut down cooking time considerably. A few base meals for easy reheating, just like a tv dinner only GOOD.

Saved so much from a whole summer eating from the garden I'm almost ready for a microscope.

Speaking of garden. I grew plants in deliberately harsh conditions this year. They were hungry, cramped, thirsty a lot, they had aphids and other pests on them, black sooty mold took out about 20% of potential crop. Finished about a month early compared to other outdoors. I call it OD (OutDoor). STRONG!

Only comparable to the indoor of same strain though, just a different stone - heavier. Conclusion - treating plants like shit doesn't make them any stronger. Just different.

 

[MrFista]

This system is amazing. I went out to a neglected part of the garden yesterday. I've done nothing there for months. It had cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, zuchinnis, parsley, onions and several other greens and herbs. It's colder now but the overgrown jungle is providing protection. Looks like most the pests are gone but the food keeps growing.

Greenhouse transformation is amazing. Got cucumbers wild seeded, tomatoes need tying up already, onions are taking off, peas popping up all over, sweet potatoes covering lots of ground, many greens, many brassicas still, mulch layer getting thicker and thicker with taprooting dandelions milkthistle and more taking all over. Clover patches, more...

I threw many seeds of many types and let nature work out what to grow. Amazing to watch the hard bare dry earth become a living 'jungle'. Just add water (and seed).

 

[MrFista]

Greenhouse tomatoes are up to my breast now and are setting fruit. A fungus has got them at the base though, and something else is hitting random parts though I don't recognise symptoms to say what it is. Still, it's been near 100% humidity for some time only the wind brings the humidity down. Very unusual season, warmest May days recorded ever.

Global warming is a real event. If you listen to the smear campaign funded by oil money you will be letting all your progeny down. Corrupt govts and pseudo science in the pocket of short sighted assholes, the world is in trouble people, fuck the naysayers they are either taking money or don't want to think about it. Doing nothing is a decision in itself. Be part of the planet and fight for it.

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES - wake up!

 

[Scrappy4]

Somehow i keep forgetting about this section of the organic forum, but I have to give you big ups for this thread Mr Fista, good information without any attitude/arrogance is refreshing, I feel like I'm learning with you, instead of being preached to. I guess it's all in the delivery, again big ups dude................scrappy

 

[MrFista]

Thanks scrappy. I reckon the attitude creeps in a bit with posts like the above on climate change, but yes, am trying to help others without getting preachy merely by talking about what i'm doing and learning along the way.

One day I reckon I'll be a half decent popular science/go organic or die! writer. More to learn yet.

 

[mad librettist]

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