Regenerative

Soil
ESSENTIALS
Compost &
Compost Tea

by Matt Powers
Build. Restore. Remediate. Regenerate.
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 Copyright © 2021 Matt Powers
All Rights Reserved
Written by Matt Powers - 2nd Edition
Illustrations by Matt Powers and at least one by Brandon Carpenter as labeled
Cover is a combination of photography by Matt Powers
Charts, Illustrations, and diagrams by Matt Powers unless labeled otherwise
Most photos are from Wikimedia, Unsplash, and other open source outlets.
Other photography by Matt Powers unless labeled otherwise—all photos are used with author permission
Formatted by Matt Powers
Printed on 100% recycled paper in China

Send all Inquiries to:

Matt Powers
Matt@[Link]

Published and Distributed by PowersPermaculture123

ISBN: 978-1-7321878-9-4
website: [Link]

Please Note: Just as food that nourishes one person causes an allergic reaction in another, the same concept of situational complexity
applies to soils, water, microbes, contaminants, and more that is situationally complex. In this book, complexity is embraced with the
understanding that every situation and biome is unique. The information in this book represents research from sources listed—it is an
educational and informational resource and does not represent any agreement, guarantee, or promise by any party associated with the
creation or editing of this book. The publisher, editors, and author are not responsible for any negative or unintended consequences from
applying or misapplying any of the information in this book.

 Compost
Compost is decomposed and stabilized organic matter — pure and simple. When we add compost to the soil, it is
literally a SOM deposit. Compost is both biological mineralization and humi cation, creating a stable soil
amendment while producing heat, CO2, and H2O. Carbohydrates are broken down into simple sugars, then
organic acids and then simply CO2, H2O, and organic matter. Proteins are broken down into peptides, then
amino acids, then NH4 compounds, and nally into N2 or ammonia. There are so many types of composting and
with such a wide variety of ingredients to be combined, we’ve likely a lot still to discover and learn.

The ef cacy of a compost pile is often determined by how ideal an environment it is for microbes. The typical
compost is in the 20—30:1 C:N ratio range at its start and 10:1 C:N ratio by its completion, but you may raise the
C levels for more fungal compost that breaks down over a longer time period or more N for faster CO2 release
though you also begin to lose N in the form of ammonia or N2 at higher N levels. The surface area of the organic
matter can often determine the speed of decomposition and the texture and quality of the nal product — the
more we chop and mince the organic matter being composted, the better the mature compost will be. Moisture
levels need to be maintained in the 50—65% range — this is why folks water their hot composts but often never
their mouldering composts (the fresh kitchen compost material is high in water and sugar).

Compost also is habitat and a medium of cultivation and transport for soil life: we can add life back to our soils
with compost. Without compost, we can spend a lot of money on expensive biofertilizers that don’t persist in the
soil because they have no fuel, no habitat, and no reservoir of nutrients, electrons, and water to tap into.
Compost is AMAZING in many ways, and it has been touted as a magic bullet solution to gardeners for years.
Modern farmers have used it when possible, but overall, they’ve skipped it despite its long history of use
because it was too expensive, too complicated for them to DIY at scale, or too uncertain as to whether it would
truly bene t their bottom lines — there is research now showing that at least one type of compost has proven,
exponential bene ts and is worthwhile for farmers to utilize…

…But why the uncertainty?

When I interviewed Dr. Elaine Ingham, soil science and composting pioneer, in 2017, I was surprised to hear her
explain how, even in the 1990’s, compost was sometimes helping, sometimes hurting, and sometimes had no
effect, and folks were puzzled by it. As with many things in mainstream science in the 80s and 90s, it was
disregarded as anecdotal until research was sophisticated enough to navigate the space more adeptly. Even in
recent years and months, our understanding of compost and soil in general is evolving. Aerobic, for instance, for
many years was synonymous with safe or sterile despite facultative microbes playing central roles in all soils —
most especially in the tropics but in all decomposition, all rain events, and especially in humid rainy climates,
we will see microbes that can live in both realms. Aerobic also means lots of oxygen which means oxidization,
losing nutrients, higher Eh, and higher nitrates which will all lean it towards the alkaline side of neutral though
the organic matter levels will always try to act as a pH buffer pulling the pH towards 7.

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 What is the “Best” Compost?

There are many types of compost — many folks nd it confusing which to choose to buy or make, and so they just
choose what’s easiest for them at the time. This does not always serve them well. If you give the wrong compost
to a plant or soil, you can negatively affect everything you’re trying to accomplish there. Compost is diverse — we
can create alkaline, acidic, high N, low N, hot, or cold compost. Most commercial composts are cooked in large
windrows at such a high heat that they are primarily structureless pancakes of organic matter with very little
diversity in life: the majority of life and nutrients are lost above 141F˚. New research has also shown that the
longer we let compost sit and mature, the better it is: more life, greater diversity of life, more fungi, more humic
compounds, and more clay-like soil structures that are more resistant to weathering and leaching. It is the
epitome of good things take time. In nature, soils take millennia to form, so it makes sense that the longer we
let something decompose, the more bene cial to the soil pro le it will become.

Given the current research and information we have, the Johnson-Su or BEAM compost method is the best
compost for large-scale soil building, net primary production (NPP), carbon sequestration, and soil remediation
— it has the most biodiversity ever recorded and after one application raises SOM 0.24% every year for many
years with a potential of 0.5%. It is made in a bioreactor composting system with chimneys of perforated PVC
pipes for aeration. It’s a “no turn” semi-static decomposition process that takes a year to accomplish. It is the
opposite of the classic 18-day Berkeley Compost or standard 15-day Dr. Elaine Ingham Composting Method
(though Elaine does recommend at least a week of undisturbed maturation for her 15 day piles to mature for an
increase in fungal populations, but a week compared to a year in terms of biodiversity is truly dramatic).

We can emulate this composting method with our own miniature or to-scale bioreactors (see the recipe section
further on) — and according to students learning from her right now, Dr. Elaine Ingham is adding chimneys to
her own hot composts and only turning her piles twice. Adaptation is regenerative, and we all need to adapt the
way we are composting for the biggest bene t to our soils, plants, ourselves, and our collective future.

That being said, you may want to shift pH out of a deeply acidic condition, to create sterilized organic matter (for
seed starter soil in a greenhouse), to kill weed seeds, to destroy disease or pathogen infected biomass, to
compost a chicken carcass, etc. These are important things to know how to do. You may also use the hot
composting methods to jumpstart a pile and then slow it down with more carbonaceous material like Michael
Phillips does for his orchard compost piles. I don’t want to limit us by only sharing one form of compost. We can
tinker, push, and pull things much further than we often realize, and there is no “best” just what is best for you in
that given situation and time. We can do hot composts that turn out fungal and acidic, but it won’t be the typical
1/3 browns, 1/3 greens, 1/3 manure 15-day process, so things aren’t so cut and dry as “best” and “the rest”.
Everything has an effect and each is unique and has a range of possible expression especially when we consider
ingredients.

Composts gas off CO2?? The hotter the compost the more it loses volume — where does that volume go? It gets
gassed off: we lose C, N, and more! Have you ever turned a pile and had it smell like ammonia? That’s your N

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 being lost. This is why cooler composting methods like EM® composting, mouldering, or the Johnson-Su
method make such fantastic compost: they retain their nutrients! This is also why many longtime mouldering
compost practitioners have a hard time switching to hot compost — they see all that work and question whether
it is as good as their easier and longer term compost which takes little to no effort. That being said, you may
want the CO2 in your greenhouse or in your elds depending on your operation, and you may want piles that
are high in N, so they gas off and shrink fast, or you may want a steady release. It depends on your goals and
situation.
This is why some folks are saying compost piles are releasing greenhouse gas emissions because they are, and
this is just one aspect of a bigger complex issue when we look at it scienti cally. Because it gases off, it shrinks.
Because it gases off, it loses nutrients. Because it’s being aerated, oxygen is oxidizing nutrients and life, and the
entire pile is shifting its Eh higher and higher, becoming more and more oxygenated, which means less and less
nutrients that are bioavailable and more nitrates, so we are now looking at a wasteful practice that stresses our
plants, costs them energy, and shifts our soil away from the ideal zone of health and nutrition. This is why Elaine
Ingham is always trying to make her piles more fungal — to reverse the effects of aerobic composting.

Compost Types
Bacterial Compost — most kitchen composts are high in simple sugars, and they foster high bacterial
populations. Most hot composts are turned regularly to control the heat, so they develop strong bacterial
populations because fungi prefer static and no-till settings to myceliate. Bacterially dominant and regularly
aerated compost piles tend to be alkaline because the microbial metabolites are regularly oxidized (higher Eh) —
all organic N transforms into nitrates within hours in this scenario. We can use a bacterial compost as a starter for
a more fungal pile though, so this method is not without its merit and use. We can also amend these piles with
fungal foods to tip the balance towards a more fungal pile but aeration is aeration, and we lose and shift things
when we do it excessively. This type of compost has been the most common and it’s also why we have so much
uncertainty, apprehension, and praise around it. Nitrates provide a growth boost and are easily leached out of
the soil pro le, so gardeners adding it into their early spring gardens see a big growth boost and then their
plants shift to reproductive growth and, ideally, the amino acids from the soil biology from the compost still
persist and help Ca uptake and largely those nitrates have been taken up by plants or leached away by that
point, but if they aren’t, if they are still there in abundance, you could get that sad situation where we have
vigorous plants but no fruits and owers (and high nitrates in leaves are unhealthy for us to eat). So, if those
nitrates are all soaked up or washed out by the start of reproductive growth, it works even when it’s not the
“ideal" compost. This is why I don’t want to demonize things: we can be creative and adapt, transform, and
situationally apply all these solutions, but we have to be fully aware of the possibilities. That’s why these
composting types are listed in this book and that’s why I go into complexity so often.

Fungal Compost — considered the holy grail by some composting a cionados, fungal dominant compost is
highly sought after, and the higher the fungal count you have, the more people will want to know HOW you are
doing it. Fungal compost is more acidic, so more nutrients are retained, there’s more nutrient availability, and
there’s a lower Eh (so there’s more energy). On top of the conditions they create and maintain, fungi alone

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 Compost Ingredients
Material C:N N% % Material C:N N% %
Compost 20—30:1 — 50—65 Tomato 12:1 3.3 62

Grass Clippings 9—25:1 2.4 9—25 Potato Tops 25:1 1.5 —

Whole Carrot 27:1 1.6 —

Shrub Trimmings 50:1 — 15
Red Clover 27:1 1.8 —
Alfalfa Hay 12—18:1 — —
Chicken Manure 6—15:1 8 62—75
Legume Hay 16:1 2.5 15—19
Cow Manure 11—30:1 2.4 67—87

Vegetable Wastes 11–19:1 2.7 87

Horse Manure 25—30:1 1.6 59—79

Fruit Wastes 35—40:1 1.4 62—88

Pig Manure 9—19:1 3.1 65—91

Oat Straw 48:1 1 — Humanure 5—10:1 5—7 —

Timothy Hay 58:1 0.8 — Urine 15—18:1 0.8 —

Wheat Straw 128—150:1 0.3 — Goat Manure 32.6 1.6 —

Rabbit Manure 12:1 2.4 —

Leaves 40—80:1 0.9 38

Duck Manure 27:1 0.8 —

Oak Leaves 26:1 — —
Chicken Carcasses 5:1 2.4 65
Pine Needles 60—110:1 — —
Slaughter Waste 2—4:1 7—10 10—78

Corn Stalks 60—73:1 0.6—0.8 12

Blood 3:1 10—14 —

Corn Cobs 56—123:1 0.6 9—18

Fish Processing Waste 2.5—5 10.6 94

Rice Hulls 121:1 0.3 7—12

Sewage Sludge 5—16:1 2—6.9 72—84

Seaweed 5—27:1 1.9 53 Cardboard 400—563:1 0.1 8

Coffee Grounds 20:1 — — Newspaper 170—850 0.06—0.14 3—8

Turnip Tops 19:1 2.3 — Paper 100—800:1 — 18—20

Raw Sawdust 500:1 0.1 19—65

Whole Turnip 44:1 1 —

Rotted Sawdust 121:1 0.3 —

Mustard 26:1 1.5 —
Hardwood Bark 223:1 0.2 —
Amaranth 11:1 3.6 —
Softwood Bark 496:1 0.1 —

Cabbage 12:1 3.6 —

Douglas Fir Bark 491:1 — —

Onion 15:1 2.6 —

Wood Chips (Hard 450—820:1 0.09 —

Pepper 15:1 2.6 — WoodWood)

Chips (Soft 641:1 0.09 —

Wood)

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 provide a vast array of bene ts to almost all plants and all soils — it’s really no contest when we compare
compost types across settings and applications: we want more stable, ef cacious, longterm, and nutritious
compost. Fungal composts rely upon fungal foods: woody and high lignin biomass, complex carbohydrates,
soluble kelp, sh and chitin hydrolysate, and humic acids.

Balanced or Neutral Compost — this is compost that approaches neutral i.e. pH 7 and has a 1:1 F:B. This is
essentially ideal zone compost (ideal pH/Eh), and what the BEAM/Johnson-Su and modi ed Elaine Ingham
compost methods are trying to do. These piles have just enough aeration or air present to keep it from going too
acidic and anaerobic. You’d only really use this as a buffer or to maintain the perfect ideal zone soil you’ve
developed. It’s much harder to hit the neutral mark than it is to make something alkaline or acidic. Most often
we are driving the soil in different directions, but once we arrive there, we have to maintain it, and that’s why
knowing what you want is key. You may have a blueberry farm and prefer your soils to be acidic and you’ll need
to maintain that pH, but most of us are gardening too, and we’ll all want 6.5—7 pH and 400-450 mV Eh in our
soils there, so we will all eventually seek speci c compost to maintain and not disturb the soil balance we’ve
already created regardless of what pH/Eh we are talking about (or you might instead focus on biofertilizers and
foliar sprays to buffer and support your plants in creating the soil pH/Eh and SOM transitions themselves
through seeds and photosynthesis which might save you time, money, and energy — it depends on what
resources you have access to).

Compost Ingredients
It’s easy to fall prey to the math and the clean numbers of industrial composting formulas, BUT we have to
remember that they are using much less diversity of inputs when making these calculations (this isn’t municipal
composting where it’s a mix of everything and the goal is to err on the hot side to guarantee breakdown). Every
C/N ratio and moisture percentage listed anywhere is a generalization, and it does not re ect the precise C/N
ratios or moisture contents of actual materials which naturally uctuate in their C/N ratios and moisture levels
even among homogenous materials. This is why industrial composting operations do thorough testing to be
precise with their large-scale compost operations: they dry out the material to calculate the moisture content
over a 24 hr time period and they have tests done for the actual C/N ratios and N percentages of materials —
being off with our calculations for acres of compost is expensive and time-consuming to correct. That being said,
the beautiful thing about small-scale composting is it can be easily adapted on the y, so even if you are
winging it and using just your eyes, sense of smell, and sense of touch, you can x things and still get good
compost. There are also compost calculators online that are professional and others that are more generalized
that will give you an idea of how close you are to that ideal 20—30:1 C:N ratio:

• Cornell’s Compost Calculator requires moisture %, N%, C%, and weight but it gives
individual C:N ratios of materials and the aggregate C:N ratio of the pile. It is the
best professional compost calculator online that I’ve come across: http://
[Link]/calc/[Link]

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 • Morning Chores Compost Calculator is a more simpli ed version of the Cornell’s
calculator. It only requires the “parts” of each ingredient in the pile and uses the
generalized C:N ratios and skips moisture % to produce a generalized C%, N%, and
C:N ratio: [Link]

If you are interested in calculating the moisture content yourself, you can follow the Cornell guidelines here:
[Link]

If you are interested in running the entire series of equations yourself, you can also do that here — again, thanks
to Cornell: [Link]

Seeds — seeds are all the focused energy of an annual plant captured in a small package. The seed contains
everything a baby plant needs to start growing. Seen in this light, it’s not a surprise that they are high in N.

Fruit & Flowers — fruits and owers are high in phosphorous, nitrogen, and other essential nutrients as well as
an immense amount of sugar and moisture if we are talking about most cultivated fruits from healthy plants —
this causes them to breakdown quickly making them
excellent additions to compost heaps. Fruit is also
extremely high in microbial content since both owers
and then fruit are so often visited, so exposed, and are also
the inoculation setting for the next generation of plants.

“Greens” = Growing Plants - These are plants that are

harvested in the vegetative state, while they are still
growing. They are high in bacteria, endophytes, simple
sugars, carbohydrates, and easily broken-down cellulose.

Browns - these are plants that have gone to seed and

they are mostly just standing, dried out carbon: cellulose
and lignin.

High Lignin = Woody Materials - sticks, bark,

branches, tough seed coats, tough husks, wood chips,
logs, etc. It is of the forest and woody world that we create
compost that supports those types of plants — it makes
perfect sense and alignment.

Animal Manures — a critical compost reaction ignitor, it

is often the sole ingredient in mouldering piles of manure
at ranches or stables. Manures are high in nitrogen and

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 other essential nutrients in organic compounds, but we often steer towards herbivore especially ruminant
manures instead of predator manures due their extremely high N content and often high pathogen and viral
counts though in hot composts they can be properly composted as can small animal carcasses, meat, bones, and
other highly nitrogenous waste in small amounts.

Compost Starters — often manure is used to start composts, but fresh comfrey, alfalfa, or even chicken carcass
can be placed at the center of a hot compost.

Humanure — a contentious topic, but an important one, humanure’s bene t is contingent upon the health and
diet of the person generating it and how it is composted.
Ideally, humanure is composted at a high heat for a few
weeks and then allowed to mature for an extended time
period, often a year.

Compost methods
Every method has a set or series of techniques
associated with it. They all have their bene ts, their
range of possibilities, and their limitations. Some
won’t break down your wood, some won’t do well Dr. Elaine Ingham with a handful of material that is 6 days into composting.
with meat or dairy, but in this list you’ll nd
solutions to turn it all into rich soil or soil
amendments.

Mouldering Composting
This is compost most of us prefer: you have a designated area that you dump organic matter and it decomposes.
It may be in a pit, wooden frame, or even an old tub, but it’s not something that is dealt with until it lls and sits
for a long time. Mouldering compost piles take months (at least 3) and their speci c nature is unique to the
ingredients added, the climate, the surrounding soil and biodiversity above and below ground, the size of the
biomass, their proportions, the amount of shade and light, whether or not it is covered and watered, and the
amount of time given. What is clear is the longer we wait and the larger the size pile, the better it will be, and
the graver our potential mistakes with ingredients and pile design, the more they’ll be mitigated by that stretch
of time. Good things come to those who wait! And time heals all mistakes!

Mouldering Compost Prep

1. Find an area that is shady with good air ow
2. Ideally, dig a shallow pit or hollow into the land, but even if you don’t do this, life will start to drag it down
into the soil pro le*
3. If desired, add a perimeter to the pit as you would for a raised bed but never make a bottom on your
mouldering compost pile

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 4. Ideally, add a lid or tarp to cover your compost to
trap moisture, protect microbes, and keep out
most animals*
5. Fill the compost and then leave it alone as it
breaks down (3 months or more)
6. Once it has broken down and shrunk into the
earth, you can add more composting ingredients
or dig up the compost and use it

*For some folks doing this method attracts rats and other undesirable visitors in urban settings, etc. so use
discretion and common sense.

Thermophilic “Hot” cOmposting

Are you in a hurry? Do you have diseased plants you need to purge from your farm’s ecosystem by burning
them? Do you have manure with weed seeds in it? Do you have to compost everything under the sun and
adhere to a national composting standard? Do you have a deadline? Hot compost can help you. Hot compost is
relatively easy if you have the time to turn, monitor, and water a cubic meter or more of organic matter. At its
most basic, thermophilic or "hot” composting is the decomposition of organic matter rich in N and C to generate
a thoroughly decomposed SOM amendment.

Thermophilic composting is a way of decomposing organic matter to create a safe, pathogen-free, weed seed-
free, parasite egg-free, and humus-rich soil amendment that is saturated with bene cial aerobic soil microbes
and a broad spectrum of nutrients. Humus itself doesn’t contain nitrogen or phosphorous; it is comprised of
carbon compounds that are continuously breaking down into smaller, ner compounds. Hot composts are a
quick process: if you aren’t observing, measuring the temperatures within it, and turning the compost when it
needs to be turned, you will lose fertility, nutrients, and time—it can also catch re! It will also exhaust
greenhouse gases into the environment instead of sequestering the carbon, nitrogen, and more.

For a compost to be effective, the ingredients must be as precise as possible. The initial pile by volume is made
of a third brown organic matter (high carbon, dead, dried plant material that has already gone to seed), a third
green organic matter (these are plant materials that haven’t gone to seed, so they still contain enzymes,
nitrogen, protein, and sugars—they can be dried or fresh), and a third manure or another nitrogen-heavy
component. This even split is the ideal composition for a pile that is at minimum one cubic meter in size. The
larger the pile is, the easier it will be for the microbes to go to work but the harder it will be to turn. Large
operations use heavy machinery to turn their piles. (In the summer heat, smaller piles are possible).

Compost piles need more carbon when you use hotter manure sources to maintain the 20—30:1, C:N ratio. A
pile that is a third chicken manure will have a higher nitrogen content than one that is a third cow manure
simply because of the nature of the waste itself. Wood chips likewise contain more carbon than straw; they are
higher in density. Hotter piles burn quicker and provide less compost as their end product, so if you notice

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 Bokashi Amount
yourself turning it more often, mix in some saw dust or well-shredded, dried ingredients
plant material for more carbon to balance out the excess nitrogen. The heat is Bag of Wheat or Rice Bran 50 lbs (22.7 kg)
generated by microbial activity: rst mesophilic and then peaking with
thermophilic and then back to mesophilic. This plot structure form of Biochar Equal Parts to Bran

biological turnover can have a very long tail as mentioned earlier with
Water 4 gal (15 L)
Johnson-Su composting, but typically, the gardener is eyeballing the pile in
eager anticipation of the moment they can transfer it to the garden or EM-1® or Cuauhtemoc’s
2–6 oz (59–177 ml)
Liquid Biofertilizer
compost tea bucket or barrel.
Molasses 2–6 oz (59–177 ml)

For perennial systems, a woody compost is ideal because it will require fungi
to breakdown the wood lignin, and the resultant compost will be more fungal-dominant. If we add extra fresh
cut grasses or weeds, we can easily create a bacterial-dominant compost which is ideal for establishing gardens
in acidic soils.
10 lbs 50 lbs 2,000 lbs
Dr. Elaine Ingham classic Ingredient (4.5 kg) (22.6 kg) (907 kg)
Hot Composting Prep Em-1® or Cuauhtemoc’s 4 tbsp 3/4 cup 1 gal
This is the standard 15-day Dr. Elaine Ingham Hot liquid biofertilizer (59 ml) (180 ml) (3.7 L)
Composting Method 4 tbsp 3/4 cup 1 gal
Molasses
(59 ml) (180 ml) (3.7 L)
1. Gather 1/3rd m3 browns, 1/3rd m3 greens, and
10 cups 3—4 gal 75—100 gal
1/3rd m3 manure. Water
(2.4 L) (11–15 L) (284–378 L)
2. Combine the ingredients in layers only a few
inches thick at a time, starting with browns 10 lbs 50 lbs 2000 lbs
Bran (Carbon source)
while wetting each layer as it is applied. (4.5 kg) (22.6 kg) (907 kg)
3. When complete, water it until it leaks and cover
it with a tarp especially in more humid regions
where precipitation is a factor but as well to keep in the heat during cooler times and moisture in drier
areas.
4. Wait 3 days and then turn it every other day from thereafter, as long as it maintains
a 131°F—140°F (55°C —60°C) temperature range. If it is too cool, either don’t turn it Ingredient Amount
as often, so it builds heat, or add more manure and possibly greens to speed up
Bone Meal 180 kg
the reactions and resultant heat.
5. At day 15, let it rest at least a week or longer for fungal populations to rise before Fig Cake 300 kg
using
Water 350 L
6. If you are testing your compost or doing the microscope work yourself, your goal is
to have a minimum of 300 bene cial bacteria per microgram of soil, 10,000 Rice Bran 500 kg
agellates and amoebae per gram of soil, and a few bene cial nematodes per Molasses 5L
gram of soil.
Fish meal 20 kg

EM 4L
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 EM® composting
This is a “warm” composting method — these are hot compost piles with a temperature governor and
decomposition accelerant, so temperatures stay at or below 131˚F/55˚C and it breaks down faster and more
ef ciently while pathogens and putrefying agents are controlled. Because it doesn’t reach the typical hot
composting temperature range of 132˚F—140˚F, it doesn’t gas off the carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients. The
pile shrinks less, breaks down more thoroughly, and requires less turning, but does not break down weed seeds
and depending on how you do it, can take more time.

“Lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria contained in EM® have the ability to ferment
organic substances and prevent putrefaction. Therefore, for example, when making compost with EM®,
putrefying bacteria will be suppressed and, due to the fermentation action of EM®, it is possible to
manufacture compost with less turning than usual. Also, compost fermented by EM® is rich in amino
acids and polysaccharides compared with compost produced by the usual methods. EM® prevents the
production of ammonia during protein decomposition, metabolizing proteins in such a way that amino
acids are produced instead. These amino acids can be directly absorbed by plants. Also, under normal
circumstances, cellulose will be decomposed and broken down to form carbon dioxide. However, due
to the fermentation action of EM®, low-molecular polysaccharides will be produced and these will be
absorbed by microorganisms and plants. Generally, proteins are synthesized from nitrogen. However, if
the plants can directly absorb amino acids from their roots, they can repurpose the energy that would
have gone into producing amino acids and proteins, thereby producing fruit with more sugar.”
— How EM® Works, [Link] (2016).

EM® COMPOSTING PREP

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 1. Prepare your compost pile as you would normally for a hot compost pile but let it fully drain and sit for a bit
after it has been soaked through
2. Water it down with EM-1®(or Cuauhtemoc’s Liquid Biofertilizer) at 1–2 liters per cubic meter and cover
3. Ferment for 6 weeks or turn pile once every week for 3 weeks
4. Water pile regularly with EM® to maintain 50-65% moisture and EM® activity
5. Use as a plant fertilizer or rich SOM amendment

Bokashi EM® Composting

Bokashi means fermented organic matter, but more speci cally it is organic matter inoculated with EM®. Bones,
dairy, and anything organic can be digested by the bokashi EM® fermentation. It is commonly used on kitchen
counters in Japan to digest organic matter of all kinds though its use is now spreading all over the world rapidly.
Two weeks after it has fermented in the bucket, it can go into a hole in the ground and covered lightly for two
more weeks, and after that, it is completely decomposed or nearly so. There are specialized bokashi buckets as
well with a spigot on the bottom for EM®/Bokashi extract liquid!

There are many bokashi methods, but this rst method using biochar is taught by Cuauhtemoc Villa in The
Advanced Permaculture Student Online and slightly different from the TeraGanix recipe on their site. You can
scale the Cuauhtemoc’s biochar version of bokashi by just adding equal parts of biochar to bran (because it’s
much lighter than bran so you can’t go by weight).

Cuauhtemoc’s Biochar Bokashi Prep

1. Combine 1:1 biochar to bran or other organic matter (this can be compost, rice bran, insect frass, brewer’s
spent grains/beer mash, seabird guano, cow manure, worm castings, agricultural waste, nut husks, hulls,
and more to add in unique biology)
2. Mix water with the molasses until it is dissolved
3. Add EM® to the molasses water and stir in
4. Combine all the ingredients and mix them until just moist all the way through: 25% moisture, so you can
squish out just a bit of liquid when you squeeze the mix in a ball with your hands
5. Ferment the mix for 14—21 days with no air in a sealed barrel or black plastic bag. White mold is good, but
green or black mold is bad and a sign of air getting in
6. You can then apply this to the soil or use it in a bucket system to digest your kitchen waste — including meat
and dairy
7. Store wet for up to 2 weeks longer or dry it for long term storage — all storage must be in sealed airtight
containers

Teraganix Bokashi Prep

1. Mix water with the molasses until it is dissolved
2. Add EM® to the molasses water and stir in

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 3. Combine all the ingredients and mix them until just moist all the way through: 25% moisture, so you can
squish out just a bit of liquid when you squeeze the mix in a ball with your hands
4. Ferment the mix for 14—21 days with no air in a sealed barrel or black plastic bag. White mold is good, but
green or black mold is bad and a sign of air getting in
5. You can then apply this to the soil or use it in a bucket system to digest your kitchen waste - including meat
and dairy
6. Store wet for up to 2 weeks longer or dry it for long term storage — all storage must be in sealed airtight
containers

1 Ton Bokashi Farm Fertilizer Prep

1. Mix water with the molasses until it is dissolved
2. Add EM® to liquid and stir well
3. Thoroughly mix g cake, bone meal, sh meal, and rice bran
4. Combine liquid and “dry” ingredients and mix them until just moist all the way through: 25% moisture, so
you can squish out just a bit of liquid when you squeeze the mix in a ball with your hands
5. Ferment the mix for 24 hrs covered with a tarp or vegetable ber sacks to protect from the sun, wind, and
rain.
6. Apply at a rate of 5 tons per hectare

Terra Preta Composting

There is a lot of debate and hearsay around terra preta. It’s the source and inspiration for EM®, biochar, and
bokashi. Passed word of mouth in off record conversations for decades, there is much confusion as to what
actually led to the incredible rich and black soils of the Amazon — their stability in a tropical rainforest setting
de es conventional understanding of soil science. It’s clear terra preta is manmade as well, so this is something
we can do again.

The rst time I learned about EM®, biochar, and bokashi from Cuauhtemoc Villa, it was through the story of terra
preta. Japanese researchers were studying terra preta from a microbiological perspective. They discovered that
there were microbes in the soil maintaining it, and the biochar and broken clay shards were providing stable
habitat for them. Michael Collins, one of Chez Panice’s rst farmers, went down to the Amazon to see what is
happening today, and he saw large 1m wide clay pots being used to make chicha, the traditional corn beer, over
burning pits with grandmothers inspecting the pots and spitting in each of them. These pots made from
riverside clays (likely inoculated with PNSB) would often break or leak, dowsing the burning logs in yeast-rich,
partially fermented corn broth. These pits become latrines, compost heaps, and dumps for the broken clay pots.
The yeast and indigenous microorganisms worked together and formed stable, resilient habitat in those pits in
the char and clay shards.

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 It’s also reasonable to speculate that the LAB species could have come from sitting water and corn or corn rinse
water of some other sort sitting for a few days, creating LAB, and that being used or being discarded into the
pits, inoculating them without them even realizing it. In the rainforest, reactions happen fast, and it’s logical that
spoilage of materials was regular and led to dumping of failed attempts which led to the formation of LAB- and
yeast-rich soils. The PNSB could have been indigenous or the concentrated manures could have eventually
brought them into the ecosystem out of need for its role in the new behavioral pattern and ecological niche that
opened up in a narrow facultative bandwidth (since the LAB and yeast hold the organic matter in a fermentation
process of breakdown).

Overtime with this pattern expanding and becoming cultural to the region over generations, biochar,
humanure, food waste, fermentation waste, LAB, & yeasts all combined in a facultative soil environment,
allowing microbes to travel, communicate, and reproduce easily — creating more and more uniformity and
transformation into a smoothly functioning consortium of microbes that maintain a very stable soil
environment.

DIY Terra Preta Compost Pit Prep

1. Dig a pit 3—6 feet (1–2m) deep
2. Build a re in the pit of uniformly sized fuel like sticks, branches, bamboo, or stalks — avoid large logs but
you can have a few (but they’ll be hugelkultur more than biochar if you do)
3. Let the re reach the char stage fully (and ash just begins to form on the outside of the burning material)
4. Extinguish with EM/water mix until it is cooled off enough to stop steaming (I start with a low concentration
but quickly switch to a heavier EM® mix to get it deeply into the char as fast as possible to fully inoculate it
5. Add your manure, kitchen waste, agricultural residues, or other biomass to compost, and water with EM/
water as you layer it in
6. Biochar should not be crushed or forced down to the bottom but instead allowed to protrude through the
layers of the compost vertically — if char breaks down too fully, dig out some of the char and mix it in as its
own layer in the pit compost
7. Cover the pit with a cap of dirt and pat it down as a
seal
8. Allow the pit to ferment for at least 1—3 months,
but giving it a full year will create even more
incredible soil

Vermicomposting
Using earthworms and compostable kitchen waste, we
can create a bacterial—dominant compost of mostly
worm castings (pH 7.8–8.6) that is potentially high in Brandon Carpenter. 2015.

N, P, K, Ca, Fe, Zn, and Mn — it all depends on their

diets. The gut pH of worms is typically 6.9, and their

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gut biome contains a consortium of bacteria: Bacillus, Enterobacter, Azotobacter, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella*,
Aeromonas, Flavobacterium, Nocardia, Gordonia, Vibrio, Clostridium, Proteus, Serratia, and Mycobacterium. You
can feed worms inoculated substrates, kelp, and insect frass to shift the castings to more fungal and acidic, but
their digestion shifts things naturally more alkaline and bacterial (that’s why they are a menace in forest systems
not evolved for their presence). Together the worm juice (a leachate) and the worm castings themselves can be
used to inoculate soils or to start a compost tea: just remember that the castings have worm eggs and we can
spread composting worms into our ecosystems unknowingly and cause damage if we are not careful.

If indigenous earthworms are available, you can build a system that is very cheap and easy to build and
maintain out of almost anything because it can have contact with the ground and be outside easily. A
vermicompost bin can be as simple as 4 pallets attached to each other with a removable “trap” door on the
bottom of one of them (make sure your pallets are safe and not toxic). You can also do a vermicompost trough or
windrow that allow them to move laterally through the piles or trough. The general idea is to build a compost
that shields the worms from light while it allows them to migrate
upward or to the side to allow us to harvest their worm castings from
below or to the side after they’ve left the area. We can also draw them to
certain areas with their favorite foods like watermelon or any melon to
allow us to remove castings without harming worms in pit worm
composting situations (sometimes you do a pit compost and they show
up!) Make sure to keep things cool and out of direct sunlight to keep the
worms happy, and avoid feeding them citrus, hot peppers, onions,
bones, meat, and garlic. Also avoid adding weeds since they don’t
breakdown weed seeds.

Termites, BSFL, and other insects are also great allies. Termites like ants
farm fungi, and natural farmers are using the biology in their digestion
to boost plant growth. Black soldier y larvae (BSFL) create waste that is
incredibly high in N and they themselves are very high in protein, so
they make great bird feed, but they also break down food waste, produce Sean Christopher Powers with a worm composting
high-N manure, and create a very unique compost. In the future, I’m sure trough system. Photo by Sarah Powers (2020).
we’ll be partnering with more than just red wiggler worms (Eisenia fetida).

Simple Pallet Vermicompost Prep

1. Order, purchase local, or beg your friends for some composting
worms (they’re even on Amazon now)
2. Acquire 4 non-toxic pallets that are close enough in size and
complete enough to hold a compost pile when they are nailed or
screwed to each other in a square. Look up the stamp on the sides
of the pallets online to know if they are toxic or not
3. Remove the 2 bottom section slats from 1 pallet

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Image from Worms at Work by Crystal Stevens (2017).

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 4. Lightly screw the wood pieces back in to where they were using the nail holes as guides or create a
removable section that is one piece with stabilizer sections like the image example (but remember you’ll
have to secure it somehow and still be able to remove it for access)
5. Add a layer of straw, grasses, or newspaper as a base layer
6. Add fresh cut plants, kitchen waste, coffee grinds, etc.
7. Introduce the worms
8. Cover with more grasses and straw and then cover with a tarp
9. Allow worms to do their work for ideally 3 months minimum
10. Harvest castings from below through the trapdoor and continue to add more compost ingredients from
above — the pile will naturally shrink as it decomposes and is consumed
11. Use worm castings in the garden, vermicompost tea, biofertilizer creation, and in foliar sprays

Garbage Can VermiCompost Prep

1. Perforate the bottom of a garbage can or similar bin (can even be
Tupperware or storage bins) — make the holes larger if the gap
between the bins is large and make smaller if only worm juice is
desired and the clearance between stacked bins or garbage cans is
minimal
2. Put a spigot hole in another garbage can or similar bin and screw on a
spigot for the worm juice
3. Add mesh like shade cloth to the bottom of the 2nd garbage can to
keep castings from coming out through the worm juice spigot
especially if you have a large gap and larger holes
4. Insert the perforated garbage can or bin into the spigot garbage can
or bin (there should be some space at the bottom)
5. Acquire some composting worms — a few handfuls to start is all you’ll
need
6. Add grasses and straw to the base of the garbage can or bin Sean Christopher Powers with a worm composting
garbage can system. Photo by Sarah Powers (2020).
7. Add fresh kitchen waste, manure, grass cuttings, etc. to the can or bin
loosely to leave plenty of air and space for worm travel
8. Add the composting worms
9. Cover with more grasses and straw
10. Place lid on trash can or bin
11. Keep in a cool, shaded spot out of direct sunlight
12. Allow worms to do their work for ideally 3 months minimum
12. Harvest worm juice as needed for compost teas, foliar sprays, or soil soaks
13. Harvest castings from below through the trapdoor and continue to add more compost ingredients from
above — the pile will naturally shrink as it decomposes and is consumed
14. Use worm castings in the garden, vermicompost tea, biofertilizer creation, and in foliar sprays

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 Stacked Bin Vermicompost Prep

Similar to the above prep, we can take it one step further: we can have nesting tupperware, storage bins, or even
store-bought contraptions that allow us to have multiple levels of perforated stacked bins. You would start out
just like the above system but then add perforated bins on top of each level over time and then as lower bins
matured, they be removed for castings while the upper levels would retain the happily working worms. This can
be indoors or outdoors if sheltered, but remember like all biology: they prefer having enough space and
enough food.

Worm Juice Compost Tub Prep

1. Find an old tub or a waterproof container that allows liquid and air to pass through freely
2. Create a wooden or metal riser that everything can rest on and liquid can pass through
3. Add a layer of ltration on top of the riser like shade cloth mesh
4. Add a base layer of manure or fresh vermicompost with earthworm eggs or earthworms themselves
5. If your compost or manure lacks worms, acquire them and add them in at this point
6. Loosely add kitchen scraps on top mixed with freshly cut grasses
7. Once this tub is full, keep it covered and allow the worms to do their work for 3 months or more until it is all
broken down and ready to be removed and added to the garden.
8. Once emptied, you can start the whole process over again

Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) Composting

BSFL do not have the picky nature of earthworms, so the citrus, meat, etc. are all fair game for these organisms.
They are also faster at breaking down organic matter than worms —a single larva will eat 200 mg of food waste a
day and 1000 larvae will eat 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of food scraps a
week. These larvae (or maggots) also scale to the size of the
compost provided and mitigate toxins by bioaccumulating
heavy metals like mercury in the food waste.

The key is to keep the system warm and dark and to put it
away from the house: it will smell! Another interesting aspect
is ramps can be added or the sides can be sloped on the
compost container for larvae (maggots) to crawl out of the
compost and into buckets or other catchment for chickens,
sh, and other livestock to feed on. Large scale operations do
not focus on capturing larvae for another purpose like feeding
chickens but let the ies and larvae do their work
continuously. Some systems allow ies to y in and out while
capturing larvae or keeping them contained to do their work.

18 Guide for cutting holes in the pallet platform and ground cloth
mesh covering the pallet
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 Supplies type quantity

3 pieces total:
13’ x 6’
Landscape or Ground Cloth woven and at least 5 oz. weight
6’ x 6’
6’ x 6’

6”x6” square 10-guage wire re-mesh

Wire Re-Mesh (usually used for concrete 5’ x 12’ 6”
reinforcement)

Wire Rebar Tie Wire 1 spools

Shipping Pallet non-toxic and sturdy 1 pallet approx. 40” x 48” in size

6 pipes total:
Piping septic drain eld piping
6’ x 4”

However long to reach your water

Garden Hose 0.5” hose
source from the top of the bioreactor

0.5 hose — perforated every 4-5” with

Irrigation Hose ring 16” inch holes and made into a ring 7.5 of hose to form the ring
with a T-hose tting connector

Dairy manure, leaves/yard waste, and

BIomass wood chips (3/8” across or smaller)
1/3rd of each ingredient

Other systems are fully contained and do not let the ies escape, keeping all of the ies inside the composter for
the entirety of their 2 weeks of life. The dead ies also add concentrated nutrients to the compost but if one is
trying to remediate the food waste of heavy metal they would want the ies to escape with their bioaccumulated
toxins.

The resultant compost from their activities is very high in NPK, and the larvae are very high in protein, so they
are excellent feed. The adults also don’t bite, so they are ideal ies to have around for many reasons.

BSFL Compost Prep

1. Purchase or acquire from a friend BSFL
2. Find a warm area for your BSFL compost setup
3. Build or purchase a BSFL composting system: can be as simple as a partially covered bucket of food waste
4. Add food waste to the composting system
5. Add BSFL to the food waste
6. Continuously add food waste to the composter until it is full of fully digested compost
7. Empty the composter, preserving larvae for the next round or allowing adult ies to access the new food to
start the process over again

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 8. Smell the compost — if it does not smell ready for the

garden, apply EM/water dilution to the pile for 7—14
days of further composting or use the BSFL compost in
IMO-5 prep

Johnson-Su “BEAM” composting

It’s a hot compost, but it’s also a static compost. It’s perhaps
the most bene cial compost ever documented. Johnson-Su
“BEAM” or Biologically Enhanced Agricultural Management
compost is unique in its construction and results.
Developed by New Mexico University professor Dr. David
Johnson and his wife, Hui-Chun Su, this method requires a
lot of upfront labor and then a year of waiting, but the
bioreactor setup can be reused (though I’ve gotten
feedback that the pallet used as the base is mostly digested
by the end of the year.) Essentially, the Johnson-Su method
is a large-scale and eld-tested bioreactor composting
method that is reliable, replicable, and consistent with its
results. 375 gallons of material (approx. 1800 lbs) of
material can t into these bioreactors, and it turns into a
clay-like SOM that is much more resistant to leaching, weathering, and biological degradation in the soil than
typical compost. In many ways this is a product of time, static aeration, and fungal action, other composting
methods don’t take the full year, nor do they provide
access to air within 12” of any given point in the pile,
and nor do they give fungi complete free rein. We can
Ingredient Amount
do smaller bioreactors than the 375 gal version Dr. 1st layer of Composted or
1–2” (2–5cm)
Johnson uses and use different ingredients, but we Fresh Manure (Seedless)
must maintain those key attributes for similar results
Newspaper or cardboard 1/4–1” (1–2cm)
to be had.
2nd layer of Composted or
1–2” (2–5cm)
When analyzed, BEAM compost has an incredible Fresh manure
diversity of microbes including some that have not Organic mulch (straw, grass
6–18” (15–46cm)
been documented since Louis Pasteur himself was clippings, ramial wood chips)
scanning the territory with his own microscope. There Compost 1–3” (2.5–7.5cm)
are P solubilizers, N xers (free-living & symbiotic),
metal oxidizers for all essential nutrients (and Light scatter mulch 0.25—0.5” (0.6–1.3cm)
beyond), carbon monoxide oxidizers, pesticide
degraders, phytochemical producers, xenobiotic producers, and antibiotic and antimicrobial producers. Quorum
sensing, when microbiology begins to communicate and regulate their genes as a whole in relation to

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 Perforated Pipes for

aeration at a 12”
distance from all points

Metal form t
Guide and hold pipe
While lling & for the 1st
24 hrs of Composting

Ground cloth or ~1800 lbs of biomas

landscape/shade mesh = 375 gallons o
for aeration Biomass
Moisture holding,
Containment, and
protection from light

population density, is incredibly high in the nished compost — these microbes work together ef ciently and as
a team. Incredibly, the carbon cycling abilities of this consortium of microbes is similar to photosynthesis in the
healthiest plants: applications of Johnson-Su compost have led to 0.24% SOM increase annually with a
potential for 0.51% increase annually, according to Dr. David Johnson and his research: that’s 10.7 metric tons
of C per year per hectare i.e. over 38,000 lbs of C per acre per year, but there’s a potential for 37metric tons of C
per hectare a year. With a cover crop growing in BEAM amended soils, Dr. Johnson was seeing 3186 g of dry
biomass per m2 a year and 777 lbs of N per acre per year. While an increase in fungal populations and activity in
the compost correlates to more CO2 release initially (from fungal respiration), the sequestration abilities of fungi
mature over time, and while there’s a documented 4x increase in carbon respiration, there’s a 18x increase in
SOM (soil carbon) and a 5x increase in microbial biomass.

“At 10.7 tons carbon per hectare per year increase, it only takes 40% of arable land on
this planet to capture all anthropogenic CO2 — so half a percent a year, we are looking
at half that rate”
— David Johnson, EcoFarm Keynote 2018

Using only 1 application of the advanced BEAM compost on only 20% of the arable land, we would see ALL
excess atmospheric carbon taken into the soil within 1 year — it’s just that easy, but it requires time, effort,
resources, and investment to make it happen.

Johnson-Su “BEAM” Compost Prep

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 You don’t have to create the same sized bioreactor, so please don’t be intimidated by the size and dimensions
mentioned here, BUT you do have to maintain the length of time (a full year), the 12” distance to open air from
anywhere in the pile, the protection from light, and the static nature of the pile. You don’t have to have a metal
form to hold your pipes while you ll your bioreactor, and you don’t have to make it as large. Ideally, all
materials should be dried before composting and then shredded or chipped for maximum surface area. You
don’t have to do the exact ingredients listed (it can be entirely leaves), but to get similar results, I’d stick with the
original recipe. Once your materials are the proper size, soak them in water for 60 seconds to adequately wet
them. This is similar to how some folks soak straw before using it. This type of composting method requires 70%
or greater moisture levels for microbes to do their best: this is why an irrigation hose ring is used to irrigate the
bioreactor daily for 1 minute a day.

DAY 1
1. Gather all the supplies and tools needed for construction
2. Create a cutting guide for the pipe holes using the diagram above
3. Cut holes in your pallet using your newly created guide to avoid cutting all the way through any planks — if
you cut through any planks, use bricks or another support beneath them to maintain the integrity of your
bioreactor. You can also reuse the guide over and over.
4. Using the guide, cut holes in a section of the 6’ x 6’ ground cloth and lay over the pallet
5. Sew the large landscape cloth, the 13’ x 6’ piece, to the wire re-mesh with tie wire
6. Roll the wire re-mesh and attached ground cloth and secure with tie wire every 6”
7. Fold excess ground cloth over the upper and lower edges (as seen in the diagram)
8. Acquire or cut 6 septic drainage 4” pipes to 6’
9. Place the pipes in the holes in the bioreactor base
10. If you have a metal form for the pipes, you can place it on the top of the bioreactor and wire the pipes to the
form (or have a helper hold them)

Day 2
1. Gather pre-shredded and dried compost ingredients: 125 gal of dairy manure, 125 gal of yard waste, and
125 gal of wood chips — or you can use all yard waste or any combination of biomass that you have on hand
as long as it is dried and pre-shredded with a ratio close to 20—30:1, C:N.
2. Thoroughly mix the ingredients or add in alternating buckets later on
3. Submerge ingredients in water for 60 seconds
4. Add wetted material to the bioreactor but don’t pack it because this can cause anaerobic pockets to form —
this entire process can take time
5. Once the bioreactor is lled, connect the perforated irrigation ring hose with a T-hose connector to a longer
garden hose connected to your water spigot and an automated timer
6. Set the automated watering timer to 1 minute per day
7. Cover the bioreactor with the nal piece of ground cloth (6’ x 6’) to keep moisture levels high — tuck the
corners into the re-mesh or secure one side with tie wire and tuck only one side

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8. Let the thermophilic reaction begin

9. After 24 hrs, remove the perforated pipes and return the ground cloth cover
10. Let the compost sit another 3—6 days as it goes through the full thermophilic stage (145—165˚F)
11. Once temperatures have cooled to 80˚F, add earthworms
12. Allow compost to sit and mature for 9—12 months, ideally a full year since that is where there is a large
microbial population jump
13. Apply as compost slurry, extract, seed coating, or top dressing

Static Aerated Compost

We can elaborate on the design concepts behind the Johnson-Su composting method: we can create static,
semi-aerated compost piles. Perforated hoses usually used for pumping water can be used to provide air from
inside or beneath compost heaps so they do not need to be turned. Perforated pipes can be added to piles as
well to imitate the Johnson-Su method — these could be freeform piles, fenced columns, compost boxes, or even
pits. The idea is to keep things still and still allow air to reach within 12” of all areas within the pile (air can
penetrate up to 12” of soil easily. Feel free to modify and experiment with this concept.

“WOody” Jean Pain Composting

Jean Pain was a Frenchman who used woody compost heaps in numerous ways: to heat his home and his water,
to fertilize his gardens, and to power his truck. His simple ingenuity captured the methane from the compost as
it gassed off for his vehicle and cooking range, used the heat from the pile to heat water for using in the kitchen,
bathroom, and radiators, and then used the rich compost at the end of the decomposition in the garden. Instead
of burning the fuel wood, perpetually choking the countryside around him, Jean Pain slowly released the
potential inside of the wood to create numerous, stacked bene ts.

Basic Jean Pain Composting Prep

This is a great fungal compost especially for orchard applications

14. Gather a variety of woody yard waste or trimmings — 8mm or less in diameter only or pre-chipped
15. Submerge woody brush and trimmings in water for several days — use a weight on top to press it down
16. Gather wetted material into a pile for 3 weeks — let sit and allow fermentation to begin
17. Shred the material with a pitch fork or use a chipper/shredder (or if pre-shredded or chips, skip this step)
18. Build a new triangular pile, 2m 20cm at its base and 1m 60cm at it’s peak — loosely, with plenty of air
19. Cover the entire pile carefully with a 2cm cap of earth, sand, leaf mould, or old compost
20. Cover the pile with a tarp or with a thick layer of boughs to keep out the rain, sun, wind, and snow
21. Let pile mature for 90 days — it will rst go through a thermophilic stage
22. Cut into the pile and test the compost: if a woody piece resists pressure, it is not ready, but if woody pieces
crumble when pressed in our ngers, it is ready! If the pile is dry and the woody pieces un nished, wet the
pile and let it compost longer (check it again in 30—60 days).
23. Apply woody compost in orchards, food forests, and even the garden for strong fungal activity and rich soil

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Fungi decompose the

wood that is buried
beneath the mound of
earth

Inspired by Sepp Holzer and [Link]'s hugelkultur diagrams

Sheet Mulching
Sheet mulching is an easy and effective way to turn a lawn into a garden or build up rather
than dig down when we don’t even have dirt to transform into soil. It’s also a great way to deal
with waste products like newspapers and cardboard though any paper or even ramial wood
chips will do. It is a mulch to cover the soil, a way to smother weeds, and a form of in-situ
composting. Remember: the ingredients and amounts depend on your site, climate, and
available resources — and everything has a different effect: an inch of chicken manure is very
different than an inch of rabbit manure. You may end up with an imbalanced or over-fertilized
soil if you are not careful, so consult the C:N ratio chart to build a DIY sheet mulching recipe
that is 20:1 C:N or slightly higher in N for faster breakdown in situ.

Sheet Composting Prep

24. Aerate the soil, chop and drop the plants in place, and prepare the area for the sheet mulch
25. Soak all ingredients to begin with and use what you can
26. Add a manure layer rst then newspaper or cardboard followed by a 2nd manure layer
27. Add mulch — shredded and/or chipped biomass: ideally a cover crop or green manure biomass for fast break down
28. Add compost
29. Scatter light mulch on top

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30. Allow 30—90 days for soil to compost in place and mature. This process can be sped up by watering in EM®, adding
high N manure, adding fresh, high N organic mulch, adding comfrey, adding biochar to the organic mulch layer, and
spraying the initial mixture down with compost tea

Hugelkultur
Hugelkulturs build soil quickly by imitating deadfall in a forest. Associated often with Austria’s Sepp Holzer,
hugelkulturs are mound-cultures in translation: you mound dirt on top of a wood pile which speeds up
decomposition of the wood and feeds and heats the plants growing on the mound. This is also a great way to
compost without losing by-products into the atmosphere, especially if it is too hot: hugelkulturs work like a
contained compost where the plants, soil, and soil life intercept the released forms of nitrogen and carbon.
Water is also held extremely well by the punky, fungi-inoculated wood inside the mounds. These kinds of
earthworks could be used to build back the soil in the forests of the Western United States and many other
degraded landscapes worldwide. They can be used as rebreaks and areas to replant the new polycultures.

Hugelkulturs generate fungal-dominant soil. They are great for large-scale and small-scale annual and perennial
plantings. Hugelkulturs are a great alternative to burning and an easy way to build more soil with excess woody
materials — similar to the Jean Pain capped woody compost pile, Sepp Holzer usually sets them up in slightly off
contour windrows.

In sandy soils, the wood should be sunken into the earth. In soils with more clay, semi-sunken or even on top of
the surface is viable. How deeply or not deeply embedded is also dependent on the context — if you are on a

Ingredient Amount Ingredient Amount

Bacterial Compost 2.5–7 kg (5—15 lbs) Balanced Compost 2.5–7 kg (5—15 lbs)

Soluble Cold-Water Kelp 250 g (4 oz) Soluble Cold-Water Kelp 250 g (4 oz)

FPJ/FFJ/EM/Fish Emulsion 30 ml (1 oz) Fish Hydrolysate, soybean 30 ml (1 oz)

meal, feathermeal,
Molasses 30 ml (1 oz)
oatmeal, or fruit pulp

Humic Acids 30 ml (1 oz)

Ingredient Amount
Fungal Compost 2.5–7 kg (5—15 lbs) *In very small amounts, OHN,
humic acids, yeast, soybean meal,
Soluble Cold-Water Kelp 250 g (4 oz) feathermeal, oatmeal, fruit pulp,
Fish Hydrolysate 250 g (4 oz) and fruit juices can also all be
added to feed the fungal tea
AMF or ECM Inoculant 120 g (8 tbsp)
slope or get a lot of rainfall, you will want to bury the wood at least enough
These to give itofacompost
are adaptations stable tea
resting point
recipes fromin
The Compost Tea Brewing Manual by Elaine Ingham, 2014.

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 case of ooding. Wood oats, so hugelkulturs on undisturbed hardpan in ooding events have been known to
oat and then roll downhill, which is dangerous.

Above all hugelkulturs are a waste management strategy for putting an abundance of woody material to
productive use and should not be a strategy for building gardens from scratch. It is much easier to sheet mulch
with already processed woody material wastes that we have in abundance, such as paper and cardboard, without
cutting down more trees.

Hugelkultur Prep
1. Soak the woody biomass overnight or for several days
2. Dig down and remove the topsoil from the area you want to put the hugelkultur — set aside for later
3. Dig down further 10—30cm or more — set aside this soil separately for later
4. Arrange woody biomass large to small, bottom to top in a pile, but feel free to use smaller pieces to ll in
the gaps created by larger pieces
5. Mix soil in-between all wood pieces (handfuls of biochar can also be added)
6. Cover the wood pile completely with the 2nd soil pile
7. Apply the topsoil to the mound and cover up any remaining woody biomass exposed — add more soil if
necessary
8. Apply compost, seed, and a scatter mulch
9. Drench the soil water + compost tea, biofertilizers like rhizobium, rhizophagus intraradices & azospirillum
brasilense, and/or EM
10. Water and replant when needed but eventually the breakdown will ideally provide all the water the plants
will need (3—5 years into the process) and if you plant self-seeding annuals or perennials, you won’t even
have to plant again

Compost teas
Dr. Elaine Ingham’s Compost Tea Recipes

An excellent way to scale up the microbes from our highest quality composts whether thermophilic,
vermicompost, Johnson-Su, IMO-4, etc. Just remember all these teas are actively aerated in a 55 gal barrel for
only 24—48 hrs in warm temperatures (and longer in cold temperatures), the amount of compost added
depends on quality, and then they only keep for around 8 hours, and then they begin to lose vitality. Use an air
pump that is equal to the amount of water you’re using and stone you can clean. Transform soils and revitalize
plants with a liquid inoculation of bene cial biology, enzymes, amino acids, phytohormones, and more! Teas
can change pH/Eh signi cantly - there are even studies showing that it can shift soils by 10 mv.

Application

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 • Use as foliar spray, coating at least 70% of plant surfaces, 50 L per hectare (5 gal per acre) — use water as a
carrier to spread out the compost tea over the full hectare or acre but don’t try to dilute it, just match it to your
sprayer’s regular volume of output per acre or hectare. Gardeners can use undiluted at a rate of 1 L (0.25 gal)
of tea per plant starting at the seedling stage or in regular watering diluted 2:1 or 4:1.
• Use as a soil soak, 200 L per hectare (20 gal per acre)

Compost Tea Analysis

Bene cial compost has ranges for its bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. There’s also certain
actors that are red ags for anaerobic and pathogenic conditions like ciliates, so breakout your 400x
microscope and dilute your soil sample 1:5 in clean water and start counting microbes!

• 100’s—1000’s of bacteria per eld of view

• 1 or more strands of mycorrhizal fungi every 5 elds
• 1 or more bene cial protozoa (amoebae or agellates) every 5—10 elds
• 1 bene cial nematode per drop of soil water

Humic Substances = Compost Extract

Commercially acquired humic and fulvic acids are separated from each other using centrifuges in an
N2 atmospheric condition where they adjust the pH to coagulate the humic acids (even down to pH 1).
This is an intense process energetically and biologically catastrophic, so it reduces a lot of the
functionality and holistic bene ts that complete humic substances from compost can offer. That being
said, humic acids and fulvic acids do have functional uses individually and produce bene cial effects.

1. Run water gently through a compost heap (or IMO or Bokashi pile)
2. The dark water that passively leaks out of the pile is rich in humic acids of all sizes (humic and fulvic)
3. Use as a substitute for store bought humic powders and solutions

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[Link]