Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 1 day ago
Azolla fixes nitrogen and it is often used as animal feed. Perhaps we can use it in our greenhouses to continually make biomass (and nitrates) thus saving us from buying chemical fertilizers. I will use Bonemeal as the phosphate source to grow the azolla. The process is continuous. An enhanced "nitrogen cycle" right there in the greenhouse!
Transcript
00:03The first of June and this is the spare glitter that I have, only one of these was the supplier
00:08will have more in a few days and I have just put a little corner on it and just found
00:18these
00:20and it's old silicone but it seems to be okay. Hopefully it'll work and I'm just going to tie this
00:32up at whatever height and have a little bit of water all the way along and there's Zola in it
00:37and it's going to be in the greenhouse.
00:42It's Saturday June the 6th and I'm throwing in some little clippings of the side shoots of the tomatoes.
00:51I have water. I'm just going to show you how it works.
00:57So I have water that bubbles in down here. It's on a timer so it's not on all the time
01:05and also comes up and tips the silver.
01:10So we also get this.
01:14So we're getting very slow movement of water across and the water comes and goes under the Zola and provides
01:27the Zola with nutrients.
01:28And this is the Zola that was already doing fairly well and this is the Zola from the wood ash
01:40which doesn't really have, it had bad nutrition.
01:50And this is the Zola that was just growing on open water and it had better nutrition and it's also
01:57got some duckweed among it.
02:02And I planted the same amount per square centimetre of a Zola in both sides of this.
02:14So, but this Zola seems to be doing better than the Zola that came from the wood ash.
02:25And this may recover or it may get worse, I don't know.
02:30And the water comes out here and see I have these little pieces of plastic grid to stop the Zolas
02:43from merging into each other.
02:51And I have one of them here too, between the two Zolas and it's, the height here is, it will
03:02drip down on the ground and then underneath the soil here there's a channel.
03:08So, so the water will hopefully be watering the soil a little bit, but ultimately it comes back into this,
03:19there's a sump tank in here where it just gets recycled around again to the plants.
03:27It's the 14th of May and the water has just flowed in here.
03:32So, I've removed this from this, I decided not to concentrate in one little section, I moved a little, removed
03:42a little from the entire length.
03:44And I'm going to do the same at this side and then just weigh it and see there's where I
03:53removed it last time.
03:54So, I'm just going to remove, remove from the entire length some to give it, you know, this kind of
04:02look where there's a little bit of space for it to, for them to grow wider.
04:08And then I'm going to get the scales and just weigh it here too.
04:14So, I did the weighing and this is the harvest and this is what's left over to be harvested again
04:23next week.
04:28So, yeah, that's what we have, a little bit thin there.
04:34Actually, I got more from this side than from this side, but I may have just made a mistake and
04:39just harvested a bit more.
04:42But, anyway, we'll see.
04:43So, this is what it looks like.
04:45It's almost exactly the same amount as last week.
04:49A little bit shy of last week's.
04:52And this is what I have from last week.
04:54This is how it crumbled down.
04:56So, it's dried into this.
04:59And it's gone, I think, a little mouldy and it seems to be attracting ants a little bit.
05:04See, this is what it looks like.
05:05So, it's probably somewhat decent as a munch.
05:12And, yeah, I'll just continue on spreading it.
05:16And at this side, I'm going to put another one.
05:20Not quite as long because I don't have as long as a piece.
05:24But I'm going to put a piece at the back of this because there's only, like, shade, apparently.
05:32And, yeah, I'll just continue on doing what I'm doing here.
05:37I'll have more tomatoes in front of it soon.
05:42And just use this as the nitrogen source, the nitrate source for the greenhouse.
05:50And the nitrates are going to be mulch that will rot down and produce nitrates for the plants.
05:57So, yeah, this has, this is producing nitrates in the greenhouse, which is, I think, a good version of a
06:09circular economy.
06:10So, yeah, this is what I'm doing here.
06:26So, yeah, this is what I'm doing here.
Comments
Brian White
Creator
Upgrade your greenhouse to produce nitrate rich mulch from the air!

Recommended