“The totally natural way to reduce, reuse and recycle organic waste”

Neville with his 23kg Hubbard Squash

The picture below shows Neville Burt holding a 23kg Hubbard Squash, which was harvested at the end of March 2012.

The seed catalogue from which the seed was purchased said ‘grows to around 6kg’.

No special attention was given to the plant other than a good dressing of EarthZing. and plenty of water.

2 plants were grown and of the 3 squash harvested, these weighed 16, 21 and 23kg respectively. Will make a good exhibit at next months Timaru Horticultural Show.

The juice extract, which results from the fermentation process and collects in the base bucket is a versatile product and has a number of uses. A lessor known use is that it can be useful for the prevention of some plant diseases.

The juice can be sprayed on plant leaf surfaces to form what is known as a biofilm and will act shield to prevent the infection of plant leaves with some diseases.

The juice should be applied on a regular basis (at least weekly) in order to maintain an active leaf coverage. Spray solutions should be made up of one part juice to one part water and sprayed onto leaf surfaces. Wet till run off and ensure good coverage of all leaf surfaces, both top and undersides.

The best time to do this is just prior to expectation of disease occurring and this will vary from place to place and also be relative to weather conditions.

NOTE: ‘Juice’ should normally be a light golden colour and have a slight fruity odour. Do not use of plant foliage if dark in colour or it has a strong odour.

Good quality ‘Juice‘ being collected

I have used this product now for what will be two seasons and have found it to be not only a great soil conditioner/fertiliser but an good snail repellant as well and is as good if not better than the standard “slug pellets” and would have no hesitation in recommending to others”

Yours sincerely Paul Stewart (Auckland)

Composta in garden corner

There will be times when your garden area is in full production and space to bury your fermented waste is limited or non-existent.

A simple proven method when this looks likely is to ‘store’ your waste in a ‘Composta’

Start by locating the Composta in an area close to or in the garden.

This will make for easy dispersal of the resulting compost material when ready for use.

Start by:

1. Adding a layer of fermented waste into the base of the Composta
2. Add a layer of dry ‘browns over the top
3. Mix the food waste layer with the brown layer below [a fork is ideal for this]
4. Add a further layer of ‘browns over the top and leave ready for the next lot of food waste.
5. Repeat this process till the Composta is full.
6. Ensure the lid of the Composta is secure between additions of material

Note:

Brown material can be either of sawdust/ spent potting media/mulchings /bark or soil.

It is important that these material be DRY when added and it is advisable to keep a stock on hand.

When your Composta is full or you are ready to use the material – lift the composta off and you will have a neat pile of great compost ready for the garden.

The Kapiti District Council recently held a Greenest street competition where the idea was to see what street could generate the least amount of waste going to landfill over a given time. Participants had a choice of ways and methods to do this and these had to be approved by the organisers.

One street, Rainbow Court in Raumati had a number of residents elect to use ZingBokashi for the processing of their food waste and the comments below were contributed by Rainbow Court resident Glenda Robb.

Rainbow Court in Raumati's community garden

“Our Greenest St competition is over – and while we didn’t win the overall prize, we did get the best community initiative prize for our community garden. 

I have dug several buckets of my bokashi bucket stew into the garden and am just amazed at how fast it seems to break down. As I’ve planted up my spring garden now, I took my latest bucket down to the community garden where we had a working bee today.

The focus of the day was building compost heaps, so my bucket went into the middle of one pile where I am sure it will get things going in next to no time. We made three big 1m x 1m x 1m piles using wood chip mulch, grass clippings, horse poo and bokashi, watered it down, and covered it over with old carpet. We await the production of compost in next to no time!

At least one of the other bokashi owners is doing the same with her full buckets as she doesn’t have a garden in her own back yard.

We have several large plastic compost bins in the community garden where anyone can take their organic kitchen scraps and layer them with wood mulch, so some are bringing their full buckets down and putting them into our system. We find that is a better way than digging it straight into the garden, as often there isn’t a gap when you need to empty your bucket.

Then, once a month at our working bees, we turn the compost and add it to the gardens when the gaps appear.”