My current dilemma: do I want to buy a 200 liter barrel? It seems likely that at some point, possible in the near future, I´m going to be doing some gardening. Specifically, I´m probably going to be working with anywhere between one and three schools to start school gardens, which they can use to grow food and teach. I also could start a garden on some unused land in the municipal nursury where I could do some experimentation with methods and fertilization.
I would hope to begin a compost pile at each school, but the matter remains of what to use for fertilizer to begin the gardens. The quickest organic fertilizer taht I could make is manure tea, which is just like it sounds like. You fill a burlap sach half way with manure and put it in a giant barrel. If you want to get fancy, throw in some molasses and yeast and really get the microbial action started. It takes about 2 weeks, and when it´s done brewing you water it down some more, and then water your crops with it. The cheapest barrel I´ve seen is $38. I don´t think I really need 200L, but a 100L barrel is still $30, so there isn´t much point in going smaller. I would keep the barrel at the tree nursery, at least at first, and I could fill smaller containers with the concentrate to carry it elsewhere. Yes, these are the things a Peace Corps volunteer thinks about.
In other fertilization news, Worms! Yes, worms. We broke ground today on a new lombriculture system at the nursury. By broke ground, I mean, spent hours picking through the large compost heap and removing rocks, trash, and thick sticks. Once that is done and we have reached ground level, we are building three 1x5 meter beds out of cynder blocks. One bed will be for fresh organic matter, one for partially decomposed organic matter, and the third will be for the worms. Worms turn dirt into humus, which is possibly the best organic fertilizer there is because it´s both rich in nutrients and has excelent soil structure. Hopefully we´ll have the beds done sometime next week.
