Most of my time working here at Finca Quijote is spent
alone. With the main focus of reducing leaf-cutter ant problems, I have spent my
time botanizing (collecting and learning the new array of plants and reading
about their chemical properties); finding ant trails and nests, and observing ant
behavior. For weed control I spent a day swinging a machete to collect and
spread banana leaves over emerging grass and weeds. Yesterday I constructed my
own work table from scaffolding down in the garden as to actually have work/bench
space, made a plant press using fibrillate (Costa Rica’s version of sheetrock
that is much tougher than ours), and rearing containers for ants.
But today Alan, Phil and I worked together, and it was
great! Our first chore of the day was to move the horses because they just keep
escaping and eating the garden plants. I had the lucky job of standing down the
road from them, directing them to a new pasture as they charged at me. Mission
accomplished with no trampling.
Our next job was to spread “EM” or effective
microorganisms over the plants down in the garden. Organic farmers use EM to “restore
balance” to growing systems. The idea is that you get yourself some compost
(we’ll get to compost in a little bit), put it in a large mesh bag, and place
it in a garbage can with aeration from the bottom. The product of this process
is called compost tea, and in theory the bucket of water becomes a swimming
pool of EM including “good bacteria and nematodes”. Molasses is added as food
for the microorganisms, and the whole solution is applied to plants as a foliar
spray (a less-than-sophisticated setup with a nozzle attached to a leaf blower).
As a scientists, I’m not 100% sold on the idea, since nobody cares to do any
sort of experiments with replication or controls – going so far as to scoff at
the idea of replication and controls and saying it’s more of a “feeling” as to
whether it worked or not [notice the heavy use of quotation marks]. But the
farmers think it works, and I’m just a laborer…
What came next I’m not sure I
could prepare myself for. I mentioned that we use 5-gallon buckets as toilets.
The reason for this is not only to protect the water supply by taking care of
your own matter, but also to produce an organic fertilizer for growing pasture
grass (for the cows). Yup, here at the Finca we make humanore! This is a very
detailed process, and includes the use of leaves for nitrogen or grass to meet
the 30:1 C:N ratio, food waste (but no citrus because that makes penicillin),
and human waste in a bucket with sawdust and calcium carbonate. Honestly, the
food scraps smell much worse than human waste, but it’s all pretty nasty!
Rather than give you the whole song and dance of how it’s done, let me just say
two things that Phil reminded us. First, Americans seem to forget that when we
flush our toilets, it has to go somewhere. If we do not deal directly with the
byproducts of our waste, we might indirectly experience them because treated
material is sent into the ocean. Second, each American family could save 40,000
gallons of water per year if they used a compost toilet. It might be a crappy
job making humanore, but it sure makes the environment happy.
