Food Scraps & Cafes — how much waste is there and could it be composted in a home garden setting? A couple of years ago I was really curious about just how much food waste was generated in a cafe. My question — could it all be composted to make soil and then used to grow food for that cafe? I had a chat with a local cafe owner here in Tuakau — Mich at Sugar Plum Kitchen, who had just recently started putting her food scraps into landfill after a pig farmer stopped collecting them. It was my lucky day, she was delighted to take part in the research. I went and got a couple o ..read more

Composting in schools is a tricky topic — caretakers aren’t teachers, and teachers aren’t caretakers. Managing green waste is not really a teacher’s role, and it can be really tricky making changes to a smooth operation, especially when there are contractors mowing lawns and removing grass clippings. In the hopes that this case study offers inspiration, let’s see what Green Bay Primary and Intermediate did with Blue Borage back in 2018–2020. Step One: train a dozen classes in hot composting, and empty all the soil from the neglected compost enclosures into garden beds around the school ..read more

Welcome to Michael Park Kindergarten, in Ellerslie, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand My contact at the school: Stacey McManus Stacey’s request: to offer a hot compost workshop to a group of kindergarten parents one weekend, and make soil for the kindergarten garden. Soil to feed the garden, but also soil to feed the community and bring families together. We held the workshop on September 9th. [photos] Six parents + five children, it took us a couple of hours. Stacey measured the temperature of the compost each day with the children until it was time to open the com ..read more

I got this cool idea, to use the 64 Human Design Gates to describe my work from a multitude of perspectives. And being inherently impatient, decided to be guided by the Moon — often seen as the driving force of a person’s chart. But it moves so fast, that it’s going to take a few cycles to get through all 64 gates. Here’s the order the moon travels in starting today, 10th October 2023: 4 ✅ 29 . 59 . 40 . 64 . 47 . 6 . 46 . 18 . 48 . 57 . 32 . 50 . 28 . 44 . 1 . 43 . 14 . 34 . 9 . 5 . 26&nbs ..read more

Composting onion skins – with & without biodynamic remedies One of my most enjoyable compost experiments at the moment is using bags and bags of onion crop waste. Why onions?? I live on the edge of the Franklin district, where about 25% of New Zealand’s vegetables are produced. That’s a lot of food! And it’s also a lot of food waste, some of which I am sure would make interesting soil. Method: I’m using these terracotta pots from Pacha Compost to hold a bag of onions, along with about the same volume of cow manure. One pot got the biodynamic cow pat pit preparation (CPP): I ..read more

I’m normally that laid-back gardener who is able to ignore the snails: live and let live. Until yesterday. I was cleaning out my living nursery, which has been more or less looking after itself all winter, and found SO many snails. They’ve munched their way through 90% of the Dahlias I carefully grew from seed, and have also decimated my precious Burdock Root. It’s time to take action. I have a moral dilemma around killing them, and the only way I’ve been able to overcome it is to follow the advice of a friend who turns a few snails into a sludgy concoction and lets the sludge fermen ..read more

Want to learn how to make top quality compost? Come and learn in a range of venues in and around Tuakau, with Katrina from Blue Borage, biodynamic compost consultant and Whangarata resident. Katrina Wolff, Compost Consultant at Blue BorageEdible Gardening at the Whangarata Community Hall Each Wednesday there’s a new topic in my new series of edible gardening ‘building blocks’ Week 1 — Seeds Week 2 — Soil Week 3 — Plants Week 4 — Pests We rotate around these four topics each month, and you can join in for one session or sign up for the full cycle. All my workshops and online events ar ..read more

Here are the results from an informal survey I ran this week, to prepare for the podcast episode on biodynamics and social media with Lin Bautze for ‘Living Farms’ Question 1: I think my favourite place to chat about my work is on Instagram stories, probably because they vanish after 24 hours, so it’s a low risk space that feels very casual. If you watch my Instagram stories (even just a few of them every now and then), what do you find useful or interesting? All of it Instagram stories are very interesting to see what you work on the day and I can learn something from there timely ..read more

On-site Composting at a large workplace really can work — here’s one example: I recently had a delightful three week trip down to Dunedin to babysit my little granddaughter so that my daughter could do a summer school paper at university. With time on my hands and a little person to entertain, it was the perfect chance to explore a city. Time and time again I found myself in the situation of having an outdoor snack, and nowhere to pop an apple core. No big deal… along with nappies and spare changes of clothing, I carried around containers for food scraps to take home and compo ..read more

Welcome to a new series of updates, which will probably live on LinkedIn as a monthly newsletter. If you want to follow my work on LinkedIn, you’ll find me here. I’m keen to show just how varied the work of a Soilpreneur is, and will feature a range of people with a whole bunch of interests who have found their way to composting from different fields, and are now working with all sorts of customers: home gardener, workplaces, community groups and schools. We need Soilpreneurs in every sector, to help people of all ages learn how to make great soil. First up is Sarah Smith, who h ..read more