Life Rubric: Determining Success from a Simple Feedback Loop

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I used to often find myself believing that everything I do is for the greatest good. In high school, that train of thought was most likely exemplified to its maximum with the simple idea of, “I know Everything.” There were no feedback loops. It was the greatest point I could be at, no need for correction or reflection.

Unfortunately, a lot of that pompous ideology lingers in the mind and finds itself repeating itself. In gardening, this idea can percolate to the supreme of all garden methods, sustainability. Yet again, the self-affirmation of success persists  instead of a true confirmation from nature.

The question then expands to how do we confirm that the garden is successful in nature’s eyes?

Rubrics
At the Montessori Academy, we’ve been utilizing rubrics to determine and communicate success to our students. This way, the students are aware of what an A+ requires, witness a fair grading system, and is reciprocated for parents and teachers. It also creates a feedback loop where the student can continually monitor their own progress. An example would be a shift from a C to a B with a clear explanation to the delineation of grades.

For myself, a basic rubric can help to determine the success of a garden and in a broader scale my life. It creates a self-check to ensure that I’m accomplishing basic tasks to move onto more creative ones. To sum it up I’ve outlined a few categories that are relevant to a regenerative garden and life: the amount of labor over time, the type of labor, time spent working, time spent relaxing, the taste of the garden and life, and succession.

Chow’s Life Rubric
To create a clear picture of how the rubric works imagine the ideal circumstance for the topics listed. The less ideal can be created as well; I don’t find it necessary though when your aim is to accomplish your goals and desires.

The amount of labor in time should be decreasing. The types of labor should be (more) creative, fun, and less monotonous. The time spent working should be decreasing and time spent relaxing and observing should be increasing. The taste and yield of the garden should be getting better every single year. Finally, the succession of the garden should move to a greater steady state than what it was before, which will be explained in more detail below.

Using the Rubric
I’m sure more categories can be added or even some may be removed. In many ways, the rubric easily permeates to other fields and establishes a better word for the type of work I’m creating for myself. The feedback loop is not just a confirmation from nature with less work, good food, and fun. It’s a confirmation to myself that I’m creating a regenerative holistic lifestyle and not just a life of sustenance or maintenance.

The Reality
The Amount of Work Over Time
In gardening, the amount of labor is first dedicated to building the soil. Although it is a continuous task, once the soil is established the amount of labor for watering, weeding, and pest management is eliminated. Is that possible? No watering, weeding, or pest control in nature? Absolutely, the landscapes that were here before only required nature’s sprinkler system, the rain. At the moment, I only water twice a week or whenever I transplant something. I see it becoming zero irrigation soon. 

Creative and Fun Work
I find myself dedicating more time to propagation, expansion, and research on other topics. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with Brassica trees, growing various types of chicken and rabbit fodder, reading about biodynamic farming, and creating videos for e-learning. Life is good.

Relaxing Time
In the downtime, I’ve taught myself to master new ukulele skills, juggle clubs, play with an isolation wand (flow wand) and take a programming course online. I get plenty of vacation time and could go wherever I want to when I want. I need to do travel more often.

The Taste
The tea gardens are producing nicely and expanding. I’m drinking mint-tea everyday, and it’s slowly expanding into lavender, rosemary, lemongrass, and lemonbalm, to name a few. My cooking skills require a bit of improvement. Regardless, everything tastes amazing; lots of watermelons, cantaloupes, and okra. The kale and collards are producing nicely, and everything else is coming soon.

I’ll soon have galanghal to make root beer; it’s in the ginger family.
I’m still foraging like a squirrel. Pecans are in season, and they’re delicious.

Succession
All in all, life is good and getting better everyday.
The last category is succession, giving away everything in a better steady state than what it was previously at. In fewer words, succession is the act of passing the baton. I added the other words to ensure that it would be in a better condition than what it was before. To paint a better picture, a steady state can be used to describe the various states of water; solid, liquid, and gas. With the addition or removal of energy, water can shift to a different steady state.

The affirmation of succession is when the current steady state of any substance is changed to another steady state. For example, we turn liquid water into ice and maintain its new steady state as ice. A failure for the same example would be turning water into ice and it reverts back to water.

The same principle can be applied to ecosystems, economics, and on a much broader scale, life. The succession of my life work (at this moment) and passion is to continually share and build it with others.

To reflect on succession, it’s been amazing how much has progressed in the past few years. Life has manifested my dreams into reality with many affirmations of succession, seen and unforeseen.

I can now happily say, “I know nothing.”

The Elusive Collard Tree

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I’ve been reading a lot about collard trees and other brassicas for little over a year now, and have known about them for a couple of years now.

Collard Tree somewhere in San Jose

Everybody, keeps saying its a special variety of collard, kale, or cabbage. After a few years of looking for seeds, talking to people, and growing brassicas myself, I’m convinced they’re just regular brassicas that have been grown for years.

Wait. . Hold on. .

Brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, brussel sprouts, swiss chard) can be grown for more than one year?

In one short sweet answer: yes.Brassicas are perennial; they can grow for many years.

 

It was last year, that I tried to communicate to my director that all of the kales, broccolis,brussels sprouts, swiss chard, cabbage, and collards could stay in. Unfortunately conventional knowledge is a contagious disease and they were dug up and removed.

Without her knowledge, I took the dug up plants I could find, and replanted some of them in a different place, and they survived. As soon as we began to get cool weather last week in September, we already had collard greens, kale, and broccoli leaves to harvest. A word of advice, the hot summer weather can cause most of these plants to go a little bitter. With the change of seasons and the cooler weather, they begin to get their normal taste character back.

Moving on, the amazing opportunity awaits in the exponential increase of brassicas by collecting seed, taking cuttings, and sharing the info with everyone. From here, the propagation and opportunity of these plants is infinite. The journey in propagating these puppies has just begun. For more information on perennial vegetables, I recommend reading Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier.

The Wood Carver by Chuang Tzu

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Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
“What is your secret?”

Khing replied: “I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

“By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

“Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
and begin.

“If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

“What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits.”

– Chuang Tzu
from The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton

 

I just recently had a staff development at East Fort Worth Montessori, and it was interesting to see our administration focus on our personal aspirations and visions in relation to the universal goal of the school.The Wood Carver was one of the poems we read to reflect how we taught in the classroom or lived our lives. It was an enlightening moment that has been reoccurring lately in my life and I felt the need to share.

Preparation
Before the carver set on his quest to create the bell stand, he first prepared his mind. He ‘guarded his spirit, did not expend it on trifles that were not to the point.’ Further on, he even states he forget about the prince and the court. It reminds me of how I often get caught in the trap of all the demands of the world, my administration, and my peers. Instead, I need to prepare myself for the work I do and remind myself of the single idea of gardening.

Preparing the space for Group Stretching, Meditation, and Community Cultivation

Planting Stuff at Home

Implementation
With a sense of purpose instilled in his mind, the wood carver looked for a tree and saw the bell stand within it. Those stanzas leaped out at me. When I first arrived at the school, my tasks were many, they were cluttered, and unclear. By taking the time to analyze and observe the landscape, it became clear what had to be done. I could see the garden take its form, and it’s slowly becoming the reality out of the vision.

Reflection
It’s hard to realize the process at times when we rush ourselves into the action of living life. Having the space for creative development is necessary to see the ‘hidden potential’ in everyday things. Slowing down, being still, and cultivating ourselves creates the living experience which inspires and instills a sense of awe in others and ourselves.

The Power of Mulch on Heavy Clay and the Human Soul

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Every soil can benefit from the use of mulch or an organic covering on top of them.
When I first arrived at East Fort Worth Montessori Academy, the alley to the chicken coop is sandwiched between the building and the sloping hillside that feeds the alley with a downpour of water. The soil in the alley has cracks and quickly absorbs and holds water, a good indication of a good heavy clay soil.

The first rain showed the signs of a good mucky clay.

To alleviate the issue, we decided to obtain some free mulch and spread it over the soil. A good three inches will do the trick. The transformation after is unbelievable. A place that was once a trap to walk through can become functional once again.

 

In the years of using mulch, the pattern emerges that the soil that feeds us needs more organic matter and love. It’s truly a universal solution to build soil and ourselves. Reflecting on the theme of this blog, to cultivate ourselves we must take care of the elements that nurture and feed our body and soul, the soil and all the life within it. The result is a mirror image of ourselves in nature. The soil is now ready for cultivation and growth. 

Soil Building: Cover Cropping at East Fort Worth Montessori

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It was October of 2010 at East Fort Worth Montessori and the necessary steps to build a productive and beautiful landscape began to unfold.

The landscape was ripe for development and teaching. The children were learning about soil erosion and the decomposition of rocks and minerals. We walk past it everyday and barely realize the changes that occur around us in our environments. The earth is living and breathing. Look around for a moment and you’ll see the massive amounts of erosion and soil depletion that’s occurring.

I digress.

The Assessment
Our assessment began on a hillside that was speeding up the process of soil erosion. To slow the process down, we followed a few simple steps to slow water down, create a habitat for soil microorganisms and plants, and cover cropping.
1. Rock barrier
2. Mulch
3. Cover Crop

The Barrier
To slow down the flow of water, we dug a small trench along the hill and placed rocks in the trench in Octoboer of 2011. This would effectively slow down water and allow it to seep into the soil an water our plants. It would also hold back larger debri and slow down the process of erosion.

Mulch It
We had a small amount of compost. Instead of removing all the big chunks in it, we broadcasted the soil and chunks on the hillside shortly after we built the barrier. In my opinion, the big pieces provide a good habitat for the FBI, fungi, bacteria and insects. The modern perspective is to bury plants with fine compost. We often forget that soil has a complex structure that has a good mix of plant appendages and dying organisms.

Cover Crop
Red Clover is a good nitrogen fixing crop that is also edible. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for all living organisms. This element is necessary for our genetic makeup in our DNA, amino acids and proteins. In plants, Nitrogen is in chlorophyll, the plant organ that captures the energy of the sun. Many people may see it as a weed but it’s a great way to build soil and prevent erosion. We spread the seeds in November of 2011 and the progress has amazing. The clover went to seed, became mulch, and we can re-broadcast if necessary for the Fall season of 2012.

Progress – March 6, 2012

The Amazing Progress on 6th Ave

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This is the front  yard when we first moved to Ft Worth. My room mate mowed it a few times and I finally began the process of terraforming it to an edible landscape.

At the time, I was driving a BMW 328i, a four door coupe or sedan, and I had to haul soil in 20 gallon containers. Yes, that’s right. I moved soil in a BMW.

The Process
I didn’t do a great job at documenting anything, but this is the best picture I could find. We

Progress!

placed cardboard over the grass to choke it out and layered 2 to 3 inches of soil above that. On top of the soil, we placed a good 3 to 5 inches of wood chip mulch to protect the soil from the harmful effects of the sun, wind, and rain. Yes, I said rain. Soil is dense and will slowly absorb water. Rainfall here in Texas falls down hard in good quantities. With too much rain, the good soil flows away. Mulch, on the other hand, is less dense (it takes up more volume with less mass. density = mass/volume). Once the rain hits the mulch it’s taken the hit for the soil and the water can percolate down with the force of gravity. Rinse and repeat the process of cardboard, soil, mulch until the entire area is covered.

An alternative method is just use cardboard and mulch. If you leave it alone for a good season or two, the cardboard will decompose and hopefully have taken out the grass that was there.

Planting
Planting is easy. Push the mulch aside and put a seed in the soil or transplant a plant into the soil. If you didn’t put soil above the cardboard, you can punch a hole through and plant into the soil below. Compost can be added to the hole punching method to add some beneficial bacteria and nutrients. Once you plant the seeds or the plants give them a nice dose of H2O and . .

Wait a Little While
Watering is reduced when you use mulch. After planting the seeds and watering, I usually let the plants germinate on their own. If it’s exceptionally hot, I usually wait 4 to 6 days and check the moisture of the soil around the seeds. How do you check the moisture? Use your sense of touch or stick your finger in the soil.

Harvest Time

This garden was ridiculously easy. Our harvest was more than any of us could eat. Yes, in the picture my roommate, Sara, has a bucket full of cucumbers. We had plenty of them before that as well. So much so that I got sick of cucumbers.

Cucumber Bucket from the Front Yard

Even in the heat of July and August, the garden is still pumping out produce. We’ve had neighbors walk buy and count the melons for us on multiple occasions (I think the count is 12).

In the meantime, we’ve prepared the other half of the yard and are beginning to make plans for some more perennial plants. A peach tree has gone into the ground, and the current thoughts are flowers, delicious herbs, and Fall veggies.

The only thing missing is a Food is Free sign to get the melon counters to get a hold of us, or maybe a workshop sign to get them to join our little operation. I’m not sure yet, but we’ll keep posting all the good things.

The Free Grocery Shop: Delicious Foraging

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Harvesting Wild Grapes at River Legacy Park, Arlington, Tx

There’s free food everywhere.

Beginning in April through May we begin to see the first flushes of mulberries in Central Texas. As May goes into full swing, we may see loquats if there was a calm winter. Peaches and figs also begin to ripen into May through July depending on the varieties and the weather. In mid through late summer, grapes are growing on the vine, and sometimes they’re climbing all over the trees that were just listed.

Disclaimer
Don’t just eat anything. If there’s any doubt, don’t eat it and ask an expert.

 

Go Wild
So why forage? It’s the most local you can get, the only energy input required is harvesting, it’s good for you health and the best out of it all is the fun.

There are huge amounts of energy that is pumped into our food today; fertilizer, pesticides, packaging, transportation, storage, and cooking. Eliminating the waste involved in this system requires thoughtful alternatives that can continue to provide the luxuries in our lives. Gardening in your neighborhood and supporting local agriculture (less than 100-150 miles away) are common solutions. Foraging is another and the easier out of the other two.

Gardening requires tools, resources, labor, the knowledge, and the guts. Land can be  limiting factor, but I find it’s most often the knowledge on where to start. The guts are the emotions to know that it may not be successful or it may die from negligence or poor planning. It happens, and I’ve found myself and others disappointed from a deep emotional investment into a garden.

Supporting local agriculture is another great alternative system. The downside at this moment is the high cost of local. Being closer to an urban area results in a higher cost of living and a higher cost for goods and services. Although local organic food is the best, some people can’t afford the luxury.

Foraging on the other hand only requires time and knowledge. We have to go somewhere to buy food (unless you grow everything) and everybody needs time to relax and enjoy a breath of fresh air. A stroll through any park or neighborhood will result in finding an edible plant. It’s possible to eat as you go; although, in some cases, you may have to prepare the harvest to make it more palatable.

The only limiting factor is the knowledge and patience. A few good books that I’ve enjoyed are The Forager’s Harvest and Nature’s Garden by Samuel Thayer. Peterson’s Field Guide also has a field guide for edible plants as well as wild and medicinal herbs.

Wait a Second
Before you venture out and start eating plants in your neighborhood, it’s wise to know the area that you’re foraging from and the plant. This is where the patience comes in. If you notice a neighbor or fellow citizen with a dog or cat, you want to avoid eating anything close to the sidewalk or on a trail. You never know where they’ve done their business. Once you’ve found a plant you think is edible, double and triple check it; then cross reference with similar plants until you are 100% sure you know what it is. Don’t rely on what you think.

Like anything for the first time, don’t overindulge. It’s possible to be allergic to particular items and it’s good to be careful as well if you’ve misidentified a plant. As with anything, be careful and happy foraging. If possible, find someone around you that knows a few things about wild edibles.

It’s Good for You
In the fewest words, these plants are packed with healthy vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients. This site does a good job of summarizing some edible wilds and what they’re packed with.

If you live around Dallas-Fort Worth, I’m free on weekends and don’t mind sharing what I know. It’s not much, and I’m just starting my journey in foraging. This year alone I’ve found wild mulberries, grapes, dewberries, peaches, onions, and plenty of thistles and cat tails.

Recommended Reading

And Watching
Almost forgot to mention, Eat the Weeds is a good YouTube channel. The fellow, Green Deane, goes through a detailed explanation on each wild edible informing you about identification through preparation. There’s about 136 episodes at the moment and they are all wonderful.

Poi: Playing with Fire

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Triquetra                    Photo taken by               Isiac Ramirez

It began in the drug filled years of my teens. A few friends introduced glow sticks and ever since then I became fascinated with dancing with the luminescent objects. Evolution took its tole and eventually we attached ropes to them. At that moment, the beautiful lights became dangerous.

With vague memories of the previous night, I would wake up with bruises all over my body. Apparently, the beautiful display of lights results into self-mutilation the following day and rants from my friends who would tell me I would hit everything around me with spiraling glow sticks. It took me years to learn my lesson.

In 2010, I attended a camping trip with some friends at an event called Art Outside. The idea of dancing with fire was a familiar thing, but I never realized it was the exact same display of art. The major difference was that the artisan in between the flames or glow sticks was calm and collected. They knew exactly where the fire is and how to direct it. If it was me, I would’ve been on fire.

My fascination immediately ignited into a new passion; I had to spin fire.

The light show bonanza is called poi. It originated in New Zealand from the indigenous tribe, the Maori, and that’s as far as I know about the history. Modern poi has taken their traditions and has been used with just about anything. You can use two socks with rice inside, tennis balls on strings, a rock, or whatever your imagination can combine with two ropes and two objects to spin around your body.

After Art Outside, I would spend time everyday with two tube socks and a bag of rice in each of them. The self-mutilation continued for a while and has slowly become a memory of the past. With each day, I would learn new tricks and techniques until I refined my own style. My progress in displaying poi also shifted the mental state of my initial fascination.

The want to spin fire changed into the desire to tame myself. Although the display for the public are spiraling meteors that twirl around your body, the dancer themselves don’t see the same display. The heat is more present to us than the show. To tame the element of fire required that a person first becomes conscious and aware of themselves and their surroundings. The last thing any fire dancer wants is to hit anybody or to change a tame fire into an uncontrollable flame.

The progression of the fire arts continued to transition who I am. Controlling my mind allowed me to think through my actions more thoroughly and realize how the poi was flowing from internal ideas into the reality of spinning flames. From that idea, poi translated into the co-creation of moving abstract thoughts into a particular direction in the material world; synonymous to moving my arms to direct the fire around my body.

And so, I realized it is the same with many if not all of the arts.
Tame the mind to co-create your ideas with the elements of the universe, otherwise, you may be playing with fire.

Life Design: Slow Learning and the Beauty of Hobbies

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Half Dome

Every hobby is a journey with lots to learn along the way. Reading a book to accrue knowledge or creativity, gardening outside to grow beautiful flowers, cooking delicious herbs or scrumptious veggies, or just hiking up a hill to see the surrounding area around you. It’s all a pathway to finding new things about the world around, within, or somewhere near us.

At times, it’s hard to realize the steps required to reach the destination. It gets so easy to fixate on that pinnacle point of your potential. In this way, the journey becomes less meaningful and more destination oriented. It’s good to have goals, but creating the pathways to them are equally as important.

Half Dome
After finishing high school, my twin brother and I hiked up Half Dome in Yosemite Park. We were at the fresh age of 18. A few years beforehand, we visited the national park and saw that huge granite piece of rock. We both looked at each other and knew immediately we had to climb it. Somehow my parents remembered that key aspect of the trip and took us back.

It was a grueling 6 hour hike up and another quarter of a day back down. To me, we spent so much time walking and running up the mountain that at times we didn’t soak in the scenery around us. However, we knew we had a time constraint. We and my parents didn’t realize that we barely prepared to make the hike. We wore comfy tennis shoes, brought 3 bottles of water, and a few snacks. The only thing we made sure to do was wake up really early to get our day started. Our physical shape was over estimated as well. Even in our teenage years, we weren’t as fit as we thought.

With each way point along the trail, we thought we were almost there getting closer and closer. My focus was too intent on getting there. We finally reached the base of the dome and didn’t realize it was still another hour or two up.

Getting to the top turned out to be easier than I thought and not as satisfying. Although looking down into the valley was pretty cool. Getting down was another story. The physical force of gravity working with your legs and muscles created a harder impact. Our little teenage bodies had to absorb more force and continue that for another 8 miles down.

At the end of the hike, we made it. The 12 hour hike got the best of us though. My brother and I were debilitated for a few days and couldn’t enjoy the rest of the trip. We were burnt out and beaten down by ourselves.

Lessons Learned
Being over prepared at times can be a good thing but don’t get too fixated on all the details. Focus on the crucial and limiting factors. Take time to enjoy the experience. As you can pick up the pace do it at a rate that doesn’t destroy your mind, body of soul.

And Enjoy the Journey.

Fermentation: Cultivating Your Gut

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It’s sad and I have to admit. I do not cook all the vegetables that I grow. Yes, it’s blasphemous. A lot of it ends up in the refrigerator to spoil or I give it away to people who may use it. Only god knows how much has ended in the compost heap or (tear) in the trash traveling wastefully to a landfill.

Squashed Out

This season’s harvest has been good, too good. And it’s only going to get better. The fear and despair of more waste has been mounting on me for some time now. In the hopes of forgiving myself, I’ve begun a new project, fermentation. It’s already happening in the fridge with all the rotting veggies. Only now, it’s a controlled rot that is good for you and the environment. The bacteria that grows with fermenting vegetables is probiotic, good for your digestion and stores without the use of refrigeration or electricity. In many ways, this method is easier, better for your health and safer than modern canning methods (there’s the risk of botulism from improper canning of vegetables ).

Cucumberrrss and Summercrook neck Squash

To begin the venture, I did a little reading online and decided I wanted something more substantial. Being a book geek, I ordered the latest and greatest book by Sandor Katz, The Art of Fermentation. The only word that comes to mind is ‘Ahh-mazing.’ I highly recommend it along with his previous book, Wild Fermentation.

If you wish to get started now though, all you need is unchlorinated water, veggies and a container. That’s it.

  1. Filter/boil your water if it has chlorine. Some areas use chloramine and the info online has been all over. Some say boiling doesn’t work. Others say it does. I don’t know, but Ft Worth does use chloramine and the filtered water is working just fine.
  2. Karate chop your veggies: Yes literally squeeze them to death or punch them. Cooking is violent and so is pickling. (It’s good for you and for the fermenting process.) This will break open those cell walls to allow for all your spices and water to easily penetrate into your vegetables. This equals more tasty pickles.
  3. Add salt and spices to your satisfaction. This step is not necessary, but I believe it tastes better and makes the process go much quicker. The salt will pull out all the juices from your garden produce and create a richer environment for probiotic communities.
  4. Drown the Veggies.Stuff it all in your container as much as possible and pour in your water to fill the container. This will create a richer anaerobic, oxygen-less, environment. These critters don’t need oxygen and they’ll out compete the ones that do. The veggies that are exposed to air may grow some mold on it, but that’s okay. More on that later.

    Fermentation Jars with Airlocks

  5. Now, Put a Lid on It. You don’t want to screw the lid on too tight. Pressure will build up on the inside from build up of carbon dioxide. It’s a product from fermentation and it’s natural. If you want to get fancy you can make an airlock to prevent oxygen from getting back in. I’ve heard that it makes your veggies taste better so I opted to go this route without trying the other one.
  6. Wait a Week or Two or longer. Place the jar in an area that doesn’t get directsunlight. Ultraviolet rays from the sun will kill off the probiotic bacteria. From here, the job is slow and steady but it’ll taste amazing. In two weeks you can taste it for yourself and see how it is. After that it’ll store for as long as you don’t eat it.
  7. Continue to Experiment. Try new things and see what tastes good and what tastes best. The possibilities are endless. Some of the variables to think about are temperature, salt, light, types of vegetables, combination of vegetables, and of course your herbs and spices. Keep in mind fermenting in hotter areas will speed up the fermentation process but make your veggies more mushy. Colder temperatures will help to maintain the crunchiness of your veggies

Now for the big question, “Is it Safe to Eat?” You bet it is! Sauerkrat and many other fermented goodies all use the same or similar process. It’s been done for ages and there’s little need to worry about bad bacteria using these methods. If there’s a little mold growing on top just skim it off and everything below that is good to eat.

If you want to get fancy, you can build an airlock onto your lids to prevent as much mold on top. You can find resources here on how to make it yourself.

Now go Cultivate Your Gut.