Creating on-farm fertility

By Jenny Lux

Chaos Springs at Waihi run regular workshops about soil health, composting, and creating on-farm fertility. Jenny Lux reports on a recent workshop.

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Chaos Springs workshops

I have been an avid follower of Chaos Springs since I first went there in 2014 on a field trip as a student doing an evening class in Level 3 organic primary production. Recently I did a cheeky entry into one of their competitions for a free place in a workshop and I won!

So on a sunny spring Friday in October I attended the Creating On-Farm Fertility workshop taught by Steve and Jenny Erickson. This proved to be equally useful and stimulating to me, a market gardener, as it was to the many pastoral farmers, orchardists and general public attending, who all had a common interest in living off the land in some way.

ABOVE: Jenny Erickson (left) and Steve Erickson by the vege garden, looking at the health and quality of the soil. Behind Jenny is a huge lemon verbena.

The biological engine

It all comes back to what Steve calls the ‘biological engine’ and getting that really humming. It’s an analogy that suits a mechanic like Steve, who is the man behind the innovative Cyclone multi-task sprayer. This machine allows you to combine compost, minerals and fertilisers in a liquid format for a single application onto land, and can handle particles up to 15mm – an amazing tool!

Steve (centre) with workshop group and the Cyclone at right

The day began with a couple hours of lectures, and a sumptuous morning tea, followed by a BYO packed lunch and a farm tour. We started looking at the plant extract facility, then onto the commercial composting area (with a demo of the Cyclone), and a walk through some paddocks to dig holes and observe soil structure and visible biological activity. We finished at Jenny’s biodynamic home garden, where you could see and also feel the energy of plants growing in balance.

This Chaos Springs workshop attracted a lot of practitioners with many years of knowledge, so there was a really rich exchange of ideas and advice. My only criticism was that it didn’t really seem long enough!

If you are managing any piece of land, I would highly recommend attending one of the Chaos Springs workshops. There is an on-farm composting workshop coming up on 29 November.

https://www.chaossprings.co.nz/events

Jenny Lux, immediate past co-chair of Soil & Health, is an organic market gardener at Rotorua.