Everything you need to know about growing organically, raising livestock and living chemical free in your environment.
Homesteading is the ultimate self-sustaining lifestyle. They can vary in size and scale, with full-scale being self reliant on itself for everything such as food, power, and water. However, even smaller homesteads pride themselves on being as self-sustaining and eco-friendly as possible.
Because sustainability is a main aspect of homesteading, the use of chemicals is generally reduced. Especially in the garden, true homesteaders try to be as organic as possible. For one, chemical usage can impact the health of your soil and decrease the nutrient content in your food. Animals on antibiotics or hormone treatments have lesser quality meat and eggs. Lastly, chemicals can be toxic and generally add more waste with their containers.
Effective Microorganisms® is the ultimate product for homesteading by being a truly sustainable product that is beneficial to human, animal, and environmental health. Pure organic beneficial microorganisms work with local and native organisms to bring balance to any environment they are introduced to (digestive systems, soil, water, and more). Check out the many ways you can use EM® on your homestead.
Effective Microorganisms® in the Garden
By far the most popular usage of EM®, and the original use, is application in the soil and on plants. EM-1® Microbial Inoculant can increase the health of the soil by increasing beneficial microorganism populations. Microorganisms are crucial in ensuring proper soil structure, nutrient cycling into plant available forms, and increasing moister retention.
Microorganisms support other important organisms such as worms, beneficial nematodes, and insects. When organisms break down organic matter they secret a sticky waste that binds the soil particles together. In addition, the movement of such organisms create a balance of pore space, increasing porosity and moisture control.
EM-1® is simply diluted with water and applied to the soil surface during seeding, planting, and throughout the growing season. In addition, EM-1® can be applied as a foliar spray to increase plant health.
By taking care of your soil and creating a living soil, you ensure a consistently producing garden that can feed the whole family. In addition, your produce will be more nutritious from proper cycling of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals into the plant.
Learn More About EM-1® For The Garden...
Accelerate decomposition time in your compost.
Composting is one of the most important and valuable things you can do when growing or raising your own food and resources. In fact, you likely won't find a homestead without a compost pile.
Making your own is one of the best ways to avoid added inputs such as herbicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Such inputs can impacted the organisms needed for proper decomposition of your pile. EM® products can help accelerate the break down.
EM-1® Microbial Inoculant, TeraKashi Bokashi® and our new EM-1® Compost Activator can all be used on compost to ferment the waste, get rid of odors, and speed up the process.
You've Got Your Compost, Now Recycle Your Food Waste!
Homesteading is all about decreasing the amount of waste you produce and reusing as much as possible. There are so many benefits to composting your own food waste. In addition to being eco-friendly and reducing the amount of waste in landfills, you also create a nutrient-rich organic material that your garden and ornamental plants will love.
Our Organico Composting Buckets offer an eco-friendly, aesthetically pleasing way to ferment all your food waste with no foul odors or mess.
By using recycled fish nets and sustainable plastic you can become part of the solution and benefit by growing more of your own nutrient-rich food. Food waste is layered with EM Bokashi® until the bucket is full. Once full, waste is left to ferment for 2 weeks. After the fermentation process your are left with pre-compost material that can be added to your composting pile or buried directly into the soil.
The pre-composted material has no foul odor and is very enticing to microorganisms, worms, and other organisms in the soil. When microbes begin breaking down and fermenting the material, nutrients are released and cycled. This creates plant available nutrients needed for plant growth.
Increase the health of your animals
Many homesteads have a variety of animals such as chickens, cows, goats, and sheep. Raising your own animals gives you more control over your food source and allows you to easily avoid chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics.
Effective Microorganisms® (EM®) is a liquid probiotic comprising of three groups of beneficial microorganisms; Yeast, Photosynthetic bacteria, and lactic acid bacteria. They work together with local and native microbes in the digestive system, creating a synergy and assisting in chemical processes such as nutrient retention.
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n poultry, EM® can;
- Increase egg production and quality
- Increase the life of the bird
- Decrease pathogens such as salmonella
- Rid litter of foul odors
- Decrease mastitis
- Increase gut health
- Rid pen of foul odors
- Use in place of chemicals for foot baths
Activated EM-1® can be added to animal drinking water or feed for a probiotic boost. Simply add at a 1:2000 ratio to drinking water (about 1/4 tsp per gallon of water) or add to feed at 1oz per 7.5 lbs of feed.
For odor control spray Activated EM-1 around houses, pens, and barns. You can also add TeraKashi® Bokashi to any animal litter. Completely safe for animal use and even beneficial if consumed. Sprinkle TeraKashi® Bokashi at a rate of 1 TBSP per square foot of bedding. Continue adding biweekly to extend the life.
Go Chemical-free in the home
What you use inside the home is equally as important as what you use outside. Off-grid or 100% self-reliant homesteads generally rely on recycling of gray water and generally run on septic systems.
Chemicals and additives, even in our everyday soaps, can add toxic compounds into our water and hinder the soil and plant health if used for irrigation. In septic systems, chemicals seem to simply mask foul odors and do not extend the time between pumping and maintenance.
EM® uses the power of beneficial microorganisms to balance the ecosystem in any environment, including aquatic and wastewater. Natural antibiotic properties in Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, and Rhodopseudomonas prevent pathogenic bacteria from developing and increase the populations.
In septic systems, EM-1® Septic Treatment breaks down solids more quickly and prevents mounding. This decreases the time between pumping as well as maintenance. It also gets rid of the need for chemicals that will eventually make their way into the leach field.
Cleaners, body soaps, and laundry detergent can also add additional chemicals and additives. If you use your gray water for irrigation or other uses, these chemicals can build up in the soil. Using APC500™ to replace your all-purpose cleaners and adding it to soaps and laundry detergent can increase the health of your wastewater system.
In addition, APC500™ is perfect for anyone with chemical sensitivities and can even reduce allergies often associated with high chemical usage.