018 - Korean Natural Farming probiotics with Drake Weinert
Taking Probiotics to a Whole New Level
In more of a how to episode, Drake joins us again to share with us some of the preparations of Korean Natural Farming. We talk about the how to, but also delve into how we can use these preparations for our plants, our animals, and how we can use them to boost the helth of our own microbiome.
Drake's Links:
http://naturalfarminghawaii.net/
http://whogrew.com/
Korean Natural Farming Facebook Group
Show Notes
Indigenous Microorganisms (IMO) As Baths
- IMO pile: nutrients with indigenous organisms, added carbohydrates, fats, and oils
- you can have a dry bath in IMO
- creates an artificial fever in your body, raises temp like a sauna
- cooks pathogens & parasites out of your body
- opens pores to let good microbes back in
- microbes reduce in number in every successive generation living in cities
- IMO baths can restore those lost microbes
- these restored microbes are now present in your body to fight off disease like armour
- good for humans and livestock both
Nutrient Cycle Theory
- how do you know when your plant is a teenager?
- learning to diagnose the changeover period in plants, and what they need
- nutrient cycle theory: 3 stages in a plant’s life
- 1) accumulative growth - growing leaves, 2) changeover growth - flowering, 3) reproductive growth - fruiting
- to recognise changeover period: look for “yellowing”, plant looking pale - it’s having “morning sickness”
- feed it the right food, help it have an easier transition between flowering and fruiting, just like a pregnant woman
- give it calcium phosphate to help grow the “bones” of the plant in this stage
More About IMO
- 2 branches of KNF: microbes and foods
- IMO comes under microbes branch
- gather indigenous microbes from the dankest part of the forest
- IMO start to build soil structure
Master Cho
- was almost killed for not charging money for his farming
- faith in humanity, vision for restoration through farming
- knows land so well he has developed intuition about what’s happening with it
Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ)
- literally “green juice from heaven” in Korean, food for plants and humans
- how to make: can use food material that would otherwise have been discarded, mix with sugar
- Drake used rambutan peels and seeds, not much fruit
- could also use things like palm tree or milkweed, readily available plant materials
- it’s the hormones and enzymes in the plant that make a medicine
- it’s immediately bioavailable into your body as it’s already “digested”, so your body can absorb it as a pure food
- picking tips of plants before dawn to FPJ, as they contain maximum enzymes and hormones for plant growth at that time
- for human consumption: use a food safe container, make it where you would make your other food
- use common sense, pick plants that are known to be safe for eating
On Drake’s Farm
- WhoGrew Farms www.whogrew.com
- OH Makai field 1
- if you check out these links, you can see Drake’s gardens, follow the schedule of looking after his plants, using KNF methods, and see the impact they have
- make your product with enough care that you would drink it, then you can be sure it will be good for your plants
- they use their homemade Fish Amino Acid as flavouring in kimchi
- Drake has not gotten sick from eating his homemade products, in fact he is healthier now
Advice for those wanting to learn KNF
- go learn from someone already using the methods
- some people have made deals where they can use other people’s land to try out these farming practices
- make a variety of FPJs from available materials, keep them in your fridge to use in drinks, desserts, etc
- making water soluble calcium: toast chicken eggshell, dissolve in vinegar
- use your nose: if it smells funky, or it has mould, don’t eat it
- health is diversity: give your body diverse microbes
Final Thoughts
- Drake would like to create tech programs to help people understand natural farming
- returning to older style of eating: keeping microbes in the food instead of trying to kill them all
- discussion of how Ben started out making FPJ and other products
- could we ferment jellyfish?
- may the beneficial microbes be with you