HOW TO KNF - LEVEL 1
You’ve decided you want to try KNF, Korean Natural Farming. You probably feel confused and overwhelmed. I get it. I am here to simplify and clarify. I have set up some steps to help you get started in a way that is easy to understand. Let’s start at Level One.
If you are making your own inputs, it will take six months before everything is ready. Don’t panic. There are ways to get around this problem. Do what you can in the beginning. This course is set up to help you get started when you don’t have the inputs or skills you need. See the materials list substitutions for Level 1 for details below.
The “How To KNF” learning program is set up with levels, each level with goals. Learn, plan, and do the steps so that you reach the goals from each step. Once you have achieved all the goals from Level 1, then move on to Level 2. This will keep you moving forward without getting confused.
Level 1 includes making inputs that take a long time. This is done for efficiency. I don’t mean for you to wait six months for these inputs to be ready before you can move on. Once you have started the long-term inputs and are waiting for them to be done, consider the goal achieved, and by all means, move on!
Level 1 has three steps:
1. Start IMO. 2. Start inputs that take a long time. 3. Then, sit down and do some planning.
STEP 1.
First, get IMO started. This is the most critical step. Everything in the system depends on high levels of healthy, balanced Indigenous Micro-Organisms, IMO. Your soil needs it. Your plants need it. Your animals need it.
With IMO in your soil, plants can provide for their own nutrition. You won’t need to fertilize, and you will have very little pests and disease.
For your animals, with an Inoculated Deep Litter System, IDLS, using IMO, you will have no animal smells and no flies. Pests and disease will be almost completely gone. The barn will never need to be mucked out, and the living floor will keep the barn warm in winter and cool in summer. Chicks can be brooded without hens or any heat source.
Having IMO in animal feed greatly enhances health and immune function. Animals grow better and have far less health, disease, and pest problems.
You can even give up composting yet have fully composted, nutrient-rich mulch, available at all times.
GOALS FOR STEP 1:
Get one good collection. Cultivate some of that collection into one pile of IMO-4.
SKILLS FOR STEP 1:
Know where to collect IMO and how to collect it.
Have a place to cultivate IMO piles and know how to cultivate a pile to IMO-4.
Step 1 process takes about one month.
STEP 2.
Next, start the inputs that take a long time. This step is for efficiency. These inputs are BRV, Brown Rice Vinegar (or BV, Banana Vinegar), FAA, Fish Amino Acid, and OHN, Oriental Herbal Nutrient.
BRV, Brown Rice Vinegar, or BV, Banana Vinegar. This is an ionic buffer added to almost every formula. Both take about six months. Don’t substitute other kinds of vinegar. This input is not about pH or concentration of acetic acid but rather specific ionization properties. It helps the biochemistry of the other ingredients work properly. Apple cider vinegar is specifically contra-indicated.
FAA, Fish Amino Acid. This is very easy to make but takes six months to be ready to start using. The only ingredients are fish scrapes and dry, raw sugar. It adds strength to young or weak plants and can ensure animals (and people) are getting all the amino acids they need. It is similar to fish sauce, only made with sugar instead of salt.
OHN, Oriental Herbal Nutrient. This is a specific recipe for a tonic used in almost every formula. It takes about 12 weeks to make. This tonic enhances health and modulates immune system function for microbes, plants, animals, and humans.
GOALS FOR STEP 2:
Make makgeolli or banana FPJ and let it become BRV or BV
Start an FAA
Start OHN
SKILLS FOR STEP 2:
Make an FPJ
You will need an FPJ made of mugwort and dropwort for your IMO pile.
If you don’t have these plants yet, you can use pumpkin or sweet potato tips.
Make Makgeolli or Banana FPJ (don’t use commercial bananas) for BRV or BV
Make FAA
Learn Recipe for OHN
Start dry ingredients and wet ingredients for OHN
Make extractions of all ingredients for OHN
Step 2 takes about 6 months.
STEP 3.
Learning KNF is a series of planning, learning, and doing. They tend to happen at the same time or at least in cycles. Now is the time for initial planning, and time to start a Field Log.
As you learn the beginning inputs you will have more information to do the next round of planning. As you do more planning, you will know what you need to learn next.
INITIAL PLANNING
This step will be ongoing for some time. Plan soon and plan often. Start thinking about what you want to grow. What crops do you want? Where do you want to put them on your land? What animals do you want? Where do you want to put them on your land? How many can you keep?
Give consideration at this point to the Vital Forces, which are Air and Wind, Water and Moisture, and Heat and Sunlight. Everything on your land will need various levels of these Forces.
How does water enter your land, move across it, and how does it leave? Are you dealing with too much water, not enough, or both?
What are the wind patterns, not just dominant ones? Do you need to increase airflow so plants and animals can breathe? Is there too much wind, and do you need windbreaks? Do you need to do some of both?
Do you get enough sunlight for crops and animals? Will they get enough shade? Do you have hot spots or cold spots on your land?
What weeds do you have? What do they indicate? Do you have predators that will be problematic for the crops or animals? How will you keep everyone safe?
What will you be feeding your animals? What can you grow so that you don’t need to buy any feed? How many animals can you comfortably feed, care for, and keep safe?
What will you be using for animal bedding and mulch for your plants? What plants do you need to be growing so that you don’t have to buy any? What plants do you need to grow for the inputs you will need? Where will you collect IMO, and where will you cultivate the IMO piles?
And don’t forget to factor in time. How much time do you have to do what needs to be done, and how long do the chores that need to be done take? What about projects? It’s easy to get overextended. Be realistic and be kind to yourself.
There are other factors to consider. But you need to carefully and systematically start observing your land. One of the best tools I have found to help in planning is called Permaculture. While Permaculture has many ideas for managing crops and livestock, it is essentially a Design Science, with humans integrated into the design.
Permaculture offers Design Certifications, but these take time and money. But you don’t really need to get a certification if you only want to design your own property. There are many books, plenty of videos, and free information to learn. You can also hire a designer to dial everything in.
A simple way to incorporate Permaculture Design is to use the Permaculture Zones. Things you want to keep an eye on every day are placed close to the house (Zone 1), with things that need less care further away. It also recommends designing some wildness into the property design (Zone 5).
If space is a concern, wild places and biodiversity can be designed as wind rows, fence rows, or hedgerows, which can be planted with useful and medicinal plants, as well as animal feed and fodder.
START A FIELD LOG
While planning can take a lot of research and thinking, there is one concrete action you need to take at this level. You need to start a Field Log. There are sophisticated logs available, but all you really need is a composition notebook. You will be making notes in this log several times each day.
Start keeping records of how long it takes to make inputs. Record your yields. If you bought anything, record prices and where you bought them. Once you start using the inputs, you need to record how much you use so you can plan how often to make and how big your batches should be.
Be sure to record the weather when you make inputs. Temperature, humidity, and wind can affect success and yields. You need to learn how to adapt to changing conditions. Recording everything is how you do that.
If you want to keep a separate weather log, something I do personally, I would still enter weather data in the field log initially and transfer it over when I was at my desk. If I had a lamb born that would go in the field log and then later entered into the record of my flock genetics.
The Field Log becomes a diary. Put everything you notice or do in your Log. You cannot go back and get data later. Write it down now. This was the very first thing I was taught when I started becoming a field scientist. And like field science, KNF is based on observation.
The Field Log does two things. First, with everything written in the same place every day, you start to see patterns that you would not have otherwise noticed. You may see a pattern, for example, that your animals are having babies on full moons or new moons, or maybe it happens on warmer days. Sometimes the mother will wait until after a storm.
The information may help you become better prepared for future births. You may notice what month a migratory bird comes or leaves every year and be able to spot a year that winter will come early or late. You won’t notice these things if you don’t write them down.
The second thing a Field Log does is hone your observation skills. By writing down rainfall, humidity, and temperatures every day, along with wind patterns you notice, and changes in clouds, you will understand the weather patterns on YOUR land in ways that no forecast ever could. Alongside your weather notes will be corresponding notes about your plants and animals. Look for patterns!
Don’t think you can remember things. You won’t. That is just a fact. The Field Log is a very powerful tool, one of your most powerful. Observe and record. Learn patterns.
GOALS FOR STEP 3:
Start Planning your initial steps and your long-term vision.
Start a Field Log
SKILLS FOR STEP 3:
Observation and the habit of recording everything that happens on your land.
Step 3 is an ongoing process.
SUBSTITUTIONS for MATERIALS USED IN LEVEL 1
Most substitutes will not be as good as the prescribed inputs. However, a beat-up car will still get you there, but not as reliably or with the same comfort. Do the best you can with what you have. Improve as you go.
Rice bran:
Wheat mill run
Oats crimped
Nut husks (any)
BRV can be purchased at Asian stores or online
Mugwort and dropwort:
Fresh tips of pumpkin and sweet potato vines
OHN ingredients
Don’t substitute anything; use what you can get, skip the rest
Alcohol 40%
Alcohol less than 40%
(Strong kefir water, other strong homemade ferments, or store-bought products)
Glycerin
FPJ, of the OHN ingredients, just use more
Fish scrapes
Poultry scrapes
Fish sauce, which is a fermented product, can be purchased. Made with salt but ok in small amounts.
Fish hydrolysate, or fish emulsion: not the same but can used as a substitute in the beginning.
Seawater
Salt made for saltwater aquariums
Sea salt, very high quality with all trace elements intact
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