Homemade Fertilizer and Insect Repellants
Lactobacillus
Lacto Bacilli is everywhere! It lives in the air, on plants, and in your gut (and the guts of all animals); without it, we would not survive. LB is a major digester in any bio-dynamic system, meaning it breaks down nutrients and makes them available in a form we can use.
How to Collect It
Purchase a bag of cheap, highly refined white rice. Pour rice into a bowl and cover with water. Let rice sit in water for a few minutes. Then, strain out the rice and pour the milky colored water into a jar, leaving room for air in the jar so that the rice wash fills no more than half of the jar’s volume. Cover the jar with a cheese cloth, rubberband it, and set it aside in a cool, semi-dark place for 5 days when warm and up to 15 days when cold. A variety of air-born bacteria will colonize this rice wash. When it is ready for the next step, it will have a sweet alcoholic aroma, and a film on top with spores growing on the surface. Skim off this surface skud before the next step.
Now we need to isolate the lacto bacilli by feeding the bacteria food that the LB particularly likes so that it will out-produce the other bacteria living in the rice wash. So, add 10 parts milk (does not need to be raw, can be from a cow, goat, or sheep, even powdered milk will work) to one part rice wash. Cover again with cheese cloth and let sit for 5-7 days. The fats in the milk will separate to the top, and underneath the fats will be a clear yellowish solution which is pure lactose. Carefully skim off the fat without letting it mix back into the lactose (if it does, you’ll have to try again once the fat rises again to the surface). In a refrigerator it will keep for 1 year, or if you add raw sugar such as molasses (1/3 sugar to total volume), you will not need to refrigerate it. It if begins to smell rotten, you know the LB is gone.
USES: A) As foliar spray on leaves of plants, it will totally populate the leaf surface and use up the food supply, thereby starving out any pathogens that might also want to populate the leaf surfaces of plants. Its presence protects the plant, allowing the pores on the plant’s leaves to open up larger and stay open longer so the plant can get more nutrients. To use as foliar spray, dilute it 1:20 with NON-CHLORINATED water (chlorine kills microbes, but if you only have chlorinated water, let it sit for one day and it will evaporate out), and then you can dilute it again 5 tsp/gallon. One batch is enough for a whole year’s usage on a 5 acre farm. It is generally not used alone, but combined with other plant extracts (which I explain below) to feed the plant additional nutrients.
B) Eat it yourself to aid in digestion and medicinally to stop diarrhea. Used internally, it does not need to be diluted. Feed it to your chickens, goats, cows, dogs, cats, etc by adding it to their water so that they will digest their food more completely, enabling you to reduce feed by 30%.
C) Add to anything foul smelling, such as your compost toilet or compost pile.
Plant Extracts
Many different plants can be harvested and fermented to extract a variety of beneficial properties which can be delivered directly to your garden easily and for free. These can be all mixed together with the lacto bacilli in one 55 gallon barrel to be used as a bio-dynamic foliar spray.
Here are some suggestion of plant extracts to try:
NETTLE: The only plant I know of that can be fermented without adding any sugar, a nettle extract is a very important part of any tea. All you do is harvest the nettle, chop it up fine, and submerge in water. Cover it and leave for 10 days. It is an amazing stimulant for all plants, and chock full of nutrients. Use as part of a foliar spray or as part of a root soak solution
To make the rest of the extracts below, harvest, chop finely, add 1/3 molasses to volume, add water, and let ferment for 7-10 days
COMFREY: ferment for high nutrient load
KELP: ferment for beneficial hormones and nutrients, use as part of foliar spray.
GARLIC and GINGER: use as foliar spray to prevent bugs, or take internally yourself for many health benefits. Fungicidal properties of garlic fight disease and repel bugs.
EUCALYPTUS: use as foliar spray for bug and microbal prevention
BAMBOO: harvest young shoots, ferment to extract growth hormone, and use as part of foliar spray
FAVA BEAN: harvest tops of plant, ferment to extract growth hormone, use as part of foliar spray
Other extracts to try: horsetail, calendula, fruits such as papaya for valuable nutrients.
INDIGENOUS MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI
Mycorrhizal fungi are an essential part of healthy organic living soil structure and have an incredible symbiotic relationship with plants. They live in the root zones of plants and feed off of other microbes, called nematodes, and convert them to usable nutrients. They act as a sort of glue, holding soil particles and water in a way that creates plenty of air space.
We will collect mycorrhizal fungi from a healthy ecosystem to use in our garden. By inoculating the root tips of plants we want to propagate or transplant out into the garden, we can stimulate root growth and help the plant’s roots quickly recover from shock we may cause during the transplanting process. In addition, by increasing the amount of m.r. fungi in our soils, we won’t need to water our garden nearly as often, as m.r. fungi fill up like balloons with water to store it for when roots need it most.
HOW TO COLLECT IT
Cook the rice you washed for the lacto bacilli. Spread a thin layer of rice onto the bottom of a wide, shallow pan. Put a wire barrier over the pan to keep out rodents and cheese cloth on top of that to keep dirt and bugs off. Then, go find a healthy system, using your eyes and nose to feel out a microbe hot-spot. In this area, you may seek out a particularly old, healthy oak or alder tree to collect m.r. fungi
Collect leaf litter and soil from a foot beneath the ground, and take this litter back to your rice pan, piling the it on top of the wire and cheese cloth. Keep it on the ground in the shade, keeping it moist if it is very hot outside. After 7 days, peek under the cheesecloth, and you should find a colorful array of fungi growing on your rice. Remove and discard the leaf litter, scrape the rice into a 5 gallon bucket, and add raw sugar (1 part sugar to 3 parts rice). Fill bucket with water.
USES
Use as a root soak. Strain and dilute it 1:20 with non-chlorinated water.
OTHER IDEAS
If you are propagating a specific plant, collect leaf litter from an especially healthy specimen of that same plant species. For example, if you are growing blueberries, colonize your rice with m.r. fungi from a healthy blueberry plant, add molasses, and use as a root soak to inoculate new blueberry transplants.
Here are some other useful plants you may want to collect m.r. fungi from:
Fava Root: Dig up the roots and surrounding soil of healthy favas. Put in a 5 gallon bucket. Add 1/3 molasses to fava volume, and fill with water. Let it sit for 10 days to brew. Then, strain out solids. You can dilute this solution 20:1 with water and add to your indigenous m.r. fungi solution as part of your root soak.
Bamboo: very active microbes. Collect leaf litter and colonize your rice with m.r. fungi from a healthy bamboo plant, and then use their incredible digestion properties in your grey-water system.