Nature deserves a great artist

It's autumn here in Australia.  A time of brilliant colour as the leaves change.  A time of still, clear mornings and beautiful sunrises.  A time when you walk around muttering under your breath that you wish you'd brought along a camera to snap that National Geographic moment.

This morning's dawn was one of those picture-perfect starts to the day.  A pinkish-orange sunrise added a lovely extra red hue to the leaves of the oak trees right out side my window.  It was perfectly calm and only the sound of the birds punctuated the crisp morning air.  One of those days you stare in awe, muttering madly about a missing camera.

Well, my friends, today it all came together - I had the camera close at hand.  My quite new, pocket friendly marvel  which rated quite well in the reviews I pored over before parting with my hard earned cash.  Unfortunately, this morning was also a time for another brilliant discovery.  I can't take a photograph with this new camera to save myself.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words - and it's probably even true in this case, IF you count all the expletives.  Compare the word picture I presented earlier with the blurry, colourless travesty of imagery of that perfect moment in nature.

Exhibit A: Failure to capture a perfect moment in nature

Maybe there's a lesson here for me.  Maybe this is the driver I need to push me to read the manual.  A chance to discover all the wonder this little device has to offer.  But who am I kidding - I can't fight evolution.  I'm a male and no man will read the manual.  I might as well go and line the kitty litter tray with it now.

Top bed: Come back little worms

Apologies to anyone reading, but this is really just a record of what I've done to a garden bed to try to improve the soil.  It's my second bed, but I failed to record anything about what I did to the first so I want to have a reference for the others as they start coming online incase I need/can adjust what I've added.

Warning - the following will be very documentary in nature so you're encouraged to read in your best monotone voice.

After completing the scorched earth approach to Kikuyu removal (described here) approximately 15 litres of Bokashi vegetable scraps (all that was available at the time) was added to a portion of the bed. The soil had little depth, contained large, solid lumps of clay and was extremely difficult to cultivate - not a fun few hours really.

Dried soil: After solarisation, but before improvement.

A green manure crop of rye and lucerne was planted in the bed to initiate some root growth to break up the soil a little and eventually provide some organic matter.  This crop was left to grow for approximately six to eight weeks (I so need to take better notes) while additional organic matter was accumulated.

Green manure crop - midpoint.

After the green manure crop was considered sufficiently developed the bed was split into quarter sections and dug so that additional organic material could be added.  A heavy soil barrier was met at an approximate depth of 10cms.  A takeaway container and a bit of Gypsum was spread across the base of the bed, although I've not yet actually tested the soil to see if it's sufficiently sodic to make a difference.  I had it on hand so in it went. I must test before I do the other beds.

Into each of the upper and lower quarters of the bed (upper and lower sections in the above photo) was placed approximately thirty leaves of Comfrey and a quarter bag of cow manure.  The middle sections of the bed received approximately 20 litres (one full bucket) each of Bokashi kitchen scraps and the remaining half bag of cow manure.  The green manure crop was incorporated into the soil during this phase.

Little earthworm activity was noted (come back, please come back).

Another green manure crop was sown, although this time solely of lucerne, and both a generic, insect-attracting flower mix and a random sprinkling of some spinach seed I just happened to be carrying was added just as a bit of a flutter.  I remembered to water and didn't bother with mulch at this stage as I wanted to encourage a slightly higher soil temperature.

Here's hoping this'll bring about some positive change in the soil quality.

My Science Project

Sorry, I'm afraid it's yet another post about Bokashi, but this time it contains some colour.

For some reason, probably due to that feline-life-sapping trait, curiosity, I pondered the possibilities of creating my very own micro-organism starter to be used in my Bokashi.  It seemed a natural step on from the DIY grain mix and again was again driven by an eagerness not to pay for anything I could do, albeit poorly, on my own.  I'd heard of people creating their own yoghurt and sour dough starters and, because I knew nothing about either, felt that was a firm foundation for my own attempt at a Bokashi starter.

With a bit of searching courtesy of zuula.com I came across an interesting forum post entitled "Extreme Bokashi" which outlined the experience of someone who had already tried this at home.  As a bonus, the post also suggested that newspaper could be used in place of grains in the mix - yet another sockful of pennies saved as newspapers fall free from the sky (well, you have to dive into the neighbours' recycle bins).

Anyway, back to the starter, which required a two part process.  The first part required a mix of one part rice grains and two water, shaken well and the liquid drained into a jar and covered loosely with some kitchen paper.  This is left in a ventilated, cool, dark spot for about five days, over which time it develops the bacteria used in the next phase.

Cue dramatic imagery....

The wonder of science

The wonder of the mildly curious

The next part of the process requires great courage and a very, very understanding partner. 

The rice water is added to about ten parts milk and the container covered lightly and left to ferment for fourteen days - yes, that's right - Milk + ferment + 14 days.  Ventilation and/or isolation is clearly the key here.  Admittedly our pioneer poster didn't disguise the truth stating "Most of the solids should float to the top, leaving a yellowish liquid".  I'm sure most would shudder just thinking about the sort of smell that would accompany such a picture.  Clearly not a project for the faint hearted.

That yellowish liquid, however, is the lactobacillus starter and can be used in place of the EM liquid in the DIY recipe.

Now I need to find a post about purging a house of bad odours.