Adam Geriak

Listen here:

Heart-Centered land management with Food Forests featuring Dr. Brett Lehner

https://www.podbean.com/pa/pbblog-nrtrt-deec81

this podcast, Dr. Brett Lehner describes his personal journey with his own Food Forest. Brett inspires listeners through his description of the benefits of food forests to people, the land, and wildlife. We finish up with how to get started in building your own unique relationship with the Earth.

Let me know whatbyou think 😀

Thanks for sharing your story Ellendra.

To me, this is a case-in-point that the economic system that we find ourselves in is not designed for us to succeed. The value of so many goods has increased so dramatically over the past 50 years, but the price that you can get for growing your beans for seed is hardly enough to justify a bank giving you a loan.

Meanwhile, I can pick weeds for wealthy people and charge $50 an hour for me and my helpers time. A bank will see that I
am making money and will finance all the equipment I want.

In a sane society, the economy would value the production of food or (or seed to make food) more highly than pulling dandelions and violets out of one families prized Dahlia patch.

The inherent value of a good or service is decoupled from its realized value, and this is the fault of both the members of the federal reserve, and the federal government for supporting policies that have led us here.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:The transition from "large garden" to "small farm" requires a ton of time, labor, and equipment. That equipment can easily run tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands. Banks want proof of income before they'll give people loans, but it takes a while for a new farm to establish its income. That means, even if an aspiring farmer gets access to land, they still have an enormous hurdle in their way.

I've been trying to make that transition for 8 years now. I'm still nowhere close.

One way to help aspiring farmers would be to get the same type of small harvesting equipment that's available in Asia, and make it available here at an affordable price. Because having a machine to harvest my beans would mean I could grow an acre or more, instead of being limited to what I can harvest by hand. The seed company I grow for wants 100-400 pounds of it per year! The most I've been able to pick and clean was around 20 pounds, and that was with doing no other farm work.

I've been working on coming up with designs for equipment that would work on my existing tractor, but I also don't have anywhere to build my prototypes, so it's just theory. You find a company that can make or import small harvesting equipment, at a price normal people can afford, and you'll see the ranks of successful small farmers explode.

Hi all,

I've just created a blog post regarding the question of Why is it so hard to get into farming? What is the root cause of these struggles?

I've come down to monetary and government policy.

In the blog post I share some relevant charts to show the extent of the problem.

Other blog posts also involve land management, usually discussing home scale stuff like holistic lawn care and the value of great insulation over your gardens.

I hope this information falls upon some some people that can value it.

https://www.monardagarden.com/news

Adam, does your fish manure come from a salt water farm or a fresh water farm? I wonder if it makes a difference.

Yes it is a salt water fish farm. I wonder how concentrated the salt will be on the waste product. If it is a problem, I also wonder how I could remove it?

I don't claim to have expertise in using fish manure as fertilizer but our garden produces a bounteous crop of veggies every year.

I think it would would great as fertilizer too, I'm not sure how this attachment thingy works, but I've just tried to attach an image of the chemical analysis.

I've been toying with the idea of selling this material to local farmers to spread on their fields/orchards/vineyards etc. What do y'all think?

I still think it would be worth a shot with pure waste stream chips and maybe some sand/silicates (which should be readily available on the cape). If you can get a 10 yard load of chips, mix that stuff in and passively aerate it with some good ideas on here

Composting it with wood chip really seems like a great idea. I am somewhat space limited right now. If I do some good clearly to a section of this land I'd have access to somewhere near 1,000 square feet on a rather narrow plot. I am a little concerned about running out of room. Anybody have ideas on how much space it might take to compost?

Maybe even strain it and sell it as a liquid fertilizer or a powdered concentrate.  Like fish emulsion where very small amounts are used? If it is super high in nitrogen then selling it as a "concentrate" that gets diluted could save lots of processing time.

I don't think I'd want to separate the liquid from the solid. From my understanding of nutrient cycling, N tends to be soluble and moves into water readily but P stays bound up to sediment. This is such a high P substance and I want to retain that. Now I'm thinking if I did dehydrate it then the N may evaporate away. I think if I am to use it as a fertilizer, then I'm, going to have to spread it on the field or garden whole.

Does anyone know how much farmers pay for fertilizer per acre? I wonder what the difference would be between price of synthetic and natural and organic fertilizers.

I've also just found that they market themselves as "Antibiotic, Hormone, and chemical free". Lol I hate marketing like this because you can't have hormone free fish! Or chemical free water...water IS a chemical!!

Tj Jefferson wrote:Nope, I try to do everything super cheap and I get free chips, but maybe someone else does. I think mixed with the perlite and fish sludge you would have a fantastic potting medium in 6-8 months. we have been discussing wood chip composting on here.

You would definitely have to turn it a few times but I think you could have a great product in bulk. You would need somewhere around 8x the wood chip mass compared with the fish shmutz. I dump carcasses in the wood chips and it works, but takes more time. Yours would degrade very quickly. They are likely paying a tipping fee- and you should be getting a portion of that too. I could charge $20 a load for chips, but I take them for free because they know they had better be CLEAN or they will be back paying to dump. My suspicion is that they are probably paying around $60 a dump liquid like that in MA.

and yes, thats a lot of chips. Like hundreds of yards if you are getting 600 gallons a week. It is doable if you have the space. Potting soil sells for about $100/yard in bulk, so most places make their own from bark, coir, sand, perlite and peat or similar mixtures. None of those are cheap though, and most are not biologically very active. Additionally, there would be some (maybe a lot) of mycoremediation of the antibiotics if you used an appropriate fungal tea, if they are using them. you may need to protect your groundwater from getting contaminated. Definitely not something minor but something absolutely awesome to do for the environment if they are otherwise dumping this stuff.

I am making mine from composted chips and I add in 1/4 dirt. Perlite alone is pretty valuable, I wish I had that deal!

This could be a waste stream business! My hero!

This is all very exciting isn't it? My mind is racing with the possibilities.

Are you saying to spray the composting pile with compost tea in order to mycoremediate? I'm not sure they use anti-biotics, they seem to be a "progressive" company, will definitely find out though.

Do you think there could be any retail application for this potting soil? Like a bagged option say? Maybe then I would need to screen it for a more picky demographic.

Do you think there is any use for this material without composting it? It is either a thick sludge or just a very wet perlite type consistancy. What if I was to simply dry it out (I'm thinking large solar oven) and apply it as fertilizer?

Tj Jefferson wrote:Mix it with wood chips and sell it as potting soil. You win from both the perlite and nitrogen. Thats a great resource. Are there any nurseries you could contract with locally to provide them with it? Potting soil sells at a premium.

You think wood chips? My instinct would be to mix it with sphagnum moss and compost for potting soil. Do you have any experience with making potting soil similar to that?

stephen lowe wrote:I'm not sure what fish manure is. Is it a byproduct of some sort of fish farm? The only thing I would be worried about if it is from a fish farm is antibiotics/other weird chemicals being fed to the fish. Also why is it mixed with perlite?

Yes this is an indoor fish farm. My best guess is that perlite is used as a filter to catch the fish manure. Good point, I suppose that would be a wise question to ask.

I've just come across a rather significant fish manure source relatively close to me. It seems to be about 500 gallons per week of a mixture of fish manure and perlite. Currently, the business is throwing this resource into the trash.

I'm wondering if anyone here has expertise about fertilizer and compost.

Does this resource need any processing before being used/sold as fertilizer? Is it more appropriately used as a compost additive?

Thanks for the input.

When the term "Reed Bed" is discussed, are we talking about a polyculture? Are there a wide varieity of plants that can thrive in this environment (zone 6). Also, can a similar bed be created from road runoff?

The front of my house faces South and we have a couple feet of exposed cement foundation. If I live in a zone 6 climate, how far could i experiment with gorwing out of my zone. I've thought about growing zone 7 plants, but could I potentially go zone 8 or beyond?