The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e72: The Salatin Semester/DIY Vacuum Seeder/Soil Blocks

Episode Date: February 19, 2016

The Salatin Semester, a comprehensive course featuring the teachings of you-know-who, is the latest educational offering from Verge Permaculture. I review the course. After that: a conversation with Eric Barnhorst about his take on a home-made vacuum seeder, and some of his approaches to working with soil blocks. Eric submitted some photos of his vacuum seeder and his soil block trays. Check them out at theruminant.ca

This is the Ruminant Podcast. I'm Jordan Marr. The Ruminant is a website and podcast that wonders what good farming looks like. On the show, I interview farmers, writers, and academics about the big ideas that could change our food system for the better, and the little tweaks that can help farmers become more profitable. Everything lives at theruminant.ca. Alright, on with the show. Hey everybody, it's Jordan. So today's episode features two segments, both on the practical aspects of farming.

And the first one is a little more aimed at livestock producers, although I think there's something in there for everybody. And it is my own review of a new educational resource that was just released in the last couple of weeks, the latest offering from a company called Verge Permaculture. The second segment is more relevant to market gardeners, and it features an interview with past guest Eric Barnhorst about his own attempt at building a vacuum seeder for the nursery. And also we have a bit of a conversation about soil blocks. Eric and I both use soil blocks in the nursery. And so we compare notes on the recipes we use for our soil blocks. And he also talks about the kinds of trays that he has built to,

to, to hold his soil blocks. So that's the latest episode. And I am going to start you off with my review of the latest offering from Verge Permaculture. Hope you enjoy. If you're anything like me, you've been in this position before. You've read a book or a series of books by an expert in this or that branch of farming or gardening, and though the material is a great source of inspiration or knowledge, you're left wanting more. Maybe certain sections of the book lack clarity, and so you've got questions for the author that need answering. Presumably, that's why the seminars that these authors often give are so popular. Last year, Jean-Martin Fortier gave a seminar on his recent book, The Market Gardener, a couple of towns over, and I jumped at the chance to attend to hear him answer questions about the techniques that have made him

successful. But what if the seminars are too expensive or too far away to be able to attend to hear him answer questions about the techniques that have made him successful. But what if the seminars are too expensive or too far away to be able to attend? This specific conundrum appears to be the inspiration behind an educational package that was just released by a company out of Alberta called Verge Permaculture. A while back, Verge invited famed farmer Joel Salatin, author of numerous books on his successes raising pastured livestock at Polyface Farm in Virginia, to give a three-day seminar to live attendees in Calgary as well as to people watching online. This is good audio here. I might blast it out a couple times if I get fired up about something. It's great to be with you up here in, where am I, in Alberta. And well, two weeks ago, I did this in Australia, and then I did it in New Zealand. So I'm all over. But you know what, what I've found is that

there are many more similarities around the world than there are dissimilarities. Verge recorded the sessions and ended up with over 18 hours of video of Joel offering a synthesis of everything he has learned while farming at Polyface. Next, Verge solicited insights from farmers around the world who were following Joel's principles and then posted the questions they had back to Joel and his son Daniel in a series of audio interviews. They then took all of this material and synthesized it into an educational package that is now available for purchase on Verge's website. They call it the Salatin Semester. At first glance, the Salatin Semester can feel a bit overwhelming.

Its contents include 12 DVDs, 6 hours of additional audio interviews with Joel and Daniel, a study guide that features material gathered during online forums with farmers around the world, an electronic resource list for making further inquiries, and a virtual tour of Polyface Farm. When you open up the thing, it's hard to know where exactly to begin. So I asked the editor of the package, Andrew Bennett, where he thought I should start. Right. How do you approach it? I mean, it is really encyclopedic in some ways. I wouldn't even call it an encyclopedia, though. It's not organized like that at all, but it's overwhelming and it's a large amount of information. I'd say the obvious place to start is to watch Searle's seminar and absorb it. There's 18 hours of it, so it's a lot. And so take your time with it or take it however you'd like.

And so take your time with it or take it however you'd like. I would personally approach it with a notebook and take detailed notes. Because if you know Joel Salatin, you know he's a mile a minute, and he's coming out just rapid fire with great information. So to review the seminar itself later, you probably want to have, you know, an opal companion actually, you know, treat this like a course. I think Andrew's right. The Salatin semester was born out of the original seminars that Joel gave, and so they're the natural place to begin consuming these materials. But start watching the seminars, and you soon realize the value of the other components of the package. In his preface to the study guide, Andrew, who also raises livestock in British Columbia, writes,

The real meat and greatest pleasure I took from this course was the interplay among the participants. Having consumed some of the course, I can see why Andrew feels this way. The study guide is packed with insights and observations gained during online forums conducted with experienced farmers who have attempted to put Joule's principles into practice. So many self-help books fall down because the practices they espouse haven't been tested in other contexts. With the Salatin semester, we are exposed not only to the principles that have made Polyface successful, but to how these principles have been applied and adapted in different farm settings around North America and other parts of the world. To get a sense of the material, I bit off a small chunk of it by watching a 90-minute session, disc number five, on Joel's

approach to raising laying hens in his famous eggmobiles. I'm a veggie grower, but a few years ago I raised laying hens in poorly constructed chicken tractors. The chickens weren't very happy and neither was I, so I figured this would be a good one to both learn from and critique. We'll deal with the egg mobiles and layers first, then we'll go to broilers, and then we'll go to turkeys, and we'll see how the day goes along. It's hard to believe that there's that much to cover with this topic, but I think as we get into it you'll be surprised at how much there is to cover. All right so we really got into the laying chickens and there's a big difference between laying chickens and meat birds so when I say layers I mean you know these are layer birds. We really got into them as a way to sanitize behind the cows.

Those cows are dropping a calling card that is conducive to... My first observation was the high quality of the recordings. Watching them, I felt like a member of the live audience. Verge used multiple cameras and quality microphones, which makes for pleasurable viewing. One small complaint is that some of Joel's slides are enlarged for the DVD audience, but not all of them. Most that aren't enlarged aren't very important, but I still would have liked to have a good look at them. And while we're on the subject of gripes, I'll add that I would have

liked to see some sort of index that catalogs the contents of each DVD. There are 12 discs, and each disc represents a different topic, such as marketing, or grass finishing, or fencing, or raising pastured pork. Beyond that though, there's no way to quickly find a specific insight of Joel's if you decide to go back later for reviewing. For example, you might remember that the disc on laying hens contained a minute or two on how to deal with hawks. But without any sort of index, you're forced to sift through the video bit by bit trying to find it. This is a challenge for instructional videos in general, not just for Verge's, but in future versions of the package, Verge might consider adding some sort of index to help viewers find their way back to specific topics in the sessions. Overall though, I learned a ton from the session on layers. As

someone who had trouble training his birds to return to their movable coop each night, I appreciated the amount of time Joel devotes to the importance of, and approach to, training your birds to do this. I also learned a lot about how to design laying boxes to keep eggs clean, such as locking the birds out of the boxes after 4pm, and orienting the boxes to reduce the amount of light they're exposed to. Actually, the session proceeds like a laundry list of insights about why my own attempts at using a mobile chicken coop weren't very successful. This was helped by the live question and answer session that closed out the video. Now, if you're like me and you haven't read any of Salatin's books, then you might be forgiven for wondering whether a guy who seemingly spends all of his time writing, speaking, and appearing in

Food Inc. is really that much of a farmer. My own skepticism was put to rest though once I watched some of these seminars. Here's Salatin fielding a question about how to tell when a hen has stopped laying. You can judge them. You can tell by there are several ways to tell if a bird is laying, like an older bird for example, to know if she's still laying. The first, the most important one is pigmentation, body pigment. When a bird begins to lay, they take the yellow pigment from their body and put it in the egg yolk. So as they begin to lay, they drain the yellow pigment out of their body. And that comes out in a certain order. Vent, eye ring, earlobe, beak, feet, and shanks.

Vent, eye ring, earlobe, beak, feet, and shanks. And that's the order that the pigment comes out. All right. When she stops laying, the pigment comes out all right when she stops laying the pigment comes back in in the same order so if she's got yellow on her in her vent but white shanks you know she's going out of production rather than coming into production the pliability of her pubic bones when she's laying well her her abdominal area back there gets extremely supple. It's not fatty and hard. And you can put two to three fingers between her pubic bones. They're very soft and pliable and slender.

They feel kind of like toothpicks. And because they're getting all this abdominal exercise every day laying the eggs. Next one's from Calgary. Are raptors an issue, and how do you manage the predators at the eggmobile? Well, that's a long answer. There are several things. One is we have a lot of people on the farm. This is a guy who has clearly put some serious hours into mastering his vocation, and my overall take on the Salatin Semester is that it's a really good investment for anyone willing to put some serious hours of their own into becoming better farmers. For more info on the Salatin Semester,

check out salatinsemester.com. All right, everyone. So that's my review of the Salatin Semester. But now that you've heard it, I've got to tell you how this all came about and what it means for one of you. I was approached by Verge Permaculture and asked if I was interested in reviewing this course. And since the course is well within the wheelhouse of what I tend to focus on in the room, I accepted the offer. And part of the offer was that Verge offered to give me a physical copy of the Salatin semester. I emailed them back and asked them whether if instead I could give a copy away to one of you and they said fine. So here's the deal. I have a copy of the Salton semester to give away to a listener and so here's what I thought we'd do. If you want to be entered into a draw for this

package you need to do one of the following three things within the first week after this episode goes live. Okay so number one go find the ruminant podcast on Facebook and share one of the posts that you find on that page on your own Facebook feed. Number two, email me editor at the ruminant.ca and just tell me what you think of the show. It doesn't have to be positive. It can be good or bad. It won't affect your probability of winning, but just just give me a sense of how you feel about the show. Number three, visit the iTunes store, search the ruminant podcast, and then give the podcaster a review in the iTunes store. It's really helpful for getting the podcast out there. And again, it doesn't matter if you don't give me a perfect review. It won't affect your

probability of winning. Just make sure you leave a review under your own real name or your farm's real name so that I can track you down if you happen to be the winner. At the end of the week, just before the next episode of the show, I will choose a name and announce the winner on the next episode. And again, one lucky person is going to win a physical copy of the Salton Semester, which is valued at $250. Good luck, everybody. Okay, folks, so you're about to hear part two of the episode, my conversation with Eric Barnhorst regarding his home-built vacuum seeder, as well as some aspects of his approach to soil blocks. But just before you hear it,

I want you to know that Eric gave me some photos to share of both the trays that he uses for his soil blocks and also of the vacuum cedar he built. So I think you should go and check those out. They're over at theruminant.ca and they'll be included with the show notes for this episode. So just look for the post on this episode. All right, here's the conversation. Hope you enjoy it. So Eric, you caught the short episode I did featuring a do-it-yourself vacuum seeder right offhand. I can't remember the name of the farmer who called in, but you wrote me to say that you also built your own vacuum seeder. It didn't work very well, at least the first go around. And now you have some insights or do's and don'ts.

If someone else is going to try it, do you, do you want to share those right now? Sure. Yeah. Um, so, uh, the background is I do all my transplanting with soil blocks and, uh, there didn't seem to be an obvious commercial, uh, uh, product that would do vacuum seeding into soil blocks, and I wanted to stick with soil blocks. So I was actually willing to shell out the money for an expensive one if it would really save that much labor. But I decided to build one to try to fit with the trays that I already have for the soil block method that I use.

And I especially wanted to use it for small seeds, like, or relatively small, like onions and scallions, because I spend a lot of time transplanting those in the spring. so I had kind of seen the basic design from some commercial models and I tried to copy it using basically the same method as your previous interview so with a shop vac plugged into a box with some holes drilled on one side. I think the... I was really worried about having a lip around the edge so that you could pour the seeds and not have them shoot off the sides when you're shaking them around

to try to get them onto the holes. So what I did was I built a plywood box with one side missing. And before I built it, I made a little channel with a table saw on the sides of the box so I could slide in an eighth-inch panel that I drilled the holes in. So I definitely think the baking sheet method would be better because the eighth inch MDF sheet I used bends too much when I turn on the shop vac. And the problem with that is you end up with clusters of seeds in the holes in the middle rows and not as many on the outside rows.

It doesn't happen with large seeds, but it does happen with small seeds, which is what I wanted to use it for. Yeah, I think a lot of us would want to use it for the small seeds, yeah. So I think having that plate be very stiff is important. So using the baking sheet is a good idea, I think. I might try that this winter.

And either that or use a thicker piece of material and build up the lip after the fact instead of trying to be clever and slide it into a channel. Right. And the other thing I did, which I think if someone was trying to do with a shop vac, oh, I also used a pretty large shop vac because it's the one I had lying around. So I remember in the interview with the other guy, he said he used a very small shop vac, which I wonder if that would actually be better in terms of bending the plate too much. Ah, just because your suction maybe was a bit too high. Yeah, that's right. And the other

thing that I did that I would say is probably a do is I used, you can buy dust collection hardware that fits onto shop vacs and has all kinds of different connectors and things. So I used a bunch, they're not very expensive. You can buy them from woodworking stores. So instead of trying to jam the end of the shop vac into a hole and hope that it seals well enough, you can buy a little plate that you can plug a hose into, and you screw the plate down and put a little caulking underneath it,

and you get a perfect seal. That was one thing, to connect it to the box properly. They sell them, I think, to make custom jigs for woodworking. And the other dust collection part I used was called blast gates. You use them to clean out the dust ports, but it lets you turn off the suction without turning off the shop vac. It's very annoying if you have to be shutting the whole vacuum cleaner on and off every time you want to drop the seeds.

Just ergonomically? Just having to bend over or reach or whatever? Is that what you mean? Yeah, ergonomically. Because you want to have the vacuum. First of all, the vacuum cleaner is loud, so you want it far away from you just for comfort. But also ergonomically, the way I did it at least, you have the vacuum cleaner set up beside you, and then your trays up on a bench or a table.

And then beside the trays that you're working on, the cedar attachment. So you don't want to have to reach down off the table every time to shut the power button on and off. Right. And they're not exactly easy. I mean, they're easy enough. But if you're moving fast, you want to make sure that you don't bump. Once you flip the cedar part over onto your tray, you want to make sure you don't bump it when you turn the power switch off. Right.

So by having the blast gate right on top, you can shut it on and off right at the cedar instead of at the vacuum. Right. Go ahead. See, I was really interested to hear that you're doing this or attempting it with soil blocks. I don't think there's tons of people out there, uh, using soil blocks, but some of us do. I do for most of my seedlings. And, um, I've kind of always just assumed that it

would be too finicky to whether, whether I could find it. Well, I, yeah, I didn't think I'd find a commercial, uh, uh, seed, uh, air, air seeder built for soil block situations and to build it myself seemed finicky um having gone through your first model that clearly needs some improvements are you confident you can build a setup that'll work and make you be worth it in terms of the gains in efficiency in planting soil blocks i think so i think um being able to control the suction a little bit better would help. Definitely a stiffer plate would help. And then the other thing that I've noticed, I mean, the main problem was not having a consistent singulation of the seeds. So some holes would have one seed and some would have four seeds on it.

of the seed. So some holes would have one seed and some would have four seeds on it. And the ones with four would tend to be in the middle where the plate was bending. So I think between those two things, it would help a lot. The other thing I've noticed on some of the commercial plates is it seems like there's a bit of a cup uh where where each seed goes that isn't drilled all the way through and then a tiny hole in the bottom so i may try that too instead of trying to match just the size of the hole to the size of the seed yeah that's probably important yeah the tiniest pinhole that you can and then just um make a bit of a cup that's closer to the size of the seed. So then it's easier to block the pinhole. I assume you're using custom-built trays to hold your soil blocks.

Is that correct? Yeah, actually, that's one of the reasons I really don't want to go away from them. Other than the plastic waste, if I'm never short on trays, I just cut another piece of wood. Right. waste. If I'm never short on trays, I just cut another piece of wood. Right. So really say, okay, so is this, are you using like a standup soil blocker that presses about 20 at a time? Like the kind of the one and a half by one and a half inch blocks and you get 20 per press? Yeah, I get 12. It's that one. They're almost two inches.

Two inches by two. Okay. And so I guess to be able to use like an air seeder, inches by two okay uh and so i guess to be able to use like an air seeder um vacuum seeder uh you just need that you need to know that every time you press it those the blocks are going exactly in the same place i.e there's no extra space in the trays is that right yeah although you have a bit of flexibility because i'm as i'm sure you know from using them the the hole it's not the size of a seed it's it's quite a bit you know it's like, the hole, it's not the size of a seed. It's quite a bit bigger. It's like you poke it with your finger. So it can be off by, I'd say, half inch, maybe close to half an inch before you'd have a big problem.

Okay, well, do you mind very quickly describing how you build your trays, what materials you're using? Because I don't like what I've done for custom built trays. So I'd love to find a better model. Sure. The main one that I use, well, I use two sizes. I use 48 count trays that are about 10 inches by 24. count trays that are about 10 inches by 24 um and i put a so i just cut a piece of i think it's uh just cheap pine like 1 by 12 that's actually 10 inches wide cut to two feet and then i put a 1 by 2 on one of the long sides to kind of register the blocks against, if you know what I mean. Yeah.

So you know that they're pushed up exactly against that back, and it also gives you something to grab when you pick them up without sticking your thumb through one of the blocks. So there's a bottom piece to the tray that is a piece of wood? Is that what I'm understanding? Yep. Ah, so you're not concerned about like i've always built mine with mesh as the bottom uh right just for air just for airflow and stuff you haven't you found it fine just to have it sitting on on a thin piece of of pine yes but it's and it's very practical is the reason. I've done a couple of side-by-side comparisons, and the mesh ones are slightly better. But if you are prompt with your transplants, I don't find a big difference. If you let them kind of linger in the tray for a really long time, you'll see the roots don't do the air pruning thing on the bottom.

They'll scoot out the bottom and get all tangled with each other. Okay. On the pine. Whereas if they really have the air, they don't want to do that as much. From my experience, at least. Right, right. But you're talking about things that have been in the block for way too long. You have other problems by then.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay, okay. So then in terms of fitting the vacuum seater over top of that, then I used that backing piece against the long side to register one side of the cedar. Yeah. And then I made little legs on sort of the opposite side of the cedar that would stand on the ground to hold it at the right height. Right, perfect. Above the blocks. And then I never had a problem with the seeds not hitting the blocks.

That worked perfectly. Okay. So even when I had the wrong numbers of seeds, they always hit the blocks. That worked perfectly. So even when I had the wrong numbers of seeds, they always hit the blocks. Okay. I'm abusing your time, but I got to ask you now, because I can add this into an episode you probably haven't heard yet, but what are you doing for your soil block mix? Oh, I don't know if this is uh okay yeah uh i'll just tell you uh i i've gone through a bunch of different uh mixes and i ended up getting the uh the organic uh pro mix from the local garden store and it started just out of laziness and it works fine like just that that's all you're using

yeah i mean in terms of for texture so i i still add my fertilizer mix right so is the pro mix you're getting not coming fertilized like it doesn't have amendments in it is it just no it's just a medium right the organic one is just um like long fiber beet moss, perlite, vermiculite, and it's pH adjusted. Cool. Okay. Well, the other ones will be the non-organic ones will often have starter fertilizers, but I don't want to use them. okay well um i'm able to get so i like you i went through a lot of different like kind of recipes and eventually got lazy or just more efficiency minded that it was taking me way too long to mix it all myself from all the primary ingredients um and hard on my body because i was doing big batches i just hated it so i ended up going towards after talking to another farmer who was using mainly a starter mix, like you've just described. In the end, I discovered that, so Sunshine is one of the major brands and they have a line of organic bales you can buy, different kinds.

And I discovered one supplier who stocks a Sunshine Organic number five and the other suppliers don't. And the number five i found to be awesome and it does have some uh amendments in it so just i mean that's been my experience and then i've always done i don't get precise about it but i actually mix 50 that stuff with um sorry up to 50 of a very well composted horse manure that we produce on the farm. I don't produce it myself. The horses do, but, uh, uh, we up to 50% that with the remainder, uh, of that, of the sunshine number five. So, um, and then I get, I think I get the sunshine number three when I don't want amendments in there. But the same deal.

So anywhere from, say, 25% to 50% well broken down horse manure compost, and then all the rest would be up to 75% in the mix. And I found that works really well. Yeah, I think I went through a similar process where I had all these complicated blends, and it was cheaper and better and going to save the world. And then just for efficiency, when the crunch comes, I found that just the straight mix was from the bag with my starter fertilizer worked fine for me. Awesome. Well, Eric Barnhurst, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Well, that's it, folks. I hope you enjoyed that.

And just before I go, I want to give a special thanks and a shout out to Scott Humphries, who has been really helpful in the last few weeks, helping me plan out the season of episodes to come from The Luminant. So thanks a lot, lot scott i really appreciate it and to the rest of you have a great week and if you're planning on entering the draw to win a copy of this helton semester i wish you luck and i will talk to you in a week bye-bye live life like it was meant to be i don't fret honey i've got a plan to make our final escape all we'll need is each other a hundred dollars and maybe a roll of duct tape and we'll run right outside of the city's reaches we'll live off chestnuts spring water and peaches We'll owe nothing to this world of thieves And live life like it was meant to be

guitar solo Because why would we live in a place that don't want us? A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country With salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands I've been doing a lot of thinking Some real soul searching And here's my final resolve I don't need a big old house Or some fancy car

To keep my love going strong So we'll run right out Into the wilds and graces We'll keep close quarters With gentle faces And live next door To the birds and the bees And live life like it was meant to be.