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  • From: von-fi@elonmerkki.net
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fresh green juice fertilization ?
  • Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 00:27:35 +0200

Hello from Finland,

I'm wondering (because have not found info on this issue) if there are
permaculturalists experienced in using freshly squeezed green juice from
wild rush, grasses and other plants as a fertilizer for growing other stuff?

Last year I did grow pumpkins with this (diluted into water) and drunk also
3 dl:s raw each day during the last summer. I got more tasty and better
fruits
from these than from a control ones which had horse manure compost. Also
seedling that was sick from mosaic virus got perfectly healed after having
"a fresh green drink" and gave perfect fruits in the autumn.

Why I didn't use just ordinary mulch beds? Well, because we're located
in a northern climate where the air moisture and warmth conditions are not
allways so good for proper composting of mulch, resulting often a huge
loss in nitrogen and it also releases methane into atmosphere. Just before
I thought to go into biogas-reactors, there came an idea to squeeze the
juice, dilute it and cover with fibrous mulch... So before I set up more
scientific research on this way of growing, it would be great to find out
if such already exist? Does someone have a huge juicer developed for this?
This also saves space, as the fertilizing effect seems to be better than
if using just mulch. In tropics there might be no benefit of this, except
a refreshing vital drink for the gardener, but in the boreal it's different

. . . I also tried burning the fibre squeezed manually into "pellets" and
dried. It seems to burn with clear smoke, surprisingly long time and
good heat. For heating it could be good idea to mix it with sawdust,
phalaris arundinacea, sunflower and buckwheat seed covers ... as a mulch
I thought to mix it with forest litter and dendrite from the lake.

Any experiences or thoughts about this ?

thanks,

Orava Ituparta




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