November 4th, 2023 Issue
Creating Microbial “Cultures” / Does Life Have You Puzzled? / 80% Of Success Is In The Mix / The Necessity Of Exploring / Float Fishing #5- Line & Hooks / Fly Tying #5 Starting & Finishing
Don’t Miss Out On The Full Series Of Articles
The articles in each issue of this newsletter, are part of a teaching series. In order to get the full benefit of what is being taught, you will definitely want to read the previous newsletters. If your email provider is not able to show you the full newsletter, then you can follow this link to go to my Substack website, where you will find all the past issues in their entirety. I hope you are enjoying the content. Craig Schaaf
Creating Microbial “Cultures”
In the previous lessons, we have talked about how the mycelial networks that flourish throughout a fertile garden, will transport what is needed from one place to another. They will transport minerals, other life forms, even communications. I likened it to being a microbial superhighway and fiber optic system. I also shared with you that each kind of plant relates to the system in unique ways. Certain microbes, will symbiotically relate, to only certain plants. Each kind of plant is mining a unique mineral makeup, and has root exudates, that are unique as well. This is why the more diverse your garden is the more resilient it is. There is more complexity available to share back and forth as needs arise.
Now I want you to look at my Quilt Garden pictures for a moment. I want you to pretend that each of those 6’x6’ squares, of different crops, are unique nations of different people groups. We understand that Japan, Ireland and Brazil are all very different. The people that live in those countries have been uniquely shaped by the land and the resources that are there. To the extent that a certain group of people can learn to utilize their particular resource base, in a productive way, is very important. Each country has certain needs they have to trade for, from regions that have that particular resource in abundance. We understand how this works, between countries and different people groups. Great systems of communication and transportation have been developed in order to facilitate this important trade.
Now as I design my garden, I am in a sense creating a whole world. In one teaspoon of well made compost, there can be six billion microbes. So from a microbial standpoint, that 6’x6’ area is enormous. But if I am savvy with the plants I use, and the different mulches and soil amendments I incorporate, I can create very unique “countries” that have a good resource base in which to be productive, and have enough of their “unique resource” so they can trade with other nearby “nations” that need what they have. And vise versa. Just as our world had to develop the proper communication and transportation networks to facilitate world wide trade, so must you in order for this to work in the “world” you are attempting to make. But if this mycelial network, that facilitates the trade and communication is vital to all of these “countries” being able to trade with one another, then it is critical that you understand how to feed that network, so it can thrive and be fully functional.
One of the first things I need to teach you, is that not all fungus are as beneficial as others. In the last newsletter, I showed you a picture of the mycelial network I had found in the wood chips I was mulching my strawberries with. That was a white rot fungus. These are the most beneficial to your plants. Another form is referred to as, brown rot fungus. These primarily feed on wood chips from pine trees. These are not beneficial to most plants, and can even be harmful at times. If you go into a pine forest, the ground is often devoid of other plants. If you go into a deciduous forest, of Oak, Beech, Maple, Cherry, and Ash you will find many species of plants thriving in the understory. That list of deciduous trees, is among the favorite foods of our most beneficial white rot fungus.
But there is something you need to understand about wood chips. Depending on where they come from the tree, makes a huge difference on how successful you will be in your mycelial garden development plans. Chips that are made from the trunk wood, like the kind of wood we make furniture out of, will have a carbon: nitrogen (C:N) ratio of around 700:1. That is why we make furniture from it. Very strong carbon chains, that would require a huge amount of nitrogen to break them down. If you mix wood chips made from this wood into your soil, your plants will struggle for years. Those chips will always be stealing the extra nitrogen that will be present in order to decompose them.
The chips that you want, that are like prime rib to white rot fungus, are from the fine branches. The C:N ratio of a branch that is 2 3/4” and smaller is around 40:1. To those of you that are experienced with making compost, 40:1 is an ideal ratio to shoot for to get a good active pile. So what this means, is that when you make chips out of the smaller branches, you are basically spreading compost on your soil. It isn’t going to steal from your soil, but be giving tremendously. Seventy five percent of the minerals in a deciduous tree are stored in those finer branches.
Something you need to understand though, is that there is a prime time to harvest them. In the fall, when the trees have dropped their leaves, most of the minerals have been transferred from the leaves back to the branches. Stored there until the following spring, when new leaves begin to develop. You want to harvest these Ramial branches, (the name the researchers gave to these specific branches at the University of Laval, in Quebec), when the trees are dormant. During this period they are the best fungal food. If you harvest the branches when they still have green leaves on them, they will be predominately consumed by bacteria. Bacteria are super easy to produce. Mycelial networks are not. By using the branches when they are dormant, you give the mycelia an advantage to colonize them first. Especially if you apply them in the fall, and give the mushrooms a chance to work on them while the bacteria are more dormant during the winter. Mushrooms will stay active, at much lower temperatures than most bacteria.
When you make these chips though, you need to make sure you chip them as fine as you can. A chipper, shredder unit that has hammers, will usually do the best job. Reducing them down to about 1/4” and smaller. The size will be determined, by the size holes that the screen has at the shoot that the chips are forced through. The smaller the holes on that screen, the longer they will stay in the hammers, to be broken up into even smaller pieces that are able to exit the unit. The smaller size is critical, because you are increasing the surface area, that the fungus will have to work on, making their job much more efficient.
So there are two kinds of chips I use in my garden. Larger chips made from deciduous tree “tops”. These are not true Ramial, because the branches were much larger. I use these chips on my service pathways. I have 4’ wide paths that go throughout my garden, where I can bring my garden cart to facilitate bringing in and out heavy loads. These chips are just spread on the surface. The true Ramial chips, I will use as a soil amendment, and stir right into the soil surface, as I am getting ready to transplant something.
So I have my 4’ wide paths, that are hundreds of feet long, all inter connected, that are just filled with mycelia. Remember how I shared with you, how I had mushrooms fruit over the whole pathway system at the same time. All interconnected and working together. The 4’ paths are the interstate highways, to transport goods and services throughout my garden. If your garden is small, you could create a zone around your garden, like a border, that had a wood chip mulch covering it. That would help facilitate these mycelial networks.
Someone might say to me, “why don’t you just cover your whole garden in wood chips?” Because it won’t be diverse enough, for the kind of “world”, I want to develop. You will see a picture at the end of this article, that shows my sweet potato Quilt plot. Wood chip mulch, tends to cool the soil, which can be beneficial for many things, but not sweet potatoes, growing in Michigan.
There is so much more I want to share with you, that is going to have to wait. But I do want to plant one more thought in your brain, to chew on till next Saturday. If you were going to transplant a group of Japanese citizen to a new location, would you send them to Greenland, with seed to grow corn? Of course not. You would transplant them to a location where they can continue to use their knowledge base and the resources they are accustomed to, to survive. Artic cold and corn, is not the resource base they are accustom too. As you look at every species of plant you want to have in your garden, you have to learn all you can about their preferences, and the things that hinder them. Lavender wants a relatively poor soil, and would die if you planted it in the kind of soil celery would thrive in. That will be a topic for future newsletters.
This picture shows a very unique “culture” I created, with a tropical plant, here in Michigan. Sweet potatoes desire a 85 degree soil temperature. That is not Michigan! So I mulched the full 6’x6’ area with small rocks. I had a soil thermometer there to check the soil, and it was often over 90 degrees. I had a wonderful harvest, with some rather large potatoes that came from that experiment. I will definitely do it again.
Does Life Have You Puzzled?
Many years ago I was going through a very painful period of waiting on God, in something that meant a lot to me. One day He showed me this illustration, and it really helped me. I hope it will be a blessing to you as well.
Picture a puzzle, the size of the sky. It’s so big you’re not able to see the edges. In this puzzle are holes that are yet to be finished, spread out here and there. Each hole represent the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Each time the “Will of the Father” is accomplished, through a disciple, a piece is inserted into the puzzle. This puzzle will be finished at the end of the age, when the last piece is put in place.
God works on puzzles the same way we do. At first we put all the edge pieces together. Then we start to concentrate on a certain color, and start to build islands that we just set in the general area they will go. We also work the inside edge, on certain colors and patterns, gradually building out peninsulas, that finally reach the islands we have been working on.
This is where you need to understand how God is constructing and filling in the space that represents your life, “In Him”. Each time you walk in the Spirit, and God is able to minister Life through you, and His Kingdom purposes comes to fruition, He places a piece along the inside edge of your opening. Now comes the hard part. Each time a piece is put into an island, out in the opening, is when God speaks to you about something future tense, and you believe Him. Let’s say you’re a young man, and the Lord has made it clear to you, who you are to marry. Does that mean you are instantly married? No, it is a process you have to walk with the Lord through. There are many puzzle pieces that have to go in, to build the island toward the edge, and the edge toward the island. Remember the island pieces are more revelatory. They are when God speaks to us a fresh word about something future tense. The edge pieces, are when we are vessels used of God to accomplish His will, in the present.
There are two men that immediately come to my mind, when I think about God speaking to someone, and them not fully waiting on Him. The first is Abraham. When he was younger, the Lord had promised him a son. He waited and waited, but in time he took matters into his own hands, and received Ishmael. The second is Moses. The Lord revealed to him, that he would be used to set the children of Israel free from their bondage. Took matters into his own hands, and slayed the Egyptian. Both of these dear men, God loved very much. He had great plans for them. Yet it wasn’t until it became impossible, for both of them, that God moved on their behalf to show Himself mighty. God had to bring both of them, to a point of impossibility, for God to fulfill what He had told them, so long ago.
Now we will turn our attention to how Christ dealt with this situation. Have you ever considered, that the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness, were things that He would do in time. Satan tempts Him to turn stones into bread. Not the Father’s timing. He refuses, but in time will feed thousands, with bread He makes supernaturally, on two different occasions. Satan tells Him to throw Himself off the temple, so the angels will protect Him. Not the Father’s timing. In time though, He will die on a cross, and not one bone of His body will be broken. Satan tells Him if He will fall down and worship him, he will give Him all the kingdoms of the world. Not the Father’s timing. One day, He will reign over all the kingdoms of the world! It’s not enough to know something that God wants to accomplish. It’s having a sense of His timing that is extremely important.
So if we go back to our puzzle illustration, God was putting pieces in Abraham’s and Moses’s islands. They new God had spoken to them. But until that island touches the edge, it will not come to fruition. This is where we get impatient, and if we are not careful, we start to grab pieces and try to make them fit. This only makes things worse. There is a principal in the Kingdom of God. He that is faithful with little, will be faithful with much. Each of the seemingly insignificant edge pieces the Lord puts in place, as we minister Life “In Him”, are the very things we need, to prepare us for the greater things these islands represent. Did you catch that? Without going through the process of time, “In Him”, we could never be ready for the big things He wants to accomplish through us.
James 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
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80% Of Success Is In The Mix
One of the first thing I need to teach you, about growing really high quality seedlings, is how to make the proper soil mix. Probably 80% of being successful at producing beautiful seedlings, is in making an exceptional mix. Because we are making soil blocks, it takes a special recipe to make the ingredients bind together properly, to hold their form.
This is one of the areas that Eliot Coleman was very instrumental in helping me develop for our farm. There was a specific conversation that I had with him, that he told me “all the best soil mixes in Europe, had leaf mold as a component”. Up until that time I had been using his recipe, that he gave in one of his books. After that conversation I changed a few things about my mix. I added the leaf mold and I added dried kelp meal. The kelp meal is super important for trace minerals. There are between 70-90 different minerals present in a good quality kelp meal. The leaf mold is important, in my opinion, as a biological inoculation. It is primarily, a fungal decomposition. Therefore my soil blocks are receiving a fungal component, when I add it to the mix.
Here is the recipe: 30 quarts of peat moss, 25 quarts of compost (At least 2 years old), 15 quarts of leaf mold (2 years old), 10 quarts of perlite, 1/2 cup ground natural limestone, 1 cup of colloidal rock phosphate, 1 cup of greensand, 1 cup of feather meal or blood meal, 1 cup of dried kelp meal.
The feather meal and blood meal are nitrogen sources. I most commonly use the feather meal. Blood meal is a quicker release source. Feather meals gives longer. I have grown beautiful seedlings with both. Blood meal is probably a little superior, but more expensive.
The green sand is a potassium and trace mineral source. The potassium levels can vary depending on the mine it was derived from. If you have a high quality compost, then you will have potassium present there. If you feel the need for more potassium in your mix. One option would be sunflower ash. It is around 30% potassium. Using an ash would have a liming effect. The natural limestone is added to the recipe to offset the acidity of the peat moss. So if you did use the sunflower ash you could probably pull back on the limestone. You would probably want to run some trials, with a few different recipes, to see what produced the best results.
Now the colloidal rock phosphate is a very fine rock powder. Rock powders work in a biological system, the biology knows how to extract what is needed, when it is needed. DO NOT EVER sterilize your mix. If you do you have wasted all the years of preparation that went into getting these premium biological products.
For those of you that don’t know what leaf mold is. If you take fall leaves, and as you pile them, spraying them with water, to make them all moist. Then let them sit for two years. You will have a beautiful, black, humus that is very rich looking. If you neglect to moisten them, then you will still just have a pile of dry leaves. One way to speed up this process, is to run them through a shredder unit, to reduce their size. If you shred them, you will have it in one year.
The first three ingredients. The peat moss, compost, and the leaf mold, have to all be sifted through a 1/4” hardware cloth screen. You need to remove larger chunks of debris. They will play havoc in your soil block makers.
Now I will emphasize, that the only time I ever had a problem with dampening off, in my seedlings, was with a young compost. I called Eliot and asked him why he thought I was experiencing it. He immediately asked if I had used a young compost. I had. It was only about 6 months old. The biology in a young pile, is totally different than what you will find in a more mature pile. That is why I emphasize that it needs to be at least two years old. I can just hear the moans and groans of those that want it right now!! Let me tell you something, doing some of this is a patience game. Like making fine wine or cheese. It isn’t a big deal, after you have piles that have been waiting, and you are always making sure you keep starting new piles that can age. Start now, so you will have it someday. My responsibility is to teach you how to do it right, even if that means you will have to be patient. 😊
I have two videos for the visual learners. These links will take you to those videos. There are a lot of important points made in the videos that I didn’t have room for here, especially the video on mixing all the ingredients together.
How I sift my ingredients:
https://rumble.com/vwez4b-how-i-sift-my-ingredients-for-soil-block-mix.html
How I mix my ingredients together quickly, in large quantities:
https://rumble.com/vwezt1-mixing-soil-block-mix-for-seedlings.html
The Necessity Of Exploring
I think one of the reasons I have excelled over the years at foraging, is because I just love wondering around the woods. Ever since I was a child, you would find me taking long walks, in wild places. The other reason I have excelled, is that I am observant. As I am taking these long walks, I am making mental notes for future trips. I noticed that big bunch of wild grape vines. That wild apple tree, along the woods. Those old Reishi mushrooms, growing on that downed Hemlock. It might not be the right season for them to be fruitful, but now I know they are there.
Do you like to go exploring? I hope you do. It will be a big key to your success. Something you need to keep in mind as you explore though, are property lines, of course. Making friends with property owners in your area, is a great idea. One day I ran into someone on public lands, as I was mushroom hunting, and had a very pleasant conversation with them. They were so impressed with what I was doing, they gave me permission to hunt a vast track of land, that was private, that they happened to own. If people sense that you are caring and respectful, they will generally trust you to use their resources.
This exploring has to be throughout the year. You need to experience all these places, during all the different seasons. Many plants are only available, for short periods of time. For you to even know they are present, you have to visit fairly often. To those that enjoy exploring the fields and forests, this is not a hardship. But it is a lifestyle, you have to be willing to develop. I meet so many people that tell me, I am “living the dream”. You have to be very intentional though. There are so many people caught up in the rat race, that need to start to break away, and develop a different lifestyle. To those that are serving money, it is difficult for them to wander around the woods, because they are thinking about the money they could be making. I have chosen such a simple lifestyle, that is way below my means, it allows me to sit and write these post to you for free, and it allows me to spend time exploring in the woods, shopping in God’s free grocery store. I made the choice many years ago to forgo certain things our society labels as “necessities”, for what I feel are actually the true necessities. I hope my foraging posts will bring that childhood zeal back again, to go wonder around in wild places.
Float Fishing Lesson #5- Fishing Line & Hooks
I want to spend time in this post discussing fishing line and hooks. Specifically for trout and panfish. The reason I am addressing the trout and panfish anglers, is because of how line sensitive these fish can be, especially when they become large.
Ninety percent of what panfish and trout eat, are aquatic Insects. The vast majority of those are subsurface. I am also a fly fisherman. There are times that a dry fly fisherman with out fish everyone, but those times are rare. The majority of the time, a float fisherman will out fish everyone, day in and day out. The reason being, their ability to detect extremely sensitive bites. But you can have your float set as sensitive as possible, but if your line is too heavy, it won’t matter how great your float is.
When I was in my late teens, I went ice fishing on a lake in southern Michigan, called Duck lake. At that time, it was known for its monster Bluegills. It is an extremely clear lake, and the fish were very difficult to catch. I remember setting up my portable shanty, and after not catching anything for a while, I got down on the floor and looked down into the water. There were giant Bluegill all over the place. I put my line back down the hole, and watched to see what would happen. A very large fish came to inspect my offering. It flared its gills, to suck in the bait, the bait went halfway to its mouth, and swung back to where it had been. The fish began to twitch funny and just slowly backed up. What had I just experienced? It was an important lesson for me in my fishing education.
You see these 11” Bluegills have been sucking in aquatic insects, day after day, all their lives. They know exactly how much effort they have to exert, to get an insect larvae of a certain size, from point A, to point B. There are two things that will restrict the bait from getting to the fishes mouth, the way it needs to. The first is the size of the line. Many of the most successful ice fisherman, in these difficult lakes, are using 1 pound line and smaller. Why is line diameter so important? As that fish is sucking the bait in, the thinner line cuts through the water with less resistance. Lessening the chance the fish will suspect something, “fishy” going on. The other thing that will restrict you from catching these fish, is the weight of your hook and bait. If you are using a tear drop, (to those that are not familiar with ice fishing, a tear drop is a small ice fishing jig, often with a heavy body) they can weigh many times more than an actual insect larvae, therefore it will take way more suction from the fish, to get it into its mouth. Sure you can catch large panfish, on occasion, with these tear drops, when the fish are aggressive and competitive. But the majority of the time, you will simply never know that they were even there.
This is why the Europeans have developed such tiny hooks. When you are fishing in a competitive match over there, everyone is given a small stretch of water. Like a 12 meters long stretch of bank. That is all you are allowed to fish during the match. There are hundreds of fisherman, and all of them are chumming, especially maggots. When we competed, we would purchase different colored maggots by the five gallon bucket. Before any of you get too excited. Those maggots are cleaner than you are. The only way a maggot can eat dead flesh, is by secreting an ammonia that cleans the flesh first, and kills bad bacteria. That is why they have been used to clean wounds during war time. They are very effective at it. The dead chicken meat they raise the maggots on, is rather disgusting, but the maggots themselves are very clean. The inside of our vehicle as we traveled to the match, would often have a strong ammonia smell.
So these fish in Europe, have been caught many times on average. Once these matches start, and everyone starts chumming their “swim”, the fish know exactly what is going on. The name of the game for them, is to discern which of the baits drifting by, has the hook in it. If you drop 10 maggots in the water and one of them has a size 18 hook, the one with the hook will sink noticeably faster. The fish in Europe will recognize it immediately. If you take a size 30 hook, about the size of the date on a dime, it will be very difficult for the fish to tell the difference. The one package of hooks in the photo that says Vanadium, are French made competition hooks. I’m afraid the N in my lettering is blocking you from seeing them more clearly. They are about the size of the date on a dime. To most American fisherman they can’t even imagine that they would ever use something that small. In most situations here we don’t need too, but occasionally there are situations like Duck lake, where it is just what the doctor ordered. Most of the time when I am fishing for large panfish here in America, I am using a #18 hook with 1-2 pound line, with a small chunk of worm from my compost pile. Sometimes I am using a #12 with 2 pound line, with a micro leech. These leeches will often pick me up nice bass as well. If I am not catching fish I will go to smaller hooks and smaller baits. That is usually the ticket.
So basically if you are not catching fish, try to scale down what you are doing. Try a smaller hook and line. We are going to be discussing split shot next, because understanding how to get down to the fish, especially in deep water, is very important for you to understand.
Fly Tying Lesson #5- Starting & Finishing
In this video, I show you how to start your thread and how to use a whip finishing tool to end your fly. It is best to practice these two techniques together, as you are first learning. You don’t want to be finishing your first fly, and mess it up, because you are having a difficult time tying a good knot at the end.
https://rumble.com/vwj2ev-fly-tying-class-lesson-5-getting-started.html
