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.