No-Smell Pig Pens, IMO4 With Clay, Red Wigglers vs Earthworms
Drake opens with a testimony: a coffee shop employee's month-long cough cleared in three days on KNF medicine. He gives a Mauna Loa eruption update (the flow stopped about two miles short of Saddle Road, air quality on the Hilo side is fine) and walks through his chick-hatching method: a heated box that simulates a hen's wing, brown rice from day zero, shredded hard-boiled egg starting day three, then finely chopped bamboo to condition chicks to value greens before regular fermented feed comes in around day 12 to 14.
He recaps the Hawaii Farmers Union Convention on Maui: Uncle Bobby's 1,000-lb-a-week kalo farm, a 200-pig no-smell pig pen at Su's Ho'omana Farms built on a four-foot deep inoculated litter with logs and mulch, a regenerative-ag windrow system with sheep and diluted-seawater-and-IMO pasture sprays, and Kaea's Kunekune pigs.
Q&A covers straining a seven-month jar of KNF fuel (mold on top is fine, no need for medicine or IMO in the fuel), using lifeless red clay instead of red soil for IMO4 (let the IMOs break up the clumps over a week), making IMO3 without the can of food in winter (works, just not as ideal), vinegar gnats and larvae in fermenting vinegar (they poop acetic acid and help the ferment), pot worms in acidic soil (buffer with finished compost, biochar, IMOs, and lactobacillus), and why red wigglers are composting worms that won't live in soil the way earthworms do.
He previews next week's deep dive into KNF medicine, the oriental herbal nutrient: it warms plants before a frost, revitalizes older crops, and sanitizes rather than sterilizes, leaving the beneficial microbes intact.
Questions answered
- 5:45 Does KNF medicine really cure a cough? — Tyler's coffee shop employee had a month-long cough and it was gone within three days of taking the KNF medicine.
- 8:49 Is the Mauna Loa eruption a threat to the farm? — The lava flow stopped about two miles short of Saddle Road; air quality is fine and Drake's farm sits safely on Mauna Kea.
- 36:05 Is it okay to strain a 7-month jar of KNF fuel and skip medicine or IMO? — Yes, fuel doesn't need KNF medicine or IMO, and mold on top like trichoderma is normal and fine.
- 37:47 Can I use lifeless clay instead of red soil for IMO4? — Yes, use the clay as is and let the IMOs break up the clumps as you turn the pile over the week.
- 39:13 Can I make IMO3 without the can of food in deep winter? — Yes, the can of food just gives the IMO ideal conditions; skipping it still works, just not as perfectly.
- 43:14 Is Spencer's no-smell pig pen the same scale as the 200-pig operation on Maui? — No, Spencer runs about 20 to 40 pigs, but even one stinky pig proves KNF works.
- 43:48 Does ChatGPT know about Korean Natural Farming? — It knows a little but isn't very accurate; it probably needs more KNF literature to learn from.
- 44:35 Does the no-smell pig pen system work in a cold climate like Indiana? — Yes, it's a Korean system, and Korea has hot summers and snowy winters just like Indiana; an 800-pig farm there proves it.
- 47:49 My vinegar has mold and larvae in it, is that a problem? — No, those are vinegar gnats that poop acetic acid and can actually help start your vinegar.
- 52:12 I have small white pot worms in acidic soil, what should I do? — Add finished compost or biochar to buffer the acidity, plus IMOs and lactobacillus to fix the soil.
- 54:43 I mixed potting soil with biochar, lava rock, and castings and now see little worms, is my soil bad? — Spread IMO on the surface and water in the soil formula from the Recipe Book one to two weeks before planting.
- 57:02 Should I put red wigglers into my garden soil? — No, red wigglers are composting worms and won't live in soil; only true earthworms will stay and hatch there.
- 1:03:08 My red wigglers came from earthworm castings, will they live in the top of my soil? — Yes, if you feed them enough they can live and compost in the top six inches of soil.
KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.
In this episode
- 0:00 Welcome and Aloha
- 3:18 I Ching Reading: Waiting for Nourishment
- 6:06 KNF Medicine (OHN) Cures Month-Long Cough
- 9:33 Mauna Loa Eruption Update
- 11:41 Hatching Chickens: Incubator and Feed
- 18:36 Farmers Union Convention Highlights
- 22:52 No-Smell Pig Pen on Maui
- 27:56 Regenerative Ag Windrow System on Maui
- 31:35 Prepping an IMO Pile at the Convention
- 32:51 Uncle Bobby's Kalo Farm Tour
- 35:15 Kaea's Farm and Kunekune Pigs
- 36:05 Straining KNF Fuel
- 37:47 Using Red Clay for IMO4
- 39:13 Making IMO3 Without KNF Food
- 43:48 ChatGPT and KNF
- 44:35 Pig Pens Work in Any Climate
- 47:49 KNF Cleanser (Vinegar) and Vinegar Gnats
- 52:12 Pot Worms in Acidic Soil
- 54:43 Soil Formula and the IMO Recipe
- 58:35 KNF Medicine (OHN) Preview
Transcript
Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.
2:30 I forgot the mic over there. Hey, aloha. Aloha, natural farmers. Yeah, it's been a week since I've been away and I'm already forgetting things like the microphone. Good to see you guys. Welcome to Office Hours Korean Natural Farming. Oh, sorry. Just adjusting the mic here. for December 11th, 2022. 1122. What's up, post up? Hey, I just got your email. That's good reflections on that. I got a little few details for that. But before I dive into all that, I want to first off start by thanking Master Cho, Pukana Foundation, making all these things happen.
3:18 And start off with a little bit of higher wisdom here. today is waiting nourishment. It's funny, I just got this the other day. I was asking, should I do this mowing job for folks? And I got waiting for nourishment. And it says, to wait with the proper attitude invites the assistance of the higher power. There is a situation at hand that cannot be corrected by force or external effort. The creative will provide the solution to one who waits with the correct attitude. This is a time for patience and careful attention to inner truth. Do not give in to doubt and agitation now.
4:04 You are not meant to wait in a state of desperate longing, but one of patient inner strength. Without certainty in the power of the truth, success is impossible. Attempts to force a change rather than allowing it to mature naturally will only cause misfortune. You would be wise to strengthen and reaffirm your alliance with the creative. When you indulge in fear and doubt, you flood the arena where the higher power is attempting to work. Your principal responsibility in life is to keep this arena, your own consciousness, free of negative influences.
4:55 By accepting things as they are and not making fruitless comparisons to the situations of others or some imagined ideal, one engages the power of the creative. If one then remains balanced, modest, and independent, good fortune will come to hand. So yeah, waiting, nourishment, very, very similar to KNF principles there. In fact, maybe they're the same of, you know, waiting, allowing it to progress naturally, trying to just improve our environment so that they will naturally, things will naturally thrive and all that. So I've got a couple things for you, but I just wanted to start out with this
5:45 message from Tyler because sometimes the chat's not always there. Let me even see. I'm not sure it's going to be there for today. Did I have it set up? Yeah, anyway, I'm not even sure. I can't try and multitask it here. But Tyler was saying, Tyler from Oklahoma, what's up, Tyler? And Anna, I hope you folks are doing great and enjoying. But he's saying that he gave one of his new employees at the coffee shop a small bottle of the K&F medicine to take. And she had a consistent cough for over a month. And she tried a bunch of other over-the-counter stuff.
6:29 And within three days of taking the K&F medicine, the cough was completely gone. she's stoked and, uh, he's stoked to share the experience of K&F changing lives. And, uh, she knows she wants to learn how to make it. So that's, that's a win, man. You know, you can't, you know, when, when you, when you get into natural farming, Korean natural farming, and you get these miracles and you get these things that happen where it's like, you've tried everything. And then all of a sudden you try this and it works.
7:03 that's the kind of person that well you know is open to it right you could have told them before like oh this and that and that but until they experience it until they know until they see these things and you don't you don't necessarily know but now it's probably like you're gonna have a hard time not teaching her this stuff you know how to make these tinctured herbs at home you know take these, you know, it's, it's in the book here of, you know, getting, learning from Master Cho. He, he envisioned this recipe in, in a dream of how to take these tinctured herbs by first
7:41 fermenting, making like a can of food recipe and then, um, and then, uh, tincturing it with alcohol. right and this here is one of the um one of the best recipes out there in terms of like other traditional chinese healing herbs um they don't do the fermentation process first right so all those pore spaces aren't opened up and when you do fermentation it opens those pore spaces on the micro level and then alcohol is able to penetrate in and bring out even more medicinal healing qualities. So amazing stuff. Great, great to hear, um, you know, a miracle
8:23 right away and getting into today. And, um, you know, that's why I show up here pretty much every Sunday, right? To get into this and to do it with you guys and everybody and make sure that we're all in the, you know, keep, keep the natural farming lineage and all this alive and going. So, and global community here, we got Stone Mason from Indiana. We got, you know, Cecily from Western Australia. All you guys from all over the world coming in. And yesterday I was walking up my road here, walking my dog. And Bridgeron stopped and was like, hey, you're the famous organic farmer.
9:08 And I thought he was pointing at my dad. but no he's pointing at me and just you know my friend Roach was cruising up the um the road too and you know promised him some cassava and getting those cassava starts um and uh yeah Ben Ben here asking about the um um about the Mauna Loa Mauna Loa on our islands erupting right now however um the flow if you check out Big Island video news on YouTube they'll give you pretty good updates and the flow has stopped in terms of it's still erupting but it's not feeding the same channel that was coming down to hit the saddle road so it stopped about
9:54 I think about two miles shy of running over the saddle road but it is still erupting and but it's not you know air quality here is fine it's it's you know it's great and And, you know, if Saddle Road does get hit or the lava flows down to Hilo or Kona, it's radically going to shift our economy here and everything. You know, just when the lava hit Puna in 2018, it radically shifted things, too. And we lost a lot of good natural farmers. Not that they died in the lava, but their whole land was covered, right? Lava's a different natural disaster than most other things because your land is gone.
10:36 Now it's 50 feet under a pile of rock, you know, and all your trees and everything, all your infrastructure gone. You know, it's really a pretty devastating thing to have happen. But our farm here is on a different volcano. We're on an old, I think it's extinct, pretty sure it's extinct, Mauna Kea. Whereas Mauna Loa is just about 20 miles that way. And it's one of the biggest volcanoes in the world. and it's actively erupting right now. So, but we're safe on this one. You know, the only thing that could hit us is ash or, you know, bad air quality, but we're good over here. So,
11:16 so anyway, things, things are good here in Hilo. Lava's good. What's up, George? Hey man, I haven't seen you for a while and goof man and post up. Yeah, man. Good to see all you guys getting in here and coming, tuning into the office hours. Um, and, um, Oh yeah. Post up is hatching chickens in the incubator. Um, we were able to just hatch. Um, I had, I had, um, two chickens get out of my chicken pen, which, which was okay. I just let them kind of get out. They both nested outside of the chicken pen. And both of them, one had four
12:01 babies, the other had six babies. Unfortunately, the mongoose got three of the babies. So that second hand only, she only has three left, but mongoose are gnarly, man. But she's keeping those around and alive and hatching those. And then we just loaded our incubator up and we just, my wife Susanna just hatched 22 new babies. So the method is as soon as they're hatched, we put them into a separate box where they have a little house that, I mean, it had a cardboard, and it just has like cloth paper towel hanging down so that it simulates them going under their
12:49 mother's wing into their little box. And then under that little box is where we place the heating pad. Not directly, it's actually under the cardboard box so that it's low radiant heat, so that it simulates them going under their mom's wing and heating up underneath so they can go into their little area. And then right outside of their box is a mountain of brown rice. and that brown rice is there from day zero to um to three weeks um and they'll they'll eat that and after three weeks we we move them up to the um to their larger pen and get them up there but um
13:28 they they stay in this little box because because of the mongoose because of the predators because they they chirp so much as as young little um chickens they just attract predators so we keep them indoors at that point to avoid the predators. And then after day three, we start to, so it's just brown rice for the first three days and water. And then after day three, we start to introduce shredded boiled egg. So hard boil an egg and then shred it through a real fine grater. You don't have that, the one you use like for Parmesan cheese, like the real fine grated, not like
14:09 regular cheese, but the real fine grated one, grate that. That goes down. They'll eat that egg and just a tiny bit for the chickens, like 22 chickens, we're doing about one egg a day, just ground up that way. That gives them the protein and nutrients they need. And in nature, the chicken doesn't hatch all their eggs. They leave some and then they'll peck them open for the other chickens to eat. So they'll actually cannibalize their other unhatched brethren and cistern and eat those. So they get that protein because they can't nurse,
14:46 right? They don't have mammaries. They're not mammals. They're birds. So they'll eat the egg. So that egg is put in there. And then right after the egg is put in, the first day they don't know what it is and they don't know what it is. But some of them will eat it. And then eventually, the second day you go and put the egg, they'll know what it is. And at that time, right after they're done eating the egg, when they're still kind of frenzying around eating all this egg, then it's really finely chopped bamboo, like on the order of centimeter by centimeter square
15:18 bamboo that's put down. And then they'll eat that. And the bamboo is very hard for them to digest, and so is the brown rice. So what you're doing is you're stretching their intestines out with both those things and like roughage pushing their intestines, like making them longer. And then the tiny bamboo is also sweet. And so when they eat that, that sweetness makes them think it's like candy after their protein meal. And so then it teaches your animals to then value grass. And you don't want to put a whole lot of the egg or a whole lot of the bamboo because those
15:55 things, they're like treats, you know, you don't want to put too much of it. And so when they think that the grass or the bamboo is rare, they'll then value that a bunch. And later when you feed them grass, they'll think, oh, it's very rare. It's a treat. And they'll associate that conditioning the chickens to this. And then they'll eat the bamboo or later the grass, I guess feed them wild grass. And it's so funny, like I'll put in the food that costs me money and they're like, yeah okay and then i throw in the grass that doesn't cost me any money and they just the
16:28 rooster starts clucking he's like ladies ladies come here i found the goods and they all cluck and they all love it and they all hammer the grass and and um i cook a lot of belly or not cook belly but put belly in there and banana leaves they love those things they just hammer those um so it's because we condition them to eat the bamboo early and then um after day i think day five three three to five we just start introducing a small amount of their regular food after they've eaten the egg and the bamboo then their regular food is put out and and it's put enough where
17:02 they'll run out of it a couple hours before we come back the next day to to start the egg and bamboo and that process again and the egg and bamboo process goes from basically day three to like day 12, 14, first basically two weeks of the egg and bamboo. And by that time, then they're pretty much on, they still have the brown rice, but they're pretty much on eating their normal regular fermented food that I feed the mature hens. So they learned to eat that pretty well. So anyway, a little chicken thing there. Probably should get that a little bit written out a little
17:44 bit more organized there, but good stuff on that. It really, really raises strong chickens. That egg really makes them strong, very vigorous. And of course, you know, I try to put their heated box on one side and the water on the other. So they'll kind of run back and forth. The more you can get the little chickens to run around, the more you develop their cardio system, you know, heart, lung, and then will be resistant to things like such as bird flu and other respiratory problems that tend to really kill chickens a lot. So, um, hatching chickens, man, that's, that's the way to go.
18:20 Um, yeah. And, um, yeah. So, um, so in terms of other things going on here, let's see here. Um, so I, last week I got to go to the, um, farmer's union convention, which was pretty amazing. and let me just quickly here, let me see if I can pull this up in a reasonable way where it's going to work. Transition this over. So I got to go to, let me put it to this one, that one, that way it'll be here. Okay. So, so I got to go to the Farmers Union Convention,
19:10 HFU, Farmers Union Convention. Also, um, oh wait, did I, oh yeah. Okay. Oh, the preview was messing me up. Okay. Anyway, I've been away from the computer for a week. It's like, I forgot everything already. Um, but was able to go Farmers Union Convention. And, um, I also want to shout out to Sherry here. I think it's probably one of our last photos. Did we get it here? Let me see. what are these these are all the movies went down here it was our last photo here um this is sherry here um from north shore chapter of oahu and she won our peer knf merit contest giveaway
19:55 got to meet her and hang out and she was so enthusiastic for korean natural farming uh she it turns out she had attended one of my classes at i taught at waihuena farms which is right across pipeline or also known as pipe line and you know the the famous surfing spot you know the billabong house and all that you know right across the volcom house right across the street but just on the other side of the highway the mauka side um i taught a class there a fair amount of years ago but she attended it and then
20:35 took the information and was able to oh sorry sorry about that um was able to oh where did it even go you know her so many things to do okay and just close the preview open the preview okay um and taught her and then she took that information and was able to bring it for her chickens and get eliminate the smell with their chickens and then get into natural farming and all these things. So, um, so this was almost after the convention was closing up. We'd already folded up all the chairs and everything and, um, got it together, but, um, I'll just go through a little
21:13 bit here. We got some other photos. Um, but, um, let's see here if I can slide. Oh man, so much. Okay, slide this over a little bit. Get that like that. Okay, there we go. So, but we were able to also go see Uncle Bobby out here and see his calo farm. He farms over 1,000 pounds of calo each week. So Uncle Bobby, super legendary. I mean, look at this. It's just like, I wanted to get it framed up. So it's just like looking like calo for days. and he's been using Korean natural farming in this area doing all this like look at that look
21:54 at all that nice kalo and tons of mulch that he puts in and I know I think he sprays the fish aminos for sure I'm not sure I gotta gotta sit down with Uncle Bobby and talk to him about his whole K&F everything he's doing and getting it together but this one dude I mean look how legendary he is. And his main thing is just encouraging people, you know, to get into farming, get into food production, helping the youth, you know, just doing it. His motto for Hawaii Tarot Farm is just keep planting. That's what he does, man. Each week he's planting one of these
22:32 huge rows, mulching it, running his water lines. He has one of the most beautiful spots. You know, the West Maui mountains are just to the left here. And then that's Haleakala over there on Maui. So if you're familiar with Maui, he's right there, um, and just keeps, you know, keeps planting, going and doing it. Um, and then also we got to see this no smell pig pen here, um, which is amazing. Cause I had been not, you know, uh, 2020 was hard on me and not teaching as much and just, you know, feeling kind of, uh, I've been doing this office hour, which has really
23:09 been my, you know, contribution to the KNF community, but to understand that like this building here, you know, may not exist. I don't know. Like, I don't want to get too much into my like ego of like, Oh, but you know, helping the natural farming movement establish in Hawaii and Dr. Park and Mike DuPont and, um, and, uh, you know, Kim Chang and, um, all the folks in Hawaii that, that brought KNF to life, you know, I, I don't know. And, and here this is this no smell pig pen that's raising over 200 pigs, uh, for, you know, the Lahu'i, which is the, you know,
23:48 the, the Hawaiian people of, of, you know, and everyone in Hawaii, um, is happening here. And, And I just realized, man, I got to get out and teach more. I got to go and like refine the methods and get it to the people on the land. Because, you know, look at the West Maui Mountains behind Uncle Bobby's sweet truck. You know, Chotna's truck here. Met all kinds of great people. She's in Haleakala chapter. But this thing, so, and there's Su's Ho'omana Farms is the name of their farm. Feeding the lauhui lawlao at a time, right?
24:24 Um, there's uncle Bobby talking about it. Cause uncle Hanalei who runs this pig pen wasn't, wasn't there. He was actually building the emu at this time. Um, and, and Guava, Guava boy, this little pup, he's now living out in Kau. Um, and that's, that's Matt. He, um, he farms there as well. Um, but, but here, here's the structure, you know, it's hollow tile bricks, this nice steel building going over and he built the walls out of this like shade material here, you know, So really, really low energy design, but this four foot raised bottom here is what's holding in the no smell litter, right?
25:05 It's an inoculated deep litter system with logs underneath at about two feet and then the mulch material on top. And so this whole building with its split roof so that as the roof heats up, it sucks out the air and then pulls in air through the sides and keeps this whole thing ventilated and really, you know, helps dry out the ground litter and keep the floor nice. And then look at these pigs inside, you know, instead of, you know, Master Cho always talks about kind of segregating the pigs and making about 20 pigs so they can kind of develop their social. But in this case,
25:43 He just ran all the pigs together and all sizes, all, you know, everything all together. And, you know, look at that, what is that, the one with the white stripe? I don't know. Somebody probably knows what it is. The varieties, but, you know, his ham shires and York shires and all these pigs together. And they're just so happy and they kind of exercise. They run back and forth. um you know it does generate a little bit of dust because it is so dry and then when the pigs run it um you know the dust comes up but it's just the nature of the deep litter system but you can see
26:21 a steel building here framed all put together built like this you know this huge floor for all the pigs um his nice walkway on this side so you can get up there and say hi to the pigs and they're so cute and I just I just love pigs and yeah so here here they are and here here was giving us a little tour and you know there was there was a small little smell but it was mostly from the pigs that were out in the pasture out here that he keeps the big breeding mamas out outside of this pig pen and the little bit of smell was coming from over there there was
26:59 with this many pigs, 200 pigs, no cleaning. Uh, and the smell, you know, there was actually like all, everyone's like hanging out there. It's not like they're like, Oh, I got to get away from this. You know how a traditional, um, uh, pig pen is they got to get away from it. But this here, you know, just looking at this, all these pigs happy together, hanging out, um, you know, really, really amazing system that he had running here. And just to see all these happy pigs hanging out together. And then I think on this side, he had it a little bit segregated. I think that's how he
27:34 kind of sorts the pigs and takes care of them if they need any help or anything. But all of them hanging out together. And yeah, and then here's Uncle Bobby giving us a tour a little bit. And And let's see, what else? Oh, and here's this regenerative ag windrow system. It's super windy on Maui. Up in, yeah, Waikapu, Waikapu is what they call it. Waikapu region of Maui. and um you know mulching putting taro doing regenerative ag i'm not sure how much k and f
28:25 they're doing right here but i wanted to go back to um the monoclebi chapter which is this area and introduce them to the concepts the solutions everything so they could maybe even run it in their irrigation out there and really get it get it going but um doing great regenerative ag all these windrows, the collo being planted between these guys trying to do it 100% K&F, or not K&F, but regenerative. And then a whole bunch of sheep they had out there, you know, the integrated animals getting all these guys together. You know, if you spray their pasture with seawater and
29:03 diluted seawater and the IMOs, you know, this grass will grow even faster. Well, you know, it's so dry out here, it'll be even more moisture resistant or, you know, retention and all that. So all these solutions, looking forward to going back there and to do this. And to answer your question, Stone Mason, no, I don't know anyone in the Midwest doing this. It's totally possible. You know, I was thinking, man, maybe I should move to America for like a couple of years and like put these systems in because it would change American agriculture.
29:37 you know the the livestock systems it just the the water usage goes down your your labor your maintenance which is you know one of the most expensive things you're you just have the upfront cost of putting in the deep litter system but as you can see from that other thing it's easy to retrofit in there it's like you know it's not that hard and once you set it up it's like it's self-sufficient so um so i don't know anyone doing it but you know if you want to do it change the world and be famous, hey, go for it, you know, do it up. So, and then let's see here,
30:16 and then we made a little poster board, you know, you can see Bredger and Logan there, we had Bredger and Moose, Mike DuPont all talking about it, we had a little display there, making our poster board with the nine core solutions, the seven formulations, putting this together in our little minivan that we slept over there in, and I didn't get a picture of our booth and where we did educational stuff. Um, but, uh, you know, so, so it goes, um, and then build, you know, uh, but it was a fun thing and I'm glad we were there
30:49 and I didn't even get any nice pictures of the convention once it was going, but, um, my friend Johnny did, he shared them with Sue's. So maybe next week I'll have a few more pictures. And But speaking of next week, I will be here next week. Supposed to take a handgun course, but I put it off until January. He called me. He scheduled somebody else. So it's all good. I will be getting my handgun in January instead of December, which that's OK. I don't I don't need it right now. It's, you know, it's just nice to have around. And but the convention here, super nice. Set it up. All good.
31:29 Farmers Union, you know, on the Haleakala, West Mali Mountains. So beautiful. And then here's us prepping our IMO pile horse feed here. This is Janine. And we ended up, you know, scooting the grass over doing a great IMO pile. And I didn't even get any pictures of that with my camera. I was thinking of it, trying to, and just so much to do, man. When you do all your own stunts, It's really hard to remember to do everything. But that was that. Doing that on Maui. And then, let's see here. I did get some videos. You know, here's Suze and Janine digging out the grass clumps, doing all that.
32:11 Getting it all prepped and set. We brought over this cooler right here. Oh, how do I pause it? I can't pause it with a spacebar. But we brought over this cooler of all the solutions. We bought some horse feed there. We were able to turn our IMOs, get all that going. And then those ladies, you know, scrape the grass back. We were able to cover our IMO pile with this grass, but making all this together. And then we had our buckets over here to dilute. We actually also made a disgustingly cheap IMO pile or liquid solution, but made this pile. Everyone was stoked. Here's Uncle Bobby talking.
32:55 Oh, yeah, here's us driving by the windrows. All this organic egg here. Let me scale this in so you guys can see the full thing. Moringa, all this great stuff happening. Papayas. Good to see. Oh, there's the mama pigs. And that's why they smelled a little bit from those mud. Those are the mamas out there. the big breeders out in the field, and they stunk a little bit. But here's rolling up to the pig pen, and then here, looking at it, let's see if I get close here. I think I was following Uncle Bobby around. Oh wait, this video here shows us going up into the pig pen here,
33:45 and I think I'll cut this video a little bit better. So all these pigs coming around, you know, look at them all happy, coming over to see us, check out if there's food, you know. The pigs are so happy to see you, which is amazing. You know, so, and then, you know, Uncle Bobby talking about one of the hardest things is feeding pigs, right? But here they are, happy pigs, hanging out. i just i don't know i just love the pigs man look how curious and happy they are coming over to say hi hey piggy oh hey piggy piggy there's such nice animals so beautiful so fun to have interaction
34:35 with them and to you know love and and raise them up and then to also turn them into nutritious Just delicious protein for all of us. And then there's the deep litter system. They're all standing on top, you know, so you can see that. All those pigs hanging out. And then a little bit of Uncle Bobby's tarot here. You know, just driving through, seeing all this. And look how windy it is, man. The wind is so gnarly over there. So glad we live where we do, in the lee here. and then Sue's got to go over and check out Kaeya's place, he's the president of Mahakalabai, and I didn't
35:20 I had to go back, because I wasn't feeling well, it's too much sun and wind for me, I had to take a day but Kuni Kuni pigs outside raising these Kuni Kunis and looking at all them. Oh, them loving each other. Little pig love. And hearing him talk about what he's doing. I'm stoked to go through this footage and look at that and see what he got going because that's all going down. So anyway, Farmers Union Convention was great. That's what I wanted to summarize up with you guys and uh share just a little bit of what we were able to do
36:05 bring that you know to the folks of maui bring that over and uh so um okay so getting back a little bit over to this i don't know what george is talking about the chat GPT-AI. Knew about KNF, but not very accurate. And George is saying he strained his seven-month-old KNF fuel, took off the moldy top layer and strained it. Hope this is all still okay since I didn't have any medicine or IMO to put on top. Yes, correct. Neither. You don't need KNF medicine or IMO in your can of fuel. It's unnecessary, and sometimes you will get a little bit of molds on
36:56 top, but it's okay. The lactobacillus in liquid is so potent that it'll be fine. It'll be totally fine. So if you look at a little bit of my older ones, they always have like white mold or green mold, even that's like trichoderma, other molds growing on it. But they're totally fine, totally fine. So don't worry about that if things are growing on there. And let's see here. Scrolling back up. Sorry, I was talking for a bit. Ignored the live chat here. But yeah. And then Weston here was saying, I don't have access to red soil, but I do have
37:40 access to lifeless clay for making IMO4. Should I break up the clumps and clods or should I let the IMO do it. Use the clay. Awesome. Good clay is great stuff to put into the IMO and let the IMO kind of break it up. As you're turning it over that week, they will get in there and break it up. As long as it's not huge bricks. If it's like, you know, you don't have to break it up very small, like, you know, things this big or so just leave those clods, those clumps, the IMOs will penetrate in. They will break it up. And by the time you're done turning it one week later, it'll all be a
38:15 nice, um, aggregate for you. It'll be perfect. So let the IMOs break it up. Um, even though stonemasons here saying he breaks it up, um, and he uses a little topsoil, which is all great advice. And Hey, I don't have that much clay. I do have a really thick red soil. It's almost like clay. It's not clay, but, um, it's, it's old, um, old decomposed ash. And I don't break it up very much more than like, you know, um, you know, turnable sizes where I don't want to be turning a huge thing, but, um, so anyway, um, let's see going down here. Um, Oh, what's up Ireland
38:56 Darag Dara Dara. I don't know how to say that. I would say Darag. I don't know if that's correct. um sup ireland in the house um make an im03 but your plant juice is a little over fermented and i can't make more as why you're in deep winter i was wondering if i can make it without the um the food in the cold um you can you can um the the can of food really add like so when we first started doing natural farming, we had such bad information, not bad information, but mistranslations and things of making IMO to even know that you're supposed to put plant juice in there. And your IMO
39:41 still comes out okay, right? It still comes out good. It really, what you're trying to do with a can of food is to put in, you're trying to give your IMO pile the best advantage. Like it's, It's like think of a school. Like if you have a school and you don't have food there, then how are you supposed to learn as well, right? You're going through 10,000 years of learning and you need this food around. So there's other ways to supplement that, such as even putting in like raw juice or putting in some sort of thing in there to have it ferment.
40:16 The vinegars, the fuel, all these other things are fuels. The more you can get your IMO3 to have the perfect conditions, the more they're going to propagate properly, you know, and grow out as well as they can. So if you're missing an ingredient, it's okay. Go for it. Do it. You can always do it again better. And you'll always get something that's pretty darn good. You know, a lot of people, when you talk about KNF, they talk about, you know, like certain agriculture. Imagine you have a dartboard, right? In certain agriculture, it's very precision.
40:53 You've got to hit the middle of the dartboard with certain chemicals like hydroponics all the time. If your pH is off a little bit, you're going to have less of a thing. Versus imagine K&F is taking that same dartboard, but it's making the bullseye about 60% of your dartboard. So 60% of your dartboard is a bullseye. So even if you're not that accurate and you're throwing darts, you're going to hit the bullseye a lot more often.
41:19 You can still miss, right? You can still do things wrong, but it's so much more forgiving because you're working with the microbes as an interface versus me having to like manage the pH exactly in a hydroponics. And if it goes out of whack for a few hours, it's like all the plants die. It's like in the soil, the microbes are managing the pH and they're actually micro adjusting the pH constantly in tandem with what the plant wants. and so it gives you so much more leeway to apply something that's not the perfect pH
41:51 but then the um but then the microbes will balance all this in and bring it in and really nourish your soil so think of it as like if you're not correct in KNF as long as you're getting it pretty darn close you're going to still be hitting that bullseye you're still going to be getting great success you know that that high reward back um and that's kind of where we want to think of it is that it's just a lot more forgiving. So if you're missing a component or you don't have one, it's okay. It's okay. You can always do better. You know, Master Cho over here, he'd probably
42:24 come slap you. But hey, it's okay. You can, you know, the human body's designed to take slaps. It's designed to get, you know, hit. And he's designed there to correct you and try and be like, hey, you can do better, right? And that's more of what the slap's indicating. It's like, you can do better. I know you can do better. And so it's always one of these things of aspiring to be a better natural farmer, but it's okay to miss a little bit into like, you don't have something, go for it, right? It's not like you have to wait. So if you don't have the plant juice,
42:55 you don't have the can of food to put in, don't worry about it. Just, just go for it. Um, and next time try, try to get better. Um, so, Oh yeah. And Cheryl's correct that, uh, Spencer is running a no smell pig pen. It's not on that scale though. I think he's doing about 20 to 40 pigs somewhere in that region. You know, people don't consider that, you know, pig farmers don't consider you a pig farmer unless you have like 10,000 hogs, you know, you're just, you're just a hobbyist, right? It's, I mean, one pig can stink enough to make it prove that KNF works.
43:30 And it's like, and so sometimes the people with 10,000 pigs look down on the people with just a few pigs to say, oh, you're not doing it right. Or, you know, you know, I understand, I understand And it's a whole different game feeding 10,000 hogs each day. Like imagine that amount of food. That's like truckloads of food, right? And so I get it, you know. So to be better on that, getting better at all this. And so George is replying back to me a little bit on the chat GPT AI.
44:03 And he says it's an artificial intelligence chatbot that has mind-blowing ability to give human-like responses about any topic. and it's free to use. Look it up, OpenAI. Okay, so maybe we need to train the AI thing to learn about natural farming, and it probably just needs more literature. And Stonemason, just so you know, this technology, when you're saying that you want something that works in your climate. This is working in Korea. It gets super hot in the summer and it gets snowing in the winter. So, and it works in Korea. And, you know, if you check these
44:47 pig pens out, let's see, let's not play that right now. But they are, they are all over. They are, let's see here, my channel, these, these pig pens are all over, you know. So let's just, let's just go see is there anybody in your climate region doing this and here we go 800 pigs right here natural farming you know here it is uh let's see where where them pigs at yeah so here huge huge system running the no smell doing it all up my camera's a little grainy and it's dark when we went here. But yeah, here it is. Here's the pigs doing their thing.
45:37 Absolutely works in your climate. I've got to slide this over a little bit so you guys can see this full window here. Look how many tabs I have open. Oh my gosh. But yeah, here it is. So this is directly very similar climate to where you're at. Indiana, Korea, very similar in terms of It snows, it gets hot, and the pigs thrive, right? So, it totally works. And so, and those are large scale, right? He's running 800 pigs, you know, that's almost up to 1,000 pigs. You know, the 10,000 pig people would probably laugh. Or Mel's like, chuckles in industrial pig raising.
46:22 um so um yeah so if you set the trend in america i was you know my ego is like i maybe i should do it i should be the one i should change the world that's like how about maybe i just encourage someone else to do it and you know just stay in the background and don't get as much credit so like yeah yeah that sounds better i live in hawaii man why why move to america for a couple years plus i'd have to raise all the capital to do it and all this stuff and i guarantee it i'd like, you know, like get the technology, do the thing, man, make, make millions, right. Be like
46:55 Gabe Brown. People would fly me, you know, Joe Salatin, they'd fly me and I'd be the pig guy. Right. And it's like, you know, someone else do it. You know, you don't even have to mention me. If you got this idea for me, just, just keep it. It's yours. Um, Dara, Dara, Dara. Thanks for correcting me. Cool. Good to see you from Ireland. So let's see here. And George is saying his vinegar seems to be brewing okay. One that I put in part vinegar mama, got mold on it, took it off. Another one had a few larvae on the side of the glass, but it smells similar for all
47:36 jars. In Hawaii, we get these things called vinegar gnats. Let me, let me, vinegar gnats. And these vinegar gnats, these little things here, these little things, they can sometimes poop little larvae in there, but these little vinegar gnats, you know, if you ever have a compost pile, they'll like swarm around. But these vinegar gnats, they actually land and they poop acetic acid. So when I have these gnats in there and their larva in there, I'm not that concerned about them, right? These little guys here, they actually poop out acetic acid. So they can
48:20 actually be a vinegar starter for you. So there's ways to like, you know, teabag your material and then lift it up and have all these vinegar gnats swarm to it. They poop acetic acid and you dunk it back in, you lift it up, dunk it back in, and you can make vinegar very quickly by engaging these gnats in the process, just so you know. So a little bit of larva, those things, you know, if you obviously want it food grade for yourself, do it indoors, you know, and seal it, or not, don't seal it from air, but seal it so that you're not going to let these little gnats in by putting
48:57 a fine mesh screen on it or something. So, but if you're just making agricultural vinegar, having these gnats, having these larva, amen, it's so it goes. It can be kind of a gnarly process. So Dara, San, yeah. Yeah, cool, cool. Yeah, Ireland. I don't know if I'm going to travel these days. I've been so content just being here, man. I really, I am going to travel to the islands. I am setting up KNF natural farming across the state of Hawaii right now. I'm working with Farmers Union, some of the presidents, and I am going to do a Hawaii tour.
49:41 You know, I did the Aloha tour a couple of years in a row, went to West Coast America, went to Colorado, went to Texas, you know, did it in America. It was a lot of fun. I met a ton of great people. Love you guys. But I'm just not so sure that's in my wheelhouse right now. I got a little puppy, you know, probably going to be making some babies soon. And, you know, I think I may just chill here and just do the islands and, you know, invite people here come to the farm, which I still do have openings in my training. Um, got, got some
50:16 great people. I think we have about, you know, six or eight, six, I think six people coming from outside. And then I think about that quite a few coming from local big Island here. So really looking forward to that. Um, those classes happening. Um, and, um, talking about these vinegar gnats a little bit more. They're not fruit flies per se. They're called vinegar gnats. Fruit flies, to me, a fruit fly is actually, let me look it up, is actually like something that looks like this. Like these guys here, that's what I consider a fruit fly. So they're not exactly the
50:56 same. They're vinegar gnats. So anyway, I just wouldn't consider that a fruit fly per se. But maybe somebody would say it's like they're compost gnats. I don't know. I, you know, common names. Um, and Cheryl says she can help folks there. Yes, she is tuned in. She knows what's up. She can help you make a pig pen and make those things. So great to have teachers all over Cheryl. Great teacher out there. She's in Idaho, the Boise region. You know, if you're nearby, reach out to her. She's the, she's the queen of Boise, you know, and, uh, she's holding
51:33 down the natural farming there, keeping it going. Um, you know, you want someone in America that's really highly trained. Cheryl is, is definitely a person I would recommend. So she's right here in the chat, reach out to her and, um, yeah. So, uh, cool. You guys, the Ireland folks, that's great to see this, a global community we've made. Um, so So, okay. Small white worms that they call pot worms in acidic conditions. Yeah, acidic soil. Yeah, so alvin, those things might be those things that are,
52:20 like they may actually be pooping out the acidity and things are attracted. If you have problems with acidity, more organic matter, meaning that not organic material, but organic matter like humus, like finished compost will help. Biochar will also help buffer that back, keep any acidity from being a problem. And of course, IMOs and lactobacillus, even though they're acidic, when they get into your soil, they will help to buffer things, move them around, spread things out and fix your problems. so if you're having like problems like that char finished compost imos lactobacillus like those
53:02 are your your wins there for sure um what's up thomas um so yeah yeah so so make it out here um sooner than later because i don't always do these classes i'm gonna be like i said i'm gonna to be going throughout the states maybe or not the states like the islands going to Oahu Maui we'll see I might make it out to Kauai I haven't arranged that yet and Lanai and Molokai even getting getting over and just you know traveling around making it happen so so fun to visit different islands and I love the people and just Farmers Union Convention made me realize
53:45 you know how much more I need to be getting out and doing these things um so um so um so um so um I did I did want to drop into a little bit of um soil excuse me um i didn't i did lose my voice a little bit at farmers union convention i was just yelling and hanging out and staying up late and having fun so still recovering slightly from that um and um so alvin's just saying he mixed his own potting soil with local soil some amendments
54:35 pumice biochar lava rock earthworm castings etc i noticed these little worms not sure if the soil is bad or not. I haven't tested it. Um, you know, the, the key, like, so, so let me, let me jump back. So I want to go into this, um, this presentation here of natural farming that, that we've been doing over the past couple of weeks. And I just review back, we're, we're starting at OHN today, but, um, just to review back a little bit here of, you know, um, crop cultivation, environment, recovery, like how to recover your things. But, um, but prior to this,
55:17 uh, master Cho here, which, which he's there in the past episodes was talking about the IMOs to recover the environment, but he's also talking about, um, utilizing the IMO. So for instance, like after, you know, if you're, if your soil's looking like this, where you got great IMOs out there, you're probably not going to have those same problems. You're going to, you know, you've got enough microorganisms in there. So how do you get something that looks like this? Well, you spread the IMO over the surface like she's doing here. And then after that, you water it in with the
55:53 soil liquids. And so here, you know, if you have without successive disorder, one week before planting your seeds, you put out the IMO4, and then right after that, you put your soil foundation, which is in the book here, right here. Let's see why I got preview open. Okay, it's in here, and then it's this formulation right here. All right, you use this soil formula, and you put these nutrients right here, this soil formula, and you water that in on top of the IMO that you put out there. So that's what you're wanting to do. So Alvin,
56:40 if you're having those problems, like put the IMO on top and then water it in one week before planting. And in that time, it should balance out. But if you have successive cropping disorder, or you think there's something wrong, it says two weeks before planting, put your IMO down two weeks before and then right after you put the IMO for, put this liquid formula and then one week before, put the liquid formula again and it should get rid of those disorders for you. So again, this is like how to utilize the IMO, how to put these things out. And if you have red wigglers,
57:18 they won't live in your soil. They're composting worms. So earthworms, red wigglers, the blue ones, they're different. Earthworms are earthworms. They'll hatch from good soil. But red wigglers will not live in your soil. So I don't think putting a bunch of red wigglers in your soil is going to be good. They will leave. And they're composting worms. So they make great castings, but they will not live in your soil. um and if you do have red wigglers living in your soil it means that you have too much organic material there which you need to you know so anyway um
57:57 so um so anyway i continue on this presentation you know last week we were talking about you know cover cropping next to it and then how to cut it down and how to mulch with it in situ you know the the purpose of mulching you know seed groundwork how to sprout your seeds how to treat seedlings like dipping your seedlings here moving those over and soaking your seedlings here for 15 seconds before you put them in and then this week last few minutes here which it's probably going to take more than a few minutes to get through this so maybe I'll just postpone it but
58:40 But anyway, I'll just go through this quickly as a preview of the oriental herbal nutrient process, which we call KNF medicine because that's its function is its medicines. And what's the reason for KNF medicine? Well, we started off this episode today with somebody saying they took it for health. Within three days, it took away their cough, right? So it works for humans, apparently. but it also you know helps get the full energy and function to increase plant robustness right so expressing its full potential these herbs these things it's available here on the office hours
59:23 actually and it also works to help sterilize and sterilize is not the correct word here because this was a translation i'm sure they say sterilize but really what they mean is sanitize because it doesn't sterilize to like kill the other microbes, kill everything. It sanitizes it to just leave the beneficials behind. So anytime I hear things say like, oh, garlic, you know, sterilize it. It sanitizes. It really, it helps to clean out the bad microbes and leave the good microbes. A sterile environment is not a healthy environment. A sanitized environment
1:00:01 is a healthy environment. Um, so, um, and it helps keep plants warm, which is important as you're heading into, you know, it's winter, you know, especially if this is important in fall, that if you apply, um, the, the, the KNF medicine right before a cold snap, like if you know, oh, frost is predicted for your region and you spray K&F medicine on there, your plants will actually heat up a little bit. Just like when you take it, you can feel it heat up your body and you actually heat up. It will avoid a cold snap. So in early frost, you can avoid by keeping your
1:00:43 plants warmer. And again, if you want to plant earlier in spring, you can do it if you include the KNF medicine. So this is a way to keep warm up the inside of the plant. It's not like just applying it here, which would be a bunch of energy. It actually heats up the plant inside. So amazing technology here. And it can revitalize crops and activates their growth, meaning that this can take older plants that are not as vigorous. And as you apply this, it youthens them to a degree. They find this extra energy because all these herbs, spices, everything,
1:01:19 it synergistically brings out this medicinal qualities for them. So that's the reasons for using it here. You know, helps things activate and go through. And it's pretty, pretty amazing here. And then the last little bit here before I get into this, let's see, I'll just leave that as a preview here of going through, you know, we're going to go through the materials, talk a little bit about those how to prepare it um what's happening you know how they're going through these deals um what's going on how to make it you know you guys if you've made it before it's
1:02:00 in the book this is another way of explaining it showing how it goes the reuse you know the four to five times of how to do this one of the most controversial facts of natural farming here on this page and how to use it, dilute it, how to keep it around and how to use it. So if you were curious, you can go and slow those down, pause those slides, see those things. But we will be back next week and I'll be talking about KNF medicine, the oriental herbal nutrient and doing a deep dive into it. Why not? May as well feature a solution while I'm doing it. And I'm happy to
1:02:39 share with you guys. Happy to tune, you know, you tuned in, making it worth your time going deep into KNF, the explanations, the, um, you know, the depth. I'm here. If you're into KNF, you're not tuning into these office hours. I don't know what you're doing, man. It's like, I go into all kinds of things. I mean, I know it's a lot, but I am working on a script to cut all the office hours up by the titles, by the table of contents and upload shorts or shorter versions on just each topic. I started my, you know, programming some Ruby on that and using FFmpeg and, you know,
1:03:17 the YT gem to upload all this to YouTube and make all this happen. I want to automate it, so I just hit go and it does it because office hours are already done and all this. But my Synology NAS just died, so I'm going to have to fix that before I get back into that. And I'm going to answer this one last question that Alvin had, which is the red wigglers came with the EWC. I'm not sure what EWC is, but I've read composting worms will still live in the top six inches or so of soil and will do the composting there. Yes, if you feed them enough and you do those things, they can happen.
1:03:59 And certified teachers have this PowerPoint. I would be, um, earthworm castings. Okay. Um, you know, yeah, I'd watch out anyway. Um, uh, yeah. Okay. Uh, okay. So yeah. And actually more than certified teachers, anyone who turns and tunes into the office hours can get this, you know, uh, here it is. Um, I've had all these things so anyway I just want to thank you guys for tuning in check it out next week again visit KNF support to get all these episodes and more there all broken down with table of contents so you can search it find it find the information you're
1:04:43 looking for all these things keep the worms going keep everything going keep it going natural farmers let's tune in next week see you again in the meantime long live the natural farmer thank you guys what a great time what a good thing I'm glad you're here aloha, bye now