Kevin Lessard

Also what do you think is the most important thing in starting a new garden?

Nothing special has to be used to provide energy for the bacteria so long as what you gave them in the form of simple carbs is not contaminated with something bad that might kill the bacteria.

Sugar
brown sugar
Molasses

They should all work fine...

Kevin

John Weiland wrote:Michelle, the following may be a stretch, but may be of use. I think some of the recipes above call for sugar and if I'm not mistaken there is one or more kinds of unrefined sugar in Mexican markets. Look for the brownish sugar which will indicate either molasses still present in the unrefined product or at least added back to the sugar. This added to your concoctions may help with the bacterial growth, but maybe someone else can confirm using this as a source of your molasses component.

Yes brown sugar which has molasses in it would also work. Hell you could use table sugar if you wanted too. Bacteria don't know the difference.



Kevin

Michelle,

What I do to make compost tea from scratch is use a old tube sock and put in a hand full each of compost, manure, worm castings if I have them, and tie off the sock. I then submerge it in a 5 gallon bucket of dechlorinated water and I use a cheap air pump like what you would use in an aquarium with one of those large and heavy air stones that sink to the bottom and get the sock wet and ring it out several times in the water, stir, and place the sock on top of the air stone. If you add molasses you will have very bacterial tea. If you can add something like fish emulsion then you will have very fungal tea. I brew for both.

Let it aerate for at least 2 days and stir at least twice a day with a stick or large spoon. You will then have a fantastic compost tea.

If you can add something like a organic liquid fertilizer like johns recipe:http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Bug-Johns-Recipe-Quart/dp/B0163GOKN2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463510886&sr=8-4&keywords=johns+recipe+fertilizer or something simular and plant success soluable: http://www.amazon.com/Plant-Success-Soluble-4-oz/dp/B00CJJ10W2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1463510939&sr=8-2&keywords=plant+success, And if you can afford it it take very little to add to your tea in the last hour of brewing and will last a very long time: http://archaeaproducts.squarespace.com/product/

The addition of these 3 products would take a great compost tea to super tea.

Hope this helps...

Kevin

Michelle,

I would see about using manure. Most rural communities have animals. Chicken, cow, rabbit manure all work really well. And if you can compost it first would be a great way to add nutrients to your soil and kick start the soil building process.

As far as whey goes I have never used it before.

Good luck on finding sources for your land!

Kevin

Archaea will digest petroleum products very quickly. It can used in toxic and petroleum product clean up.

http://archaeaproducts.squarespace.com/about/

Pretty wild stuff...

Kevin

It seems the 2 inch layer of compost and the 6 inch layer of wood chips would provide the carbon and fuel needed for conversion no?

Kevin

My own experiences...

2 years ago I moved into a brand new house. It had minimal landscaping and nothing in the backyard. Since we have a HOA I am limited in what I can do out front. But I can pretty much do what I want in my backyard. I noticed right away that we had clay soil deeper then I can dig, and it had 0 organic matter in it. The site of our subdivision was a farm, and not an organic farm. The soil was completely dead, I mean completely. You couldn't even find a grub or anything living in it but ants.

We have a great resource in the Austin area called the natural gardener: http://www.naturalgardeneraustin.com/. They gave me good advice and sold great products, but I still had the problem with nothing alive in my soil. I tried adding compost, compost tea, and other products but nothing would work and we were very limited in what we could grow. I watched videos of Elaine Ingram and read books and I even tried Archaea. Nothing worked. Still had hard clay soil that could only grow weeds at best. I had planted some fruit trees and they started dying. I took a sample of a branch to the natural Gardener and they said it looked like I had sprayed it with herbicide. Of course I did not do any such a thing, but determined that there must be something in the soil that was poison to the plants.

I was doing some research and found a video from a guy named Paul Gautschi. He stated he had very poor soil that was mostly rocks. He was taking a walk in the woods and decided to dig down to see why everything was growing so well there and he found sticks, wood, and leaves on top and organic matter decaying below. the rest of it was moist and was a very nice and loose soil. Paul decided to do the same thing. He put down a layer of newspaper (over the weeds) and then 2 inches of compost and 4-6 inches of wood chips, and sprinkled some chicken manure over the wood chips, basically a light dusting.

What Paul found a few months later was staggering. The soil had turned from rocks to a beautiful, loose, rich soil.

I thought hey if he can do it so can I!

So I did the same thing when I planted my backyard orchard and created planters. First I sprayed my compost tea on the bare ground, and then I put down cardboard in place of newspaper, put a 2 inch layer of compost down and 4-6 inches of wood chips I got for free from Davey tree service, I then sprinkled horse manure on the top of the wood chips and sprayed again with compost tea. In 3 months the change was extraordinary. The soil stayed moist and it was now dark and rich and all the plants were doing wonderfully. I then started to add Archaea to my tea in the last hour of brewing and then my 6 inches of wood chips turned into soil in 2 months time. The soil was even better then before and you could stick your arm into it about elbow length in 6 months time.

So in my experience the compost tea accelerated the process when the soil had a "covering" over it like the wood chips. Without the covering the ground never changed and it remained contaminated with whatever was used previously that was killing my plants and trees. So it seems the back to eden system developed by Paul Gautschi was a complete success. I accelerated the process using compost tea and I believe that the Archaea supercharged the entire process.

For those who are interested here is a link to the back to eden website: http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/how-to-grow-an-organic-garden.html

Kevin

Jesus Martinez wrote:

Now, to speak to the case of a child that was struck by the school... that used to be expected of a school. I don't know of the circumstances but I can say as the foster parent of a 6 yo child who frequently causes his regular classroom to need evacuation, regulalry destroys the principals office, kicks, spits on, bites, punches, and scratches the school faculty, a small amount of corporal punishment would completely change this kods behavior. As it is, if my child were in his class, I would have them removed due to danger and frequent disruption of teaching. As it currently stands, the school can walk him to an empty room and stand outside the open door telling him he is not allowed to leave until he writes a 5 word apology. I don't know what the answer is for your child, but I do know that the major contributing factor for the misbehavior of both the autistic children I am around and the foster children I have is a complete lack of consequence and punishment for misbehavior.

We do not have a discipline problem, we had a school problem. When a school district is so dishonest and corrupt that they destroy evidence then there is something seriously wrong. My son was at lunch and not even in the class room. His teacher came at him during lunch when he was standing in line to buy lunch minding his own business when the teacher hit him. That was the reason why there was video evidence because it was in the cafeteria. This teacher had made inappropriate comments to him a few days before and then when we brought it up he told my son that he was going to punish by giving him more work because he said something to us. We obviously have a bad person here.

The good news is homeschooling has been the answer and he has made significant progress instead of excuses from the school. He is in high school and will be working with his grandpa learning how to be a plumber and do construction work while completing homeschool assignments. It is our hope that he will be a great trades man like his grandpa. And it is something he likes to do.

It is too bad that the school district is so dishonest and corrupt, but what can you do but move on and go to plan b.

Not to stir the pot too much...

But I feel like I need to do some translation based upon my experience with our own school dist.

Socialization = Indoctrination

My eldest son is Autistic and requires specialized services. We for over 5 years have worked with the schools and school district to get my son an "appropriate" education. For 5 years they have failed to educate our son and have been more concerned about trivial matters and not about academics. Our son was actually struck by a teacher and the school district destroyed the video evidence and made excuses for their actions. Yes you read that right he was actually struck by a teacher. When this happened we pulled him from school and my wife has been homeschooling 2 kids. It has been very challenging for her as our Autistic son is disruptive and requires constant supervision. But lo and behold within 6 months time our Autistic son who the school district had failed to educate for 5 years went up an entire grade level in 6 months. Amazing!

One of the things I have observed over time was when socialization came up was the school and school dist wanted the kid to adhere to the set of rules using a cookie cutter method to teach and enforce. I believe what they wanted to do was to create a lot of little duplicates who would adhere to all the same nonsense and that was socialization. They did not want an independent thinker, or someone to have a different view point then they did, that to them was antisocial.

No matter what your beliefs or religion the founders of our country wanted to create a country where you can be different and it was ok to be different. Homeschool gives a person the opportunity not only to be different but to excel in an environment custom tuned to the student wants and needs and educated by someone who is intimately acquainted with the student and parents wants and needs. Homeschool is the only thing that offers so much benefit to the student.

As far as the question of bringing students to your homestead, I would send a notice to the parents to let them know there are some dangers on a homestead/farm and that the student needs to follow the rules and instructions of the host. That way there is no question and the parent needs to discipline and control their child. It is not your responsibility to discipline the kids, so make sure those parents obey the rules!