Tag Archives: soil microbes

Agriculture, Farming, gardening, Hawaii, permaculture, Soil, Travel, Zero waste

Top 5 things I do prior to travel

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I get a lot of questions about how I manage to get away from the farm. There are several things I “set up” prior to my departure that makes all run a bit more smoothly.

1) Amend the soil with farm made fish emulsion. A strong plant will have a higher chance of surviving/and or fruiting.

2) Refill tropical fruit fly stations and secure them against wind. This will keep pest pressure down while the farmer is away.

3) Make microbe rich bokashi and add to compost tumblers and composting piles.

4) Trim vines back all around irrigation heads that are set on timers. This will help keep the vines from blocking the flow of water to your plants.

5) Make new buckets of fish emulsion. They will ferment while you are away, leaving you well stocked with natural fertilizer when you return home.

Hawaii, Soil, Zero waste

Fish Composting Beds Opened!

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composting bed
Remember this? Well….I am very pleased to report that it is now this!

Compost

I used EM-1 to add even more rich microbes to the heathy new compost and replace any that may have gotten burned out when the fish composting really heated things up. The fish composting was a success! (yeah! Thank you to Redwater Cafe and their continued donation of green waste and fish bits, Merriman’s for cardboard, and Starbucks for the donation of coffee grounds to help me build the soil!) The compost is a bit chunky due to my using a lot of sticks, but after a little bit of sifting out large pieces, the new compost was ready to be added to one of the beds. This will give a Spring makeover to a well used bed.