Two Upcoming Workshops: Sunday Breakfast Club

[Sean Smith]

Hi all,

Please note two upcoming workshops hosted by Crooked Farmz at Many Hands Urban Farm in Downsview Park: Fermented Plant Juice and Three-Bin Composting. Both field schools are held on Sunday mornings as part of our Sunday Breakfast Club series.


FERMENTED PLANT JUICE

Sunday, April 19
6am-8am
$10/pwyc

One of the most important things we can do for young plants is to support the biochemical signals that drive early growth. Freshly germinated seedlings are primed to respond to plant growth regulators — the natural hormones that govern root development, cell division, stem elongation, and immune resilience. Getting these compounds into the plant’s environment early, before the stresses of the season accumulate, sets the foundation for everything that follows.

Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) is a Korean Natural Farming preparation made from young plant tissues — grasses, weeds, early-season growth — chopped, mixed with brown sugar, and left to ferment for 7–14 days. The result is a naturally concentrated extract rich in plant growth regulators: auxins for root development and cell elongation, gibberellins for stem growth and seed germination, and cytokinins for cell division, leaf expansion, and delayed senescence.

In this Spring Field School session, we will work through the theory and practice of FPJ — including KNF principles, optimization strategies, and application techniques — before harvesting in-season plants to make a collective ferment together. Participants will take home a small batch of FPJ to ferment at home for a week, ready to apply as a spring foliar. This early-morning “Sunday Breakfast Club” hands-on workshop will be followed by coffee and light refreshments.

https://crookedfarmz.localline.ca/my-products/product/352330

THREE-BIN COMPOSTING

Sunday, April 26

9am-11am

$10/pwyc

The three-bin system of composting offers a humble but powerful technology and series of techniques for efficiently producing high-quality compost in an urban setting. It is designed for composting using aerobic processes; that is, they are defined by the microbial breakdown of organic matter in the presence of oxygen. The trio of adjacent bins represents three stages of decomposition -- building, aerating, curing -- which are engaged in a cyclical process through the system to ensure a constant supply of compost. The three-bin system may be engaged as a cold "add-as-you-go" composting technique, but works best as a hot or "thermophilic" technique.

In this Spring Field School offering at Crooked Farmz, we will work through the theory and practice of thermophilic composting, with specific reference to the three-bin system. We'll build a pile with particular focus on feedstocks, ratios, bulking agents, and monitoring strategies that can be used for thermophilic composting at any scale. This "Sunday Breakfast Club" hands-on workshop will be followed by coffee and light refreshments.

https://crookedfarmz.localline.ca/my-products/product/352354

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 Crooked Farmz

 Brewing fresh compost teas and extracts for microbial health
 in agriculture, horticulture and arboriculture.

 crookedfarmz.net // @crookedfarmz // 416.669.1997

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 We Must Heal The Soil. It's That Simple.

 Crooked Farmz is a Certified Compost Facility Operator

 with the Compost Council of Canada.