On-farm composting is a big part of our farm’s nutrient cycling, and an essential technique for ensuring nutrient density for our veggies and tree crops. Over the past couple of years we’ve tried and trialled various methods of hot-composting, with varied success.
As our composting needs have grown alongside our vegetable outputs, we’ve had to figure out how to scale-up our composting operations so that we can one day soon be self-sufficient in compost needs for Milkwood Farm. One hand-turned pile just doesn’t cut it any more! Read More »
So it turns out that when we go to the toilet, each of us ‘produces’ nearly 80% of the nutrients we need to grow our food. That’s quite something. If you take hold of that concept, it really does make you ask questions about why the heck we manufacture chemicals (with all the detrimental side-effects of that production) to grow food…
Recently Nick did an interview with Ollie Lavender of Sustainable Solutions Radio about this very subject, following on from his TedX Canberra talk with a similar drift. Have a listen:
Or to summarize the above podcast, fortunately there’s a lot of straight-forward, completely safe and highly doable ways that you can re-cycle your family’s nutrients back though food producing systems. With very little ick factor, even. Starting with the simple act of collecting your wee. Read More »
By milkwoodkirsten
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Posted in Appropriate Technology, Humanure, Nutrient Cycling
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Also tagged Biogeochemical cycle, compost toilet, food, humanure, Milkwood Farm, Nutrient, Pasture, soil, urine
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Last weekend I went on a rare road trip to see Michael Ableman speak down at Mulloon Creek. While I was there I squeezed in a quick peek at Mulloon’s free-range egg operation…
I was also lucky enough to stay on farm with our good friends (and comrades in permaculture farming aspirations) Cam and Jessie Wilson, who are bringing up their young family in this beautiful valley, as well as milking, planting, designing and doing… Read More »
Over the last couple of months, we’ve been cooking up a re-design of our top food forest with Harris. Once we move into our tinyhouse, this food forest will be right outside our back door. So we want to get serious about making it a gorgeous place that drips with fun and food.
Up until now, however, it’s been hard to prioritize this project over everything else (including the building of that back door), so things have been rather slow. But thanks to Harris, we now have a design. And that takes us a lot closer to realizing this particular patch of abundance. Read More »
