Kate Flood, aka Compostable Kate

Season 4, Episode 1 with Kate Flood, aka Compostable Kate, discussing her book The Compost Coach.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/compostable.kate?igsh=MXZmeDdyNHpraWJ3ZA==

The Compost Coach book: https://www.murdochbooks.com/browse/book/Kate-Flood-Compost-Coach-9781922616456

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Not putting food scraps in the bin is something at an individual level we can do and is hugely significant to our climate story.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hi, I'm Sophie. Welcome to Big Things Little Things. A podcast series where I sit down with inspiring change makers to discuss the big things they're doing, the little things that make them who they are. And together we vision pathways towards a better future. Hey everyone! Welcome back to the podcast. My name's Sophie, and I'm your host. I'm so happy to be here today releasing this episode. This is the first podcast release in a very, very long time. I've had an extended break ever since I had our third baby at the beginning of 2024. So I'm finally happy to have the spaciousness to have huge amounts of creativity surging back into my brain, and I'm really excited to be planning this fourth season of the podcast and to be able to really um experiment with some of the formats that I'm using and just speak to some people I've been wanting to talk to for a long time and dive down those wormholes and do some research and chat about cool stuff for you guys. So today I'm sharing an episode. This is the only previously recorded episode for this season, but this is one that I did uh right before I had my son Leo at the end of 2023 with Kate Flood. Kate is also known as Composable Kate, and you will know her from her wonderful book, The Compost Coach, which is what we chatted about today. So it's a book jam-packed full of information about composting. So she is just such an amazing resource to listen to and to um read from as a gardener. She has so many suggestions of things that we can do to improve our soil in our backyard and also to reduce our waste. And everything she suggests is a really powerful climate action. So I am a big fan and I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. And if you do, I would be so thankful if you could leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and a written review would be just so appreciated as well. Alright, enjoy. I'll talk to you on the other side. Yeah, I feel quite stressed about the three, like it's already very hectic with the three and the four and a half year old. I'm like, oh, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

But I you know what I found for the first little while, my life was easier with three because suddenly your partner's life becomes a lot more busy because you're like, okay, here's our first two children, and I have the babies. So that I like that sort of baby phase for me with three was good because I was just like, I can't possibly have all three, you know, like I'm constantly breastfeeding. So Lee, you have got the boys and I've got the little girl. Um, but now those days are over, and I'm like, oh, you know, like I can't go shopping with the three of them. It's like absolute chaos. So, you know, I have to do that at night. You you operate your life, like you work out things that work with doing things with three kids, and then other things where I'm like, no, there's no way I'm going to work with them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Oh, definitely, yeah, definitely. I mean, I it's so funny because I feel as though it's just right before I'm having like this third baby. We have just, I'm like, this is getting easier. You know, with the two kids, like finally, like, you know, they can walk by themselves, I don't have to carry them everywhere. I can be like, hey, can you get me this water bottle? And they know, like, they'll, you know, they'll do it sometimes. Um and I just feel like, oh man, such a massive um sort of step back in terms of just like ease of life. But that's um, you know, this it was a surprise. Um, and it's also it's a boy. I've got two girls, I'm the reverse. Yeah. Um and so in terms of the book, how did you like how did you actually write that with three kids? When did you do that? Because that would I just yeah, I can't even imagine where you would have got the time to do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Well, I had to make time, so I which was which was actually I really enjoyed the process of writing the book because I had to carve out time, which meant I did have to take away some sleep. So I one of my friends, Hannah Um Walloney, who's you know the lovely gardening Australia um presenter and a wonderful author herself. I talked to her when I was signing my book deal and I was like, how do how do I do it? She's like, the tricky is waking up at 4am. And I was just like, Hannah, that's torturous. But actually, once your body clock kind of ticks into it, I would write from four till about seven um most mornings, and then I was able to organise some nannies and some extra help as well for certain days of the week where I'd have full days of writing as well. Oh, that's um, yes, but it was it was definitely it was a it was a challenge for me writing a book because I knew all of the things that I wanted to say, but working out, I think because I'm a teacher, I really wanted to have a clear structure and you know that sort of storytelling aspect into something that that people don't really expect to have, you know, that storytelling um uh nature being compost and regenerative gardening. You know, I wanted to find a link from one concept to the next. So it took me the writing process was hard initially while I was working out the structure, but once I had established the structure of how I wanted the chapters to go, then it actually was was great and easy and liberating and so nice. But the thing that I really enjoyed about the the book writing process was the fact that I had more words to write because I'd started as an influencer and call myself uh someone that um you know uses Instagram to influence people to compost, and I would always be battling against the caption length on Instagram, you know, I've got so much to say about these things, and you know, you can only write a certain number of words. So the fact that I had a manuscript that I could write as many words as I wanted was amazing, and actually I think because of that my publisher was quite surprised because I they I think they had envisioned the book to be about 40,000 words, and my unedited manuscript was 90,000 words. Oh wow, and then the book itself was edited down to 70,000 words, so they and Jane, my publisher, was just like I didn't know there was so much to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Well, I I did I did note like it's um it's beautiful, like the book is very aesthetically pleasing, but I did notice like there's a lot of information, which is awesome because I actually I get a bit you know sick of some of the books that are a bit light on, you know. Like if I'm gonna be especially about these kind of topics, like about compost, I want to know as much as possible and and have a really good reference book. And and I did find it was very like I was surprised by how much um content was in there in a really good way because I thought, wow, like there's a lot of knowledge that you've put into this book.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yes, I had to do a lot of research and you know, a lot of personal experience and my my knowledge and also reaching out to gardening experts as well. I wanted to not just have my take on the science of it, but I wanted to have other people's opinions as well. Um, but I yeah, that was something that I definitely wanted to um explore. I find that there's lots of great gardening books, but then when it comes to compost, there there's maybe a page, but usually not even a page, it's just this secondary thing. And I just think for being a successful regenerative gardener, you have to start with soil health and you have to start with this foundation of knowledge. There is a bit of science that you need to know to make good compost, but you know, the concepts thankfully are quite easy once you break them down. Um, and I wanted to really hold the reader's hand and give them everything that they needed to know, and I wanted it to be a reference book. You know, it's really surprised me when people have told me recently, I read your book in three days, and I was like, what? You read it cover to cover. You know, I hadn't really envisioned it as as a book that would be used in that way. I sort of thought people would pick it up and read the worm farming chapter and then they'll read the section on all of the different Korean natural farming techniques. Um, but I wanted to make sure that there was no um no area that that I didn't really unpack. Um, because I think coming from that teaching background, I didn't want to skim over stuff. You know, I I didn't want to have assumed knowledge that the reader, oh yeah, people know how to do this. Um and then I wanted to back all of those those facts up with beautiful images. So I've made a really gorgeous lifelong friend who's a local mum down where I live in the Beaker Valley, um, Honey Atkinson, who took all the photos from my book, and and that was something that I really I wanted it to be a highly visual book. I'm a visual learner. Um, and also I just think making compost is beautiful, and and I wanted to reframe trash into treasure so people could see the beauty of that transformation. Um, and so that was I did want it to be a visual book because it is it it's fun, you know. I've written it in a way that's approachable, but there is quite a lot of science in it. So I wanted to capture people with the beautiful photos and then make them stay because of the concepts that I was unpacking.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah, and I think you've done an awesome job. Like I think it's it's yes, really great book, both yeah, beautiful and full of good knowledge. And so I I know you've mentioned like that you um you were a teacher or you are a teacher. Have you stopped teaching now?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I had well, I still am a teacher officially, but I haven't I haven't taught since I had my second baby, and I've had three kids now. Um, and that was partly because I had Woody, um, took extended maternity leave, and then during that time I got pregnant again, and then COVID hit, and that's kind of what kicked off this compost education career for me was because you know we're all stuck at home, and I was living in Sydney at that point, and we had a really great potted street patch. So I kept on finding pots from cleanup campaigns that people were chucking away, and I'd put them on our sidewalk, and it became this really wonderful network of um community building where we lived, and during COVID, so many people would use it. Um, and then I, you know, we were all stuck at home, and I was thinking, how what else can I do to feel like I'm actually making a difference while while we're in lockdown? Um, and that led me to signing up to Instagram, um, which was a left-of-field moment for me because I'd been a high school teacher, I'd been uh really involved in working in pastoral care, that's like year coordinating for year seven and eight girls, and they so often so many of the issues that happen with young teenagers is because of social media. Um, so I'd never had Instagram myself, and uh I've got a Facebook page which you know I haven't logged into for years and years, but like I'm not an active social media user. Um, and I had read this interesting article written by one of my favourite garden writers, um Alice Fowler. She's writes for the um UK Guardian magazine, and she had done an article about her favourite um Instagram accounts that were all focused on gardening. Um, and I had no idea that people used Instagram in that way. Like I just thought it was for selfies, and you know, like I only knew how teenagers were using it. And then I went and checked out some of these pages and thought, gosh, this is like people are actually using this platform to teach people skills. Um, and so then that's how that was the inspiration for me to sign up. Um, and then everything went from there, using it as a platform for entertainment and also education around compost and around other regenerative gardening practices, and that's where I put my book deal as well. So it all is quite surprising coming from being a food tech teacher, um, who I've always been really passionate about composting. Um, but it's it's sort of got this own life force now, what I've been doing online and in person.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, and so you know, for somebody coming in and looking at what you've done, they would be like, Kate's main focus is compost. But I really get the sense that there is like a much deeper concern there and a much deeper message that you're actually trying to educate people and and create change around. And I was just wondering when did the when did it enter into your consciousness that perhaps things weren't quite right, like in society, how we're existing right now, and that in fact change needs to happen and and happen quite urgently. What when did that happen and how did that happen for you?

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Well, I think I had always grown up in a house that had composted. My mum is the original compost queen, and they had you know, we lived in um inner city, Sydney, so we had a tiny little backyard, but it was just something that was always normal. Um, and when I had kids, I wanted to have that normalcy around these climate actions, and you know, I've I've always composted when I moved out of home, it was something that I did. Um, and so I think in terms of the education, I wanted some I think compost is so powerful because it's a tangible climate action that we can all do, and even irrespective of where we live, even if you don't have a garden. So it felt like this purposeful thing that's um totally attainable, you know. I being a mother of three small people, time is a very precious commodity, but you can make time to do this. Um, and it in terms of my uh real drive for this, it absolutely is because there's there's this urgency that we need to be doing something, not tomorrow, now. You know, we and it it has to be there's you know big picture changes that that have to happen, but these big picture changes are very slow to mobilize. Whereas not putting food scraps in the bin is something at an individual level we can do and is hugely significant to our climate story. Uh, food waste when it heads to landfill uh but doesn't break down. So it's it's there's a fellow that I mentioned briefly in my book with this amazing career who's a um landfill archaeologist, basically. So he digs through through landfills and does lots of testing, and he's pulled out basically pristine heads of lettuce that are from the book seeing how old they are, about 25 years old. Um, and yeah, huge. Like, you know, you put a piece of lettuce outside, and within two days it's it's being consumed by bugs and insects and the life in the soil. Um, whereas in landfill, food waste uh very slowly mummifies, and the real danger of that is as it's slowly mummifying, it produces copious amounts of methane, which is a really dangerous greenhouse gas, um, that's 28 to 32 times more potent at storing heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, which is released when we burn fossil fuels. So, you know, food waste that we're or food that we're all handling every single day is turns into climate poison when when it goes to landfill.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Were you always from a child aware of the climate crisis or was that something that came like did compost come first or did your or did the climate awareness and compost as a solution?

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, compost came first. Um, and it's my parents has have never kept my head in the sand, but it was interesting how I remember I've got a real memory of being maybe like an 18-year-old, sort of starting to hear about climate change, you know, I'm 37 now, and hearing about it more and more and just thinking, oh, I don't want to hear about this. This is this is horrible. You know, I definitely didn't have an awareness of it as a young child. Um and even though, you know, my my dad did lots of was involved in lots of um eco rallies and was really involved in the nuclear disarmament party, and you know, like he's a real long-term hippie, but I just I think that that maybe my parents did sort of protect my sister and I from some of the realities of what we're going through, um, whilst also being personally active as a as a family and uh teaching us these these climate action skills. Um, but yeah, I just remember in my late teens, early adulthood, just hearing about it more and more and thinking, oh, this this sounds dreadful, you know, like not really realizing the enormity of it. And you know, now I think we we realise the real crisis that we're in. Um and and I think that for me, I always come back to, well, what can I do about it? You know, I'm I'm a mother of three children, um, and I need to be doing something every day that is really helping protect the planet for for myself but for my kids. Um so it's it's in terms of that, it has always started with action rather than um, you know, I've got a deep awareness of of climate change now as an adult and the implications for our future. But for most of my life growing up, it was more about the stuff that we just did day-to-day. Um and, you know, even listening to like, I don't know, if you're a child of Peter Coombs. Um, like there's there's these sort of background narrative of like childhood memories of juicy, juicy green grass, and you know, like the song about um newspaper baba, like chopping down trees and like having those conversations with my parents. What does that mean? Like, you know, you read a newspaper every day. Like, so I think that there's there's ways to um I think that that fear, if you if you know too much at a young age, you can just feel totally defeated and you can feel like you can't make an impact. So I I think the empowering thing is teaching our children what they can do first and foremost, and then opening them up to the reality of the situation. Um, because I think as adults, you know, we can feel totally polarised by fear. Um, and so I always go back to when I feel like that, thinking, well, what can I do today? And what can I do to educate others? And using my platform of Instagram, it's been it's been really fantastic having conversations with um women in America who it's you know similar to me, middle American housewives who have never been exposed to the concept of composting and who have said to me, You've made compost so cool! I've gone out to a you know big box store and I've started doing it and I'm telling my neighbors about it, and um, and you know, that that is hugely rewarding, um, and also just something that we, you know, it's it's we absolutely urgently all need to be doing this. And we also, you know, it we can't put all of the the onus on individuals because the bigger picture is is corporations and capitalism. Um and you know, I think the power of writing letters and the power of attending rallies is can't be um diminished as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I think it's so good that your parents sort of you grew up in that environment um you know where they were engaging in resistance, um, but you weren't also overwhelmed by the anomaly. Like that's a really good um comment, I think. Because I do, yeah, it is hard with the children and and I don't want to create you know a huge sense of anxiety for them. Um I want them to still have a childhood. And so yeah, but I'm constantly thinking about, yeah, just how to yeah, how to go through and educate them as as life goes on about what's happening in a way that will prepare them. Um but I think so many of the things you know that we can do that are tangible are just super practical, like composting, like you say. Um so you've identified that we have problems. Climate is one aspect of the problem. And um you've identified that we have a systemic issue which is waste and the way that we manage waste, the way that we conceptualize and even uh exist in relation to believing that waste can go away. So you've kind of chosen to opt out of that waste system. Are there any other systems that in your life you try to resist, like resist against, or you're trying to build resilience by opting out of certain things? Like how are you cultivating resilience aside from just composting in your own family?

SPEAKER_00 21:05

I look, I think community networks are a huge part of being climate resilient. And for us, a big change that happened during COVID as well was moving from Sydney to the far south coast of New South Wales. Uh, so an area that has been really badly affected by bushfires, but equally has a really strong community focus. And we wanted to move here because we wanted to send our kids to the local Steiner School. Um, and we we wanted to move here to have more space that we can actually grow our own food and protect the soil with the the place that we're living now. You know, we're custodians here and we um really want to be working on our little patch, but also teaching these skills to the community. Um, and and I think for me, you know, that narrative does come back. To food, and I think food is such a um such an important part of family life and also community life. So we buy a lot of our vegetables from our neighbour who just lives down the road and we grow a lot of our own as well, and trying to be opting out of shopping at um big conglomerates as much as possible and shopping with local farmers' markets, you know, because that has that has huge ripple effects. So it's not just the fact that you're buying local, but there's not fossil fuels being burnt to transport your food to where you live, and you're also when you can buy directly from from growers, um, and that's available to people living in the city as well. You know, if you shop at a local farmer's market, then you're not having all of that packaging as well. You know, when the thing that I just find so ironic is when if you want to be buying organic food from woolies or coals, most of the time it's the most packaged stuff. You know, you're buying organic tomatoes or or you know, whatever everything just is comes in so much plastic, and you think, well, yeah, you know, there's just so many things wrong with that, you know. So I think being able to have this strong community network is is a really, really significant thing. And you know, knowing what all of our bushfire plans are and working together on um tree planting on properties once once fires have come through. Um, I think all of that is is really significant. Um, but it it it is these huge big picture questions, and it's there's always more that we can do, you know. But that's why when when in terms of the thing that I think I'm best at is education, because I can only do so much as an individual, but the power of of educating people so that they can do it themselves is something that I feel is my sort of biggest role and and biggest purpose. Um, and it's nice being able to use that union degree in a different way. You know, I haven't been teaching high school kids for for the last few years, but now I'm teaching um young adults and and and you know, all different walks of life, different people um how to do these skills in their own backyard. And that's something that I think is is so significant.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Something that um I really liked um because I guess a lot of people sort of think like composting, oh that's probably just great because we're not using the rubbish dump so much, but it's not actually there's like this whole other benefit side of it that I got from your book. Um, because I've been a sort of like I've composted for the last few years, but I'm probably not like a high intensity composter, I'm just like a slow, somewhat somewhat dodgy, like cold composter trying on the on the improve, like trying to improve. But um, what I did gather, because like I love growing food from what you were saying, and like so many of the soils, you know, across our country are like depleted or imbalanced and needing organic matter, like needing nutrients added. Um, that for example, when you use this combination of like the Bakashi system and hot composting and you compost for your street, you can produce like mammoth amounts of beautiful compost quite quickly that can then be incorporated into the gardens to make it more productive, which is completely cutting out reliance on bought-in composts, bought-in you know, additives for your soil, which you know I have, you know, in the past bought in compost, and the idea of that being something that I can cut out and become more resilient in is really appealing to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yes, yeah. I I talk about in my book the concept of shopping your own garden. Um, so you shop your garden for resources. So instead of having a green waste bin where you're putting your grass clippings and your hedge prunings, um, and now with FOGO being rolled out around the country, people can put their food waste in the sump, depending on your council area, but in your green waste bin, thinking about all of those as precious resources that you can return to your soil. Um because uh a big issue with commercial compost is the the fact that it's quite unregulated. So even when you're buying organic inadverted commerce compost, it is really challenging to be testing the whole waste stream that comes into these commercial facilities. Um, what can happen is that there was widespread um contamination of compost in Melbourne during COVID, which I found so disheartening because you know, people who had started gardening for the first time, you know, they were stuck at home and then they started looking at their little patch of lawn and thinking, you know, dreaming about what it could be, and and so many people um developed a green thumb and an ongoing green thumb during COVID. But unfortunately, lots of gardeners' gardens were contaminated with um amino pyrolith uh herbicide, which is like a broadleaf herbicide, um, that eventually can be worked out of the soil, but for the short term, for up to two years, it basically stops almost anything from growing. Um, and as a new gardener, you can think, oh, I'm really shit at growing tomatoes. Why is this not happening? And actually, it's because of the commercial compost that you brought in. Um, and that that isn't that's one particular um toxic herbicide that's that's used, but you know, PFAS is another huge issue. Um, and so much of FOGO waste, unfortunately, is contaminated with with PFAS. So I think really the safest thing in so many ways is what your the inverted comma waste that you're producing in your own garden, if you can find ways to cycle that back into your soil, it's safer, it saves you money, and you know, you end up with really thriving soil which allows you to grow beautifully nutrient-rich food. Um, and closing the loop on your waste, you know, just is so satisfying. And so, you know, what once you see the world through compost coloured glasses, nothing is waste anymore. You know, you in autumn you've got all of these deciduous leaves falling down, and you go, Oh, that's for my leaf mould and my carbon for the year, and um, you know, in summer when you're madly mowing the lawn, then you think, well, this is a nitrogen-rich input that will help heat up my compost. Um, so it's a good way to see the world, you know, it really helps reframe waste as a real resource.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah, so I was just hoping, yeah, to talk about PFAS, what what is it, what kind of impacts can it have on the human, on human and environmental health, like to the best of your like sort of knowledge, and how can we identify and avoid the presence of PFAS?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yes, uh, so one of the major issues with commercial compost is is contamination of PFAS. And that can happen from um the composting of commercial paper products, so it could be things like those sugarcane um boxes used for takeaway food, um, paper plates from parties, uh lined cups for coffee. Um, and what I sort of think is is ironic, but really uh one of the major issues with single-use products is there's always going to be an environmental impact, even if so many companies are moving towards compostable packaging. But now there's a real awareness that so many of these compostable forms of paper packaging are coated with PFAS. So PFAS is a chemical that is used to on lots of different things. So it's used on carpets, new furniture, cars, uh, but it's also used on paper products to stop water, oil, grease from soaking into the paper. Um so it's like a stabilizing agent. And um it has huge environmental and uh impacts, but also impacts on human health because it's what's classified as a forever chemical, it's highly mobile, so it moves up through the food chain. And we as humans sit basically at the top of the food chain. Um, and so the the PFAS that's created doesn't just stay in one area. You know, you might be um it's a highly mobile chemical, so they're describing it as a new modern-day asbestos, but the reality is it's not a modern chemical, it's been around since the 50s. There's there's these big uh companies know about the the implications on human health, so it's um it's highly carcinogenic. Um and it's something, thankfully, as a home gardener, we can test for. Um, so so many of these chemicals are you you don't know, you know, when you get in commercial compost or if you if you get in um a particular form of gardening amendment, you don't know if it's in there, but if you're making your own, you can test for it on paper products before you decide to use those in your garden. So a simple test, um, this was designed by a mob of Danish um researchers and that it came from a report they produced called Forever Chemicals in Supermarket Are. I'm pretty sure that's the name, but I've got a reference to it in my book. Um, you need to use a non-polar oil, which in simple language is olive oil is the best type of oil to use. Um, and if you have that um sugar cane uh takeaway container, find an area that doesn't have any grease or food waste on it, and do a little drop of the olive oil. And what you need to look for is what the oil does on the surface of that material. So if the oil um forms a very distinct bead, and it's really distinct, you know, it's sort of it you can't misinterpret it, that's clear that PFAS have been used as a coating on that paper product. If the oil fully sinks in, there's no coating at all. So that would be safe to compost. Um if the oil spreads, sinks in a little bit, but not completely, then there's that's a sign that there is a coating, but it's not PFAS. Um that's a test that we can do. But you also need to realise that because PFAS is really mobile, um any paper product that you decide to use in your compost, but really the reality, any sort of commercial um uh piece of organic matter that you're deciding to use may have some some contamination of PFAS now because it's it's everywhere. Um, but you can at least be in control of what you're adding in. So for me as a home gardener, I really go hard on during autumn collecting as many deciduous fallen leaves that I can use because that's full of carbon, which paper products are, and compost microbes need a balance of nitrogen, which comes from food waste and manure and coffee grounds and seaweed and bacchi, that's all nitrogen rich, but you need to have carbon as well. So using brown leaves and aged wood chips are by far the safest sources of carbon that you can use. And when I lived in the city, so we had basically had no backyard in Sydney, um, I would be the crazy lady during autumn going to areas where there's lots of deciduous leaves, and I'd rake up the leaves as soon as they drop down and store them in bags for my compost. So it is doable even if you don't have lots of space where there's leaves trees growing in your own backyard.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Yeah, and so like when your kids come back from daycare with like copious amounts of artwork, um, which mine do, I was thinking like, oh great, I can use this in my compost. Do you do you use any of that paper or would you have to do that?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, I do I do compost some paper products. So um office paper used to be, there used to be real problems with um dioxins, um, which once again is another really carcinogenic chemical, um, that's produced during the bleaching process. So when paper in the past used to be bleached with chlorine, it would produce dioxins. Nowadays that that process has been replaced by chlorine-free processes. Um and so paper nowadays, when you buy it here in Australia, is generally safer in terms of that. But um, there are any of these manufactured products do contain chemicals. The great thing is that compost microbes are really this clever little bunch of critters that can remediate a lot of chemicals. So um compost has been used to actually fully remediate soil in um in areas where there has been nuclear runoff. So it's they're they're amazingly smart and they're amazingly powerful, these tiny little um bacteria and fungi that we can't see. Um I do compost some paper products, but for the most part, my primary sources of carbon are natural ones. Um and I think that's it depends on your tolerance to these sort of things. Like if you're bringing in potting mixes, compost, uh, bagged manure, bagged mulchers, you're not gardening organically, even if you're buying those products with the listing organic, it's there's no way that that these can be fully organic products. So if you are prepared to bring those sort of things in, then really I think you need to be not so zealous about what you're adding to your compost. You need to be sensible. But um, I think if you can take control of as much of your waste that you produce and return it to the soil, maybe you decide that um if you've got a paper-heavy load of compost that won't be used on your veggie patch, maybe you'll put that around your ornamental plants. Um, but you know, it's the it's the world that we live in and we are surrounded by chemicals, but we can't be afraid of them. You know, we we need to be sensible, we need to be educated, but I think it's it's so that's what what what I really wanted to educate with my book. I think also there needs to be that shift of um, sure, I'm using this compostable packaging, but I'm only using it once. You know, is that is that really worthwhile for my convenience of being able to take it out? You know, I think we need to all slow down a bit. Sit in the coffee shop, be like battalions, you know, have your little shot of coffee at the at the counter if you if you need to be quick. You know, like it's the this culture of convenience has so many environmental um impacts. So slowing down and you know, being organized to bring a um toughware container to the butcher so you can have that instead of them wrapping it up in plastic and paper and um you know having it keep cups are great, but you have to use them like I think you have to use keep cups and metal water bottles up to 500 times before it negates the environmental impact. So you actually have to be organized about using these things. Um, but anything that's single use has a has a massive environmental impact. So trying to reduce um the amount of single-use products that that we use as a family is is significant.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

It's funny how the um you would think, oh wow, cool, this is great. Like it's a compostable single-use bowl that my food is coming from from this shop. That's great. It's compostable, and then it's like the one of the biggest sources of PF or PFAS or whatever. And um, just jumping back, because something I'm interested to start experimenting with is Bakashi. Yes. Composting. Um could you just give the listeners like a just a brief sort of like overview of like what what is Bakashi? And I was also interested, like, where do I source the um EM? Is it essential microorganisms? Yes, very good. Because I I want to start doing that because I just like I got the vibe that a key thing for your very successful composting is using Bakashi first.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yes, yeah, and look, Bikachi has been something that I've done for years since I was probably when did I move out of home when I was 20? Um because it's so convenient if you live somewhere without a backyard. So basically it's it's a form of um pre-composting that originated in Japan in the 80s, and it's it's really different to traditional compost making because traditional compost piles need nitrogen, carbon, which we've been talking a lot about, oxygen and water, whereas the microbes in the Bakashi mix, which come in the commercial inoculant called EM, are anaerobic, which means oxygen-free bacteria. So it it total it's a totally different way to manage waste, and it's really great because you can make it in these sealed buckets. So if you live in an apartment or if you live somewhere in a townhouse with a really small backyard, being able to store your food waste inside if you need to is Bakashi's the way to go. Um so the the process of it is you have to get EM, which is effective microorganisms. They're basically lactic acid-producing bacteria and yeasts that are inoculated onto a wheat bran material. And that is when you know when you're making bread and you use a packet of yeast, it's stable, it's just shelf stable until you add moisture, and that's the same with the EM. So this wheat bran is stable, the microbes are dormant until they're added onto the moist food waste. So, in a sealed bucket, Pikachu buckets always have um a false floor which has drainage holes on it. Um, and you add when you're starting a new bucket, you add a little sprinkle of the EM, you pour in your food waste, do another little sprinkle of the EM. I use an old potato masher to squeeze out all of the air, and it might take you, depending on how much food waste you produce as a family, it might take several weeks to fill up a Bakashi bucket. Um, and which you so that's fine, you can slowly fill it up. Um, and then you close the lid. Well, each time you close the lid, but once it's fully full, full, you leave it for a minimum of two weeks. And what happens is that the EM ferments your food waste. So it's kind of like making sauerkraut with your scraps. Um, so after that period, when you open it up, you'll see if it's been a strong ferment, there might be beneficial white mould that's developed on top, which is a great sign. It may also, your the Bakashi scraps may look kind of similar, but there'll be a distinctive smell. They'll smell really sour and fermented and pickled. Um, and what that does is that allows all of the nitrogen and the nutrients in your food waste to be readily available, either to the life in your soil. So once you've fermented it, you can dig a hole and bury it directly in your soil, and it breaks down really quickly, especially in spring and summer. Um, and for people that do have access to a compost bin, if you don't live somewhere where you've got the space, you can bring your backy bucket to a community composting area and add it in and mix it with carbon. The food waste breaks down so fast. And if you're wanting to have a go of hot compost, Sophie, so if you're wanting to go cold ad hoc pile, hot compost is a sorry, bakachi is a really great input because the nitrogen's so available because it's fermented, the bacteria are ready to go. Um, and for my I make hot compost in 400 litre enclosed bins. I usually use about four bakhi bins for four fully fermented bakashi bins as I'm building that hot compost. So ideally, you do it all at once. Um, but it's just super convenient because you know you're making them in small-scale buckets, you're um fermenting them, um, which means you can keep them indoors. When the lid's closed, it doesn't smell. Also, it produces a really great byproduct, bakachi tea, um, which you can with commercial buckets, they come with a little tap, so you can drain that off and you can use it uh as a really active soil conditioner. You have to dilute a lot. I find when I use it on my seedlings, dilute it appropriately, I can really see an impact on plant growth.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Um is that the leap, the leachate? Is that what you make? Yeah, I was going to ask, like, what is can you use that for anything? That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So you can use it on your plants, you can use it on your soil, but also if you can't be bothered doing anything with it, you can at night pour it down your sink. And what the um effective microbes do is they eat through a buildup of hair and oil in your pipe. So instead of using something which is, you know, a chemical drain, you can use uh bakashi juice instead, and it's septic safe, so we live in an area where we've got a septic system, and um, yeah, it's a great thing to be able to use. Um, so bikati, yeah, is it's I really love it. I've been using it for years, I've been talking to people about it for years. It's scalable as well. So I show in my book how to make your own bakhi bucket, and I share in my book how to make your own um EM as well. Um, so you know, these are commercial products that you can go out and buy, but you can also make them yourself. Um yeah, you can in my book. I'm not sure of the page number, but you've got to copy now. You can you can look.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Oh, I missed it. I didn't see that. It does I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Because otherwise, that's where you have commercial input of buying it. If you are wanting to play around and buy it, um, I have tried all of the different commercial brands of AM. Um, some of them are really inferior and have produced. Really revolting fermented food waste that's putrefied rather than fermented. I find and I'm not sponsored by this mob, but um Bakati One is the brand that I buy. Um, and that's EM, they produce EM, they also make Bakashi buckets. Um, and their EM I've never had a problem with. To make the the EM yourself, you do still need to buy the commercial inoculant of the right bacteria. So, unlike making sourdough, you know how you can capture wild yeast, you can't capture the bakashi bacteria um natively wildly from you know from the air or from other food sources. So you do need to buy well, you bought I have bought a reasonably like big liquid form of EM that you can then that would last you for years because you don't need much of it. Yeah. Um yeah, but give it a go. I think bakhi as a for a mum as well, you're gonna be a mum of three soon. It's really, really great because it's really hands-off. You know, you just pour your um caddy of scraps in, give it a squash, and then leave it. And then the next time, you know, pour it in. And when you you can keep the the food waste in your bakashi system um for for much longer than two weeks, it can ferment for longer as long as you're draining it regularly. Um, and when you're ready, then you can process it in a compost bin, bury it in the garden, or if you live in an apartment, you can process it in what's called a soil factory. So you have a large garden pot um or an enclosed plastic tub and you get some garden soil from a mate. If you don't have a garden, pour your bakashi into that, put a bit more soil on top, and it will break down, and then that becomes really nitrogen-rich potting soil, basically, that you can use on your indoor plants or um give to a friend that has a veggie patch as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Have you can you this is just a really random question? Have you ever added bakashi?

SPEAKER_00 46:00

It's not a random question, and yes, when I I I have um done lots of trialling and testing with all of these things, and I have. So I've got some big worm farms. It works better adding bakashi waste into larger worm farms because the fermentation process produces acids, and worms don't like acids. They they like operating in a neutral pH. Um, and if you had a had a small urban worm farm, adding bakhi to that will quickly make the conditions unfavourable to worms. Whereas with my large um uh I've got a continuous flow hungry bin, I've poured not a whole bakashi, but I've added small amounts to that, and I've found the good thing with the the bakhi waste, once it is added to soil or added into compost or a worm farm, it returns to neutral um over a period of time. And I find that the worms do not touch it for a couple of days up to you know a couple of weeks, and then once it's neutralised because of the other activity of microbes in the mix, then the worms love it because worms don't have teeth, um, so they have to suck up the food scraps into their mouth, they like draw the food scraps in. And because bacchi has been um colonized by bacteria, it's softened, so it's kind of perfect for worms to consume. Uh, what worms don't like though is in bacchi you can add citrus and meat and oily scraps and chili scraps, all of it. Worms don't like citrus because there's an enzyme in um in citrus called limonin, which is if worms eat a lot of it, then it kills them. Um, so if you've got a really citrus-heavy bacchi mix, don't add that. But yeah, definitely experiment with it because I've found that they end up loving it. There is something to be aware of when you're changing the microbes from being anaerobic, oxygen-free in the backship bucket, to becoming aerobic in a worm farm or a compost bin, there it's reasonably smelly depending on what you've added in for a couple of days. And I found it was smellier in the worm farm because the worms didn't go for it straight away. So that's why I ideally like adding it into a compost bin because I pour the bakashi in, I mix it with an equal volume of carbon, and then I actually bury it with more carbon on top, so wood chips or um or shredded leaves, um, and leave it for about four to five days. And after that time, then I aerate it and the smells generally have dissipated for the most part, depending on what you've added into the mix.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Yeah, cool. Okay, no, I'm definitely I we're sort of in this like in-between phase because we've just moved into a house and like half an acre, and we're like halfway through setting the gardens up, we're halfway through building the chicken coop. So everything feels really smelly right now. There's like chickens, there's chickens running around under the house pooing everywhere. Then I think there's like mice getting into the grain because the chickens aren't contained, and then the worm farm, like my we're still learning about the worm farm, and the worm farm got a bit smelly, and then I found like some um maggots in the worm farm the other day. Is that what's the go? Is that terrible?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

I reck I reckon you they're probably you're you're in Queensland, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 49:09

It's so hot, so humid.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

Yeah, I I reckon it they may not be maggots, they might be black soldier fly larvae, which look them up in my book. They're they're great, Sophie.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

So we do have we do have black soldier fly larvae in one. Do they start off looking white and wiggly and then turn because I know those black shells, we've got those. Those black. I've been giving those to the chickens, but yeah, sorry, go on, go on.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Yeah, no, they they don't start, they don't start really small, soft bodies. Like if they're small, um, really soft looking rigglers, they're they're probably vinegar fly or blowfly larvae, so maggots. Um, but if they're they black soldier fly larvae do start being smaller and whiter. Yeah, but there's always the distinct ridges on their um on their body. Um and they also have these little pinprick black heads, even when they're white coloured. Okay. Um but so if there's black soldier fly larvae, they're great. They're ferocious eaters, they'll power through your waist quicker than worms, yeah, and they produce really nutrient-rich poo called frass, which is kind of sloppier than worm castings, but um, they're it's jam-packed with nutrients for your garden and and chickens can eat them. So, you know, people actually farm black soldier flies just as chicken food. Um, if they're blowfly larvae, they're they're not going to be causing a problem in your compost. It's one of the many microorganisms and critters eating your waste. It's more of a nuisance. You don't want to open up your worm farm or compost bin and have a face full of flies. So making sure there's no food scraps exposed, so always covering it with plenty of carbon is the main thing. I've I have got, I think there's seven or eight massive worm farms that I've set up at my kids' local school. Um, and when I there was only one going, and I've been slowly, but you know, doing more in the mix when the first time I attended there and saw this worm farm, I opened it up and got this huge face of vinegar flies.

SPEAKER_02 51:05

It was horrible.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Horrible. And that was just because they never covered their food waste and carbon. So, you know, my I joke with my publisher that my the name of my book could have just been add carbon. Because adding dry material, making sure food waste is covered is so crucial to the composting process because carbon provides um energy to compost microbes, and without it your food scraps become anaerobic, which encourages the proliferation of things like maggots.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Yeah, okay. Well, this weekend is a big weekend. We're gonna we're gonna seal the chicken coops, the chickens get moved to the back, we're going to build some like cold compost bays. I would also like to um yeah, to get into the hot composting space, but I feel as though I need to get more people on board because from what I was gathering from your book, you need to kind of have all elements ready to do your big big pile like in one pile at once.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Yes, yes, yeah. Ideally, you can make hot compost by adding uh amounts in in increments, but it's hard to sustain the temperatures because you want to get the activity of stermophilic bacteria and they like operating with a lot of mass. Um, so if in cold compost you can add to, you know, randomly add a bucket in here and you know, a few days later add something else, but hot compost you ought to build the pile at once, ideally. Um, but also don't feel ashamed of your cold compost pile because cold compost um actually is higher in fungi and higher in nitrogen as well, because a lot of the nitrogen isn't stable, so the nitrogen is off-gassed in a hot compost pile. Um, and whereas slow compost has a much higher, it retains the nitrogen much better. And having fungi-rich compost as well is so good for our soil because plants need the activity of fungi to actually access those nutrients. So I think even if you did get into hot composting, you should always have a cold compost system on the go as well.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Yes, I will, I'm conscious of the time, so I don't want to take it turn. I just had one more thing very quickly. I went to a course recently and they were talking about you can purchase something that is like a fungi kind of concentrate or whatever that you can add into your soil to assist to build those fungal networks in your backyard. Yes. What is that? Yes. What's that?

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Well, there's lots of different ones you can buy, and but it would be some sort of form of mycelium, I'm assuming, because I know people often use that um uh uh mycelium inoculant for seed starting and for root as a root, as a not instead of the commercial rooting hormone, you can use mycelium for that. Um, but also you can buy different inoculants of all different types of fungi. So we've got some local compost makers here on the south coast um called Ocean to Earth. And they're if if you ever want to buy good quality compost, they're amazing. I've gone out and seen them make it all. They're they have they have to they're so rigorous with their testing because they're the only commercial compost makers that actually process fish waste in all of Australia. So the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, has been really rigorous with making sure they test their piles all the time for all different chemicals as well as um pathogens and viruses and bacteria. Um, and they have especially selected patent form of microbes that they put into the mix. And I really want to know what their secret is.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, I just had heard people in this course were talking about how they I think the um mycelial inoculant might be the right what they were saying. Um they were just saying the benefits were just so noticeable in how all the plants started to to, I don't know, communicate and grow to just everything was healthy and yeah, so um that's something that I I would like to maybe look into getting to add to my my sort of very bare basics garden that's starting at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

But also you're you you're doing that naturally in your in your compost composting, especially if you're so fungi love carbon. So if you're adding in aged wood chips or brown leaves um into the mix and and leaving some of those a bit chunkier, they're going to be broken down by fungi as opposed to bacteria. Um, and having a leaf mold pile, so that's a most simple form of compost that anyone can make. So collecting um, which is harder in Brisbane. I've got friends in Brisbane who are always like, you're always talking about deciduous trees, and we're like, everything's evergreen up here. Yeah, yeah. Um, but finding that that that fallen leaf material that's brown and aged, and collecting it up and putting it in a chicken wire tube or even in um in reused plastic bags um and keeping it moist, keeping a few holes in the plastic bags if that's how you're making it, um, and leaving it up to a year, that turns into leaf mould, which is a carbon-rich, fungi-rich compost, and it's beautiful for your garden. It's hugely moisture retentive. Um, it really makes plants thrive. It's great in seed starting mixes as well. Um, so that could be another thing that you experiment with, and it's free to make.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

Awesome. Yes, leaf mould was something very new to me that you talk about in the book that I would like to experiment with. We do have some sort of more introduced deciduous varieties of trees that I can in them more like in the town in town. So I'll be with that weird person who's in there just like you. You said you were wrecking leaves up in town. Oh, I was always probably it was such a good copy.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

It was a great one. I'll be going to I would always be quickly going because where I lived in Sydney, the council would come and leaf blow them all and collect them all away. And it's my understanding that all of those were heading to landfill. Maybe now in the inner west they're they're not. But I was just like, I'd be going to all of the streets where there's like all of these trees doing it. And and so many people would ask me, you know, and that comes back to education. People would say, What are you doing? Like, well, you know, leaves are full of nutrients. There's so many great things you can do with them, and you know, I'd be giving these people these little seminars about leaf mold and everything. And um, and I think doing stuff out of the norm is is is another climate action because you know, you can be the crazy lady that rakes up leaves in Brisbane and and people will see you and be interested in what you're doing, and then having those conversations can lead to positive change in in other people's practices. Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Don't worry, I'm embracing the weirdness. I'm getting weirder and weirder as the years go on.

unknown 57:32

That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Thanks so much for listening in, everyone. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. So the next episode will be coming out in a couple of weeks. I'm not going to be releasing every week, it'll just have to slot in around my fairly busy life with little kids, but I'm aiming for every couple of weeks. So the next uh guest will be Anna Matilda, who you might know as the Urban Nana, and she has a wonderful book called Everyday Permaculture. And something you might also be interested in is as part of this fourth season of the podcast, I'm going to be including some episodes which are in a book club format because I just love reading. I love discussing books with other people who love reading who've read the same book. So the book I'm reading at the moment is I Eat the Stars by Sarah Wilson, and I'm going to be sitting down with Beck Shan from Think Big Live Simply. That's her handle on Instagram if you want to check her out. And that will be in early July. So if you want to um sort of join in with that process of reading the book and um maybe even sending in feedback if you want to um contribute to the discussion, feel free to send me an email at Sophie at big thingslithings.com.au or find me on Instagram at big thingslithings. All right, have a great day. We'll see you soon. Bye