Frank Teuton on Composting dog cat feces: Re: earth closet: composting toilets are easier and better
Patti, Here's Frank Teuton's take on the composting carnivore feces issue. He has a pretty sensible approach. So much of what you read on this issue is (in my opinion) overly cautious --- no even alarmist. The reasons for the caution warnings are seldom explained. Frank does that well and in his inimitable way. Caution is in order if 1) you're going to be using the finished compost on food crops and 2) you're not confident that all parts of your compost has been exposed for the proper parasite-killing temperatures for the proper length of time. In achieving the necessary high temperatures a large compost mass is important: as Frank says about 1.5 m on a side in the shape of a cube. A cube, next to a sphere, has the lowest surface area/mass ratio. This factor is especially important to achieving high internal temperature and especially in cold climates. Vere Scott http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/2001/compost/msg00232.html Patti Berg wrote: I read Jenkins' book and found it was wonderfully more than I asked for. I learned a lot from this but still have some suspicions. I was just reading my current issue of OG magazine and discovered an article warning against the use of meat eating animal waste in the compost. I am surprised to find this contradiction in this particular magazine. Yet with the world becoming increasingly diseased, perhaps there may turn up some harmful organisms that won't be affected by the 170 degree temperatures of the compost bin. Patti. Vere Scott wrote: Patti, Much better than an earth closet is a home-made compost toilet using dry, finished compost (light) rather than earth/soil (very heavy!) as covering medium. The compost toilet produces more compost which completes the endless cycle. See also Joseph C. Jenkins Humanure Handbook, his web site and the following Humanure forum where you'll find most of your questions answered (check its archives). Vere Scott http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/forum_humanure/index.html
Re: Me Too! Re: STRIPPED ATTACHMENT Re: : Koliskos on 'SmallestEntities In Agriculture'and The Calcium Process in Nature (long 6 pages)
Thanks Allan, For your attention to this and for your personal communication with me. Much appreciated. Best regards, Vere Scott Allan Balliett wrote: Allan, I would say this is an anti-virus program/firewall routine in the list software working overtime. Cheers Roger Thanks for investigating Roger. The strange thing remains that myself and others are receiving the messages ok, so I've got to think that the stripping is occurring somewhere on the path to you who are affected and not coming from earthlink. I have forwarded your information and the rest to earthlink. Let's hope they et back to us soon. Thanks and patience! -Allan
Me Too! Re: STRIPPED ATTACHMENT Re: : Koliskos on 'Smallest Entities In Agriculture'and The Calcium Process in Nature (long 6 pages)
Me too! Regularly. Vere Scott Teresa Seed wrote: Me for one. Teresa From: Allan Balliett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: STRIPPED ATTACHMENT Re: : Koliskos on 'Smallest Entities In Agriculture' and The Calcium Process in Nature (long 6 pages) Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 11:52:40 -0400 First off, tech questions are best sent directly to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Next, the message you refer to was 19k in size and I received the full thing. How many others are getting this ATTACHMENT ... REMOVED message? -Allan How do we get all these emails that are being stripped? Gil Robin Duchesneau wrote: *** ATTACHMENT AUTOMATICALLY REMOVED! ** _ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Re: Me Too! Re: STRIPPED ATTACHMENT Re: : Koliskos on 'SmallestEntities In Agriculture'and The Calcium Process in Nature (long 6 pages)
Allan, I'd say it started about one week ago, less than two weeks. I got concerned enough to contact you last Friday or Saturday. Certainly it was on a minority of bdnow posts and I neglected to notice if it was happening to a certain type of post. I think whoever said it was on the subject of Koliskos. Vere Allan Balliett wrote: Me too! Regularly. Vere Scott Regularly since when? -Allan
Kelly Gerard Dube, Manitoba: Re: Fwd: farmers' market and farmer stories wanted
I nominate Kelly Gerard Dube, LaBroquerie, Manitoba (organic farmers SE of Winnipeg). Once ran a Community Shared Farming plan. Very interesting people. For the film producers, they trained or helped evaluate the applicants for a Manitoba-made pioneer-type TV series similiar to the series currently running on US PBS-TV. They farm with heavy horses, have heritage swine, etc. Vere Scott bdnow wrote: Subject: farmers' market and farmer stories wanted Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 11:34:59 -0400 X-Priority: 1 Friends of farmers' markets, Apologies for the short notice, but if you can reply to this early the week of the 29th, and not later than Friday the 2nd, I'll be grateful. I need your help in identifying the best and most interesting farmers' markets and food producers in the country. I'm shooting a pilot episode for a TV series called Farmers' Daughter, which we're hoping to sell to a US network. It will be similar to the 13-part British series I hosted, Farmers' Market. In each episode of that series, I go to a farmers' market, meet producers, visit a particuluar farm, learn about how the food is raised, and then cook something at the market. The British series explores food, farming, environmental, and cooking issues, from why buy local to why beef should be grass fed. The US series will be similar, though we may cook at farms, rather than at the market. For the first episode, we've chosen two farmers, one beef and one vegetable, who sell at a farmers' market in Northern VA, the oldest market in the region. We'll need ideas for another dozen episodes, with one market and two producers per episode. We won't do another Virginia farm, and we probably won't repeat beef, though there are many variations on vegetables we might do, so if you know an interesting salad greens grower, or chilli pepper master, let me know. I'm looking for about two dozen outstanding producers at a dozen farmers' markets with interesting stories for the rest of the series. We will need to achieve the following: a) regional spread, including variations on markets (big city, small town, etc) b) a range of produce (fish, lamb, poultry, game, mushrooms, wine, juice, sprouts, cheese, butter, milk, ice cream, grains, hot peppers) c) the producer must be bona fide, use his own ingredigents in processed foods (eg milk for ice cream), and sell at a producer-only farmers' market If the producer story is exceptional, the producer might be direct marketing some other way, like an outstanding CSA, or, say, a fisherman with her own boat who sells sustainably caught fish and is a great cook. Be generous with your recommendations, as long as they fit the theme of regional, sustainable farm produce, sold in the alternative, not large-scale commercial, venues. If this request could be posted in an appropriate place (like farmers' market organizers' offices or bulletins, the public markets forum, or the national network of farmers' markets), I would be grateful. Please forward this to anyone you know who runs an outstanding farmers' market or knows outstanding growers. For a posting, you can simply use this note, tweaked. Or I could write a 'Call for outstanding farmers' markets and outstanding producer stories' bulletin, with my contact details attached. I hope you can help. Thanks very much, Best wishes, Nina NINA PLANCK 1644 Monroe St, NW Washington, DC 20010-1804 202 232 6042 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED]
Elephants don't like it hot: Chillies keep elephants out of African farmers' fields.
If there are no elephants presently raiding your crops, here's something to try on other garden/farm pests: burn chilli peppers! I'm going to see if it works on a gray squirrel that thinks my garden is his! Nothing else works. Let me know what your experiences are. Vere Scott. http://www.nature.com/nsu/020715/020715-3.html Title: Elephants don't like it hot updated at midnight GMT search nature science update advanced search Society for Conservation Biology 16th Annual Meeting Canterbury, UK, July 2002 Elephants don't like it hotChillies keep elephants out of African farmers' fields. 16 July 2002 JOHN WHITFIELD Farmers in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique are turning to chilliesSPLGrowing chilli peppers could keep elephants and crops apart, say researchers. Elephants avoid chilli plants, and burning the peppers keeps the animals away from other crops. Chillies are also a cash crop - one project is already selling 'elephant' chilli sauce. Crop raiding is a huge problem anywhere farmers and elephants come together. Entire fields can be destroyed overnight. Botswana, one of the few African countries to compensate farmers for elephant damage, pays out more than US$1 million each year. There are too many elephants for marksmen to kill or catch. Electric fences are expensive to install and maintain, and people steal the wire to make snares. Traditional methods, such as fires and drums, take up to an hour to work. "It's been an insoluble problem," says Loki Osborn, a conservation biologist on the Mid-Zambezi Elephant Project, based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He and colleague Guy Parker, of the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK, are working with farmers and local government in northern Zimbabwe to design and implement low-tech elephant deterrents. Over the past two years, they have cut elephant damage by about three-quarters using noise makers, burning chillies and warning systems such as bells strung on fences. Elephants do not become inured to acrid chilli smoke, as they do to loud noises. "It's not just an empty threat - it causes the elephants real short-term pain," Parker told the Society for Conservation Biology's annual meeting in Canterbury, UK this week. Now farmers in Mozambique and Zambia have joined the spicy bandwagon. Switching from cotton - the previous elephant-prone cash crop - to chillies has brought economic benefits. I'm going home to try it Joel Musaasizi CARE Danmark UgandaBut keeping elephants out has begun to expose weaknesses in local agriculture, says Osborn. "People still aren't really able to harvest anything," he explains because seed stock and cultivation practises are poor. So the Chilli Pepper Company - a commercial spin-off of the Mid-Zambezi Elephant Project - is also working to improve farming techniques and introduce better maize varieties into the villages in the scheme. Farmers in Uganda use thorn fences, trenches and stone walls to keep elephants out of their fields, says Joel Musaasizi, a conservationist with development organization CARE Danmark, based in Kabale, Uganda. "We're getting some success, but eventually the animals look for a weak spot," he says. Musaasizi intends to experiment with chillies. "I'm going home to try it," he says. "I sincerely hope it'll help our people." Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002 Clay-clad corpses kill crop pests20 May 2002Honey smells like teen elephant28 February 2002 Genes reveal jumbo schism 24 August 2001Underwater racket keeps eiders down14 June 2001 SCB 2002 Elep
Re: Nettle water: its proper use length of fermentation
Allan, Your nettle tea that has turned quite black: have you removed the nettle debris? Your response made me realize another question I'd like to ask. I let my nettle water ferment for the designated two weeks. Then I began using it. I have not got around to , however, removing the burlap bag containing the nettle debris. Presumably the mixture is different/stronger from it was at the two-week point. Is this a problem? Is it poor practice? How crucial is it that the nettle debris be removed at the two-week point? What happens if I leave the nettle debris in the container for four weeks? Indefinitely? I'm removing nettle water to dilute 1/10 and use all the while. I notice from the literature that I've seen steeping times range from 24 hours, to 10, 12 and 14 days. I've never seen addressed the consequences of leaving the nettle debris to ferment for periods of time longer than two weeks. Any ideas? Allan Balliett wrote: Vere - I make and use nettle tea. I make and use comfrey tea. Following Elaine Ingham, however, has made me question my use of anaeorobic teas. Intellectually, that is. I still have the same heart-connection to using herb water than you have expressed. HOWEVER, I want to ask everyone: my current 50 gallons of nettle tea (now down to the last 10) has gone quite black (spent weeks very brightly GREEN). I'm wondering if anyone knows if I could harm anything with this tea. I have set up one of Will Brinton's CRESS TESTS for this tea (as well as for some very black chicken manure tea) but the results are not in yet. -Allan Allan, I just began using it for the first time in June. My garden looks very healthy but I've seen nothing to attribute to the nettle water, positive or negative. But I now know what Steiner meant when he referred to the importance of involving oneself in one's crop growing rather than buying commodities off the shelf. I got the nettles free by the Red River near me. I've been able to pot up some stinging nettles and get them growing in my yard. I was impressed and intrigued by Rolf Peterson and Paul Jensen's (University of Lund, Sweden) Effects of nettle water on growth and mineral nutrition of plants, parts I and II in Biological Agriculture Horticulture 1985, 1986. Do you know if there has been any follow-up on their work? I find it a delightful experience cooking up my own fermentations. I've made some hoseradish water too (same proportions as the nettle water). But I don't know how to use it. Next time I'll try burdock water. Do you know Dr. O.W. (Oscar Werner) Ben Grussendorf of Woodlands, Manitoba? He is the only biodynamic farmer I know of in Manitoba. I met him in 1982-83. He was my introduction to biodynamics. Vere. Allan Balliett wrote: Vere - What results are YOU getting from your nettle tea? -Allan
Terminology for plant fermentation extracts: useful distinctions?
In describing plants fermented in water (such as nettle water), I have looked for some consistency of terminology to help me get the concepts clear in my mind. I am aware of the utility of, and respect, Lloyd Charles' view that it is results that count (that's what my Dr. Grussendorf used to tell me when I went off on what he considered tangents focussing inordinately on the biodynamic equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin). I.e. attempted quantification or precise language where none is warranted or necessary. Still, that remains one of my interests: being able to write clear descriptions of biodynamic practices. I know that this imprecision that so often characterizes biodynamics is one thing that drives agrologists (narrowly trained in the linear thinking of industrial agriculture orthodoxy) up the wall! I've noticed these plant (often herbal) water extracts are referred to variously as waters, liquid manures and teas. One source appeared to make a distinction between an extract using single plant species ---a water or tea vs an extract using two or more plant species --- a liquid manure. Then there's compost teas and herbal teas. Or should it be compost liquid manure? I welcome any ideas about the terminology used in describing these plant extracts. Vere Scott.
Re: Nettle water: its proper use
Allan, I just began using it for the first time in June. My garden looks very healthy but I've seen nothing to attribute to the nettle water, positive or negative. But I now know what Steiner meant when he referred to the importance of involving oneself in one's crop growing rather than buying commodities off the shelf. I got the nettles free by the Red River near me. I've been able to pot up some stinging nettles and get them growing in my yard. I was impressed and intrigued by Rolf Peterson and Paul Jensen's (University of Lund, Sweden) Effects of nettle water on growth and mineral nutrition of plants, parts I and II in Biological Agriculture Horticulture 1985, 1986. Do you know if there has been any follow-up on their work? I find it a delightful experience cooking up my own fermentations. I've made some hoseradish water too (same proportions as the nettle water). But I don't know how to use it. Next time I'll try burdock water. Do you know Dr. O.W. (Oscar Werner) Ben Grussendorf of Woodlands, Manitoba? He is the only biodynamic farmer I know of in Manitoba. I met him in 1982-83. He was my introduction to biodynamics. Vere. Allan Balliett wrote: Vere - What results are YOU getting from your nettle tea? -Allan
