Catrina Liesch

Interesting thread. For warmer climate I would add sweet potatoes. They really grow easy and are a good and pretty ground cover.

Anne Miller wrote:So the gathering of twigs and branch to make compost is the only technique used to prevent wild fire?

I expected that this would be done by added the compost to areas that would be prone to wild fire as a fire resistant mulch.

Building up the soil health with compost will also increase soil's water retention which in turn acts as a natural firebreak.

No we use other techniques as well. The Johnson Su is a convenient way of using up the pruning material before the fire season starts.
It's just to make the pruned material non-inflammable straight away (and of course we use the compost later.
And as you say improving the soil and thereby preventing the plants from drying out is great fire prevention.

Timothy Norton wrote:Do you process down the tree branches and brush before adding them to the pile or add them whole?

I'm curious the turn around time for compost from a Johnson Su system.

Yes we chip the branches so that they don't take so long to decompose.
We use the compost in the autumn of the following year. We usually use it to make compost tea as this way it goes much further.

Today is a hot day here and its a day to keep our fingers crossed that no fire will break out

Here are some impressions of our Johnson Su composting workshop in early summer. As wildfire prevention we cut a lot of shrubs, dry tree branches and other dry materials in the finca at the end of the spring, and as we don't want to be turning compost during the summer months, and leaving it as mulch can be a fire hazard as well, we make a Johnson Su composting workshop at the beginning of summer. As it is a bit of an effort to make it in one day the help of the participants is a big benefit. They learn by doing it how this sort of compost works and we explain why it is so important to have mycelium in our soils and how we can obtain it with the Johnson Su method. [img][/img]

Tommy Bolin wrote:Will milk paint stick to steel?.... without an oil based primer? ....in a high heat environment?
If you strip the steel bare, accelerate the rust process with some sodium chloride salt water, rinse a bit, dry, then treat it with food safe phosphoric acid.....
The result while not deep black, will be an inert permanent dark grey. Like phosphated black machine bolts.  You may not be happy with the result, it won't have the even, deep finish of a proper enamel, but it will be chemically bonded, not topically applied.
Just different.

Thank you very much for your tips. 🙏🏻

Anne Miller wrote:Most folks on the forum would use milk paint and make it themselves.

Black might be a challenge so i found this:

https://www.realmilkpaint.com/shop/colors/53-black-iron/

Thank you for the tip. I wonder if milk paint is soluble in water as water sometimes condenses in the cooker?

I have a 30 years old solar cooker made out of wood, glass and insulation and lined with metal sheeting painted black. It still works wonderfully but the metal sheeting needs repainting. Does anybody have any suggestions for a food-safe paint? Here is a picture of a new model. (Mine doesn't look like this anymore)😅

Simple and slow solutions

We are two women aged 66 and 75 and we move, build, grow and investigate quite a lot on our 1 hectare homestead. With the technique "Brain not brawn - no strength? Use your brain" and always looking for Simple and slow solution we are achieving quite good results. With our helpers we observe that the first solution that comes to mind is often a complcated one. Here is an example of a simple and easy solution to sieve compost:

In the opticians shop they said they can't fix this because the glasses were cheap. My friend fixed it for me four years ago.😄 And I got lots of compliments for them.

Some changes in our garden