Aloe FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice)

meangreengrowinmachine

Well-Known Member
Can you do this with other plants and are there specific benefits for it? I'm specifically thinking banana peals... we go through bananas in my house like crazy.. you would think we have pet monkeys lol. Atm I dehydrate the peals and grind them down. I know a worm farm would be best for them. But could I make fpj out of them?
 

OSBuds

Well-Known Member
Can you do this with other plants and are there specific benefits for it? I'm specifically thinking banana peals... we go through bananas in my house like crazy.. you would think we have pet monkeys lol. Atm I dehydrate the peals and grind them down. I know a worm farm would be best for them. But could I make fpj out of them?
 

J.James

Well-Known Member
Can you do this with other plants and are there specific benefits for it? I'm specifically thinking banana peals... we go through bananas in my house like crazy.. you would think we have pet monkeys lol. Atm I dehydrate the peals and grind them down. I know a worm farm would be best for them. But could I make fpj out of them?
You can FPJ just about anything that has good water content, I have seen people do whole bananas bought from the local store and added LAB to jumpstart the processes. The key to KNF style farming is locally sourcing your inputs from your environment and harvesting them early in the morning to capture surface microbial activity and suspend this in your solution alongside all the nutrition from the plant material. Using store-bought inputs really robs the system of the key players we are trying to capture. but you would be able to capture all the water-soluble nutrition from the banana peel so it is still worth doing and experimenting with.
 

meangreengrowinmachine

Well-Known Member
You can FPJ just about anything that has good water content, I have seen people do whole bananas bought from the local store and added LAB to jumpstart the processes. The key to KNF style farming is locally sourcing your inputs from your environment and harvesting them early in the morning to capture surface microbial activity and suspend this in your solution alongside all the nutrition from the plant material. Using store-bought inputs really robs the system of the key players we are trying to capture. but you would be able to capture all the water-soluble nutrition from the banana peel so it is still worth doing and experimenting with.
Ok so something better left for this spring/summer time then. There is nada outside atm except snow and ice for me lol
 

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Got 2 immense aloe plants growing out their pots; these weird spiny things are flowers I guess...
998B7A09-7C88-4E65-8C7A-2CB2FD2293D7.jpeg
Anybody ever seen aloe flowers? Was thinking they are like bonus points for my FPJ. Several pounds of aloe here; Cut with a sawzall....

A2C1435E-E136-49A7-B506-19C517400B7C.jpeg
Chopped it all up and put into rusty old lobster pot. Added not quite enough brown sugar; thought we had more. Need about 4 more pounds of sugar. Will add more tonight but wanted to begin the fermentation process right away.
98D189CC-9920-4C0A-B328-8735B0182FF9.jpeg

Added mesh for filtration and loosely placed a piece of styrofoam for a lid. Keeping this in a dark corner of the basement...

5BEA2257-947D-480A-B0FA-0C91A690578E.jpeg
Stay tuned for progress report
 

Green Refuge

Well-Known Member
I use Aleo flakes and coconut powder from build a soil and man does that stuff work. Is there any benefits to doing it this way ?
 

meangreengrowinmachine

Well-Known Member
Got 2 immense aloe plants growing out their pots; these weird spiny things are flowers I guess...
View attachment 4835409
Anybody ever seen aloe flowers? Was thinking they are like bonus points for my FPJ. Several pounds of aloe here; Cut with a sawzall....

View attachment 4835416
Chopped it all up and put into rusty old lobster pot. Added not quite enough brown sugar; thought we had more. Need about 4 more pounds of sugar. Will add more tonight but wanted to begin the fermentation process right away.
View attachment 4836101

Added mesh for filtration and loosely placed a piece of styrofoam for a lid. Keeping this in a dark corner of the basement...

View attachment 4836102
Stay tuned for progress report
Oh weird I have never seen aloe flowers before!
 

J.James

Well-Known Member
I use Aleo flakes and coconut powder from build a soil and man does that stuff work. Is there any benefits to doing it this way ?
FPJ is all about catching the surface microbial life along with all the other nutrients and amino acids. So their are added benefits if your inputs are harvested correctly before use. Not to mention the amount of money that can be saved making your own FPJ, LAB and WCA
 

meangreengrowinmachine

Well-Known Member
FPJ is all about catching the surface microbial life along with all the other nutrients and amino acids. So their are added benefits if your inputs are harvested correctly before use. Not to mention the amount of money that can be saved making your own FPJ, LAB and WCA
What is WCA?
 

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Who's gonna take the time to do the math to reduce these portions a bit lol
Actually have so much aloe I’m going to do a few more batches of this. Gonna need about 12 more lbs of brown sugar. 1:1 ratio.
The first batch is complete; after 7 days of steeping we had enough aloe FPJ to apply to all our plants plus fill a mason jar. Came out slightly darker than the above pic but had a sweet molasses smell. Wanted to folar feed the aloe FPJ but I don’t want to gum up my garden sprayer with this sticky stuff. Watered it in instead. Gonna get a small hand sprayer just for this purpose.
Thanks JJ you rock
 

J.James

Well-Known Member
Actually have so much aloe I’m going to do a few more batches of this. Gonna need about 12 more lbs of brown sugar. 1:1 ratio.
The first batch is complete; after 7 days of steeping we had enough aloe FPJ to apply to all our plants plus fill a mason jar. Came out slightly darker than the above pic but had a sweet molasses smell. Wanted to folar feed the aloe FPJ but I don’t want to gum up my garden sprayer with this sticky stuff. Watered it in instead. Gonna get a small hand sprayer just for this purpose.
Thanks JJ you rock
Glad this worked out for you, super simple and your plants will love it!
 

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
You can FPJ just about anything that has good water content, I have seen people do whole bananas bought from the local store and added LAB to jumpstart the processes. The key to KNF style farming is locally sourcing your inputs from your environment and harvesting them early in the morning to capture surface microbial activity and suspend this in your solution alongside all the nutrition from the plant material. Using store-bought inputs really robs the system of the key players we are trying to capture. but you would be able to capture all the water-soluble nutrition from the banana peel so it is still worth doing and experimenting with.
I have these invasive plants that I think are "tall ragweed". I tried making FPJ out of them before, but I just didn't get any juice out of it, so I turned them into JADAM instead. Here I am filling 55 gal barrels with the ragweed and lambsquarter in separate barrels.
DSC01369.JPG
 
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