Food Security - Project Proposal - Next Steps

Basil responds to worm castings - 2024 08 09

August 09, 2024

My garden is partially shaded by surrounding trees. The soil environment is dominated by a giant Lombardi Poplar that sends it's hungry thirsty roots everywhere. I am not an experienced gardener, I've been trying permaculture techniques to create a food garden. This year I planted in garden bags to protect the food plants from unfair competition. We brought in several truckloads of soil from the city composting system, which has nice texture but no nutrients or micro-organisms. I started worm farming to generate worm castings to add as soil amendment to the city soil the garden bags. This is my first time starting basil plants from seed. This happy basil is being watered regularly with a slurry of worm castings. Sometimes I soak banana peels overnight and mix the worm castings into that mix. The plants prove the theory. Adding worm castings to city soil, with some banana peel water once in a while, creates a viable growing medium for food plants in garden bags. I have disco...