Workshops begin in the Greenhouse

Bruno had a captive audience of Garden Goddesses

Bruno teaching the wonders of making Bokashi- video coming soon

Bruno is such a wealth of knowledge

Julia adding Molasses to her EM

Checking out the brew

I love seeing people get as excited as I am about micro-organisms.  Thank you Julia for such a passionate talk. 

Our enlightened volunteers

Filling up samples of the EM for everyone to take home

I am of the belief that we should always find a way to give-back to all who give.  Our Greenhouse project has only been possible because of an amazing dedicated team of volunteers who show up each week and give of their time and energy to plant the seeds that get each of these gardens going.  We have also been blessed with some brilliant minds here on Maui who are part of cutting edge technologies and reviving old ancient wisdoms from IMO's (Indigenous Micro-Organisms), Bokashi, Bio-Char, Bio-dynamics... And so I decided that I would like to give some of these masters a platform to share their knowledge with some of our amazing volunteers...free of charge.  This past week was our first workshop and we were fortunate to have Bruno (Jason Fellerman) manager of Eco-Island Supply, and Julia Cislaghi master compost-goddess who has gotten huge companies like the Ritz Carton here on Maui to begin composting on site!  They came out to give an introduction to IMO's and EM's (Effective Micro-organisms), and taught everyone how to make their own Bokashi and even sent everyone home with their own starts of EM's which I will share with you all here- in case you forgot to write down the instructions.   It was such an informative and educational discussion, and I really look forward to having workshops on a regular basis.  Mahalo to everyone who came out, and for the amazing people working behind the scenes to get so many seeds started each week.

                                                               Effective Micro-organisms
 2.5 gallons of 115 degree water
mixed with 1 PINT of molasses
and 1.25 pints of EM mother....

Shake well and leave at least 10% airspace between the EM and the Lid. Let the brew sit uncovered for 24 hours. Cover and keep warm for 1 month.  There should be a light white layer that forms on the top of the activated EM...this is normal.  If the layer is black, or green then you must discard into your compost pile and start a fresh batch.