Green Thumb Compost Tea Workshop

There is a buzz brewing around compost tea in Ventura these days, mainly due to the efforts permaculture advocates David White of the Ojai Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Ron Whitehurst of Rincon Vitova.  Because of these two soil revolutionaries, we've been able to build a momentum that brought 30+ folks together at Green Thumb Nursery for a hands on compost tea workshop.

We set up two microscopes, brought soil building and permaculture books and manuals, handouts, and a few attendees went home with a gallon of tea teeming with microbial life.  Samples of local soil allowed people to see and smell the difference between the tired soil of industrial farms and the super soil of living compost.

We were excited!  Most everyone attending had active compost piles in their backyards, but few had attempted making actively aerated compost tea.  This is why these workshops are so important.  The connections we make create a network of shared knowledge and experience.

Just like the connections in the life of the soil food web, we're better when we're feeding each other.  So come out and grow with us.  Actively Aerated Compost Tea is brewing with potential.  Over the next few months we'll be building measuring and adapting our knowledge of the science and the art of AACT.

Ventura Coop can deliver AACT to you directly, or help you establish your own brewing system.  Contact us at 805.765.1892 for more information.


Related Links:
Ojai CRA, Dr. David White
Rincon Vitova, Ron Whitehurst
Soil Food Web, Elaine Ingham

  

Compost Tea: Life Under The Microscope

After attending the Center For Regenerative Agriculture's workshop on compost tea with Elaine Ingham as the featured speaker, we're totally geeking out on the science behind compost tea.

It is amazing to see life under the microscope.  Microbes swimming, spinning and squirming around pieces of fungal strands and small pieces of debris.  It's a moving universe of activity.

Soon we'll be posting pictures of what we find down there.  Though we're being scientific about our approach to brewing tea, we're still trusting our sense of smell and touch.  Organic gardening is a perfect blend of head, heart, and nose.

Come see us at the 4th of July street fair, or at the Ventura County Fair.  Or call us at 805.765.1892.  We've got some in the brewer for you!

Plants Love Ventura Cooperative Compost Tea

This is one of the gardens we watered with compost tea.  Gerardo Gallegos asked us to come and apply 40 gallons of our actively aerated tea on all his new plantings.  He remembers when this oasis was an untended lot.  His work is amazing!

Compost tea has so many positive attributes.  We use it in all of our gardening projects.  Learn more about it here:  http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2002082739009975.html

We have the best clients and garden partners on the planet!  We played with McCartney in his back yard, took pictures, talked about community gardens and watered the earth with approximately 69,578,463,376,002 beneficial organisms.

See you again soon!

Edible Landscape for Rosie and Macks

On Saturday we helped Rosie and Macks get a good start in their backyard garden.  We prepared late into the night before, putting finishing touches on the vertical gardens and mixing soil. When we made our morning delivery of compost and mulch, Rosie was ready with coffee and pastries.  Yeah!  All throughout the day we worked together, DIY style, planting, mulching and designing a garden that will have room to grow in the future.  This is why we do what we do.

Saturday was a windy day, which was perfect in a way, because we wanted to know how the vertical pallet gardens would respond to heavy gusts, as they were hanging approximately three feet down off the eves of the garage roof.  It worked well.  The pallets were heavy enough to withstand the wind, and they added the extra color Rosie wanted in front of the open wall.  Later, Audra and Rosie placed a variety of herbs, flowers and edibles in the grow boxes.  We accomplished what we set out to do, and we were all happy with the installation.

Macks built a raised bed (complete with wire gopher proofing) and we filled with a layer of rough compost, and then top amended with a custom mix of Venture Cooperative compost, worm castings and coco mulch.  In that mix we planted heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, kale, and zucchini, and then watered with compost tea.

We also mulched the border gardens and garden work area, outlining sections with locally sourced rocks, making a the garden come alive in the moment.  Already new ideas about what to do next were being dreamed up.

Not only did we begin a beautiful new backyard garden with Rosie and Macks, more importantly, we began a new friendship.  We're looking forward to working with them again soon and taking it to the next level.  Until then, Keep Growing!