The black earth of Finca Tierra Negra
I am an interdisciplinary artist and grower, living in Pasadena in the foothills of Los Angeles. In 2017, I founded Finca Terra Negra, a restorative project with a mission to bring real food nutrition back to the soil by making small batch compost. It all started when I was growing Japanese species of indigo in Vermont – a project at the intersection of art and agricultural studies. Learning about this ancestral tradition , I discovered a beautiful reverence to the composting process that I had never seen before.
Back in LA, I started taking intensive soil science courses and managed the start-up of the LALA urban community farm. We had inherited a blank compacted hillside and needed to build soil to realize our dream of growing food. This is how I got into my first ambitious composting project, experimenting with the Lasagna method!
Plugging into soil life got me to create Finca Tierra Negra! I started baking compost right in my backyard, collecting food scraps from nearby restaurants as well as blends of trees and yard clippings from a tree trimmer.
It felt really simple, like baking a homemade brownie! I wanted to make the most delicious, nutrient-dense living soil, using ancient practices; and eventually share it with all the growers around me, wanting to go deeper into restorative practices.
Lasagna composting is a passive method that converts layers of organic and carbon materials into a stable soil, with no intervention. When approaching the pile, you witness the magic of Mother nature running her course: you can see steam off the top, fungi life that develops and smell a delicious deep earth aroma. What comes out is a living soil packed with billions of beneficial microorganisms considered as the most primitive form of life! In regenerating soil with compost, fungus microorganisms grow first, attracting nematodes that in turn attract earthworms.
I now have three lasagna composts cooking and two curing, I’m also crafting compost teas, blends of mulch and fresh seaweed dashi that I deliver all over the LA area!
Seaweed dashi is a broth that acts as a powerful plant fertilizer. To craft it, I infuse a mix of kelp that I collect on the beach before bottling up.
My backyard looks pretty much like an experiment in soil fertility! When I moved in, it was a bare land with compacted soil. I’ve sheet mulched several patches that I seeded with cover crops such as rye, oats, barley and crimson clover; so as to rebuild the soil’s structure and biology.
A new addition to my soil shop is this amazing BACSAC® BACSAC®. After one month and a half maturation, what got out of the bag is a beautiful half-decomposed compost! I’d give it 3 months all together to cure into a black, loose and moist humus, with a pleasant smell of woody undergrowth.
‘‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’’
Lao Tzu
