EXPERIMENTS SECOND WEEK IN MARCH

This last week Rajan started a new project with microgreens, growing them in these small boxes. Originally they were used for packing fresh vegetables and he got them from the various restaurants who use our microgreens. We like the idea of using recycled plastic for our packaging.

The boxes are filled with coconut fibre and then planted with various sorts of microgreens. Rajan is experimenting with different times for keeping them covered up and then growing them in the light. The idea is to sell them in the boxes as living plants rather than cutting and washing them.

Here they are after about seven days growth.

I think they look too tall and leggy. Maybe more seed should have been used in each box and they need more light for growing once they have germinated. Clearly a lot more experimentation is needed.

Already we have made quite a hole in the mountain of coconut fibre that we recently purchased. Part of the reason is because of the new way we are now making the nursery soil mixture. First the soil is put out and then coconut fibre is thrown on top which as you can see this is a job that our youngest volunteer likes very much. Its then left out overnight to dry.

Next morning it is all raked up and then sieved and put into trays ready for planting the next crop of microgreens.

I am still trying to work out the best way of making compost with the chickens. Twice a week I have been raking up material in the chicken yard but I realised this morning that all the material was getting impacted so that decay was not happening very well. This morning I therefore raked everything apart.

The chickens really enjoyed this as it exposed a lot of insects which they joyfully scratched up and ate. Problem is that it won't all compost very well unless I add some more leaves, water it, and then let it stand for. I would think, at least two months. We are still working out the best way of doing this although we are thinking that maybe we need some sort of container. We would put all the material in it once it had got to a certain level of decay and then we would leave it to decay completely. We will hopefully end up with some very powerful compost.