Try using EM•1® on your car

Remember that EM•1^® has all those great antioxidants?  Well, when put in contact with metal and oxidized paint, it can do wonders to buff up a nice shine on your car and help prevent it from rusting!

Here are some ideas:

• The carpets can be washed with an EM•1^®/water/soap solution
• If you're sensitive to chemical smells and bought a new car, or rented one, EM•1^® can be sprayed to get rid of any odors inside.
• EM•1^® can be diluted and used as a window cleaner.  It is safe on tinting.
• EM•1^® will eat oil and transmission stains on concrete.  It takes repeated spraying and some time, but it will do it.
• EM•1^® Bokashi can be used to soak up oil on the ground and on concrete flooring.  Once it is soaked up, you can add it to a compost pile.  In about a month, the oil will be completely broken down.
  
• EM•1^® will eat the grease under the hood and can even be used as a line cleaner.  To speed up the process add two-three ounces of soap per gallon of liquid when spraying.
• Start with testing dilution rates, maybe a 1:10 dilution.  If that works, try a 1:20 and keep backing off until it doesn't work.  If you repeatedly spray(daily or so), it will take less every time.

All these applications for for boats, motorhomes, buses, planes, etc.

Let us know what you've tried and what's worked.

Composting with EM1

I received an email yesterday questioning the instructions on our label for composting.  The question was mostly about converting weight to volume in order to figure out how much EM1 to use.  I'll try to explain this here.  I've included the questions from our customer:

• "1.5 gal per cubic yard" seems to refer to using the product in a gallon of water, at least I think.

The way we came up with this calculation was to back down from a cubic yard (pretty much 1 ton or 2000lbs) of material.  We generally use 1.5 gallons of *Activated EM•1® per ton or cubic yard of waste materials.  Water is also added to reach the desired moisture levels, generally around 60-65%.

1 cubic yard = 27 cubic foot

*The 12oz bottle you bought will make roughly 3 gallons of Activated EM1.

• What does " 1oz/10lbs" refer to?  10 lbs of what? Compost?
  

Yes, it does.  Using 2,000lbs as 1 ton, you can figure out the rough weight of EM1 to use, especially if you just purchased "x" yards of manure and/or soil.
Also, a 5-gallon bucket generally holds about 25lbs of moist material (food wastes, etc.)

I would appreciate it if you could provide clear instructions on using this product in a garden compost bin. I use a 32 gallon plastic compost bin. It is now full. I add to it from time to time as needed to keep it full.

According to this calculator your bin contains 4.277777792 cubic feet.  So, you'll need 40 to 43 ounces of Activated EM•1® to treat your entire bin.

Does this help explain things?  When I used to garden, I was usually doing things on a pretty large scale for a homeowner.  I was working with cubic yards of materials.  For instance, I ordered 20 yards of cow manure and sprayed it all down with AEM•1®.  I would add leaves to it and till it in, spraying as I layered it into the ground.  

It took a few hard lessons of chickweed growing like crazy for me to learn a better method than trying to make piles that I had to turn, etc.  Instead, I dug trenches and back-filled with layered of leaves and manure and saturated each layer with AEM•1®.  When I got to the top of the trench, I flipped the soil from the hole on top and planted in it.  This process eliminated all problems with weeds and turning.

Koi Ponds

Fish ponds tend to get pretty gunked up in the spring and the fall as temperature changes cause an inversion in the pond.  The much on the bottom gets stirred up as temperatures cause convection currents.  The water will get cloudy and oftentimes, if the outside temperature is just right, algae will start to grow.   If the algae gets out of control, it can cause a dissolved oxygen drop and pH shift in the water, causing some fish die off.

EM•1® to the rescue!  There are a couple ways that the EM•1® helps with this.  Firstly, the live microbes in the EM•1® will begin to eat the sludge material, breaking down ligning and cellulose, proteins, etc. that are in the water.  Secondly, EM•1® acts very much like a natural polymer and it affects electroconductivity (EC) in the water, pulling solids out of suspension (TSS). 

Take a look at this slideshow of a pond from Silver Street Studios in Houston:


It took a bit of trial and error to figure out what was going on here, but you can see how clear the water got.  The entire process took a couple months, but it was worth the wait.

Eliminate Pet Odors with EM®

Well, this house had a bit of pet odors and took a few passes, but we got everything controlled and fresh in an afternoon.  See how simple it can be.  If you've got any type of odors in or around your house, give a shot of EM® and you'll be glad you did.

Spraying the lawn with Activated EM1.

A new video on applying Activated EM1 to your lawn.

Subscribe to our channel and get all the latest videos from EM America.

Sprouting seeds

Sprouts are a nutritious food and are so easy to get going at home. I have seen a few places that just use regular dishes and damp towels to sprout seeds. Several grocery stores sell seed packs to sprout, some sell containers that you can use that make the process a bit less hands-on. It is fun to do and a great thing to teach children. Best of all, you can do it year-round so in the northern climates, you can get fresh foods any time. It only takes about 7 days for most seeds to sprout.

The way I usually do this is to take a couple tablespoons of seeds and put them in about 1/2 cup of water with a tablespoon of EM•1®. I let the seeds soak for about 5 minutes and then I strain them. I put them on a damp towel and then fold over the towel and put it in a jar with the lid on.

Once a day I take out the seeds and put them in a strainer and rinse them with fresh water. I then spritz them with a solution of EM•1® and water (1:4). As the sprouts are ready to eat, I pull out the ones that are ready and keep the rinsing process going until all the sprouts are gone.

Turning a new leaf

If you're lucky enough to have lots of leaves, this is a great way use them for your gardens.

• Rake up all the leaves you can get.
  
• Mow them with a mower to chop them into small pieces.
• For every cubic yard of material mix in the following:
• 1 cup EM1
• 1 cup molasses
• 5 gallons of water
• Cover with a large tarp and use rocks or logs to hold the tarp down.

Let the material sit for at least two weeks. When you pull back the tarp there will likely be a bunch of white mold on the leaves. The material should also have a sweet/sour smell.

You just make a huge pile of what we call EM1 Bokashi for about $2 in materials.

The fermented leaves can be used as a mulch or incorporated into garden soil to add lots of carbon and beneficial microbes.

If you really get carried away, collect the leaves from neighbors. Just have them bring over tarps of leaves. I am sure they would prefer to have you take them than to have to bring them to the dump. Better yet, teach your neighbors how to turn leaves into a resource and save the landfill space! The worms and your plants will love you for it!

Gardening Season over for some, beginning for others

It's a little more than half way through August. Here in Tucson, Arizona we're able to continue gardening almost year-round. We've just got to worry about frosts in December and January. As some crops die off, its a good time to treat the soil, process up some quick compost (or a bokashi-like substance) and get the soil ready for the next round of crops.

In the northern part of the US, people will soon be finishing up their gardens. Tomatoes should be just about done, maybe corn and melons are about through as well. The season's flowers should be coming to an end soon as well. Phlox, sunflowers, coneflowers, and sedum are still blooming, but should be going to seed soon.

As you cut flowers and veggies, keep the cuttings and mound them up in piles. I'd venture to guess that you're a fanatical composter if you have lots of gardens. If you have a large vegetable garden, you probably cut veggies and either pull the cuttings off into a compost pile or let them rot in the garden area over the winter. This year would be a good time to try using some EM•1®.

When I lived in Massachusetts, I owned a 1/2 acre property. It was there that I developed a bit of the techniques with EM•1® that I teach today. I had great success spraying all my beds toward the end of the season. About this time of the year, I would get out the hose-end sprayer and spray about 1 gallon of Activated EM•1® per week on everything, leaves, dying plants, cut flower stems, food waste, the cat, etc.

On the compost pile, I would use another gallon of Activated EM•1® per cubic yard of material and mix it into the pile with a pitch fork. After I sprayed the pile, I would cover it with a large 20'x20' tarp and weight it down with some logs or rocks to keep it airtight. To this pile I would add plant materials, food scraps, manures, and other organic materials during the entire season.

After about 1 week I would pull off the tarp and turn the pile with the pitch fork. I repeat this for another three weeks. 1 turn per week lets the weed seeds sprout and keeps the pile just warm enough to feel about the same temperature as bath water. On the 4th week I would pull apart the pile and incorporate about 4-6 inches of material into the beds. It is still not completely broken down as compost would be, but it not producing heat or foul odors, which raw materials would, and does not have the weed seeds either. By sprouting the weeds in this pile and turning them in, I am increasing the available nitrogen and exhausting the weed supply.

I hope I can get a short video on this method some day. As long as I live in the desert, I don't see that happening.

What can you do with EM® around the house?

What can you do with EM® around the house?
We have heard all kinds of things that EM® can be used for. I think my most favorite uses are for cleaning clothes and deodorizing/freshening up rooms. I am sensitive to chemicals and don't like fake flower smells. What is nice about spraying EM® in a room is that is has a sweet smell of molasses, but it goes away quickly. The result in the room is a fresh, clean air.

When I lived back East, I would periodically spray the basement to get rid of the musty smell down there.