So far I've had two failed IMO3 attempts where the temperature got out of control. I winterized 3 large vegetable beds 2 weeks ago by broad forking them (they had never been tilled or worked up), spraying a humic acid+LAB solution, sprinkling the rejected IMO3 , and then covering them with leaves. I checked under the leaves the other day and was amazing by the mycelium activity. It seems that less than perfect IMO3 still does a lot of good! Happy experimenting everyone. (My oats sprouted in my IMO pile. Another learning opportunity)

Been meaning to upload this for a while now--wanted to highlight a really simple way to make hot compost. You can watch the video on 2x speed but essentially I'm just raking out my chicken bedding and layering on carbons (leaves) and nitrogens (bokashi, yarrow clippings, JADAM Liquid fertilizer). I also "inoculate" the pile with a bit of finished compost from a previous batch.

Living in such a temperate climate I feel like I've always had a low LABS yield and a slower process. I just made a batch by my wood fire stove and it's the best yield yet by far! Maybe helpful for those of us going into winter. Looking forward to soaking the ground with it.

Just wanted to share some things I have noticed this year since using KNF inputs on my garden. I think part of the fascination with KNF is the 'mystery' or mythos around it. 1. I had a large amount of volunteer tomatoes pop up. Even in places where I didn't plant tomatoes. I let some of them grow and gave them the same things I have everything else and they produced a high volume of tomatoes. Something I have never heard of with volunteers. 2. Once my summer squash and zucchini fizzled out in the past couple of weeks, they have both begun a whole new round of leaf growth and are putting on more fruit. Also something I've never seen before. These could just be coincidences or from my relatively short time gardening all on my own. But interesting none the less!

Finally, but better late than never, I get to give a litte impression of our garden. I hope the audio on that cell phone vid is okay. Many greetings from the other side of the Atlantic where many are closely observing what is happening in the U.S. and how they are going to look like after four years under the current administration. I was lucky to be a teaching assistant for the small German Department at Whitman College in Walla Walla back in 2004/5. Filled with great experiences and encounters with lovely folks I returned to Germany hoping to return to the U.S. one day. Unfortunately my memories don't quite match up with what I see on the news these days. So yeah, as Taylor pointed out, gardening is not only a question of subsistence, resilience, self-reliance, health and climate protection but, at times, also a good distraction from the crude attempts of undermining democracies not just in the U.S. but in Germany as well.