Dw Cress

Jami McBride wrote:I do a lot of thinking about this subject of 'easy' supplemental chicken feed.... and I've tried worm farming, but none of it so far is easy.  Moving the chickens would be easier   But I live in the city with limited land.

I wonder about raising mice as winter protein - it could be done in the kids bedroom maintaining the parents as pets - maybe two birds with one stone (breeding pair).  Chickens really love mice.

You can look into the insects/larvae raised by those who keep large lizards.

And of course there is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dIc1czSpiI but it is mostly a summer time project.

I also do a lot of thinking on this topic..at the end of the day its about feeding yourself.

I have been using my red worms to supplement feed to my 2 chinese water dragons. Actually, its a good 3/4 of their diet but that is only 6 worms a day from a WF360.
I could imagine a larger vermiculture operation could produce much much more protein

Matt Armstrong wrote:

I have found some information about lacto-fermented Jerusalem artichokes and it indeed make them fartless and boost the calories. Yay !

http://heinfamilyenterprises.com/tag/lacto-fermented-jerusalem-artichokes/

This was great! Jerusalem artichokes grow so fast, and now no drawbacks??
I can't believe I have been missing this information for years!

In the blog, I wonder how fermenting raw tubers failed. I wonder if they smashed them up a bit so the juices come out, like in sauerkraut.

The title should read
"technology enables ALL crops to take nitrogen from the air"
as you will see from the article below.
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-world-technology-enables-crops-nitrogen.html

Some plants receiving too much nitrogen will continue to grow greens at the expense of less fruit.
or
If all "fast carbon pathways" have n-fixing properties, they may become very very hard to manage.

What are your opinions on this?

Trombolysis means it breaks up blood clots so a good time to apply yarrow is after the scab as formed and begins to peel. However, on pfaf, they do not say yarrow is thrombolytic ...instead "astringent" is listed as one of its uses. In that case, it would be great for fresh wounds.

Food that is too sour can be balanced out with salt and vice versa. I learned this from the food network, a la Jamie Oliver.

Hi all
Does anyone know a good reliable source for Tree Collard in Canada? I have found several on the US, but none will ship here and I prefer to support Canadian sellers anyway.

Good point.

Maybe I can have multiple bins.
When one fills, leave it sealed for a year before taking out the worm poops?

whadayathink?

I always thought the 2 were not compatible due to the anti-bacterial nature of alliums. Cant argue with results though.

Hello
There is a whole book written about comfrey that you can download for free
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/01aglibwelcome.html

just use the find function to get the link

I have been making plans to make use of my golden's solid waste by vermicomposting.

From this thread, it seems one of the safest ways to turn the problem of dog waste into a solution is to compost it. check.

Some say to use the resulting worm poops on non food producing plants. However, some say it is safe to apply the compost to plants which you do not directly consume (Am I wording this right?). So plants that produce edible fruits/nuts/flowers are okay.
Can someone please chime on the latter?

My plan:
(please dont be shy with suggestions for improvement)

1)bury a conventional trash bin 2/3's into the ground
      -the bin will have a lot of holes up to ground level
      -every deposit of dog poopers will be preceded and followed by some carbon-y material (dried leaves and news print for me)

2)plant comfrey around the bin
      -thought of including other dynamic accumulators, i just dont know that many..

3)harvest comfrey for rest of yard
      -spread vermicompost back into bed of comfrey (as per  safest practice)

So, what do you all think?
Thank you