As a thank you to all our lovely Pic of the Week subscribers we are giving you a 10% discount on your Spring Effective Microorganisms (EM) box.
The past week has been another busy one with activities taking place all over the property. Work is continuing steadily at the earth building site, the cows are happily munching away at the firebreak, some kamikaze style tree fellers were brought in to help us with invasive alien tree removal and yesterday saw the installation of a sunken cold frame so that we can get our seedling going nice and early this season. We also welcomed Dean to the Tikologo team as a long term volunteer and spared no time taking advantage of the extra hands to get our compost heaps going.
This week’s pic shows Thabo working hard at building his second Berkley 18 day compost pile. The Berkley composting system was developed by Berkley University and is a hot composting technique which produces very fast results. The technique involves compiling a pile of organic materials, adding water and then turning the heap. That is of course a huge over simplification but unfortunately due to time constraints I cannot go through the whole process in this week’s installment. However there are many great resources online which explain the process very effectively so check out the links below for some more info.
18 Day Composting Info:
http://www.geofflawtononline.com/2016/03/02/some-tips-on-making-compost/
https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-instructions/hot-compost-composting-in-18-days/
https://permaculturenews.org/2008/07/26/18-day-compost-the-appliance-of-science/
Composting is a very simple but absolutely critical component of any sustainable soil fertility strategy so definitely give it a try and If you have any questions please do get in touch through the comments section below and we will do our best to offer whatever support you need.
The winters out here get mighty cold which means that our planting and other outside activity slows down a bit. However the cooler season does give us an opportunity to spend time on other necessities like infrastructure development, prep for summer planting and also some maintenance.
This winter we have spent time giving our training centre some much needed love. We have upgraded and kitted out our kitchen, the lounge/teaching room has a whole new cozy vibe, we have done up the bedrooms and given the whole interior a lick of paint. It really helps to have an in-house interior designer (Megan) whose keen eye for space creation has hugely benefited the centre. We are thrilled with the transformation and can’t wait for our casual visitors, course participants and volunteers to come and enjoy the space.
Speaking of courses, we will be publishing our program for the remainder of the year soon so keep an eye out for that.
Hope to see you soon,
Coen and the Tikologo Team
The above shot is of a beautiful healthy Broccoli plant in our home garden. It may seem pretty insignificant but in 5 years of vegetable gardening a home grown Broccoli harvest has always eluded us for various reasons. I hope that I am not jumping the gun on this one but it seems that this may just be our year. Continue reading “Pic of the Week #14”
Some of you may already have seen this Pic on our social media pages but I am sure you will agree it’s a great one and I thought to share a little bit about our introduction of cattle onto the Tikologo site. Continue reading “Pic of the Week #13”
It has been a long week so I will leave this one to the master.
Have a restful and simple weekend,
Coen and the Tikologo team
This week’s pic may not look like much but it is the before photo for a very interesting project which we are about to start.
We are back at the project site after a much needed break but unfortunately trips back into so called civilisation always seem to bring attention to issues which are long forgotten once removed from their constant influence. Due to having been reminded of one such occurrence this week we are making a plea to all of the city folk out there.
