Another GO WILD! idea:

HOW TO KICK-START YOUR OLD GARDEN BEDS

Here is another GO WILD! Gardening idea that we call: "Blanket Mulch Composting"

 We consider this nifty new idea, a gardening breakthrough.  I have struggled to come up with ways to re-generate used compost.  AND finely we are going to test this new idea.  It should work great!

 You simply make about 2 inches of chopped up, mixed and/or shredded dry plant material and green plant material along with some nice rich soil, all mixed together, placed right on top of your garden beds just after harvest.  Kind of like putting your beds, to bed, properly for the winter.  This idea will help with the biological rule:  "DON'T LET YOUR SOILS SEE DAYLIGHT"

 This mixed up mulch feels and smells much like compost, it's just not broken down yet.  You can scratch it into your soils so the wind will not blow it away.  Also add a bit of water on this newly applied mulch and let it sheet compost.  This idea copies nature as it drops all its leaves in the fall. 

 Our garden beds should be in much better shape come next spring with this nice looking, added organic matter laying right on top of our used garden beds.  You see, we grow in almost 100% soil based compost with great results and we know that some of the nutrients have been used and converted into healthy food.  Also, this new idea should help to accomplish this biological rule; IF YOU DON'T FEED THE SOILS, THEY WON'T FEED YOU".

Click on the link below, and watch this noisy video.  Sorry about the buzzing of the shredder.

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?ns=1&feature=vm-privacy&video_id=qPMQSK_ifAgnew

Planting Seeds for those in need

Here we are in Mozambique, Africa on an 18 day trip - the end of September 2012 with CNFA - Farmer to Farmer Project.

 We were privileged to teach Small Scale Intensive Agriculture workshops that we now call GO WILD! Gardening with "Black Gold" compost, which is part of Gardening for Life - planting seeds for those in need.

 New crop introduced:

Salmon River Pumpkins (a very rare squash plant) 6 planted 5 germinated in 5 days and in 9 days they had a 5 inch leaf spread (unheard of - that fast of growth here in the USA).  They were planted in native soils with dry cow manure mixed in, 2 meters apart.

Impact of our teaching:

 

7 full workshops on 3 farms and one school completed.

Student teaching students in the local school

 

All classes constructed their own compost (8 compost piles constructed in 4 different locations) 

Great acceptance of information (great translation by Mr. Rufu in his Community School for Organic Agriculture).  We tested our teaching by having students re-teach each session back to the group with prizes for those brave enough to stand up and give a talk.  They passed with flying colors (like almost word for word) we were amazed.   Some students then conducted their own workshops with other local famers as this was a community effort. 

We planted 2 Long Box gardens. Students then planted 3 more Long Box gardens when we were not there.

Photo of two Long Box gardens students planted by themselves

One big discovery for us was at the local markets at Nhangau, Mozambique. We were shocked!  We toured several different people selling vegetables and found out that no vegetables were from local gardens.  Which means that these markets were selling retail bought wholesale with very little profit.   WOW, what a difference growing local would mean to this African community.

We showed them how to double and triple vegetable production with much less labor.  They loved the words "Black Gold"  a soil based compost - the best homemade soil in the world. We explained this way of growing food ... the soils work for you, not you working the soils.  Also the compost piles heated up to 125 degrees F, a very good sign that they were working OK.  And even a cobra snake liked one of the piles.  This class jumped for safety!