Survival Gardening with David The Good
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Dave's Fetid Swamp Water…. what's in yours???
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Dave's Fetid Swamp Water…. what's in yours???
I made a very successful batch of DFSW last summer. I think a big key is the tight fitting lid to keep odor in and skeeters out. I have a real trouble with ground ivy/creeping Charlie, so the phrase, “compost your enemies”, made the revenge feel that much sweeter. This has been an adventure of adding, and not smelling when decanting the “juice for use” out of the barrel. It’s a skill. I was decommissioning this said barrel after the Christmas cold blitz, and I diluted it 50% and put it All over the gardens.
My question is, will it just be washed out by Spring? Or am I giving my next season gardens a jump start by energizing the soil microbiome? Or maybe just giving dormant weed seeds food for thought? Besides weeds, I put in cat tail leaves, a bluegill out of the pond (roughly chopped) and quail poop.
So, what’s in yours???😁
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17 Replies
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I make this regularly. If a bag of organic fertilizer gets wet it turns back into what it started out as…. I put a shovel scoop in the barrel, molasses, maybe fish emulsion etc. and maybe some weeds or rotting veggie matter. I aerate mine with a little aquarium air pump. I’ve heard it works better if it’s anaerobic, but I still do it. I let it brew for a week or so and use it as a root drench. The plants love it. I do it maybe every other month in the growing season. If possible, use rainwater, it’s the best! And if someone pees into the barrel, so much the better!
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That sounds amazing and so nutritious! I bet your garden loves you with many vegetables!
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If you can get some leaf mold with mycelium into the mix right before you apply it that will be even better!
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This reminds me of the Jadam Korean natural farming. They use a combination of boiled potato and leaf mould. I have tried making it, and it’s hard to tell “peak bubbles”, but once you miss this window a few times, you start getting the hang of it. 🙂
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When I first started I used Bolivian sunflower greens about exclusively, but since that time I have switched to just using what the lawn mower collects in the bag. I leave this in for months at a time till it composts. I get tons of weeds, but the soil that is there grows and feeds about everything. I imagine if I did not use the lawn trimmings but used only the bolivian sunflower, I would have no weed seeds as I do now. I then use the soil from that as a seed starting mix, ( the weeds adore it why not good seeds? )
As I have been investigating this more, I have found the ratio that is used in Korean natural farming, and I believe I should be adding some sea salt……
I was reading in the bible, and I found this verse Jesus was talking about salt being put into the manure compost……
https://jashow.org/articles/salt-as-feltilizer/
Korean natural farming uses salt in their mix, so I think I will be adding salt to the mix.
My thoughts trend to think there are better plants than others to put in the brew, so if we grew fodder plants, and plants that have a long history of being good as fertilizer for plants we could increase the value of our tea / compost.
As I think of it I am betting that we could use wood chips soaked in there as well for long duration to break down the chips a Jean Pain did….
Then again, I am highly experimental…..
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Would the soaked wood chips mimic charged biochar?
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I would think so.
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In this PDF Jean pain showed how he soaked his wood chips. The difference between wood chips and biochar is wood chips would break down. I would imagine the soaking would remove the protective defense of the wood and allow it to break down faster.
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Marthale 7! I have gone down the rabbit hole of biochar with Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast. He was saying that charged biochar (pre-loaded by mixing with compost or soaking in compost tea before mixing in the garden) It doesn’t float away like Perlite will, and can last a thousand years. The surface area for microbial life is just out of this world, and I am going to make a retort to make this. Who needs a fertilizer shortage when you can anaerobically compost weeds in water and make biochar? The answers are all around us. How cool is that? (Pretty stinkin’ cool, I say!)
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Yeah, I have been watching videos on biochar for a long time. It seems to not be better than compost rich soil, but if you have sand like I do, then it can be wonderful for bacteria and fungi to have a hotel to live in. I keep my char in my worm bin to inoculate. I have been trying to go past using weeds for compost, instead using fodder crops that have a proven record of feeding plants, like comfrey, bolivian sunflower, mulberry leaves, and I have been working on growing alfalfa. I believe that if we target plants that support plants in a proven measure we can take the tea to the next level. Constant rotation on fields does seem to work when you find the right combo, and work with the soil.
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I also do Quail poop. In a black 55 gallon drum. Clean the trays with all the wasted food. It’s full from last year. I also do a comfrey tea on a small scale. Do you know if the soil test will tell the fertilizer ratios ?
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Soil tests will tell you the makeup of your soil. Nutrient adequacy versus deficiency values are part of the report.
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Sorry I haven’t answered I’ve been having problems with locked screens. Do you know how to test your fertilizers?
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That is a really interesting question. I may bring it up to the group at large tomorrow evening with the Life Done Free Livestream. If we make our own fertilizer, can we test to see what the ratios are in it? Especially animal manures. Rabbit and alpaca are cold and can be put on a garden without being composted, but others need some time to themselves.
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Thanks I’d appreciate it.
Thank you!!
I eye ball it now when I’m hand watering . But I’d like to use it thru a liquid fertilize/ drip system . Have a great day!
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So, I did a little looking and apparently there ARE NPK tests. The prices vary widely, so I grabbed a couple screen shots. The first is Gardener’s Edge.
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Thanks I saw something like that. Wasn’t sure if it would work. Agway use to test soil for free. I doubt they want to test my manure mix!!!
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