Worm farming, all you ever wanted to know and more.

There are 2 well researched,  scientific ways to produce safe and beneficial compost, and a worm farm is one.....

 Worms will only migrate away if they are not fed and watered. Neglect them and one rainy night they will up and leave.  The worm is a wonderful creature who wasn't always appreciated till Charles Darwin pointed out to the Victorian era folks who believed worms were harmful, that they need not remove them from their pot plants.Indeed the worms manure makes plants grow superbly.

Note the size of the matchbox in both these pics and the verdant green colour of the calendula plant grown  in the worm castings above.

Calendula without castings

 The worm is a predator which feeds not so much on the old lettuce leaves we toss in, as on the multitude of micro organisms that come to decompose that organic matter. The worm eats bacteria and fungi and the protozoas, microarthropods and nematodes which prey on that bacteria and fungi. Worms have a crop which grinds up their prey , releasing  cytoplasm . Worms have an extraordinary ability to destroy pathogens such as e coli, which does not survive passage through the gut of a worm or even exposure to the slime on a worms body .

 Worm manure or castings are free of pathogens and full of beneficial bacteria. The worm has a culture chamber in its rear end which innoculates material passing through the worm with good bacteria, such as bacillus serenade and  Pseudomonas. Some members of the genus Pseudomonas are able to metabolise chemical pollutants in the environment, and as a result can be used for bioremediation. You can detoxify land contaminated with DDT and dieldran using worms. Dr Elaine Ingham has detoxified a property in 3 months using compost tea made from worm castins, which is pretty cool....it normally takes 500 years.

Worms eat their own weight every day, reducing putrescent waste to valuable soil.

Worm populations will grow to cope with any size mountain of waste presented but will need time to build up in numbers. Less time in summer and autumn when temperature is mild and humidity high. 27 degrees C is optimum for worms, who will eat at the surface and happily grow to mating age, or should I say weight. When a worm attains a certain weight it will grow a band around its middle which allow it to have sex with other worms and make capsules.Each capsule or egg may have several baby worms emerging from it.

A worm exposed to ultraviolet light is a stressed worm and after 15 seconds in summer.....is a dead worm.

Two disadvantages with worms over thermo composting is they do not destroy weed seeds, and only operate within a temperature range of between about 17 and 27 degrees, rather like me. They will not be active during dead winter nor happy in high summer. Provide a good foot of bedding soil for them to burrow down into at such times but no deeper as a greater depth getting excessive weighty and soggy could cause the deadly anaerobic conditions we strive to avoid. Anaerobic conditions create habitat suitable for plant pathogens (egs: fusarium, rhyzoctonia, pythium ( damping off), Phytophthora (dieback)) and human pathogens (egs: salmonella, chigella, lysteria, etc) as well as the harmful microbes metabolites like acids, alcohols , formaldehyde. Yuk! Under low oxygen conditions beneficial microbes go dormant, but if the oxygen drops too rapidly they will die. Then their bodies will lyse, releasing their valuable nutrient. We will lose minerals as smelly gasses. Where oxygen drops below 6 ppm, Nitrogen is lost as ammonia ( NH4), elemental sulphur is lost as hydrogen sulphide ( H2S) and valuable phosphorus is lost as odourless but glow -in -the -dark phosphine gas ( PO4).

There are 2 ways to worm farm, continuous flow and batch culture.

Batch culture

For this you need a worm bin with holes in the bottom. 

 . Your worm farm is best sited in a building which will moderate extremes of temperature, but failing this, make your container from the better R Value materials, and choose a site which is not too exposed to the extremes of climate. You should be able to reach it with a water hose . It could just be 4 sleepers in a rectangle, or be made with low brick or urbanite walls. You could use an old bath ( not chipped enamel as this is a lead contamination hazard), better still an old fridge . Fridges are insulated,and have nice fitting lid (the door). Hack a drainage hole into the back and lie it down on its back in the shade of a deciduous tree , then create a few small, flyscreened air holes near the lid, so there is a nice air flow.

Worms will eat anything that was once living . For example: kitchen scraps,old flowers,hay, woodchips, feathers,cardboard, grass and hair clippings, dead rabbits, fish scraps,seaweed, saw dust and wood shavings or chips.See recipe below for proportions. You need a cover to prevent ingress by worm predators such as chooks, other birds and rats, and to keep moisture levels right ( more on that later. If you have a large expired pet, such as a cow, you have a big problem which will go anaerobic. If possible the deceased  should be diced up (this goes for all materials actually, the more surface area the better) but failing this at least prod the carcass vigorously with a garden fork while no one is looking.  Then  well and truly surround and cover with copious woodchips which should be innocculated with a brew of compost and water, a handful to a bucket. After a few weeks introduce a handful of worms.

RIP BoBo Junior,our young  boar who had only fathered one litter. He was killed by a snake last Wednesday.Stew loved this hog who he raised from a weaner. Just our luck we had just despatched the aging BoBo senior, Champion Junior Pig of Woolarama 2007, a few months ago .

For an easy starter worm farm

You'll need:

- 2 polystyrene boxes with lids the same size (broccoli boxes are best)

- A strip of insect screen to fit into the bottom of the boxes

- Shredded newspaper

- A bucket of garden soil,

- Water

- Food scraps

- 1000 composting worms*

* NB: These aren't the same as ordinary earthworms. You will need to buy worms with nicknames like "Tigers", "Reds" and "Blues". They're available from garden centres and worm farmers. Many advertise in the local paper/e bay.

What you need to do

1. Take ONE of your boxes, and make some holes in the lid and in the bottom of the box. This allows oxygen in and also allows extra water and worm wee to drain out. Make your holes evenly spaced. The bigger the container, the more holes you will need. Use a pen or a screwdriver to make the holes.

Spread the insect screen in the bottom, over the holes. This lets the liquid through but stops the worms falling out.

2. Next, fill your container about a quarter  full with shredded newspaper. Dampen your newspaper with water before you add it to the box. All the newspaper should be soaked through but there should not be extra water collecting in the bottom of the bin. Put some garden soil in for initial bedding. Worm casts will gradually be added to the original bedding.

3. It's now time to add some worms to the container. How much you put in depends on the amount of food scraps you plan to compost. 1000 worms are enough to start. They will multiply if you keep them happy.

Place the container (or box) with the worms over the second box, allowing the water and worm wee to drain down into the second box.

4. Next, add some food scraps to the bin. See the chart below for what is good to compost. Make sure you don't overfeed your worms. Start by putting a small amount in one corner underneath some newspaper. See how long it takes your worms to break it down. This should give you an idea of how much your worms can handle at one time. Place your food scraps in a different spot each time.Note worms are surface feeders, just lay the food on top for them. During the cool, dark moist hours they will be feeding there at the surface.

5. Keep an eye on your worms. Make sure that the shredded newspaper does not dry out. Lay a sheet of damp cardboard on top of the food scraps and keep a cover on your box.Again, worms like it better if it's damp and dark and some people house their farms in sheds with no windows for this reason. Over the weeks, the worm wee will collect in the bottom box. You can mix this with water or use neat on your garden. Over the months, a layer of worm poo will build up in the bottom of the top box. One way of removing these castings is to feed the worms on one side of the box only for a few days before  harvest . The worms will nearly all be over in the feeding area when you harvest castings and you wont take too many worms away with the castings. After the raid, spread the remaining  half out flat and start again.

 Vegetable scraps and peelings 

Some people keep an old blender in the kitchen, put fruit and vege waste in there, whizz it up before giving to the worms. This would be helpful in the case of watermelon peel and big stalks and leaves of cauliflower. It’s really spoiling your worms but they will thrive and multiply quickly. Add a bit of water to dryish wastes. Worms like a wet environment but don’t like to swim unless the water is full of oxygen. 

Moisture levels

should be held at 60 to 70 %. An easy way to gauge moisture is to pick up a handful of food without squeezing it. At 70%, drops of water should fall from your hand. It you have to squeeze hard to get a drop of water out, the material is at 50% moisture. Spray evenly with a hose, NOW. Replace cover to keep worms damp and dark.

Serious compost production :

To make large volumes of best quality compost takes larger amounts of waste but the principals are the same.

Follow this recipe :

60% fresh “green” plant material,

30% woody, high carbon or “Brown” material and

10% high nitrogen material.

Examples of Greens:

plant materials harvested green have a high Nitrogen to carbon ratio. This includes coffee beans even though they are brown in colour. It includes fruit and vegetable waste, grass clippings and freshly chipped weeds. These are good bacterial foods.Greens remain "greens" even if they have dried out and turned brown. The simple sugars are still there to feed the bacteria, you just add water and bacteria will breed rapidly. A lot of heat will be generated.

Examples of Browns:

Complex carbohydrate plant material which matured on the plant has a high carbon to nitrogen ratio : hay, straw, chaff, grain hulls, nutshells etc. In this category also are all the wood wastes ( sawdust, shavings, bark, woodchips), paper and cardboard.These very wide C to N ratio materials are the fungal foods.

Examples of high nitrogen material:

Manures and chipped leguminous plants belong here. Worms love a slurry of manure.

A mixture as per above should make up the bulk of your feedstock. In addition, go ahead and add all sorts of household wastes- hair and nail clippings, vacuum cleaner dust ,coffee grounds and tea bags,  crushed egg shells.One thing they really love is soaked paper and cardboard.  It is a very fungal food and so will produce the desirable fungal dominated worm compost.

If you have accidentally added too much high nitrogen stuff, the mixture will heat up and steam your worms. Quickly remove it or add in high carbon things like damp sawdust.

Be careful not to overfeed your worms. Feed just enough that it will all be consumed in 3 days. If there are not enough worms at first to deal with the volumes coming from your house, the waste may get smelly and anaerobic as it sits there. Uneaten food may become a breeding ground for fruit fly . Anaerobic conditions could develop, favoring the likes of e coli. Buy some more worms or reduce food supply till they breed up.

Mature worms who have reached a certain weight are ready to breed and have a saddle around their middle. Each egg capsule ( looks like a grain of wheat in size and shape) can hatch up to 12 baby worms.

A continuous system is a set up in which the bottom inch of cast /bedding material is regularly harvested. This can be achieved by building a “never fill wormery” a la David Murphy in his book ORGANIC GARDENING WITH WORMS.

It is about the size and shape of a wheely bin with a top lid which you lift to deposit kitchen waste, but has 2 inch gap at the bottom which allows one to access the castings.BTW, such a fly proof but ventilated worm bin would be a totally safe way to process human excreta, so lets get building them for every back yard.

Worm egg capsules. 

 The wonderful Nick and Kirsten at Milkwood Permaculture have built both a family sized compost toilet and a system that deals with the wastes of big crowds. See their  wheelie-bin compost toilet system here.

Back to commercial wormfarms, many have a big worm bin on legs with mechanised cutter bar which periodically goes along underneath , slicing off the bottom inch of castings allowing them to fall through the mesh bottom of the bin for harvesting by machine.

Worm casts are miraculous and are the ideal starting material for a brilliant compost tea. Thanks worms!

The free rangiest free range, quality pasture fed farm animals around.

BY now I hope you've all heard that pasture fed fat is good for you, so rich in Omega 3 oils which are so important  especially for youngsters. Its sugar that is bad . Well good, because producing sugar is energy intensive and by contrast, meat , eggs and milk are the most sustainable diet items on our farm.
I so love chooks. We have several chook houses on our farm, each one houses a maximum of 25 hens and a rooster. So everybody knows each other, and everyone's happy.  Im told that 80 % of a chook's daily manure output is deposited at night from the perch, so I an really happy as by putting copius amounts of dry hardwood sawdust and shavings in the house once or twice a year, I can easily collect deep litter for making compost any time I want to. YEs it takes time to collect the eggs and to  let out the chooks at mid day after they have laid most of their eggs ,and to lock them back up at night, and to set up and maintain the vast array of "paddocks " we make of birdnet for them to graze in. It is especially terrible to find them in the garden uninvited. This does happen  with monotonous regularity I'm afraid. Its like you put some compost, mulch and seedlings out and water them and woe,  the fowls  must smell the earthworms and make a super effort to break out. They lay  really nice eggs though.
Our system for the chooks is hard to photograph. I 'll post a  photo now  of the chooks in a bird net room, but its hard to see the lay out unless I get up a big tree. It is like 2 long pens coming off a central house, we alternate from the "humungus pen" ( 50 m long and 4.5 meters wide,  built from recycled barn) to the pergola which goes off at right angles to the Humungus. There are little doors for chooks all along each side of the pen so they can be rotated through at least 20 "paddocks" . These paddocks are made of bird net and there in lies the weakness. They can make their own exit if they try hard enough. I bought some recycled ex vineyard Black birdnet and it is so much stronger than new white we bought, plus visually more appealing.Also, you have to look the little door at night as only the pen and house are fox proof. If you have daytime foxes I would suggest the proper thing but expensive , the electrified poultry netting and solar panel you can buy through Allsun in NSW. Or a good Marema dog, again expensive. Or an Alapaca wether. Or all of the above in bad fox area. Once it is all set up the theory goes that you grow veges in the vacated pens which are all weeded,clear of slaters, slugs and snails, and fertilised a little. The chooks certainly won't deal with kike as they tend to eat out all the comfrey and alfalfa and leave the kike, which they eat only when desperate.
 Anyway , know that our animals all live on pasture , some recieve biodynamic grain too, but obviously the bare minimum cause it is expensive. Check out the well protected goslings, 5 out of 5 surviving crow and fox so far. Spring on the farm is so lovely. Keep the rain coming for just a while longer Patchimama.

I know the pigs are in here somewhere

Of Worms and wheat reveling in the rain

For the first time in about 7 years we are having a proper wet winter. Our Rainfall is double last years to this date. The soil everywhere on the farm is feeling like rich chocolate mud cake, and the plants are looking so happy, seeds are coming up easy, and life is altogether sweet. Is this Mother Nature reminding us of how easy it was to grow food before climate change?

Worms have bred up to very healthy populations in the soil which is properly wet for once. This is actually our worm farm.

Chrissi helped us plant wheat in May. We mulched it with old hay. The ground was just starting to get wet for a few inches down

Here's the wheat 3 months later

Hey piggies, you did  an awesome job of ploughing and fertilizing, bless your curly tails.

I 'm not sure which is wheat and which is rye at this stage, but Im hopeful of a few loaves of bread at least. In farming Ive learnt not to get too hopeful, rats or ducks or weather may get it yet. But it is looking so good, so far.

TWo workshops, a curry van, a speech and a market in one week....Whew!

An enthusiastic group of Southwest people participated in Bee Winfield's workshops last weekend at Nannup's Flower and Garden festival. The importance of growing our own fruit and veges organically was stressed, with slides of research showing the effects of pesticides on children's cognitive development & the links between commonly used organo-phosphates in agriculture to ADHD and learning difficulties. They learnt how Round Up was found in the urine of every subject tested ( 1000 + people in Germany)and saw how plantations of soy, palm oil and timber cutting are destroying the lungs of our Earth ( the rain forests ) at a rate of 6000 acres per hour. This loss of vegetation, and the burning of fossil fuel has resulted in serious climate change already. Facilitator Bee Winfield said " Conventional Agriculture is a major contributor to GHG , and a dying occupation, however organic growing can save the Earth. She stressed that through our buying habits "we create the world we want."
Bee said "Artificial fertiliser is not only contributing to climate change and air pollution by its manufacture, but when applied to soils,  kills off the soil food web. This is why foods are so low in minerals compared to 30 years ago. She said "The marketing to children of junk ( processed) foods is really killing our children and our planet. Obesity alone is bankrupting our health system."
A slide of an orang-outang clinging to a lone tree after bulldozers clear felled several square miles of his rainforest home for palm oil, prompted Yvonne to share how her partner & son were currently trekking in a Malaysian rainforest & had visited a tribe whose children are sick and dying from the poisoned creeks flowing from the palm plantations. The point was brought home by an array of left over snack chips, waves and rings from a function held in the same hall the night before.
After a lot of grim news, came the exciting news that our farms and gardens can become healthy eco systems which rely on a web of pest and predator. The group was encouraged to view a pest outbreak as a breeding ground for predators, and shown how to bring insect eating birds, reptiles and bats to their horticultures. The "soil food web" contains 1/3 of all living things on Earth. Tilling and use of fungicides annihilates important microscopic life forms. Bee claims that  3 years or less after conversion to organics a farmer will find no use for chemicals and use less fuel.
The school kindly lent Bee an older microscope for the workshop, to analyse soil from the community garden pathways and compare it to soil microbes in composted beds. Unfortunately we lacked magnification and couldn't see much, although a Manjimup boy managed to focus in on a leaf, to his joy. An aerobic compost heap teems with "good guy " microbes and we saw microscopic slides of a bad bug nematode being lassoed by a fungal hypha. We then saw a tomato root unprotected by mychorrizal fungi with a root eating nematode going right in to feed! There were also slides of predatory nematodes which consume root feeders types .
The workshop culminated in a compost tea brewing demonstration. After a few days aeration the tea is full of beneficial bugs which when sprayed out on the leaves and soil can "miraculously" improve soil structure and water logging, get rid of pesticide residues, prevent nutrient and lime applicatons leaching away, increase nutrients in plants (because the microbes dissolve minerals from our sand, silt and clay and hold them near the plant roots in plant available form), and reduce watering costs by up to 70%. A well fed plant does not send out stress signals which attract " Natures Garbage Collectors"…… the pests and diseases. The reasons why properly made compost gives plants resistance to pests and disease are only now coming to light with the advent of the electron microscope.

Two  brave little boys , one clearing the swale as the  big boar  they were feeding some oats rose to his feet!! 

On the Sunday ,16 participants coming from as far away as Perth, Collie, Donnybrook, Bridgetown, Northcliffe and Manjimup attended the Swale workshop. They were pleasantly surprised to learn about the myriad of benefits this cheap, easy & quick water harvesting installation can bring . After the workshop the group car pooled to Merri Bee Organic Farm to see the good growth of citrus and cattle fodder trees on 5 young swales. The sun shone for the first time all weekend on the sparkling water of the Blackwood river flowing by. The visitors were charmed by the sights, scents and sounds of spring on the farm, and were all very grateful to Bee and  Well Being Warren Blackwood who funded the workshops.
" The secret Life of Soil " series , exploring how to make good compost and teas from it  will be an extraordinarily educational day at the farm commencing on   November 2nd. Home gardeners and farmers will learn  more profitable ways to grow healthy productive plants. This will cost $60.00 with optional lunch from the farm of $15.00, all organic of course. Please book early as places are limited . Email Bee : beewinfield@westnet.com.au.

On November 3^rd Nannup Shire presents David Piggott Ba Sc who will present “Argentine Ant control the Natural way “ Community action is fun , easy , low toxic and WORKS!

 

Details as they emerge.

Time to Spring into action as Flowers and Gardens bloom !

We looked around yesterday and realized the weeds are on the move, the almond trees are blossoming , the banjo frogs are jamming down in the swamp and spring is springing. From now till Christmas we will be flat out in the vege garden seeding, weeding, mowing,  transplanting and mulching. I got my chilie , capsis tomatoes and eggplant planted in seed trays in the plastic house yesterday. Its a great time to put in peas and  potatoes direct in the garden. A month form now sunflowers, corn  and pumpkins can go in.  I will  admit to you we are just getting to transplanting the onions and haven't pruned the grapes yet. I did achieve bamboo cuttings recently.
We've been happy to host a young lady from Japan this week. Yuka is learning English and helping us out with a bit of weeding, tree planting and sales at markets.

Weeding the garlic and onions that did get planted on time.

 So wet at Karridale, the swales are more like dams, the paddocks are saturated and the swale mounds maybe the best place to plant tagasaste. Plenty of willows and poplars have been planted out  to bind the soil and feed the cattle and earthworms.

Bee and Yuka staying at the weeding task.

At Nannup Flower and Garden Festival this weekend, we will be cooking an all organic curry or two for the event, to be served with organic rice. Also from the Organic Food Van our roasted macadamia and pecan nuts with banana ice cream should not be missed, plus I will be  presenting a workshop in Nannup at 11.30am at the shire on both Saturday and Sunday. Our farm tour to show swales in action will be 4 pm Sunday at the farm ($20 a head, free tastings of produce ) Come and get an earful of great  growing advice this weekend!

Don't want to blow my own bugle but......

Sometimes when my stars for the week mean I will need to deal with criticism from many quarters and Im feeling like a failure, I turn to my testimonial page and just read....

Thank you so much Bee and Stewart for an amazing day, extremely educational and extremely delicious!! Please also add my new email address to your making list. 

This was one of the best workshops I've ever done, the learning was immense.  I was so excited I went foraging yesterday on Dad's property, looking for fungi, which I'm pretty sure I found in the composting layer on the forest floors.  I collected lots of samples from a variety of high biomass areas and I'm going to have a bash at using the samples to inoculate compost and soil at home....see if I can boost up the fungi levels!

 Just wanted to let you know, we had the rump roast rubbed with fennel seeds last night and tonight, and it was some of the most delicious meat we have ever had. So moist with the fat, and so tasty. So nice to eat meat that I didn't have to worry about - because I knew it had had the most perfect, happy life right till the end. Could just enjoy it for two reasons - firstly, it was perfect, so I didn't feel bad that some animal died for an average tasting bit of food, secondly, because I knew she had a good life. Plus, lots of lard saved for future roast potatoes. Food of the gods (apart from mash of course). The main difference I noticed with your pork compared to ordinary pork, is that the fatty bits are nice to eat, not a flubbery, grainy, nasty jelly mess like from other producers. Loved it, let me know when you are raising more meat of any kind, and we will have some. S J

I come in a few times to the organic markets when i lived in Belmont for your lovely roast beef, best I've tasted. J.M.

The lamb chops were amazing. The fat on your animals tastes completely different than other meats, it is crispier if that makes sense (even better than other organic grass fed meats). I wonder what it is that does that? The raspberries were the best I ever had, so firm and tasted just like raspberries if you know what I mean? I loved the yoghurt, it tastes more sour but I like that (and so does James). The more sour/fermented it is the more lactobacilli and other bacteria there is. Also it has less lactose, which is better. You can really taste the difference between yours and other organic yoghurts (which are only done for 6-12 hours). The bread is really delicious too.  RT

Hi Bee,

Thankyou so much to you and Stew for a fun, entertaining, informative and simply wonderful day. I learned so much and can't wait to get started with putting into practice some of the things I learnt today. It sure is daunting suddenly having 10 acres to manage with no farming experience let alone permaculture or biodynamics! but i am very willing to learn and have a go to help give the best nutrition to my family and do the right thing by the environment. Thankyou so much for opening your lovely home to us and being so generous with your time and knowledge. I feel very lucky to have been able to come along and am so glad I met you guys before listening to everyone else telling me that I must "make roundup my friend"!  

Hi Bee

I had a great time on the weekend, i was amazed at how quick you could feel at home in your home. For me it was great to meet you three in away that i felt you can live ge free and organicly and still fit in with society. Already have started my worm farm. Also has changed what i buy from the shops and working on the bigger plan. I even found myself looking up land in Nannup on sunday night.

I dont realy have much constructive critism, as it was great. I felt i learned a lot more once it was the three of us rather than saturday morning when we were with others that already knew a lot more, it got a bit complicated for me. So i think it would good if possible for people at similar stages to spend the weekend together as we had.  Also i think the more hands on stuff on the farm it what i remenber the most and would encourage that side the most.

I enjoyed it a lot  and would love to come again in the future.

In regards to the market, do you need to pre - order. What time does it start. Is there any chance you will have anymore of that berry compot, already finished it, yum. Were after yogurt, ice cream, bacon, avo and what size do the hams come in (i realy like the ham we had at lunch)

Regards b

thankyou so much for a truly wonderful stay.
i felt so nourished on every level.
it was a perfect mix….

just had your milk- best milk I have ever tasted in my life

Just did the course last weekend, it was absolutely brilliant! Such a beautiful farm with many happy animals.Organic farming has been a viable way of farming for thousands of years, things went wrong when scientists brainwash you into believing that food should come from a laboratory or a factory. Do the course and you'll learn how to grow your own in a natural sustainable way! Michele

Thank you so much for a fabulous weekend – Gres and I both thoroughly enjoyed being part of your organic farm and family and taking away so much information with us. We are very keen to start with small projects; baking our own sour dough bread, starting a worm farm, investigating a water tank, being aware of GM foods and buying the non-GM alternative and only feeding the kids organic meats, fruits and vegies. 

Dear Bee, a big thank you to you for having me in your very interesting Gourmet gardening weekend permaculture course. It's such a prestigious experience to see how permaculture works on your farm..and all these wonderful films we got to see and amazing food we got to taste. I am so glad I came. I will try and source some ingredients to make my first sourdough. I look forward to receiving the recipe. Also could you tell me the name again of that herb growing in the patch upslope from your compost? Epi...ti.

Hi Bee and Stew .Thank you so much for such a great weekend! It was so informative and we look forward to implementing things in our garden! Will be in touch soon

Again thank you for a great weekend. Emmy

And from a couple of youths who want to go all organic but are struggling to afford it:

Its just that we know that your produce is the best in Australia, and at the most outrageously good value prices, and we not only want to eat your stuff but also support you in what you do as much as we can. We have been thinking of a trip down south soon, and we will definitely come say hi and help out when we do!

 These emails were unsolicited and mean a lot to us .  Honestly, if I had a dime for very time we've heard people say or  email "  Your eggs ( or meat) is the best I have ever tasted by far" I would be a rich Merri Bee

 This letter today I am very proud of. (Remember if you want a good speaker on GM I 'll be there in a flash): 

Club B,

Silver Chain,

Peninsula Road,

Bridgetown 6255

01-08-13

Bee Winfield,

3 Thomas road,

Nannup.

beewinfield@westnet.com.au

Dear Bee,

Thank-you for giving your talk “Healthy Soil - Healthy Food -

Healthy people - Healthy Planet” to the members of Club B on Friday 26^th July 2013.

What a wealth of information you gave us. It really was a fascinating

presentation and stimulated a lot of interest in the members. Some of the information you gave was totally new to many of us. It was obvious that you had done a great deal of research and we were grateful that you made the information available to us.

Thank-you for giving us the little 'GE' pamphlets on the foods so we will be able to do more careful food shopping from now on.

Thank-you for taking the time to come to Silver Chain to give this

excellent presentation to our members. It was very much appreciated.

Kind Regards,

E. W

On behalf of Silver Chain

and Club B Organising Committee.

On behalf of the Balingup Small Farm Field Day Committee, thank you for your time and contribution to the field day with your composting demonstration.  

It is wonderful to have an experienced practitioner working with the stuff day in, day out, as you are on your Nannup farm.   

You made it accessible and interesting to people, and your detailed knowledge on the topic was appreciated. 

Thank you again for making the 2016 Field Day a memorable and successful event.

Kind regards,

Janine Milton

Coordinator BSFFD Committee

Snack foods are made by burning down the Amazon rainforest.

Snacks of chips are burning down the lungs of the Earth. Forests are being burnt to make way for palm oil plantations . The oil goes in to snack foods.  Please sign the petition ( Link in blue)

 If you are hankering for some chippies but dont want to support multinational food companies who wreak havoc on orangatangs may I suggest you  buy organic lard from our cell grazed pigs and make your own ? Munch away while healing the planet with your purchases.

 When the sows pictured below have turned that lot of grass into manure and urine and body mass they will move to the next small paddock between swales. Earthworms and smaller biology will convert the leavings into humus (that's carbon you know, carbon that was once in the air). Humus will remain in the soil for hundreds of years unless ploughing takes place whereupon it will be released as CO2. Trees will grow well on the edges of the paddocks to supply the air oxygen and us animals delicious fruit. If we are to survive on the planet , we will do so by harmonising with micro and macro biology. Had some Lard on popcorn last week. It was  rather  nice and negative  carbon emmissions.

http://ran.org/act//?t=f

ran.org

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