The Green Gap

In the Cold War, we feared a Missile Gap was a strategic weakness. Nowadays, we must awaken to the fact that the Green Gap is true strategic weakness: the nations whose economies will thrive in the coming years will not be those with the biggest factories, but those with the most sustainable, efficient, and ecological markets. What we require is a Strategic "Green Reserve" of ecological design to weather the coming changes that both climate and resource scarcity will force on the international economy.

Monday 11 June 2012

Holy Saprophytic Polypores, Batman!

I appear to have Reishi mushrooms growing on a stump in my front yard. They exhibit the classic kidney shape and rust brown spore print, with the white active growing area also notably present. I have another stump that I wouldn't mind giving over to Reishi propagation, so I'd better learn how!

Just wait 'til I tell the guys at Ministry of Mushrooms!

Sunday 10 June 2012

Mycelium Running... for real this time.

I appear to have had some luck running mycelium in coir and wood chips lately. See the above three jars filled with bits of happy mycelium? They are from left to right, pure-ish coir to mixed coir and wood chips. So far it seems like the rightmost mixture is the happiest, though it could also have something to do with the fact it appears to have retained a little more moisture than the others. The pure-ish coir jar seems to have good, fuzzy mycelium in it:
Whereas the one in the mason jar seems to have developed some other form of mould to compete with the pleurotus ostreatus. Perhaps a holdover from its days holding other foods and not being as thoroughly cleaned as it should have been:
If I had supervision of any kind at this time, I might be forced to throw it out, but I really want to see just what happens... and if it goes rank, I'm putting it under the microscope, by gum!

The black soldier fly is doing well. They are crawling off a lot nowadays, so I hope we are getting an increase in the local population. I am not yet ready to start collecting them as I have nothing to use them for. If the neighbourhood allowed it, I would have gotten a chicken or something to et the BSFL, but I think they are going to have to go into an aquarium of fish eventually as fish food. They eat bloody fast though and I'm alone in the house now with dwindling amounts of food to give them. I had a bunch of people over last night, so we had some scraps, but I can't well have a party every night just to feed my BSFL. 

Then again, I suppose I could, and it would be pretty awesome to have a maggot-themed party, I'm sure.

Lastly, I've ordered a vericomposting kit to compost the castings of the BSFL into some friable compost. In order to keep moisture in the indoor food collection bin down, I've been putting dustings of coir in the bottom. These are slowly building up in the BSFL bucket as the BSFL can't really eat coir. After a good soak in the bacteria-rich goo that the BSFL leave in the bucket, it should be soft enough to be able to be eventually digested by the worms I hope. Also would like to plug the vermicomposter's designer, from UFO  (Urban Farms Organic). Check out their designs for high-volume modular composters. I will be reporting back to UFO on how they work out here in the tropics on BSFL leavings.

That's me up-to-date, more news as it happens...