If you are serious about food sovereignty, you’re serious about building soil.
In this episode I detail 4 methods for creating your own soil fertility inputs from what you are already growing, can source on your property or very close to home, or are already in the course of putting food on your table. They are:
- Vermicomposting ——————> good biology
- Compost Tea Brewing ————–> amplify biology
- Biochar —————————-> retain biology
- Plant-based Liquid Fertilizer ——–> feed biology
It is in the SYNERGY between these methods that the real exponential gains are to be found. I chose vermicomposting as a way to create good biology in the first place as it is relatively simple to get started with and will yield returns of worm castins within a growing season or less.
Next, utilize aerobic compost tea brewing to expand the amount of beneficial biology you have created from the worm castings. Once you have a tea you can spray it and cover large areas of plant bodies or soil surface with beneficial biology and nutrients. This is WAY more efficient than spot application of compost.
Next, use your aerobic compost tea inoculated with worm castings to inoculate charcoal and turn it into biochar! Biochar is a millennia+ soil amendment – it will outlive you and the next 20+ generations in the soil – and it will provide a home for beneficial biology and retain nutrients for the entire time it persists. This is as close to an infinite improvement as we can get in our human form.
And finally, to charge up naked charcoal and give all the beneficial biology something to eat, we make anaerobically fermented weed tea (though animal products can be used too) to create a mineral and nutrient rich solution. Use your compost tea brewing set up to hyper-aerate this solution to kill all of the anaerobic organisms, leaving a nutrient soup, and then introduce naked charcoal and beneficial micro-organisms (vermicompost) to create a nutrient-rich, hydrated, beneficial microbe hotel that will provide increasing benefit to your growing systems year after year without you having to do it year after year.
This is about getting off the treadmill of annual inputs. Don’t give your money to the big fertilizer companies when you can make a way better, site-specific product on your own for very cheap that doesn’t have a long-term downside like typicaly salt-based fertilizers and centralized, commodity soil amendments.
Food sovereignty can be acheived when our food systems build soil by default. That is what this synergy can do for you.
Resources
- DIY Soil Fertility – Part 1: Vermicomposting
- DIY Soil Fertility – Part 3: Compost Tea Brewing
- DIY Soil Fertility – Part 6: Charcoal & Biochar
- DIY Soil Fertility – Part 8: Fermented Liquid Nutrient Fertilizers – write up coming soon!
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Design your homestead with the bird’s eye perspective.
To create a system of systems that works for you on your homestead, you have to design in alignment with natural pattern. The first step in this process is to maximize the benefit of every drop of water that falls on or passes through your property. To do this properly and efficiently, you need a high-definition contour map to design from the bird’s eye perspective.
This is why we offer the Hi-Definition Contour Base Map package. This package includes:
- Hi-definition LiDAR contour map layer (contour lines can spaced at whatever scale you desire – as tight as 1 foot or less if you desire).
- Aspect Map Layer – color-code your entire property by which direction it faces – very helpful in identifying ideal growing zones and microclimates for specific plantings.
- Hillshade Layer – for easily visualizing landform across your entire property.
- Slope Layer – color-code your entire property based on the % grade – very helpful for access planning, living systems establishment and site selection for buildings etc.
Deliverables include:
- Hi-definition .jpeg or .pdf of your entire property and/or its contributing watersheds, at whatever size you desire (if you wish to print a poster and have it laminated as an iterative design tool images can be generated at whatever size the poster shop will print).
- .KML file of the contour lines for importing and 3D viewing in Google Earth Pro (free to download) – this is a very helpful and accessible design tool.
We also offer consulting calls if you need some design help or a fresh perspective – see the Virtual Property Design Review for details.
