Diary:
Day 1: Cape Town Sunday 11th May
LH Bin – No Kelp……. Center Bin – 50% Kelp……. RH Bin – 100% Kelp
1. Collected two sacks of cast-up fresh kelp from Glencairn Beach (10 minutes)
2. Washed sand and salt off kelp with garden hose pipe (10 minutes) – licked kelp – no remaining salt taste.
3. Used garden shredder to macerate kelp (45 minutes) Kelp stalks are easy to deal with, but fronds are very slippery and clogged up the machine after a while, so that slowed down the operation somewhat, while I cleared the cutting blades.
4. I yielded about 5 kgs (10 lb) of pulverized kelp – far too much for my start-up bins. The rest I’ll use directly in the garden. In years past I always used fresh kelp when planting shrubs and trees and they thrived magnificently. I put the kelp at the bottom of the planting hole and covered it with a few inches of soil, so that it didn’t come into direct contact with the roots.
4. Before putting in the kelp. I had previously set up the two new (kelp) bins. To start them off, I put in a few hundred worms in each bin, with the worms initially feeding on normal kitchen waste. To these two bins I now added a few handfuls of the shredded kelp, mixed with some shredded newspaper (10 minutes).
As a further aside – I accidentally spilled some shredded kelp onto the lawn and my doberman, Rex chomped it all up with gusto – so I’ll have to remember to keep him away from any beds in which I use fresh kelp. It won’t do him any harm – they use kelp extract as a tonic for dogs – especially for controlling skin problems, such as eczema.
Commercial Kelp Supplement for Animals
Please check back for further progress reports – and your comments will always be most welcome.
Yours in Worming
Steve
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