Complete Urban Farmer # 8

Complete Urban Farmer #5 Organic fruit and vegetable production

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Pure magic organic compost
dried cow manure
organic fertiliser pellets
seaweed and fish emulsion

Complete urban farmer #4 COMPOST

Things I learnt today
* there are four main ingredients needed to make compost - Carbon, Nitrogen, Moisture & Oxygen
* the difference between hay and straw -
Hay is when the whole plant is harvested and cured, such as lucerne, this means the nitrogen is retained
Straw is the fibrous part of a plant that is left after the peas/beans have been harvested, such as pea straw, which means it is mostly carbon
* humus is the stable end product after the decomposition process, ie what compost becomes when is cooked and ready
* Nitrogen - greens, grass clippings, food waste, manure
* Carbon - straw, cardboard, wood chips, leaves
* if anaerobic (if not enough oxygen is present), it is not compost, as the beneficial fungi and bacteria are asleep or dead and some other crazy creatures have taken over
* Fungi store carbon in the soil
* fungi can send out toxins and enzymes across distances to break down leaves and organic wastes so the conditions are favourable for when they arrive there later

Making hot compost

Hot Aerobic Compost
is a method to make a lot of compost in a fairly short space of time, it involves an optimum "Carbon Nitrogen Ratio" and because of the "heat" it kills weed seeds and pathogens, which is particulary useful if the source of any of your ingredients is questionable. The heat in this process is created from microbial production, as the little single celled bacterias eat and reproduce they create heat. If they create too much heat and there is not enough oxygen for them to breathe the compost goes "anaerobic" and thus this method is quite labour intensive as you need to keep an eye on it's internal temperature, or if you have a special compost temperature probe this makes life easier. If the compost is too hot or too cold, the entire pile needs to be turned. A pitch fork is good for this. The ideal is 55-65•degrees.
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The compost our group constructed (as seen in photos above) consists of
6 month old compost (which hasn't completely decomposed)
straw
grass clippings
hand harvested weeds (nettles, grasses, mallow)
dried chicken manure
wood chips we found in a pile that had some fungi growth
400 liters of water

Watering the (hot) compost pile

To test if your compost has the right ratio of water (50%) take a handful and squeeze it, there should be barely a drip. Water should be chlorine and chloramine free.

Rainbows growing in the hot house

CUF #2 Chook care

I missed week two of Complete Urban Farmer as I was at the ABaF Arts Business workshop. Session 2 was on chook care which I definately need to learn more about seeing as two of my housemates are chickens "Betsy & Hen". Luckily I have been given these handy notes (made for the School holiday kids workshops at Ceres).
Points which are important to note (as in "note to self")
* Chooks need clean containers of clean cold water kept out of the sun and filled every day
* Chooks don't like loud noises or dirty laying boxes, to be hungry or thirsty or chased
* They like it when you move a rock and will rush over to check if there are any grubs or bugs underneath
* They like to talk to you and watch what you are doing
* They need lots of love and gentle care and for their house to be shut safely at night to keep foxes out.

Complete Urban Farmer #3 SOIL

Soil is complex and INCREDIBLE!
There is so much to write and investigate and think about. I'm particulary excited about how similiar soil and plant nutrition is to human physiological and nutritive processes!

A few notes of
things I learnt today
* Snow is really rich in nitrogen and minerals, so that is part of the reason why soil in NZ is so good.
* There are nutrients in the atmosphere, rain, snow, and sunshine
* if the plant is getting what it needs you will have good yeild, it will taste good and you shouldn't have pests and disease
* sick plants send out signals for insects to come and destroy them so that they don't reproduce a genetically inferior version of themselves
* when the soil is more acidic heavy metals become more available
* Calcium opens up the soil, makes it easier to work, more pore space, activates enzymes and is really good for cell structure

Two weeks of growing in the Ceres hothouse.

My orange and soil aggregate notes

Amazing morning tea

Today I'm at 'Complete Urban Farmer' school at Ceres. We are learning about soil. I am completely amazed by how many parallels there are with soil nutrition and health and that of our own bodies - human biochemical, nutritional and physiological processes are so similiar to how soil works, and how soil works in relation to plants, the sun and atmosphere. I guess there are lots of people thinking and operating on this level but it's quite a revolution for me.
A woman in my class brought along an incredibly beautiful Orange and tangelo cake to share for morning tea. Organic, home grown, made with love and gentle consideration in a homely kitchen. An impressively yellow appearance due to the healthy eggs of her backyard bantums. It was something of an immense joy to eat something so eggy and buttery and soft and crumbly. it's texture was like that of a perfect loamy soil...I appreciated the treat.

Heirloom seeds

Jankala Organic Seed Organic and heirloom seed varieties, and DOT Pots which are made from natural wood fibres and peat moss and are designed to plant straight into the earth without disturbing the roots.
It is a small company with a lot of integrity and their selection of seeds is humble but there are some great varieties and very reasonably priced.

The Italian Gardener Specialising in Italian heirloom vegetables, all of these seeds come direct from Italy, there is a good selection of organic/ biologici and they sell Yellow watermelon! Delicious! And! Mache / Lambs Lettuce! My favorite! This is the only place thus far I have been able to track down this seed in Australia (I fell in love with mâché in France). One day when I'm rich I will definately buy some, maybe someone wants to go halves in a packet?

Eden Seeds, our classic heirloom seed friends.
OUR AIM is to distribute old traditional open pollinated varieties of vegetable seed, preferably old Australian varieties and organically or bio-dynamically grown where possible.

Select Organic is Eden's Certified organic label with colour pictures on the packets. The only thing with buying seeds online is the rather large postage fee, so I guess it's wise to buy seeds together with a few people?

Or you can SAVE seeds and SWAP them!

Seed Savers Network is quite amazing and brilliant.
Seed Savers Network | Preserving the genetic basis of tomorrow's food
Promoting and organising the preservation, free distribution and exchange of open-pollinated seeds.

Anyway lots to read and research and be apart of, the Seed Savers Handbook is meant to be an awesome resource and there are local groups all over the place that you can join. I reccomend checking it out and becoming apart of this global movement to create a wonder filled deliciously diverse edible jungle!

After yesterdays inspiration I decided to gutter integrate my learning by embracing the half a million or seed trays left at my house by a previous housemate and do some progating! It was really fun and a lot of things I learnt yesterday made more sense as the newness of information settled. I'm growing red pak choy, black zucchinis, tatsoi and crystal salad cucumbers amongst other things.

Complete Urban Farmer

Day one: Propagation and seed saving
Today I started a 12 week short course at Ceres. We meet once a week and delve into many different topics to develop skills and gain insight into the world of permaculture and sustainable food production.
Learning to propagate and compost and grow things with efficient wonder is really exciting to me right now and feels like a good place to put my energy. Grounding myself by literally spending time in dirt and developing more practical skills is ideal yet definately challenging for someone that loves ideas and literature.
I'm really keen to keep developing this idea of food as my art practice and to incorporate more live growing plants in all my projects of the future. I would also be very happy to exist on plants grown in my garden.

Things I learnt today:
* Soil is amazing
* Seeds rot if the soil is too wet and not aerated enough or the soil is too rich in nutrients.
* Rock - pebble - sand - silt - clay (size order of particles)
* Plant leaves go yellow when the soil is low in nitrogen, and if there is too much nitrogen you will get lots of green leaves and no fruit (which is sad if you are trying to grow tomatoes but I wonder if it's okay when you are happy with an abundance of greens? Oh but I think the point was more about the importance of achieving some wholesome balance in the soil, and either extreme creates problems)
* Seeds are always breathing, they like a warm, moist, oxygenated environment in which to germinate.
* When growing beans you should water the soil first, plant your bean and then not water it again until it has germinated and the shoot sprung to the surface.
* A natural rooting hormone, if making cuttings, is honey

There was lots more, I liked planting seeds the best and seeing other baby vegetables growing in the Ceres hothouses, there was an incredible orange and purple curly kale, I think it was Russian something... I planted a whole tray of different things including lebanese cucumbers, coriander, tatsoi, basil and eggplants. They are going to hang out in the hothouse for awhile and then i'll bring them home and grow them up big.