Getting Started with Organics - in Australia

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BurnzAU

Well-Known Member
So I want to get started in some organic outdoor gardening but we are pretty limited here in Australia, so ill be starting everything from scratch. I live in suburbia and have an averaged size yard, me and the missus and 2 dogs. Already have a decent garden and a couple of small fruit trees, and a small Can-O-Worms worm farm.

Im going to build a couple of large worm farms out of refrigerators to recycle our food scraps, a Bokashi? Bin buried into the ground for the dog shit, and a couple of compost piles for garden waste.

Should I also start a soil only compost bin for scrap garden soil and add worm leachate to it over time?

I will post up some pics this weekend when I get started... Any tips, info or feedback appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
Yes to the bin for scrap soil but no to adding the worm leachate, it can carry harmful aerobic pathogens. You would just be potentially infecting your bin with bad bacteria.

You're off to a good start, they got pet rabbits down under? Rabbit manure makes a great compost addition and can be applied directly to fertilize plants.

If you already got a garden going just treat your cannabis plants like you'd treat your tomatoes and pepper plants.
 
iHearAll

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
ferment your food scraps in layers seperated by bokashi in a pail prior to feeding them to the worms. you should only feed a small amount of fermented scraps at a time but watch closely so you can gauge how frequently you need to feed. really just dont make the bedding of food scraps. leaf compost is nice, composted manure is nice, carboard, paper towels. things like that are considered bedding :hump:

you can also practice plantjng legumes to fix nitrogen into the soil. you can just harvest the seeds the replant and till the rest of the plant back into the ground.

fermented food scraps can be burried into the soil and left to conpost ubderground, this takes two weeks to mature and you can plant right into it without tilling in many cases. a for instance of volume food scraps per surface are of bed is about 5 gal (20liter??) per square meter. dont start your seedlings directly in something this hot.

a solid way to make bokashi is activatedEM from a mother culture of EM1. that's found online but shipping should be cheep for you. you can spend tons of money on wheat bran or some kind of high nitrogen meal or you can just ferment whatever you have around you and pretty much be sure you have something worth using. like the peaty layer of the forest or shredded paper or leaves or manure or doughnuts or grass clippings. careful with your moisture content per each unique substrate.

but anyway, welcome to organics!
 
iHearAll

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
yea yea we can argue the biodiversity of each though. EM1 has it's cost effectiveness, simplicity, and contains more than just lactobacillus. it also contains purple sulfur bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, yeast (ok lactoserum has yeast too)

and you can drink EM1 and EMe:bigjoint:
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
iHearAll said:
yea yea we can argue the biodiversity of each though. EM1 has it's cost effectiveness, simplicity, and contains more than just lactobacillus. it also contains purple sulfur bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, yeast (ok lactoserum has yeast too)

and you can drink EM1 and EMe:bigjoint:
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Right on, I didn't know em1 had the other stuff. I just always go to fresh and homemade whenever possible. Plus its so easy!
 
iHearAll

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
i have yet to try it (im laughing right now because i love making everything myself.)

well hurricane is hitting this weekend so i suppose i can make a batch so im not such a die hard EM1 fan
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
iHearAll said:
going to get blazed, secure my vegetable, study linearization of derivatives, and hope the power doesnt go out.
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That's what I was wondering man. How can you even run a generator? The wind might take it! Or you just run it after the storm is done while you wait weeks for them to restore power?

I'm in Michigan we get ice storms not hurricanes. I have questions lol.
 
iHearAll

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
Rasta Roy said:
That's what I was wondering man. How can you even run a generator? The wind might take it! Or you just run it after the storm is done while you wait weeks for them to restore power?

I'm in Michigan we get ice storms not hurricanes. I have questions lol.
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if power goes out ill just make note of the time to see if its a different number on the dial than in reality and call it lights out for my indoors crop. once the power comes back on ill restore the timer to the appropriate time. no harm no foul. it happend less than a month ago already. if powers out for good i have bigger problems to worry about than my plants lol
 
Rasta Roy

Rasta Roy

Well-Known Member
iHearAll said:
if power goes out ill just make note of the time to see if its a different number on the dial than in reality and call it lights out for my indoors crop. once the power comes back on ill restore the timer to the appropriate time. no harm no foul. it happend less than a month ago already. if powers out for good i have bigger problems to worry about than my plants lol
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I suppose that's true! We had a wicked ice storm a few years or so ago and I didn't have power for over two weeks. It is the worst.
 
DonBrennon

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
iHearAll said:
i have yet to try it (im laughing right now because i love making everything myself.)

well hurricane is hitting this weekend so i suppose i can make a batch so im not such a die hard EM1 fan
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PMSL........you're switchin from EM1 to lacto and I'm switchin from lacto to EM1?.................WTF?

I really wanna try the EM1 out though, I do believe the 'Lacto' is just that, ie.'Isolated' Lacto-bacillus and nothing else.
 
DonBrennon

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
iHearAll said:
if power goes out ill just make note of the time to see if its a different number on the dial than in reality and call it lights out for my indoors crop. once the power comes back on ill restore the timer to the appropriate time. no harm no foul. it happend less than a month ago already. if powers out for good i have bigger problems to worry about than my plants lol
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Happened to me too, a month ago!!! but it happened while I was at work and didn't know about it. When I got home the power was back on, but obviously my timers had been knocked out of sync by 4 hours. I didn't notice it till weekend (2 days later). Anyway, one of my plants took to foxtailing like crazy and another threw out some nanners.
 
iHearAll

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
DonBrennon said:
PMSL........you're switchin from EM1 to lacto and I'm switchin from lacto to EM1?.................WTF?

I really wanna try the EM1 out though, I do believe the 'Lacto' is just that, ie.'Isolated' Lacto-bacillus and nothing else.
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nah. i try and convince myself to whenever i get into these discussions but i end up getting lazy and not. prbably what the case will be here again lol. i am hopping on the bike to find some wild wood loving mushrooms tho
 
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