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When I harvest my seeds, there are always residues of other things, like with sunflower seeds. It takes a lot of time to remove them. Do you have a technique for efficiently separating the seeds from these residues? Thank you.

…It’s real, right?

I’ve been wondering how to tune compost tea for a balanced microbial ecosystem rather than just a bacterial broth. I’m designing a small study comparing teas brewed with different food stocks, aeration, and durations, paired with microscope counts. Has anyone else tried measuring life in compost tea directly? Curious what setups worked best for you.

Howdy! I know there are probably more specific I could ask this question, but I feel like this group will probably understand my intentions a little better so asking here…. Basically, I’m trying to do a couple of things indoors this winter in regards to overwintering my plants. For starters, I am wanting to overwinter some peppers and eggplant – – a couple of large varieties that will be cut all the way down, as well as some smaller ones that I think I’m just going to try to keep alive without drastically pruning. (Or is this a mistake to not prune small bushes like shishito or Thai bird?). Additionally, I have several large citrus bushes in pots. And last but at least, I also want to try my hand at routing a bunch of my annuals. Everything is in pots already and I have lots of basement space so right now I am just pulling everything inside and will take my time to work through the propagating. While space isn’t an issue, sadly there are no windows so I need to depend on artificial lighting. Here is the question, what are some metrics I should use to design my light setup? I’m not looking for anything to grow or fruit, and that seems to be how the lighting requirements are often described. But what is the minimal (cheapest) lighting I can get away with to help them peacefully hibernate? Has anyone set up anything similar? Would love to hear about it! Thanks!!

Hey everyone

this is a follow-up to my previous post about making nettle fertilizer tea

( https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/1oewgel/has_anyone_really_seen_results_with_nettle_tea_as/ )

I used a bit over 2 kg (around 4.5 lbs) of fresh nettles, which fermented in about 50 liters (~13 gal) of water for 16 days, stirring almost every day

After that, I topped up the barrel with another 50 liters of clean water to reach roughly a 1:2 concentration. ( Video: https://imgur.com/a/NIhjOSZ )

For the application, I used a 5-liter bucket (~1.3 gal) and mixed 1 part nettle tea to 4 parts water —so a 1:4 ratio (please correct me if you think this dilution could be adjusted).

( Video of that too: https://imgur.com/a/U2MVMsy / https://imgur.com/a/P4425By )

I poured about half a bucket per post, and each post supports 3–4 dragon fruit plants

( Video: https://imgur.com/a/rgHFy9W )

Now we’re just waiting to see if there are any visible results or noticeable improvements.
I’d really appreciate it if anyone could share their own experiences (good or bad) using nettle tea or similar natural fertilizers —and any tips or insights are more than welcome!

I’ll keep posting updates as things progress.
Not the best time of the year since summer just ended and we’re heading into fall, so growth naturally slows down as the plants prepare for the colder months.

Wishing everyone a great harvest season! 🌱