Local materials

[crisduar]

hello good in the end I made a mix with what I had on hand that was:
BASE MIX:
+ 70% land that had been used and recycled only with earthworm humus
***********and biobizz and bioblom, of the all-mix type, already had perlite.
+ 30% Earthworm Humus and added perlite.

INCREASE:
I've just put worm humus and I'm testing with Neem flour
+ I have an earthworm in motion that I feed with coffee grounds and banana peels, lettuce, aloe and what is left of the TAC, s and the SST.

FLOWERING:
+ Palm Ash (0-1-30) 333gr x 50L Base Mix
+ Guano Murcielago (2-10-1) 166gr x 50L Base Mix

I bought a guano of Jamaican bat (8-29-2) recommended dose 100gr x 30L of soil.

the problem I am having with some plants is that they have the leaves on the yellow edges and burns I have measured the ph by taking 1 pieces of soil: 2 part of water and it gave me between ph9 and ph8.7 I took some Californian worms I put them in the pots I put a layer of humus d elombriz about 2cms wide and I have watered with TAC and SST (alfalfa and Corn) + humic and fulvic acids I think that my problem is with the alkalinity of the ash, I think it only remains for me to continue giving them TAC and SST and expect the microbiology to regulate the PH[/QUOTE]

 

[h.h.]

So it’s been just over 9 weeks since I posted about making my local mix. I only needed a gallon to transplant a plant, but I figure it would be a good time to take a look.

The bags have been protected under the plastic bin this whole time, and I haven’t touched them.
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I only moved the small bag, you can see roots have found their way in.
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Roots that have visible mycelium on them.
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Lots more in the bag!
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All potted up. Beautiful, sweet smelling, friable soil. The kind you just want to roll around in.
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I carefully closed up the bag and returned it back to its spot. I placed the plastic cover back over it. This weekend I will mix up another batch of my amended base mix. I will mix this inoculated soil in with it, then fill 5 gallon containers with the mix. The containers will be bagged or binned for 2 weeks before moving transplants into them. Thanks for looking!

Soil porn.

 

[h.h.]

hello good in the end I made a mix with what I had on hand that was:
BASE MIX:
+ 70% land that had been used and recycled only with earthworm humus
***********and biobizz and bioblom, of the all-mix type, already had perlite.
+ 30% Earthworm Humus and added perlite.

INCREASE:
I've just put worm humus and I'm testing with Neem flour
+ I have an earthworm in motion that I feed with coffee grounds and banana peels, lettuce, aloe and what is left of the TAC, s and the SST.

FLOWERING:
+ Palm Ash (0-1-30) 333gr x 50L Base Mix
+ Guano Murcielago (2-10-1) 166gr x 50L Base Mix

I bought a guano of Jamaican bat (8-29-2) recommended dose 100gr x 30L of soil.

the problem I am having with some plants is that they have the leaves on the yellow edges and burns I have measured the ph by taking 1 pieces of soil: 2 part of water and it gave me between ph9 and ph8.7 I took some Californian worms I put them in the pots I put a layer of humus d elombriz about 2cms wide and I have watered with TAC and SST (alfalfa and Corn) + humic and fulvic acids I think that my problem is with the alkalinity of the ash, I think it only remains for me to continue giving them TAC and SST and expect the microbiology to regulate the PH

[/QUOTE]
They should grow out of it.

 

[Hookahhead]

The longer I work with waste streams, The more I see everything organic as valuable.

This week I made a batch of ganja butter. I use the water, butter, ganja, crock pot method. Normally I just dump the water at the end. However, I thought it looks a lot like bottled organic nutrients. So this time I decided to save it and inoculate it with LAB serum. The broth should be mostly sterile, after boiling for 2 hours, cooled for approximately 12 hours and then inoculated. The layer of butter probably helps prevent contamination while it cools. I figure there has to be some goodies in there the plant can use.

I use salty pasta water as the first step in making my LAB serum. I think the salt helps make it more selective. This bottle of butter broth has been sitting for a week already. No CO2 has been generated. This could be because there were no sugars available for the bacteria, or that they are the LAB species that make 100% lactic acid instead of lactic acid, plus alcohol and CO2. I would prefer to only generate lactic acid. This morning I added 1 tsp of organic raw sugar to see if that generates any CO2.

I live in Latin America, so rice and beans are a common staple. I cook dry beans about once a week at my house. You’re always left with a broth at the end. I have occasionally used this while cooking, but this broth contains a lot of sugars (oligosaccharides) that are harder to digest. This is part of what causes beans to make you fart, because some gut bacteria that can consume these sugars produce methane gas. Ive learned that using this broth will definitely make you gassy. So again I waited until it cooled, and inoculated it with LAB serum. Beans tend to be high in amino acids, so I think this will good microbial food source. This is red bean broth, it contains a bit of onion and spices but no salt.

 

[CannaRed]

I had the weed water idea too. Put it in a water bottle and stick it in the fridge.
Couple days later I looked in the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water and chugged.
But I grabbed the wrong bottle meant to grab the one next to it!

Involuntarily puked it out while the bottle was still up to my mouth.

Ended up throwing that vile mix away! Lol.

 

[h.h.]

I’ve used ground beans for a slow soil feed. It made sense to me.
I like the idea of eating the beans and using the water. Makes more ecological sense. As it was I gravitated to using seed off an acacia tree I had.
You may have mesquite in your area. Nitrogen fixers. Like beans.
I may try your bean juice.

 

[Hookahhead]

I’ve used ground beans for a slow soil feed. It made sense to me.
I like the idea of eating the beans and using the water. Makes more ecological sense. As it was I gravitated to using seed off an acacia tree I had.
You may have mesquite in your area. Nitrogen fixers. Like beans.
I may try your bean juice.

This is my primary issue with the tenets of KNF. I watched some of Chris’s videos, he has a skid full of 50lb organic sugar bags. Part of the KNF method is adding tons of sugar to preserve the brew. I can’t wrap my head around where it’s worth all the time, energy, nutrients to extract raw sugar... just to feed it to plants. That shit is literally a commodity on the world market, it doesn’t have any place in fertilizer in my opinion.

As of this morning the butter broth still hasn’t evolved any CO2 and the bean broth has turned a red color. I’ll post photos in a few days.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Don't know how ancient Koreans did it without sugar. Probably used it as the made it.

 

[CannaRed]

This reminds me- I heard a guy use the water from cooking pasta as a Foliar spray. The gluten would kill mites. I think it dried them out. I think I remember him saying it also has other stuff in it the plant would use. Carbs?

I wonder if the ganja water would work as a Foliar.

I know there has to be nutrients in there.

Back in our Glory days of hemp production, some farmers would use the hemp retting water as fertilizer. I would assume that flowers would contain more nutrients than stalks, but not sure.

 

[Hookahhead]

The pasta foliar is interesting, and something that I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own. However, there are a few caveats I can think of.

I heavily salt my pasta water (as everyone should). I don’t think it would be good to spray this on the plants. I save about a cup or 2 when I make pasta. Then I use at most 1/4 cup to make my LAB serum. The rest of the fermented brew goes into the compost pile. By the time I dilute down my LAB serum the salt content is negligible.

The other thing is I think this one is a bit of Bro science, even though it may still have positive benefits. As far as I know, pasta water contains mostly starch. The process to make a product called “vital wheat gluten” calls for soaking a ball of dough in water and changing the water multiple times to remove the starch. At the end you are left with a ball of mostly gluten. Using this information I would assume there is little gluten in the pasta water. However, there is always the possibility that the starch is what desiccated the insects and/or provides a benefit to the plants. Starch is indeed a carbohydrate, one that is very important for plant growth (stored energy).

 

[CannaRed]

The pasta foliar is interesting, and something that I probably wouldn’t have thought of on my own. However, there are a few caveats I can think of.

I heavily salt my pasta water (as everyone should). I don’t think it would be good to spray this on the plants. I save about a cup or 2 when I make pasta. Then I use at most 1/4 cup to make my LAB serum. The rest of the fermented brew goes into the compost pile. By the time I dilute down my LAB serum the salt content is negligible.

The other thing is I think this one is a bit of Bro science, even though it may still have positive benefits. As far as I know, pasta water contains mostly starch. The process to make a product called “vital wheat gluten” calls for soaking a ball of dough in water and changing the water multiple times to remove the starch. At the end you are left with a ball of mostly gluten. Using this information I would assume there is little gluten in the pasta water. However, there is always the possibility that the starch is what desiccated the insects and/or provides a benefit to the plants. Starch is indeed a carbohydrate, one that is very important for plant growth (stored energy).

Yes! That's what it was! It was starch, not gluten. Thanks for help correct my memory.

 

[Hookahhead]

Strange brew

Strange brew

Paging Dr. Strange Brew! I feel myself about to slip into another wild internet rabbit hole.

So it’s been approximately 48 hours since I inoculated the bean broth. This morning I noticed it had turned a reddish color. This afternoon when I inspected it closer, I noticed it had begun to coagulate/separate, so I shook it up quickly just to mix it. An hour or two later it has settled into two distinct layers. Did I just make some sort of bean cheese?

Natural light:

With flash:

The actual bottle looks strange (dented) because I squeeze out the air before putting the lid on. This is one way I check to see if it’s producing CO2. It doesn’t appear to be producing any gas at this time. I’m kinda happy the layers separated... the broth was really thick and I worried about using it on my plants. That bottom layer though... that looks like a fancy cocktail for my girls to sip on.

I wanted to mention, I dilute all of my brews before using them on my garden. I usually use 1/4 to 1/2 cup per gallon depending on what it is and always use caution when trying something new.


EDIT: Well I’m a good step or two into that hole by now. I’ll update this post as turn new corners.

It turns out, just as I thought, I actually made bean curd (tofu) similar to cheese curds. In the tofu making process, soybeans are blended with water to create “soy milk”. Just like cheese making, the milk is then coagulated to form curds. Traditionally nigari is used, which is a mineral solution concentrated from seawater. However, it’s possible to coagulate the milk with an acid like vinegar, lemon juice, or in my case lactic acid. The curds would be removed and pressed to make tofu. So essentially I took a product that I considered inedible, and made something edible!

Effect of Bean Broth on the Nutritive Value and Digestibility of Beans

Black, red and white beans were cooked (1:3, water: beans) at 120°Cand 16 Ib in-2 for 20 min. Chemical analysis of the broth showed that it contained low levels of protein, ether extract, and carbohydrates and high levels of ash and polyphenols.

Lactic acid fermentation of black beans (Phaseolus vulgaris): microbiological and
chemical characterization

Abstract: Legumes, and particularly Phaseolus vulgaris, are an important source of nutrients, especially in developing countries. In spite of being part of the staple diets of these populations, their consumption is limited by the flatulence they produce. Natural lactic acid fermentation has proved to be an effective method to decrease flatulence-producing compounds. However, in order to use this method as a process on a large scale, it is fundamental to identify the microbial flora involved. When fermented seeds of Phaseolus vulgaris (black bean) were analysed microbiologically, it was found that the microorganisms present were Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum. On performing back-slopping or induced fermentation with different inocula, a 63.35% decrease was found for the soluble fibre and 88.6% for raffinose, one of the main flatulence-producing compounds. When cooking under atmospheric pressure was applied to the fermented samples, a significant diminution of the trypsin inhibitors and tannins was found as well as an increase in the in vitro and in vivo digestibility of the beans. All these results demonstrate that the lactic acid bacteria used for the induced fermentation can lead to a functional food with improved nutritional quality.

 

[Hookahhead]

Going to try this again and see what happens.. Tonight I cooked a batch of garbanzo beans.

Saved the broth, but it’s not as thick as the red bean broth. It has salt and spices mixed in. I chose a tall glass so that I can harvest the floaty bits.

I added 1/2 TBS of LAB serum. I don’t think the salt will harm them any, they were originally collected from pasta brine. The top was covered with plastic wrap.

Based on how clear the broth is I’m not expecting much curds. I’m mostly just experimenting to see what happens. I’ll try to press the curds into tofu if I can.

 

[h.h.]

I wouldn’t be too concerned using thick bean broth though the fermentation adds value.

This is on pressed soybeans. Bean curd should be similar.

https://soybeaninnovationlab.illinois.edu/sites/soybeaninnovationlab.illinois.edu/files/Using%20Okara%20in%20Foods%20.pdf

 

[Hookahhead]

In post #159 I posted about harvesting bamboo to make a fermented brew. If my math is correct it’s been 85 days, and it looks finished to me.

Here’s what it looks like with the lid off. This was done in a 35 gallon trash can with the lid on, but it’s obviously not air tight. I only checked on it a few times during the process. For a while, the bamboo was floating and had grown some white fluffy mold. I was pleased to see it had all sunk with time. You can also see around the edges, there were a ton of larva that lived on/in the brew. The smell has changed from a nasty sewage smell to a much milder sweet/sour smell.

I wanted to keep most of the larva and debris out of my bottles, so I set up a mesh screen inside a 1 gallon pot and placed that in a large collection tub.

This was my first time working with a batch this size. Of course I grossly underestimated how heavy this would be. So slowly I went back and forth between scooping water and grabbing bamboo, working my way to the bottom of the barrel. You can see the green color has faded, and all the bamboo is yellow. I collected this and used it as mulch on a new garden bed I’m starting.

I was able to bottle 11 gallon. I used another 3 gallon to charge some char. I still have probably 5-10 gallon left in the barrel, I just ran out of holding capacity!

This should last me for a while. I will use a lot of it diluted with my normal water/feed. I also plan to do some experiments with it. I’ll add molasses to ferment some more, or try to use it as feed stock for PNSB. Thanks for looking!

 

[Hookahhead]

So here we are after 48 hours since inoculating the garbanzo broth. Again it has separated into two distinct layers.

The top layer is kind of gelatinous and gross. This is much different then the curds I produced with the red beans. I found data that shows garbanzo have much more starch and much less protein than red beans. I assume this is the reason for the difference. I filtered the whole broth through a bamboo cloth. Admittedly, I didn’t have the stomach to try it myself, but the dogs seemed to enjoy it. They also eat the “cheese” that forms when making LAB serum.

Here’s the filtered garbanzo broth, ready to be diluted and applied.

The red bean came out more like a paste. I tried a little and it wasn’t bad. A little tart with bean flavor. It would probably make a nice addition to a sauce, soup, or marinade.

The filtered red bean broth.

I am only experimenting with this stuff for my own curiosity. However, this process really opened my eyes to the importance of chemical reactions going on in these organic broths. If I had added the straight broth to my soil, there is the possibility that that sticky gummy stuff might be covering my roots instead.

 

[St. Phatty]

Starting a batch of Cannabis & Pear worm castings.

Cleaning out the cupboards, found some buds from 2 summers ago.

Plus I have a few Cannabis tree corpses laying around after about 12 months of zero house-cleaning.

Found a 32 gallon blue plastic recycling bin for $11.

And have a few buckets of rotten pears, from a neighbor.

And a few buckets of banana peels and coffee grounds, home-made !

Was going to layer it all up in the garbage can and then go out and find some redworms in the yard.

Will probably have it started by November 1. So should have some primo castings by April 1 ?

 

[TychoMonolyth]

...
Admittedly, I didn’t have the stomach to try it myself, but the dogs seemed to enjoy it. They also eat the “cheese” that forms when making LAB serum.
...

Fuck I give my dogs green baloney and they gobble it up and asked for more. lol

 

[h.h.]

The gummy stuff should help with soil aggregation. It’s not going to travel down and infect your roots.

My first lacto fermentation was with rice water.
I used coconut milk instead of dairy.
I added banana.
I was really quite tasty.

 

['Boogieman']

I have a ton of apples and pears I can't store, I always just loaded my compost piles at this time but I wonder if a fermentation of fruit would be beneficial for plants?