Today I was able to complete the probiotic compost tea I learned about while in Ecuador. The brew was made of clover, sawdust, yeast, molasses, humus (finished compost), rock phosphate, urine, garlic, and comfrey. I decided to throw the garlic and comfrey in to act as a natural insect repellent. This batch will be stirred once a week and will be stored next to the biogas digesters in the hoop-style greenhouse at the UBC Energy Farm. It should be ready in 45-90 days depending on winter temperatures-my guess is around a safe 75 days. The tea can be used as a foliar spray at a 1:10 ratio or as a soil improver at a 50/50 mix with water. I expect the batch to yield around 100 liters of concentrate. If you want the exact recipie email me at --> chrishansen@postcarbon.org .

The biogas project is near completion, and the lids are ready to be tightened down. I stuffed 19.5kg of mildly composted material into digester David and 10kg into Ludwig. Then I topped each digester off with water until there was about 10cm of space from the lip of the drum. The agitation system works fine but can be a little tough when digester David gets a pile of leaves pressed between the lid of the drum and the agitation arm. If I could make an improvement it would be to make the handles of the system a little bigger as to allow the user to get more torque and therefore make it a little easier to bring the arm around. However, perfection aside, the agitation system does not leak and works fine-I count that as a success.

I have some litmus papers that I have been using to check the pH of the water and substrate mixture. It is very acidic right now. On the color sheet between 4 and 5. That means that I have a long way to go to buffer the system to a pH of 7-8 to make the mixture hospitable for the methane forming bacteria that I plan to seed the digesters with tomorrow. My idea is that the substrate will seep into the water overnight and allow a substantial amount of acids to form. Then, tomorrow, I will use lime or baking soda to buffer the solution. I am leaning towards baking soda right now; however, there is plenty of lime at the farm.