I like systems. I am also not frightened by complexity, which is just as well since systems tend to be well… complex.

Everything in the title is concerned with using what is to hand. Simple fact of the matter is that most of this will be waste. Korean Natural Farming uses waste of all sorts from seared bones to fish heads. The Black Soldier Fly is a beneficial insect, just ignore the word fly, that converts food waste (putrescent or not, meat or not, dairy or not) into chitin, fat and protein, which you’ll agree are all very useful (if you don’t believe me type uses for chitin into Google and see what comes up). Earthworms take the leavings from your cutting board and plates (with the exception of dairy and meat) and turns it into worm poop, also called vermicompost (which is in my opinion the best growing medium on the planet). Biochar takes a wide variety of organic waste and unbinds the carbon from everything else in it such that you have basically pure carbon, and more than this, pure carbon in a form which does not degrade in the soil for hundreds of years.

It should therefore come as no surprise that I should start trying to link the various forms of waste management into something which then serves as a fuel, catalysts and habitats for soil ecology. However the more I looked into this the more I found..

When I emailed Tristram Stuart, the author of the book Waste, which details the mind boggling massive and universally prevalent waste of food in developed countries about connecting that waste to black soldier fly, his concern was the possibility of it smelling bad. I took that on board and mulled it over. However, from my reading it appears that the other uses for biochar is that it removes odours from the air. So, the biochar, which is a soil improver can also be used to reduce the possibility of foul odours coming from another part of the system, namely the Black Soldier Fly bins.

There is also some evidence that the worm bin functions better when you dump Black Soldier Fly excreta into it. This of course makes perfect sense in that worms often get to something after the flies have taken their best shot at it. Could it be that this is a natural synergy that we are only now discovering? So that links the biochar odour reduced black soldier bins with the worm bin.

Biochar (charcoal essentially) itself is basically a sponge. It has a huge surface area, basically lots of pits, holes, tunnels etc with each and every surface space on it (of which there are a mind bogglingly huge number) capable of latching onto something and binding it. Put another way it’s an empty lattice just waiting to be filled. Biochar traps water and nutrients in a form which plants can then unbind. So it’s a good idea to soak it before you put it in the soil, or it will just suck the water right out of your soil. Now Korean Natural Farming inputs are all solutions which means that biochar and Korean Natural Farming inputs is basically a match made in heaven.

Therefore a system which connects Korean Natural Farming Solutions with biochar with vermicompost systems with black soldier fly seems like a really good place to start.

Oh and biochar can be used to remove chemical and metal contamination from water, which if you have heavy metal laden ‘yellow dust’ storms flying in from China is certainly something to consider. Also if you connect your garden to an aquaponics system, some biochar could come in handy for your water supply, while the Black Soldier Fly and Worms feed your fish.