Worm farming on a large or small scale

Island Biologicals is an Australian, family owned and operated business on Oxley Island, on the mid north coast of NSW. It is run by Lee Fieldhouse and his partner Kirsty Hughes, with daughters Juno and Coralie, and dogs Mango and Dash. They run a large compost and worm system, with the liquid biostimulant Biocast as their signature product. More information can be found on their website:
https://www.biocast.com.au/about/
If you'd like to improve your garden soil and put your kitchen scraps to good use, here are some basic instructions for making your own small-scale worm farm
worm_farm_instructions-designs.pdf
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Presentation to educators and trainers in the EON Foundation in their office at Katherine in the Northern Territory

The EON Foundation provides communities with the tools to grow, cook and eat fresh, healthy produce.

International Zero Waste Day 30th March

The UN is to be congratulated for announcing March 30th as International Zero Waste Day.
The world is finally catching up with Majors Creek’s successful Zero Waste Festival held in 2001!

Gerry's instructions for making a small quantity of hydrolysate

This diagram shows how to make hydrolysate from protein on a small scale.

 Latest podcast with Ryan Dickinson: Emergency response and preparedness

​https://anchor.fm/sacred-lab/episodes/Gerry-Gillespie-Returns---Emergency-Response-and-Preparedness-1-e1lj58q

Book recommendations


Gerry recently participated in the 20122Acres USA Earth Day book recommendations to be found here:
https://www.acresusa.com/acres-usa-announcements/earth-day-2022-book-recommendations/

He also contributed to this book on soil practices in Africa​:
https://afsafrica.org/book-launch-healthy-soil-for-healthy-communities/​

Soils for Life podcast

Gerry contributed to this excellent podcast on composting methods: 
https://soilsforlife.org.au/podcast/

Positive Alternatives to Incineration and Landfill
​By Gerry Gillepsie
organic_alternative_to_incineration.pdf
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Carbon:Nitrogen Ratios
Tips on Composting developed by @Planet Natural
carbon_and_nitrogen_ratios.pdf
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Local ABC News story on composting of feral animals

This story aired on Canberra's ABC 7pm News on Saturday 10th July, featuring local farmer Martin Royds and Gerry's method of composting feral animals:
​
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-11/potential-for-feral-goats-to-become-organic-fertiliser/100279376?fbclid=IwAR0uq2TyN9lLxGzpDA4GXIraCL8qEROFbmBi6M0HSlJysCah2Tz6ax5as20

Sacred Lab Podcast now available

Gerry was recently interviewed by Ryan Dickinson from Sacred Lab Podcasts in Victoria, Australia. Listen to it here: anchor.fm/sacred-lab/episodes/Gerry-Gillespie--Author-of-The-Waste-Between-Our-Ears-evv9pr

Earth Day 2021

Acres USA includes a quote from Gerry in their celebration of Earth Day:

www.acresusa.com/acres-usa-announcements/earth-day-2021/

Update on 'The Waste Between Our Ears'

Gerry's book 'The Waste Between Our Ears' has now been printed in Australia and was launched via Zoom on October 28th 2020. Here's the link to the YouTube video of the launch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhsoBtlyVmg

This pdf is an excerpt from the book printed recently in Acres USA magazine:
pages_from_acresusa_july20_web.pdf
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Alliance Bank Do Good Awards
​
Do Good Award winners announced!
Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Do Good Awards... 

Do Good Community Award - Gerry Gillespie is an eco-warrior! He is a pioneer of the organics resource industry and has dedicated his life to environmentally responsible land management.
Gerry has positively impacted many lives by sharing his extensive knowledge on organic resource recovery and its reuse in soil, as well as broader environmental issues. Well regarded here and internationally, Gerry has influenced and educated governments, industry bodies, communities and NGOs. Recently he authored a discussion paper on the benefits of a national recycling organic waste program.
Gerry has spent much of his life educating people about soil health and soil regeneration. He is passionate about working with organisations to prevent food organics from ending up in landfill and instead, teaches how to use these valuable nutrients to boost soil health. This change will enable us to create a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet.


These videos were produced in June/July 2019 when Gerry visited the US and Canada to present a number of workshops with Dr Christine Jones.
bioferments_biostimulants_and_biofertilisers_-_making_them_on-farm_fact_sheet_final_metric_march_2019.pdf
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spice_compost_metric_version.pdf
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bioferments_biostimulants_and_biofertilizers_-_pdf_2nd_may_2019.pdf
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spice_compost_usa_version_1st_may_2019.pdf
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5_steps_for_making_inoculant__metric_.pdf
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5_steps_for_making_inoculant__imperial_.pdf
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handout_pages_usa.pdf
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presentation_for_usa_and_canada_2019.pdf
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incineration_still_makes_no_sense_-_nz.pdf
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feraliser_april_2017.pdf
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kangaroo_presentation_oct_2018.pdf
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Conversations on issues of sustainability, recorded by Gerry and Geoff Pryor in 2018

 Compost project in Samoa - Opportunity for Food Plant Solutions

An organics composting programme in Samoa is clearly showing that with the correct design community composting can take a leading role in healthy food production. Local groups using their own food waste and garden waste can create a first step to underpin community garden food production and community health. This compost process will fit readily into any of the Food Plant Solutions programs around the world.
 
The model designed and implemented by Canberra based Waste Recycling Environment Network (WREN), is intended as a model for use in smaller communities where size, scale and population determine the placement of the process. The SPICE compost process in use has no odour, requires no turning and takes only 10 weeks to produce a high-quality compost product.
 
The funding for this project came through the Recycle Organics project designed by the Centre for Clean Air Policy with funding from the Department of Environment and Climate Change, Canada (ECCC).
 
This community site has its own compost shed where nine 1.2 cubic metre boxes, lined in fine woven cane mats, sit side by side under protection from wind and rain. The box designed originally by Maye Bruce in the 1920s was used in the Dig for Victory Program in World War II Britian to grow food for a population under siege by Germany.
 
The boxes sit side by side and are based around the number of participants. They are intended to be individually filled on a weekly basis. The locally made SPICE compost inoculant enables the boxes to safely reach well beyond the pasteurisation temperature of 55 deg Celsius, without fear of spontaneous combustion. In many instances the temperature can be held for over a week, to produce a weed free, quality compost to be used later in the production of local food for the participating families.
 
The compost process is entirely scalable from several to hundreds of homes.  Initially 20 households have registered to bring their food waste to the existing site in covered buckets. Households are given a spray bottle of the compost inoculant to control any potential odours. 
 
Whenever supplies of food waste become too large for the given number of boxes the compost process can be easily expanded to a more traditional windrow system. This can be supplemented with grass and vine trimmings from local homes and public lands. The process is intended to expand to up to 100 homes at this site while seeking out other locations including the establishment of a larger site on public land at the local landfill
 
At the heart of this Samoa compost project is a potential training program which could be spread throughout the Pacific and around the world on the basis that the SPICE compost process can collect and compost without odour or turning and at any scale. As such it has enormous potential to build on the Food Plant Solutions work where more than 35,000 edible indigenous plants have been identified in many communities around the world. As such it provides not only the basis of a networkable Zero Waste program but is also a living model of a full circular economy. Its potential impact on Non-Communicable Diseases such as diabetes and other community health issues is also significant.