Hi Evelyne
answer is yes and no or both. ( Can I be politician now ?)

pest controle: use tabaco juce, pieris Japanonice= asebi. have been used as pesticide. wrap rice straws around tree trunk to attract pest and later burn it.
prune tree , shurbs, the way we do also reduce pest problem.
after pruning, collect twigs, leave . dig small hole where ever has open spot and bury organic materials into it,compact it , put back some soil. when digging a hole(s), prune some roots and roots prune also reduce growth, encorrage develope roots developments, enrich soil . it has many benefits doing so. Takeing dedries to dump is much quicker and cheaper how ever.
Bury debries in garden much as posible , and rest have to cary out to field and burn it. after branch twigs leave are burned, use ash as fertilizer , put it back to to garden. but if you live in city or some county buring is prohibited. so you have to take it to dump.

Are there old techniques that we could still use in our gardens? answer is yes. Is it practical ? I am not for sure.

about Eta : I will write later
..........................mike

Evelyne, I don't want to hijack this thread but there is question that I have been dying to ask Yama Sensei.

A few years ago, I was at a Farmer's market and met an older Japanese man who had tho most incredibly tasting marion berries. I commented on their taste and asked how he did it. He, with a twinkle in his eye, said "just water". I thought he was nuts but I bought a flat from him then and the next week. The third week, I said to him "just water right?" He looked at me for a long time and then went back to his pickup truck and handed me a book. I pay for the berries and offer something for the book. He says "no charge". That is the last time I ever saw him again.

The book was written by Dr. Teruo Higa. It involves a soil amendment process called "EM Bokashi". Serious old school Japanese farming technique. I was intrigued as it is mostly anaerobic versus the aerobically brewed compost teas that are getting popular in these parts.

Yama sensei- are you familiar with this technique??

Michael

Mike-san,

"Yes or no or both" answers are the kind I like best, because they are usually followed by useful and/or interesting information (unless it is a politician who's answering: you're way too helpful to qualify, Yama-san :)

I had heard of tobacco juice as a pesticide, but not of asebi/Pieris japonica - is that brewed from the leaves like with the tabacco?
Burning the rice straw wrapping to kill pests is a nice idea: would that be done in the spring, after frost is no long expected, but before all those eggs laid into little straw nests hatch out?
Burying the organic debris directly in the garden is so simple I'd never have thought of it :) But now I remember that my uncle, an ex-farmer with an astoundingly productive vegetable garden in a tiny urban backyard, does exactly that. (As well as dispatching any nuisance animal in the neighborhood, and then burying it four feet deep under next year's tomatoes :)

You make a very important point about practicality, Mike-san: for me and perhaps for many backyard gardeners, it would be impractical to buy chemicals and sprayers and protective gear, and worry about storage & disposal and so on.
But for you, with large numbers of other people's gardens to worry about and (at least some :) economy of scale, it is probably much more practical to spray - and probably what most clients prefer, which is hardly a point to neglect.
(But please let me urge you to be very careful about the chemicals and protective gear, Yama-san: dandelion "coffee" can do only so much to cleanse your liver - especially if you don't drink it! :)

Nachodaddy, please, hijack away! :)
I have been curious as all get out for years about Japanese farming and produce garden techniques. The books on ornamental gardens describe how to slow and direct growth, but (rightly enough for their subject) nothing about traditional Japanese methods for making things grow. My mother tells me about how Western methods used to be on her father's farm, and I wonder how Japanese farming methods differ and how they might be similar.

Of course, all this may really boil down to one very simple request:
Mike-san, some quiet afternoon when you have a few spare minutes, would you please be so kind as to write down for us every thing you know? :) :) :)

thanks!

- evelyn

PS. Nachodaddy: Anaerobic compost tea?
I've had a couple loads of compost go anaerobic on me (a five gallon bucket in winter doesn't heat up much) and the compost is excellent. The odor is something else again though. The neighbors never notice when I'm working aerobic compost, which has a mild smell of wet mushrooms, but I have to hope they're not home when I hit an anaerobic spot.

evelyn- I also brew my own compost tea. I say "brew" as I use an air compressor and molasses. I know it it aerobic because I brew it for over an hour in an oxygenated environment.

EM Bokashi helps stimulate the soil by providing the anaerobic component (Lactobacilli and photosynthetic bacteria for example) that helps plants thrive.

I am trying to get enough strength to do this as I am smart enough to know that if I mess up, I can actually be breeding bad anaerobic bacteria (think E Coli).

I work in a field that makes me accessible to microbiologists. I explained this process to one of them and he tried to liken it to making yogurt or miso. If you have an environment that caters to enough "good" microbiologics then if a "bad" microbiologic comes by it is either consumed, driven off, or starves. Kinda like in the old days when a Bronco fan showed up at a Seahawks game :-)

Japanese have been doing this for centuries using only organic components. Serious old school.

I "think" I understand the science here. Just seeing if anyone else has some success here. I truly believe if you feed the soil, you feed the plant.

Michael

Nachodaddy,

I don't know much about the aerobic compost teas, I brew mine by pouring water into the compost bucket and collecting what drips through. It sure smells anaerobic; I spy on my downstairs neighbor and only water it into the balcony garden when she's not home :)

It hadn't occured to me that I might brew something unbeneficial: I'm not bad with physical sciences, but stuff that grows and dies and competes and starves just confuses me (except for the plants in my garden, which delight and confuse me:) Hmm... can your microbiology buddies recommend any tests to confirm which bacteria you've brewed?

I also like to feeding the soil: if a plant has no good reason not to be healthy, it will either grow, or sometimes pretty quickly cash in its chips and die. I prefer the first, but if the plant really doesn't belong in my garden, it's better for us to both find out quickly :)

- Evelyn

Evelyn-

The only way I know how to quantify what is in your brew is in a lab with a microscope. An expensive one. Plus you have to have the training to know what to look for.

I am not sure where in Western Oregon you are at, but in Corvallis there is an organization that researches a lot of these kinds of questions. Funded partially with your tax dollars through OSU, Soil Foodweb is a wealth of information with regard to feeding the soil. Their URL is www.soilfoodweb.com. They have periodic training sessions that I would love to go to.

BTW, they are firmly entrenched in the aerobic camp. A few years ago, I asked about EM Bokashi and I got the internet equivalent of a blank stare and "why do you want to do that?".

GTG, the Zoo awaits.

Michael

I am trying to get enough strength to do this as I am smart enough to know that if I mess up, I can actually be breeding bad anaerobic bacteria (think E Coli).

Or worse yet and more likely, Claustridium botulinum and Claustridium tetani.

Evelyn, another resource might be Oregon Tilth, the organic certification people. Or make a call to Clackamas Community College and ask Elizabeth Howley, head of the Hort Department, to tell you what progress and observations they've made in the last two years with Soil Soup.

Susan

I've had a couple loads of compost go anaerobic on me (a five gallon bucket in winter doesn't heat up much) and the compost is excellent. The odor is something else again though. The neighbors never notice when I'm working aerobic compost.

I've been gardening for over 30 years both organically and inorganically. The longer I garden the more I move to the organic methods. I'm really a novice on Japanese Gardening but it would seem that organic is organic regardless of the plants and the country.

The the lab firm "Soil Foodweb Inc." has done literally over 200,000 tests on compost, soils, and compost teas. Elaine Ingham, Ph.D., the founder, teaches courses on aroebic vs anaerobic and acts as a consultant to farmers, orchids, and cattle ranchers all over the world.

Anaerobic compost will still have beneficial nutrients but often many of the best nutrients are lost to the air when the compost goes anaerobic and the microbiology selected is mostly harmful. The beneficials will either be outcompeted or go to sleep or be consumed - it is just the opposite in an aerobic situation where the mostly only good guys win. Also in nature the process for plants to thrive and survive has developed in an aerobic envornment. When nature goes destructive the anaerobic biology often goes through a bloom and bust cycle to clean up the materials that are left and the envornment becomes aerobic again given enough time. With a compost that has gone anaerobic much beneficial biology is lost but if given time it will come back so your compost that went anaerobic may have recovered sufficently or it may have only provided foods for the bacteria and fungi to grow in the soil in a recovery phase. Without testing it is all ancedotal. I took a 2.5 day course from Elaine in March and I'm going back in November to take another class from her. She has about 6 sets of CD's that I have listened to and 3-4 books which I have read. My point is there is just too much information to post it to a forum like this, especially when this is off-topic.

Also I want to disclose my background only to let you know my weaknesses and bias up front. I've studied this area and know more than most but when I get with the experts I'm still a novice.

I also brew my own compost tea. I say "brew" as I use an air compressor and molasses. I know it it aerobic because I brew it for over an hour in an oxygenated environment.

The molasses feeds bacteria. When I brew a compost tea I no longer add molasses but I add fungal foods fish hydroysate and kelp. The bacteria grow so rapidly they can overwhelm a system easily even when oxygen is added constantly. Most teas are brewed for 24 hours and if they go anaerobic even with oxygen diffused through the tea they are most likely to go anaerobic somewhere between hour 16 - 20 and they could actually come back aerobic by the 24th hour. Anaerobic teas are also used as well as leachates but tests of these teas show them to be inconsistent as to what is produced and at times they can brew some really nasty things. Actually with a one hour brew it is really more like a leachate. The typical goal in brewing an aerobic compost tea is to extract and grow the beneficial bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. In reality only the bacteria will grow of any consequence in less than three days so extraction becomes very important and you can only extract what is there. When using compost and not Actively Areated Compost Tea (AACT) all of this is irrelevant because in a natural system the biology has all been worked out over eons of time and a cold compost pile functions more like a natural enviornment.

EM Bokashi helps stimulate the soil by providing the anaerobic component (Lactobacilli and photosynthetic bacteria for example) that helps plants thrive

Lactobacillis is a bacteria that grows on milk protiens. I don't understand why it would be beneficial in soils. The photsynethetic bacteri is one of the very first bacteria to show up in an early evolutionary envirnment. In primitive soils such as is found in deserts like Moab Utah it will make up 50% of the bacteria. Also bacteria dominated soils select for the very earliest successional plant such as early successional grasses and weeds. As soils become more complex the variety of bacteria will grow to as many as 30,000 different bacteria per teaspon. As systems become more complex the early successional grasses are replaced by meadow grasses, then perennials and then trees with conifers being the latest in the succession and requiring a fungal dominated soil with 1,000 times as much fungi as bacteria. It is the fungi that makes the soils acidic which is required by pines and conifers typical of Japanese Gardens. Even Azaleas need at least three times as much fungi as bacteria in the rhizosphere to thrive.

Most manipulated soils are bacterial dominated because the slicing and diceing selects against fungi. Consequently when I brew a compost tea I try to make it as fungal as possible by using highly fungal compost and then using only fungal foods in the brew.

Fungal to Bacterial Biomass ratios for selected plants:
Lawn grass
0.5 to 1.0
Carrots
0.5 to 0.8
Lettuce
0.5 to 0.8
Kale
0.5 to 0.8
Wheat
0.8 to 1.0
Tobacco
1.0-3.0
Flowering annuals
1.0-3.0
Flowering perennials
3.0-5.0
Grape
3.0 to 5.0
Apples, cherries, peaches, pares and orchard fruits
10.0 to 50.0
Deciduous ornamental trees
10.0 to 100.0
Pines
50 to 100.0
Alders
5.0 to 100.0
Conifers
100 to 1000
Ornamental shrubs
10.0 to 100.0

I know this is not explained well nor are the thoughts cohesive. I'm feeling dizzy today so I appologize for the lack of editing and clarity that I know should go into this.

The juice from tobacco leaves is rich in a substance long known, and used, to kill beings. Nicotine. We had a Nicotine puffer, two if you include my father, in the shed at home: it worked.

Hi all
EM stand for effective micobe . about 15 years a go I studied soy bean production and other agri products. A Japannese Nato produceing company was looking for organic grown soybean. Team of Univercity of Georgia Reserchers also reserching growing soy bean organicly. Japanese farmers need to find way to maximiz yeild per squar footage. In this country average a farmer can handle 300 to 500 acres to grow soy bean. when an american farmer need to increase profit , simply increase acarage to grow soy bean. other hand Japanese famer can not afford to buy additioanl land or lease farm land.

when we produce chacol , there is by product of chacol called " mokusu". when you burn fire wood, you see small amount of some liquide on fire wood. that is mokusu. Mokusu have been used as pestcide, stimulateing growth, preventing diease,etc .
it has many benefits. other products of EM are used fruits such as banna, apple, citrus, potato, dokudami,etc and make it brew and or fermanted it. It may have been added small amout of fertilizers as well.

"Bokashi" mean diluted or to dilute. I don not have information of test result of EM products. It was very expensive to apply. cost of EM product need to apply to one acre of soybean field exceed whole gross income of one acre soy bean field. no farmer could not afford it.

If I have 20 to 25 acre of good farm land, 120 mile south of Atlanta, I can make gross income equal to 700~ 800 are of soy bean,and wheet or cotton combine.
I have not studied agri business after 1994, I do ot know well about test result of EM products.

Jackarias :
Thank you for sharing your informations. It is very intresting informations and it is useful. It is okey to write "off topic" time to time. It makes this forum intresteing.

I can write my love story in this forum too . hehehe
I know some one smileing reading this. .......... mike

Just a caution about the Soil Foodweb outfit - they produce a lot of good information, but it must be remembered that they are a business and not a public service organization like the university extension programs. There is a good deal of controversy surrounding Dr. Ingham within the agricultural research community as she has traditionally made a lot of claims without backing them up with verifiable evidence. I'm not saying the information is bad, but it shouldn't be taken as gospel without further investigation, especially any claims about the superiority of actively aerated teas.

Thank you for sharing all the info Yama Sensei!

There is a good deal of controversy surrounding Dr. Ingham within the agricultural research community as she has traditionally made a lot of claims without backing them up with verifiable evidence

Would you please give verifiable evidence to back up this claim.

Look up an author/farmer named Masonobu Fukuoka
He wrote a few books "One Sraw Revolution" being one of them.
The only advantage to compost or manure tea I find is it provides a way to return nutrients to the soil without weed seeds. Manures and composts can be very weedy.

Nachodaddy said:
"In Corvallis Soil Foodweb is a wealth of information with regard to feeding the soil. Their URL is www.soilfoodweb.com"
and Susan said:
"another resource might be Oregon Tilth, the organic certification people. Or make a call to Clackamas Community College and ask Elizabeth Howley, head of the Hort Department, to tell you what progress and observations they've made in the last two years with Soil Soup."

IÂm in Salem, right in between Corvallis and Clackamas :) Thanks for the resource info, Nachodaddy & Susan, IÂll definitely check it out.

Jackarais said:
"When I brew a compost tea I no longer add molasses but I add fungal foods fish hydroysate and kelp."

Sorry, but would that be "fungal foods, and fish hydroysate"? A substance called "fungal foods fish hydroysate" sounds way too biologically sophisticated for me :)

Jackarais also said:
"The bacteria grow so rapidly they can overwhelm a system easily even when oxygen is added constantly. Most teas are brewed for 24 hours [ÂsnipÂ] Âextraction becomes very important and you can only extract what is there. When using compost and not Actively Aerated Compost Tea (AACT) all of this is irrelevant because in a natural system the biology has all been worked out over eons of time and a cold compost pile functions more like a natural environment."

Ok, IÂm in way over my head now. But does this mean that if I continue to define my "compost tea" as "the stuff that comes out the bottom of the pile after youÂve poured water in on the top", and throw it out if itÂs been sitting for a while or if it has scum or anything growing on it, it should be mostly harmless?

BTW, my smelly anerobic compost gets turned back into the bin, drained and sifted and enriched with carbon-rich stuff (dry leaves, coffee filters, paper shreddings, etc.). Then those two elements seem to go to town and turn into finished composto magnifico in record time.

And Jackarais further said:
"It is the fungi that makes the soils acidic which is required by pines and conifers typical of Japanese Gardens. Even Azaleas need at least three times as much fungi as bacteria in the rhizosphere to thrive.
Most manipulated soils are bacterial dominated because the slicing and dicing selects against fungi. Consequently when I brew a compost tea I try to make it as fungal as possible by using highly fungal compost and then using only fungal foods in the brew."

I thought it was the leaching of alkali elements by large amounts of rainwater that made soil acid (?).
By "highly fungal compost" and "fungal foods", do you mean stuff like spent mushroom compost, and/or the microrhyzzia one can buy to enrich ones soil?

Mike-san said:
"If I have 20 to 25 acre of good farm land, 120 mile south of Atlanta, I can make gross income equal to 700~ 800 are of soy bean, and wheet or cotton combine."

And I mentioned "My uncle, an ex-farmer with an astoundingly productive vegetable garden in a tiny urban backyard"Â Uncle Bud may be a Japanese gardener and not even know it :) :) :) For forty years, he has been adding all the compostable material he could get his hands on to his approx. 1700 sq. ft. backyard. At first, he couldnÂt afford chemicals, and by the time he could, he would never have given up his earthworms :) IÂve read about Japanese farmers intensively cultivating tiny plots of land with amazing per-unit-area-results, but never realized that Bud was one of them :)

Bambooo said:
"The only advantage to compost or manure tea I find is it provides a way to return nutrients to the soil without weed seeds. Manures and composts can be very weedy. "

The real advantage I find to compost tea is that it carries all its nutrients and beneficial fauna to the roots of the plants, without the dilemma of how to place solid material next to the roots without disturbing them.
Weedy composts arenÂt getting hot enough. I think the same is true of manures, although as an apartment gardener, the composting of manure is something I have left to be done by others:) I can steer you towards plenty of info on developing your compost if youÂre interested.

Mike-san also said:
" It is okey to write "off topic" time to time. It makes this forum intresteing.
I can write my love story in this forum too . hehehe"

If you were to write your love story here, Mike, that would make this forum very interesting. Please be sure to give us all the details ;)

- Evelyn

Hey we could start an organic soap opera! "As the Worm Turns"

Mike got the girl, he got the job, can he get a "Hell, Yeah!"?

Gorfram and Jackarias discuss the intricacies of compost; Tea for two and poo for tea?

Tune in next week...

Oh by the way Jackarias, Cornell has a study working on the antagonistic counterculture properties of Lactobacillus; seems it actually predates on incoming fungii. That's why you can't get yogurt to spoil...bye-bye to botrytis and phytophtera...

Scott said:
"Mike got the girl, he got the job, can he get a "Hell, Yeah!"?"

Hell, Yeah!
(Congrats to Mike :) :) :)

- Evelyn

PS. Scott, maybe I can't get botrytis and phytophtera, but I can get *something* blue-green and un-yogurt-like if I leave the yogurt in the fridge for an embarassingly long time...