Milk Cow LAB, Mastitis Remedy & knfFood From Weeds to Black Locust
Dr. Drake opens with an I Ching reading on nourishment, then catches up on office hours news. Stonemason shares a cucumber vinegar experiment and a SCOBY comparison; Drake notes it's safe below pH 2.4. George sends a microgreens timelapse and photos of his printed-recipe KNF solutions display. Drake also walks through class photos from a tour of Moose's kava (ʻawa) farm on Hawaiʻi Island, where weekly KNF sprays have cut back leaf disease.
Big farm news: the Weinerts got a milk cow, bringing the herd to five. Milking her means gallons of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) every day, fed to the chickens and pigs to close the farm loop. Drake sprays the pasture weekly with seawater maintenance solution, fuel, and whey. The cow pen has no living floor yet; wood chips and inoculation are planned once the ground is wet enough. A case of early mastitis cleared up with garlic, turmeric, and microbes mixed into her feed.
A clip from Paul Stamets' interview on the HFUU speaker series covers fungal networks and NASA-funded mycology research. Through a question relayed by Vince, Stamets confirms that transplanting microbiomes — the core idea behind KNF — holds up.
The rest of the show works through Master Cho's knfFood slides: the three-stage ferment (recognition, harmony, fermentation/affection), the one-third airspace rule, and picking fast-growing, chi-rich plants in season. Mugwort gives little juice; dropwort (dryland watercress) gives plenty. Bamboo shoots and banana flowers ferment fast — white mold on top means it's time for storage. Drake also covers knfFood from kudzu, arrowroot, cedar fruit, five-leaf akebia, seaweed, old blemished fruit aged a year, and black locust flowers picked just before the bees arrive.
Questions answered
- 13:35 Is Stonemason's cucumber vinegar safe to use? — Yes — Drake says as long as the pH is below 2.4, it's good to go.
- 30:22 How does the milk cow help turn grass into protein? — They ferment her milk into LAB and feed it to the chickens and pigs, closing the farm loop.
- 31:56 Does the cow pen have a living floor? — Not yet — it's just a barn; Drake plans to add inoculated wood chips once it's wet enough.
- 32:43 What's a natural remedy for mastitis in a milk cow? — Garlic and turmeric, plus putting microbes into her feed, cleared it up.
- 41:26 Does Paul Stamets know about Korean Natural Farming? — Through a chat answer from Vince, Stamets affirmed that transplanting microbiomes, what KNF does, works.
- 54:07 What kind of plants should you collect to make knfFood? — Fast-growing, vigorous plants full of chi that are in season, like kudzu, sweet potato, and comfrey.
- 55:34 How do you get the most juice from mugwort and dropwort? — Pick tender tips wet with morning dew in spring; dropwort yields far more juice than mugwort.
- 58:50 Do you need a separate knfFood for each of 20 different vegetables? — No — just make two or three good ones, combine them, and spray the whole farm.
- 59:52 What does white mold on bamboo shoot or banana flower knfFood mean? — Fermentation finished abnormally fast — time to move it into storage.
- 1:01:11 What about knfFood from arrowroot, kudzu, or cedar? — Use tender new kudzu vine tips; cedar fruit picked in late June works as a reinforcing agent mixed with others.
- 1:04:54 Can you make knfFood from fruit with no commercial value? — Yes — blemished fruit still gives fruit enzymes; age it about a year and use in the late reproductive stage.
- 1:06:22 When's the best time to harvest black locust flowers for knfFood? — Just before the bees visit to collect their honey.
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 Countdown
- 4:49 Intro & welcome
- 6:15 I Ching reading: nourishment
- 10:25 Looking back at Office Hours; join for 2023
- 13:00 Stonemason's cucumber vinegar; comparing SCOBYs
- 14:28 George's microgreens timelapse; KNF solutions display
- 18:09 George's KNF Instagram
- 20:05 Class tour of Moose's kava farm
- 29:01 Got a milk cow; turning grass into protein
- 32:15 Living floor in the cow pen? Mastitis remedy
- 37:09 Paul Stamets interview at HFUU speaker series
- 43:53 Master Cho's slideshow; Pure KNF terminology
- 46:11 What is knfFood and why use it; recipe origin
- 48:48 The philosophy of making knfFood
- 54:12 What plants to collect for knfFood
- 55:42 Getting the most juice; mugwort and dropwort
- 59:15 Supersaturation; knfFood from bamboo shoots
- 1:01:07 knfFood from arrowroot, kudzu, cedar, akebia, seaweed
- 1:04:56 knfFood from unsellable fruit; aging old knfFoods
- 1:06:27 knfFood from false acacia flowers; reproductive stage
Transcript
Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.
5:30 Hey, aloha, and welcome to Korean Natural Farming Office Hours with me, Dr. Drake, just me today. Although this year has been great, I've had a bunch of guests here and folks that were here for the class. um but before we get into all that and more korean natural farming um start off with a little bit of iaching here hey what's up you guys what's up thomas long time man earthbound organics western australia in the house um let's see here okay today it's a good one for us
6:19 you're starting a new Chinese new year right happy rabbit to y'all so today is corners of the mouth providing nourishment and it says give proper nourishment to yourself and others to yourself and others the image of this hexagram is that of an open mouth it comes to remind us that the nourishment of our bodies and spirits is important and it merits our conscientious attention the I Ching teaches us that if we wish to gauge someone's character
7:06 we should notice what he nourishes in himself and in others. Those who cultivate inferior behaviors and relationships are inferior people. Those who cultivate superior qualities in themselves and others are superior people. This is a test we should apply to ourselves as well as to others. what you put in your body is obviously important because it determines your fundamental physical well-being and it is wise to be moderate and thoughtful about the food you eat what you put into your mind is even more significant and regulating it is a more subtle art
7:57 this hexagram gives us three part advice on the subject the first counsel is that we should not feed our minds on desire when we forgo equanimity and begin to desire something or someone a host of inferior influences come into play and we become ambitious about obtaining the object of our desire. We become fearful that we will not. If we do achieve it, our ego is gratified and strengthened, and then it soon issues another demand for us to meet. This self-reinforcing cycle of negativity is thus created. Therefore, it's wise to hold yourself free from desire.
8:48 the second counsel is that we begin and continue in a practice of regular meditation sitting quietly with your eyes closed for as little as 10 to 15 minutes can let the sage begin to clear the waste out of your hearts and minds making room for the nourishment of peace and wisdom to enter in. To sit in meditation is to tune your ear to the voice of the sage. And it is the most powerful way of gaining his assistance. The final counsel is we observe tranquilly in speech, thoughts, and actions.
9:38 By cultivating calm and equanimity and all that you say, think, and do, you nourish your superior self and those around you. One who follows these three counsels now will meet with good fortune. So, yeah, that's a good thing to do there. Nourish each other. Nourish ourselves. I think that's why you're tuned in here. You're probably growing better food than most people. Sharing that with the world, the open mouth, their thoughts, actions, all these things lined them up. Hey, what's up, Daniel? He was just over here yesterday. So, yeah. So, this past, I just want to share with you guys,
10:29 you know, for 2020, 2023 coming up, I was thinking for office hours, you know, So I like sharing, like this past year, you know, sharing with the office hours of Master Cho, unless there was somebody here to, you know, to be part of the show. But largely, you know, going over Master Cho's presentations, those things. but the last couple episodes if I look at the content here and I go live and then I swap these over here where I go let's see here it's way over here share screen share screen side by side
11:14 that'll work that you can see over here the last well there's this episode happening right now live but the last two episodes of January this year have been with a guest and that's been a whole a lot of fun to share with guests and to interview them and to find out how you know natural farming has been successful not just in my life and understanding Master Cho's teachings here but also sharing with guests here. This last one here had Daniel and Ben coming out. And so it's nice to see you guys.
12:02 And Daniel's here today. And he was here on this episode here, January 8th as well. So I was thinking if you want to be part of the KNF office hours for 2023 and share and show what you're doing, being able to interview you through the Internet here would be a good way to reach out. And, you know, even if you want to put together a little presentation or anything like that. And speaking of that, I did get a bunch of emails. So let me just pull those up right here a little quickly and bring this over here and go back to this.
12:49 Oh, it's always fun to run a live show and do the right thing here where I got some requests from some folks. and here's one from stonemason he's here today and i'll transition this over here and share this um here's his uh what is it it's cucumber vinegar cucumber vinegar awesome look at that the cucumbers floating in there it's like pickles gone wild there's him look at that nice mother that he has on top pulling off there
13:35 nice nice nice and then oh look at that looks like a kidney or something these are the best react videos on the internet by the way comparing scobies oh look at that wow is he weighing it? I'm not sure exactly there. And what's up the goof man? Good to see you from New York. So he sent me, he sent me these pictures of a cucumber vinegar. Wild. Look at that. So, um, you know, as long as your pH is below 2.4, you're good to go. Let's see here. Um, and then who else? I got things. So thanks for that. Thanks for that stonemason. Great to see.
14:23 oh okay and then here George George sent this email here where he's doing a time lapse on his Instagram so let me see if I can pull that up right here okay so you guys can see this and so here's a time lapse of his I think these are just sprouts microgreens maybe I need to put a clock there so you can see the time oh the clock's at the top nevermind the one that would spin though that'd be cool oh my gosh look at those microgreens yeah yeah
15:10 well thank you for sharing Stonemason look at these microgreens okay I'm gonna watch that one more time so look at these so I think he might be using natural farming on these solutions and spritzing them I'm not sure exactly, but look at these things. Wow. The plants, like when you slow it down, they're all like alive and living, you know, like when you speed them up, I guess a better way of saying it. So that's cool. And it's a sneak peek into making a test rig for testing Korean natural farming solutions on microgreens. Okay. So that's what it is.
15:45 And he's doing a little time-lapse growth solution on that. That's pretty awesome, man. And then it says here, I plan to make a short video, show the steps to offer them and get some ingredients. And so check this out. I mean, here, let's see if I can get a better transition that over. Here's his solutions here. And it looks like that's his little, maybe that's his time-lapse camera. It looks like a webcam here. maybe he just set his webcam up to do a time lapse and maybe he's what does that say oh KNF fuel maybe he's time lapsing the fuel no I don't know anyway and then he has these
16:36 you know the worksheets it looks like that's printouts from the book there on the recipe for each one. Oh yeah, so that's the fuel recipe there, and then that's that. That's the lactic acid bacteria recipe, that's that. Oh, this is actually a really nice way to display this. If you look at this, in front of here, there's like the recipe from the book printed out, and then there's the solution right here. Like this is a vinegar, and then that's probably the vinegar recipe. Wow. Hey, this is cool. And I like how it's lit up and stuff with the
17:15 Christmas lights. Like this is pretty inviting for people to, um, to check out. Yeah. Yeah. This is a great way to, um, display Korean natural farming. Like I would, I would, um, I would walk over to this and be like, Hey, check this out and look at these solutions. I want to get these out so that we can put these into like poster board format so we can see these and put them above the solution so it'd be like you know you get a full-on like just like it was in you know in Korea that's how they did you know learning center like this nice
17:48 man that's that's beautiful I like I like the Latvian experience there of getting it getting it together. So let's see. And since it's kind of, I don't know, maybe it's kind of nosy, but let's go on your Instagram a little bit because you can see what you're doing here. I remember you shared this. Let me see here. I can transition that one there. I remember you shared with me some of these photos. Oh yeah, here you're making lacto. There's the garden.
18:33 And then they want me to sign up. No, I don't want to. Let me go. I can't scroll in. I've got to refresh it if you want to see that again. They trap me. I will not sign in. Yeah, so check these out. I mean, there he is teaching here. Or at least somebody's teaching there. I don't know, maybe it's not George, but his collection box, making the raised beds. I wonder how his harvest went. I don't see too many of the harvest pictures. Now he's on a microgreen, so hopefully everything went well for him. I don't know, a little nosy to go spy on someone's Instagram while they're there.
19:13 But I do make, Thomas says he's about to make grapefruit vinegar and he'll try to take pictures to send the awesome. I was just doing vinegar from bananas and I need to make more. We made more with the class. Speaking of, that's actually the other thing that I was going to do here. is I was going to pull up just a few photos here. I don't know. Actually, let me just put it on this side and then do this and just transition that over. That'll be fine. So during the class,
20:06 I don't know if I got into this or talked about this yet. I don't think so. But we went over to Moose's farm, and there's Daniel again and Ben, and so we went over to Bayfront Cava, which is somebody I've been following for a while. Perilla would make a, perilla sesame seed, sesame would make a really good can of food, the plant juice out of that, but we went over to Moose's farm, and he grows ava, Hawaiian cava. I probably said that a couple times already now, but there says Bayfront Cava. And then these are the little Cava starts in his nursery area.
20:45 And then, um, let's see here. What am I doing? I'm on this screen. Okay. And then, um, I'll just show you some of these photos. There's Heather, Pedro. Um, we went down, sorry, it took a while, I guess. Oh, so, so here's the Ava growing and here, here's his KNF, things happening here. Here's the kava. And if you look at it, there's very little disease on his kava. Whereas in Hawaii right now, you can look through the photos and you'll see, but you'll see more disease on the leaves. He also has a lemongrass border here, nice mulched
21:27 underneath. Here's more of his Ava. This is a mangosteen tree here on this side. And then all this Ava. And now he's been using a little bit more weed mat, a little bit more Yung Sang Cho. Jadam. What's up? What's up? What's up, good family? Yo, Mitchell. Here's more of his Ava here. You know, it's growing, bunching out from the center, grows from these cuttings. Like one of These knuckles will be cut here and here and then put into the ground. A new planting will come out of these knuckles. And then those knuckles are placed and it's planted. And these are looking good.
22:06 You know, minimal weed pressure, especially as this canopy gets up. And he's been spraying KNF every other week, every week, something like that. Here's more of it. You know, looking nice, nice maturing plants. Out in direct sun now. Really, you know, experiencing good. good. And then, you know, his ground covers, he's managing weed mats, those things. Here's more of the weed mat between Ava and then Taro, Hawaiian Kalo, starfruit tree, maybe a mangosteen, maybe not. But a lot of Ava here. And do it yourself, humic acid, man, from the worm farm,
22:53 worm farm worms are your friends they make humic acid in the ground so here's my class um shay pedro uh daniel uh leah uh britney ben daniel two daniels and heather and all checking out with moose here and moose took my class in 2019 um then you know um these guys just took it this past January. Um, and I'm not sure about the video you're talking about, but all these folks, um, you know, tuning in, getting, you know, checking out past students, seeing, seeing it happen in real life. Um, and everyone checking all this out.
23:41 guava vinegar we had yeah it's good um so and we went out on a moose's too i think right maybe not um but i've been going cruising down to his farm it's a great example you know he's out there every day not every day but most days farming they got a lot of money behind this to make this product and sell it and have a whole marketing plan it really makes sense you know um here's daniel holding up this nice call that moose grew that he had so much tarot he just left some in the field he didn't even know what to do with it so we need obviously we need to get um
24:17 our farmers markets going a little bit better get more people tuned in to how to give food and trade food and get those things advanced here um there's moose chilling in front of his alva talking about how easy it is yeah so and then I'm sure towards the end of this oh there's a nice group photo or there's a better one maybe yeah and then there's a little bit of video of just shooting there and I've been shooting video over time at his farm to watch it change and so eventually put together you know nice micro documentary and we'll see
25:06 you know but getting footage just tracking you know the improvements of a farmer's farm over time to see how knf has changed you know look at these leaves they're really nice the new the new leaves you know the old ones hanging on a lot of good coverage there um you know healthy thick stems no disease on the stem you know a few holes few holes but doing pretty good he does have a bunchy top on his bananas which i do too right now so i've been spraying lactobacillus every i sprayed it with pedro which by the way pedro if you're watching
25:46 i don't know maybe you're watching it later everything's flowering since we sprayed um I sprayed again last week. Going to continue spraying, putting a gallon of maintenance out on the farm a week. Plus seawater, plus a little bit of fuel. And yeah, just farming it up, man. And other thing too is today is the first day of significant rain. And it's been pretty much a drought here since mid-December. It hasn't rained. Today's the first day it's raining. So hallelujah. God bless. It's raining.
26:34 And our water tank was almost down all the way. So anyway, kind of ranting on a bunch of this stuff. But hopefully you're enjoying the images of Moose's farm. a number of different things. There are companies here on the island that will do what they call responsible land clearing, where you're not just bulldozing everything and pushing it to the edge. See, to positively affect that which we can. That's what's so cool about utilizing the microbes. And to be honest, I wish I could utilize more of the Korean natural farming here. Just like I said,
27:13 I've definitely been able to use the you know foliar spraying but you know it's not cool about it it's like you can really take it however far up to the point where you're mixing making literally spreading the microbes around you kind of you know through our foliar spraying and creating the healthier plants it's changing you know what's happening underneath the ground because the plants aren't as susceptible to some of these other pests want to get in there and damage things then you create that and then you're leaving that for the next generation
27:52 yeah it just it just goes on and on and on it's just like this endless world of soil food web that you know you know i watched kiss the ground i don't know if you guys have seen that yeah yeah and i watched that and it's just like you know i'd taken i watched that in maybe 2021 and i'd taking drake's class like two years before that so it's taken some time but it like really kind of all started to click it's like you you know with a small piece of land you actually you know you can make a difference and that's why i like farming have you seen any difference um
28:34 It would kind of be hard to quantify. So, yeah. Good to check in with Moose. See all his stuff growing. Daniel's there. Ishmael's forest farming. That's Daniel. He's saying Moose is the man. It was inspiring to see his approach of concentrating on Hawaiian crops and starting trying to force European crops to grow. Yeah, and the farm animals need that water. Also, other news on the KNF farm. that um is going on is we got a cow um not we've we've had a couple cows i've increased my herd from uh one to five um but we got a cow in milk and so we've been making a bunch of um
29:26 lactobacillus and all kinds of um good stuff yeah here's I don't know. You probably can't see it. No, it's reflecting back. Yeah, there's Sue's milking our milk cow. Getting out there, making it happen. We're going to get a milky machine. In fact, I've got to buy one today. So, thanks for super chats. um farming ain't cheap or easy and taking time out to do this it's actually it's nice i um appreciate the community and everything so um yeah so we have one milk cow two two um
30:13 wagyu beef cows and two black or one black angus or actually excuse me she's a red angus and then one red angus mixed with a Holstein. So we have some interesting cows on the farm now, but milking this cow, it's no joke, every day, like gallons of milk, but it also means gallons of LAB, and it also means that we're, excuse me, we are more able to, you know, today's about nourishment, nourishing the food, the open mouth, right? So with this, we're able to more nourish our animals, directly ferment, you know, turn grass into proteins, feed that to the chickens,
31:01 feed that to the pigs, really close our farm loop. And the cow integrated animal farming, Korean natural farming is the key. And so I've been up spraying the pastures as well with seawater maintenance solution, a little bit of fuel, you know, and a lot of protectors, a lot of whey now that we're generating so much whey, putting that out there on the pastures, trying to really encourage those to grow. And I'm looking forward to doing a drone shot. I just flew my drone over the other day, but to put together a drone, I've been droning my land for
31:45 the past year, two years, three years, I don't know, since 2020. And with that, you know, seeing how the pastures progress and how Korean natural farming has changed my, you know, plus changing grazing behavior and all that, but seeing how Korean natural farming has changed this whole, you know, thing with a drone time lapse, I think would be really, really powerful to see. and the cow pen um does not have a living floor it's just a cow barn right now um i probably i was talking to suze about it right now it's it's been so dry for the past two months basically um
32:29 but now that it's getting wet again i probably will need to move up um wood chips into the barn and then to inoculate those so it'll be a you know and then to pull out the manure if she if she makes waste in her pen. And so, yeah, just using natural farming that way to keep down the odor. And also, we just had a thing where she almost got mastitis in one of her teats was had the kind of a solid stuff coming out and the milk was a little watery. So Suze was able to fix that with garlic and turmeric and putting microbes in her food now. We're fermenting her feed,
33:12 and we're just supplementing a little bit of feed for the cow to, you know, have, you know, because we're taking milk from her, so we're supplementing a little bit of store-bought feed right now. But eventually, I think we could replace that feed with something like sugarcane or, you know, fruits and chopped up something good for her that would be high caloric intake, you know, it ran out some sort of grain thing. I actually got to look into what it is. We just bought it the other day because we just randomly got a dairy cow. It just came up,
33:50 came our way, and we were able to do it. So, and it's really, it's really changed our lives on the farm. I can tell you having a natural farming, having a dairy cow, having lactobacillus, having, you know, and now, um, now I don't know if I should share it here, but, um, you know, getting in, getting into the sugar, getting into the dairy, you know, um, this is, this is like almost a new level of sovereignty on the farm of new level of like, you know, having everything we need here. The cow is a game changer. Having natural farming, having, you know, pretty much everything
34:32 we need. I, you know, I didn't even leave, you know, I go into town once a week now. I basically turned into like, you know, a natural farmer in the woods growing my beard and chewing my mustache. and so yeah so we're putting we're putting IMO4 and lactobacillus into our dairy cows feed now and that's really been you know we'll see the results but it's going to be huge and beneficial here yeah yeah so So with this, you know, I wanted, with that sharing, the class, everything wrapped up, all good.
35:18 I did, you know, I do want to interview more guests here on the show and do that and get, you know, get more people involved, share. Oh, thanks for super chats, keeping the milk flowing, keeping the guys going. yeah um yeah so uh and stonemason here is talking about uh reading um mycelium running it's right here on the shelf behind me by paul stamets and um yeah giving you all kinds of ideas that's that's great incorporate it with knf and paul stamets um i i don't know if you know hang on Let me pull this up real quick here and go just look.
36:11 And just for this here, Paul Stamets, HFUU. No, oh, you know why it's showing me ads? Is this an ad? No, it's not. It's by... Anyway, I was going to look for Paul Stamets talking about, he came, let me just see if I can find this, HFUU, and let me just see, pause that, go here, and then look up on their channel. for Paul Paul Isaac
36:56 Paul Treseter Paul Stamets yeah here okay so here um um transition this over so here on the HFUU channel um they had Paul Stamets being interviewed um and I'll link this right now I'll just throw this in the chat and then go to where the end of this video so some Micah Nelson playing as you and is he playing but
37:43 Willie Nelson's son Micah Nelson playing some stuff there and then they interviewed Paul Stamets here. This is not sustainable. We have to look at sustainable systems and with a worldwide crisis in phosphorus, we have very little alternatives, except we have a great solution and that is reinvesting in fungal networks. So that's what I kind of want to bring to the table is regenerative agriculture is really sustainable over the long term. Conventional agriculture is not sustainable in the short term. So I think that's something that people should be aware of.
38:20 yeah and right on paul thank you for that you know a an agricultural icon uh this is i think a really good idea it's like um you know this uh concept of effective microorganisms and for a while i was a little skeptical about it but as i dug into it more basically you're using the complexity of the microbiome uh and then you're making applications of it so uh we just um was awarded a grant from nasa for uh terraforming uh mars and asteroids uh using fungi astromycology yeah i know it's finally coming out no there's gonna be a press
39:00 release coming out of nasa in a few weeks and and this is a really exciting because what we have to grow plants we have to create soil so fungi were the first organisms that came to land they started munching rocks basically on the beach or the title the title zones or lakes which you know go up and down but it does margins where it's it's uh you know aqueous environment dries aqueous and dries those margins at that interface is where life basically leaped out of the water and then when these fungi started munching rocks then algae then associated lichens formed and then mycorrhizal
39:40 fungi then you know developed a handshake relationship symbiotically with plants and then it became a love affair that's continues to this day love it well you know um here on in hawaii we've been working hard to create our hemp industry you know to have our hemp farm there's some really nice things happening on a national level uh thanks to your work and uh I wanted to take a look. There's a question here. You know, our president of East Hawaii chapter is a leader in Korean natural farming practices, also educates, is an educator in that
40:16 respect. And he was basically saying, you know, and I've also, I'm a practitioner in that we're growing our fungal networks through harvesting indigenous microorganisms from the forest and then you know, culturing that on mill run of wheat, which is basically we had that tested in mill run of weed is actually loaded with biostimulants. So we're able to then take that product as a compost in a sense, grow it out with just regular soil and then that becomes even stronger to dress the plants with to grow the fungal network. So you're talking about 75 years of remediating.
40:56 It seems like we're getting some traction just by going down this road. Can you, have you have you had any experience around the master chose work with what he's doing with using on-farm inputs to a little bit but the whole concept of transplantation of a microbiome from a healthy ecosystem into another ecosystem uh this is i think a really good idea it's like um you know this uh concept of the effect of microorganisms and for a while i was a little skeptical about it but as i dug into it more basically you're using the complexity of the microbiome and then you're making applications of it.
41:34 So we just was awarded a grant from NASA. So, yeah, so there's Paul Stamets directly, well, indirectly through Vince. It would be cool if I had got to talk to Paul directly. But through the chat, through Vince answering a question about IMO and KNF. And, yeah, he likes it, right? You know, it's, you know, I would love to be able to sit down with Paul and spend, you know, a couple days just showing him some of the solutions we have and, you know, collaborating with what he has.
42:17 But there he is, like, through somebody, you know, answering that, yeah, KNF is affirmative and transplanting the microbiomes. And, you know, at first he was skeptical, but now he sees the applications of it. And it's like, it's cool to hear, right? World-leading mycologist, you know, since he mentioned him and since I had it here and since, you know, that's like as close as I've been to Paul Stamets. But Micah Nelson's a good friend of mine. You know, I hope he would say the same thing about me. But, you know, we've met each other through the union and hanging out and buddies and things.
42:52 So, um, but yeah, to go, you know, hang out with Paul, maybe go up, you know, my wife's from Washington, maybe go cruise up there and hang out with Paul a little bit and, or he could come here to Hawaii and stay at our Airbnb, which is pretty epic and awesome. And, um, just, you know, had some great folks stay here and awesome. But, um, so yeah, anyway, Paul Stamets, great guy talking about mycelia, talking about this. he had he does know about korean natural farming to a degree right you know he knew he knew it was
43:25 that and um speaking of korean natural farming speaking of this you know you can watch that i linked it up above um yeah the huts the huts the farm huts yeah um so speaking of all that speaking of all that bringing bringing this mic over a little bit so i'm not leaning so far out of the frame here and still talking good into the mic um let's let's dive into a little bit of master cho's works here um i'm going to continue the translation of this um but i would love to talk with you comment below you know get enough of that on youtube right it's like everyone the
44:12 entire point of their um their youtube is to sell you an ad and now brought to you by you know it's like man did i watch this whole video just to have a masterworks painting presented to me um but no you instead you watch this whole video to have nothing but solutions given to you you know and and your generosity back to us at your own you know thank you bird super chats and anyway people say i talk shit about money or whatever but no i need it and It's good. Please send it to me. Super chats are appreciated.
44:46 So fermented plant juice, I call it KNF food because fermented plant juice, they also will make fermented fruit juice. They'll also make fermented flower juice. They will change this and then these acronym changes. And some folks out there will have FFJ, like fermented fruit juice, as if it's a different thing. And I'm here to tell you, I hate to spoil it for you. I love to bring in the good information, actually. I love to bring enlightened into a new world of just call it KNF food. And don't worry about what source it comes from.
45:18 The plants, the fruits, the flowers, you will use them differently and label them differently. But the acronym, this is telling you fermented plant juice. It's telling you what it does. You're fermenting a plant juice. It doesn't tell you how to use it, right? KNF food, it tells you how to use this, right? immediately it's like oh i know fermented plant juice how do i use that well but as a food can of food it's like food is used all the time at the right amount and the more you can match it to your plant the more you can match it to your growth stage the better results you're going to have
45:56 by applying the correct food the correct time the right amount right you know everything like that right amount, right time, right. There's four rights. You got to get right. And I can only think of two. So this fermented plant juice, I call it can of food. Makes sense in a lot of ways to me. Hopefully it makes sense to you. And let's get into it. So here the can of food is a fermented extract of plants, right? So that's explains exactly what it is, right? This here has that name, fermented extract of plants. The extract part is done via very dry materials such as sugar
46:38 and a little bit of salt if necessary. Salt is not always necessary. So it's an extract, osmotic extract. It's not a grind. It's not a pulverization. It's not a smashing. It's not a squeezing. It's a fermented extract, meaning like extract like tincturing, but this is fermentation. It's pulling through without grinding. It helps crops absorb nutrients directly for growing healthy and enabling their potentiality. Go figure on that Kringlish. But I think this is what, you know, the first statement is what it is, which it's a fermented extract of plants. The second is why and what it does.
47:22 And it's basically a food, right? What does food do? It helps whatever you're feeding absorb nutrients directly for growing healthy and enabling their potentiality, right? That's what a food does, right? So if I'm not mistaken here, this is, you know, what it is. This is why you'd use it, right? Why would you use it? Because, you know, why would you feed plants? You want them to grow healthier. Why would you feed anything? You want it to grow better. so the origin is kimchi this is koreans making kimchi this is um you know cabbage and peppers
48:00 and salt and um fermentation a little bit of sugar added here it's fermentation happening the same thing except for instead of the kimchi where you're getting the solids this part you're going to discard it's this liquids that's left behind that we're going to collect so it's origins in kimchi, but it's a different part of it that we're using here. So the process, okay, so this is diving into it of how to do it, you know, basically what's going to happen, right? This recipe is going to take you five to seven days, depending on temperature. But it might even be
48:44 better to go from the other way back. But anyway, the process of fermentation, at first, when you put together things, you're going to have the recognition of each other, right? So I'm saying the recognition of each other. So the translator's note between microbes and ingredients. And this is, yeah, the recognition of each other, like the introduction. This is also where you're adding the sugar. Um, this is like, you know, your, your first date type of thing happening. Um, yeah, this is probably, um, yeah. So, so, um, so the next part is harmony. You know,
49:31 after your first date, you see, you see somebody now you can, you start to date and you have fermentation, which is, you know, getting gifts to them, and affection. This is actually like, like, here's your fermentation is where your pregnancy is actually happening. And then your affection is when you're, you're rearing the baby. And then, you know, there you go. So through, through this life cycle here, harm, oni. And you can, of salt, you can add up to 10% of the amount of sugar you're going to add can be salt. But anyway, this is kind of like
50:13 esoteric Eastern slide here, right? Yeah, it's 10%. But this is kind of esoteric of talking about it, but this is also philosophical. If you think about the process you're doing, instead of just mixing two things together, right? Instead of just cutting things, mixing them, doing it, you're actually thinking of, you're cultivating trillions of microbes. This is where you can get into like this other headspace of like amazingness where if you think of this you're you're actually taking the plant material which still has the microbes on it and then you're mixing with sugar
50:45 and you're pulling out the juices and then you're taking what was hundreds of thousands of microbes or millions and you're growing them to just absurd proportions as they go through this fermentation step right and this is so so the recognition so so to go through this a little bit more in terms of the recognition, that's the introduction of ingredients. Then harmony, this is where the microbes are growing out. Okay, so there's actually like a couple scientific phases in this as well of what's happening. Step one, the recognition, you're mixing things together. Two, the microbes
51:20 are growing. They're growing in your material. Step number three is what they call fermentation. And this is why having that gas, that one third airspace above matters. Because when they grow, they use the gas as a quorum sense to understand how many other microbes are in the material and as they can quorum sense above then they grow through the harmony stage then they do fermentation where they actually then go into a stable different form the microbes will actually change what they're doing and how they look and polymorphically change from being growing microbes
51:57 to being stabilized fermentation microbes. And it's that fermentation breakdown and things that happen during that fermentation stage where instead of growing as the microbes, they're now learning how to eat the material and how to process and how to ferment and how to transform that material. And that's when that sort of digestion happens. They're no longer just grow, grow, grow. They're actually like consume, ferment, digest, transform. It's actually like an alchemical process, right? Fermentation is the same as like, you know, calcification and burning and all these other things, right?
52:36 So, excuse me. So, and then the stabilization, the affection where, you know, that's, you can actually pour, you know, pour off the microbes and then super saturate them in that affection type of stage. and yeah and so they're saying you know leave leave one-third of the air space for the three vital forces right water air and heat which is that humidity it's just like our atmosphere that grows above us that somehow keeps us going right keeps the plants growing our atmosphere they need an atmosphere within their jar or vessel that they're fermenting in and this is what i'm talking
53:21 about for all this to happen properly. If this doesn't happen properly, you don't get as good fermentation. You don't get as good, um, you know, microbes happening. So the more you can recognize your growing life instead of just like mixing chemicals or making food or something, you know, where you just throw things together, you're actually creating a, um, a atmosphere for life to live and process and digest your material. This is the, um, you know think of it that way like now you got this much more responsibility on you of like
53:55 really you know you're not just throwing things together you're actually building a universe if you want to think of it that way right so here's the process of fermentation the spiritual aspect you're about to have trillions of organisms breed and then you know what what kind of plants do you want to collect that's the next slide here um things with energy, right? He talks about plants with lots of chi, right? Fast growing, vigorous plants, materials that are in season. So, you know, when it's spring, all the young shoots coming up. When it's, you know, when it's fruits ripe, it should be all,
54:38 you know, harvested then and make a juice from itself. So tomatoes back to tomatoes, you're going to power up your tomatoes. What does a tomato want nutritionally? Well, another tomato. So take that tomato, ferment, get the best essence of it, throw the crap away, and then spray that back on another tomato where it's already been digested. And now you're getting the best food for that plant. But think of all these weeds that grow really well around you, plants with energy that are just, you can't stop them. It's like vines that just strangle everything. Kudzu,
55:14 right something like that um fast-growing vigorous plants sweet potatoes um comfries materials in season you know think about it whatever you always have things around you always i mean i guess in the dead of winter maybe um maybe you don't so sorry always i always do in hawaii we'll just quantify that and um if not you know we'll ship you some maybe so um so he talks about mugwort, reason for mugwort being chosen as one of his characteristics of what he wants to choose. He takes the tender points of it. He picks it when they're still wet with morning dew.
55:59 And he'll say that you'll get more in spring than you will in fall than you will in summer. So here in Hawaii, I don't get as much juice. Maybe it's because it's always summer-like conditions. Um, and he avoids the yellowish growth points. Obviously when you're picking your plants, avoid the sick, gross parts. Um, and in general, mugwort produces little juice. So he does say even that, you know, cause it gives me hardly any juice. I'm like, what the heck? But it's one of the best for pancakes, man. Make pancakes, put this mugwort on there. Oh,
56:33 thank me later or now with a super chat ah you suckers uh i like you guys it's great to have you guys from around the world joining in actually sharing master chose knowledge sharing my words pancakes um can i send you some questions i have about using wild plants in my mix just ask them now man just just do it now just go um so there we go um he also likes when the jab van neck uh yeah that plant whatever this is i don't know what it is oh it's dropwort it's dropwort i should just read the first part
57:19 instead of whatever that was um dropwort is great it's dryland watercress looks just like celery and harvest it from winter to May. Spring is the best time to make it. I don't know how you can harvest it in winter to May and then make it in spring. That does not make sense to me. That is weird that he talks about these two contradictory things. Oh, winter to May. oh I guess that is spring okay okay never mind never mind I am I am the one that's making a mistake here winter to May that is spring I just I don't even think of seasons that way but yes that
58:07 is spring okay so so make this in spring he says it twice um no no no no so so uh solar gourmet man if you so someone's asking if I have 20 different vegetables do I have to spray its own food on each one. No, just take, just make like three really good ones and then combine those and do it. Don't, you know, just, um, just do it that way. Don't make 20, I mean, 20 of them unless you really want to, but then I'm not going to open and clean my sprayer between crops. Like I'm just going to make one mix and spray the whole farm, like 40 gallons at a time. You know, it's 80,
58:50 it takes me 80 gallons to spray the farm you know yeah combine and rotate them yeah and use what's abundant like we said what you know again the main principles are plants with energy fast growing vigorous ones materials in season fbj you know so if you're having trimmings whatever those things do it but don't specially make each one you'll go nuts it's it's you know and then here he's saying dropwort has plenty of juice, which accelerates the process of fermentation. So dropwort, you'll get a lot more juice and you got to cut it up two centimeters in length.
59:27 And again, it says because dropwort produces a lot of juice, add more brown sugar when keeping dropwort FPJ in storage. So he's talking about super saturation, right? After you're done, you're going to need to add more sugar to super saturate this. Whereas you're not going to need as much sugar to super saturate maybe a mugwort which is thicker um so dropwort another good thing bamboo shoots these grow all over just cut these little shoots um and do peel off the skin when it becomes brownish right cut the shoots into small pieces without peeling off the skin
1:00:08 so unless it's brown don't peel it and pick these little short things just cut those up ferments fast with lots of juice um and when bamboo shoots are soaked too long white molds may occur due to abnormally fast fermentation so if you have a white mold starting to grow on the very top of your of your solution you know fermentation has been um finished see abnormally fast fermentation right so fermentation is done stop you know you've gone through that they've been introduced, they've been harmonized, they've been fermented. Now you need to go into
1:00:48 the storage, which was the, what stage was that? The affection stage of stabilization. So that can happen with other things such as bananas, banana flowers. It also ferments quick and gets white mold on top. So he also recommends arrow root or kudzu. I hear this is all over and this bottom thing is the same bamboo shoots and he says pick the vines that are newly so picking the shoots the tips of these here and in summer collect the soft part of the vine the light colored leaves from the upper part of the vine
1:01:33 so pick all that tender new growth kudzu use that one he recommends and the fruit of cedar so like these little berries here um they always tell you what jeju is yeah jeju is pretty famous um so sap oozes out from the tree at the end of june this is an optimal time for harvesting its fruits so even things that you can't necessarily eat you can turn into a plant juice the cedar has chi, kui, if you're down in Australia. So when the small amount of juice is made from the cedar, it is mixed with other ones and it will become a very effective reinforcing agent, right? So through
1:02:25 all these different examples, he's kind of talked about how to use them together. And this one has, you know, so you just need a little bit of this one in there used with other ones when you're, when you're mixing them together to use, not when you're storing them, don't mix them to store, but mix them when you're going to use them. Then this thing is a reinforcing agent, right? You see how that works? Like one FPJ, one can of food can reinforce another. It's just like when you eat food, right? If you take, throw a little bit of garlic in there, it's like,
1:02:56 tastes so much better. Right. I mean, not everyone will agree with that, but that's okay. changes the flavor that's for sure so that's the same thing you can do for your plant so mixing the plant juices together and using them and collecting things like this so and then i think he has one more example here of the fruit of the chocolate vine five-leave akebia which i don't know i'm not really sure what that is chocolate vine sounds delicious pick immature fruits in September and it's good to collect when the fruit is immature because
1:03:36 mature fruits only have a small amount of juice so think about that when you're doing this right when when is the most juice going to be in there that's when you want to harvest it right and um chocolate fruits from the chocolate vining and entwining a lacquer tree are even better so Maybe even other plants around can affect how good a plant juice is and how much energy you'll get from a can of food, right? Yeah, so using your local weeds and all those things. And stonemason made it from dandelions, comfrey, stinging nettle bull, thistle, yarrow, mountain mint.
1:04:20 Gonna try water lilies, algae this year. we use three different ferments at a time for spraying so he combines three and here's talking about seaweeds right algaes um you know press all the juice out first with a stone and then um you know ferment ferment what's left you know a light stone it says don't just like crush it all out but just you know get it so it's not completely wet mix it with the sugar do this reinforces fruit color, effective for plants growth, right? All these different materials have different properties
1:04:54 that they have. Then ripe fruits with no commercial value, such as, you know, fruit has a blemish on it. Well, let's make a can of food out of that with fruit, you know, and it gives us a bunch fruit enzymes. And so he cuts the quarters up his fruits. And he also says it's good to use a food that has matured for one year for fruits, ripe fruits. Apply this in the late reproductive period. So if you have really old KNF foods, apply them during that reproductive period. It's like an old wine. It's just refined.
1:05:39 Old people just sit there and they appreciate that, whereas young people just want to get drunk. So think of all these analogies out there, all these things. And then, oh, man, he has even more examples. We haven't even gotten how to do it, but it's already office hour. Well, maybe we'll have office hour. I'll finish this example and get to this. Okay. And then we'll just come back and review next time because this lesson could have taken forever to get through. But hopefully you guys are understanding this. It's just like, you know, office hour.
1:06:18 If I can connect with somebody, email me if you want to be interviewed, get on here or just go through these things each time. So the flower of false acacia, black locust, best time for collecting the flowers when they begin to bloom just before the bees visit to pick honey. So think again when you're going to harvest your plant juice, you know, just before bees visit. You don't want all the honey to be gone, right? Use the same amount of brown sugar as the amount of flowers because they have a lot of moisture, right? So the more moist something is, the more sugar it needs up to equal amounts.
1:06:56 It's usually one-third of your plant material, and we'll get to the recipe. And the flowers that smell better are more effective. So obviously more hormones, more enzymes, more goodness in there. That's what you're trying to collect, right? When you're thinking of this, you're making a custom plant food. So think of what you want to get, connoisseur-type stuff. or just what's abundant and round, right? I make a lot of stuff out of banana because I have a lot of bananas and it works really well. So child liquid, I don't know what the heck that means,
1:07:31 but I think this is actually the liquid you want to use when it's changeover period, like when it's getting pregnant, when it's going through that pregnancy phase, using thinned out fruit or the auxiliary bud of general crops. So using young, immature fruit or flowers to make the reproductive food. I think that's what they mean by child liquid. Like when you're making a child, when you're transitioning there, that's when you put out the these. So those are, I mean, that was long. I should probably, you know, before I get into
1:08:14 when to collect and all this, I'm going to leave that for the recipe for next time. But I'll just go over a review a little bit of child liquid, you know, materials that can help your plant transition through and make children, right? Unripe fruits, flowers. That's one of them. Thinking of black locusts, they got a lot of power and energy. um ripe fruits you can use seaweeds algaes um you know fruits that are around you that are they're abundant um cedar plants with a lot of energy in them kui um kudzu something that's
1:08:52 super invasive um donkey donkey rhubarb or um japanese knotweed um something like that like think of those things. Um, bamboo shoots, sweet potatoes, things that are growing really vigorously, um, drop warts, something that's like celery-ish, like rhubarb, drop warts, um, um, angelica type stuff, um, or, um, mugwort herbal, like, like rosemary's, um, mug warts, um, you know all these things have uh you know kui they're fast growing the materials are in season they're made from the same crop all these things together are there and good to grow and to grab
1:09:37 so then you want to create this environment for this and we'll get into the recipe and we're essentially making kimchi oh it's delicious you know you're korean when you get salivate from just looking at a picture of kimchi um and again this is what it is right it's a fermented extract of the plants and it helps crops absorb nutrients it's food dang it it's food so i'm gonna go back to this screen over here we'll burst this one look at that um and i want to thank master cho for for you know teaching me enough to be able to translate this for you
1:10:14 um pure knf foundation again um check out pure knf.org oh my gosh and it looks like our certificate ran out don't check it out right now um but or knfsupport.com also there um oh so much to maintain when you do all the web infrastructure and everything but want to thank you mostly for tuning in. I hope this nourished your mind, your body, your actions, your food, you're growing better food, corners your mouth. I hope, you know, if you want to share this, get it out to more people, whatever. Um, if you don't, whatever, that's fine too. Um, we're all,
1:10:57 we're all going through our different phases. Um, I will continue to be here office hours, Sundays, looking forward to interviewing more guests, looking forward to doing more things, but I always have that presentation to pull up. It's like 300 slides or something. I'm only 92 into it. So it may last a whole year. I don't know. Um, it may not. We always have things to share and I hope this was worth your time, your value. Um, you know, do the YouTube things if you want and, or, um, you know, grow a garden, do something nice. Um, thanks for the, thanks for
1:11:34 super chats bird and stone mace and you guys always hold that down financially even though some people are like you're just all about money it's like man everyone's all about money man the world costs money right now but get sovereign get a farm get a cow and as always friends friends family around the world long live the natural farmer thank you aloha i'm gonna slide down this curtain you ready goodbye