Ecobox – how to

In this post I show how to build and maintain a Gbiota Tribox.

Growing your own soil

Growing soil is the key to the Gbiota technology, so may I explain how it works.

Plants absorb energy from the sun. They use this energy to break down the bonds between carbon and oxygen
from the carbon dioxide which the plants absorb from the atmosphere, and hydrogen and oxygen from the water
which they absorb from the soil.

This takes a lot of energy which is then stored in the plants as complex hydrocarbons that go on to form
our energy food.

Modern agriculture produces large amounts of energy food and we are not in any danger of running out of
energy food in the near future.

But this process of photosynthesis requires certain chemicals to make it work. We have known how photosynthesis
works since it was first described by Jan Ingenhousz in 1779. It is certainly not a new discovery and we know
the precise chemicals needed to make it work. The modern fertiliser industry produces these chemicals on a grand
scale where they are widely used by modern agriculture, which can and does grow crops without using any soil at all.

Dirt

Dirt is just finely ground rock particles. If the particles are very fine we call it clay, a bit coarser is silt,
then sand and finally gravel.

The rock particles are inert; they are insoluble so by themselves they do not provide any nutrients to the plants.
However, they can attract liquids which contain soluble nutrients that attach to their surface.

This is how much of our current food is grown—in inert dirt—with chemical fertilisers attached to the surface of
the fine particles and readily available to the plants.

Soil

Soil is decidedly old fashioned—going back a few billion years—when microscopic organisms like bacteria and,
particularly, fungi began to break down the insoluble rocks to form soil that contains nutrients readily available
to the plants (bio-available).

The plants died, creating organic waste. Other creatures, animals and eventually us evolved, creating yet more
organic waste which was happily recycled by a complex array of microscopic organisms both in the soil and in
creatures like worms, beetles, ants and other re-generators.

Phyto-chemicals

This was a much more complex process than the relatively simple process of photosynthesis.

Plants became masters of chemistry, developing a whole range of chemicals to protect themselves from attack by
insects and animals, and to attract other animals and birds to eat their seeds and spread germination.

Human evolution and our gut brain

All this time, animals were evolving with this complex array of phyto-chemicals and microbes—and eventually us humans,
who became dependent on these phyto-chemicals and microbes.

Nowhere is this more evident than in our gut brain—a combination of the intelligence created by
trillions of cells communicating in our gut, just like in a supercomputer, and our head brain.

This gut brain is our control system which regulates our bodies. If it does not work, we get fat and sick, and this
is the root cause of the modern epidemic of non-infectious diseases.

The basic cause is that our modern chemical, industrial agricultural system is simply not feeding our gut brain.

The solution

So what is the solution? Simple—we go back, study our evolution, and see that we need to grow real soil full of
beneficial microbes and nutrients.

And how do we grow soil? Again simple. We collect up all the organic waste we can find—certainly food waste, which
is a major social problem both wasting resources and creating greenhouse gases—add minerals for the microbes to convert
into complex soil chemicals, and add microbes and soil creatures such as worms, which will breed continuously in the soil.

You then grow plants in this soil teaming with microbes and bio-available minerals and eat them shortly after picking
before the microbes die.

I live in a flat

Mary is not a farmer; she lives in a flat, works in the accounts department of a big company and has three kids, no time
and no growing experience.

That may be true—but she still has a gut brain which needs feeding and she still needs all those complex chemicals,
like the phyto-chemicals needed to replace her body parts as they age and wear.

That is why we developed the Gbiota Tribox. It may be a bit of a Do-It-Yourself project but it is very do-able.

This is what you need to do.

Social benefit

It is just a simple fact that humanity is going through a bad patch. We are putting far greater demands on the earth’s
resources than it can supply. We see this very dramatically with climate change—with floods, droughts and heat waves—
but technically these are problems we can resolve. We have the technology to prevent climate change and we have the
technology to solve that other big problem—degradation of our soils.

But a very present problem is those mega corporations who put short-term profits ahead of social benefit. It is my
opinion that all companies should have to provide a social benefit; that is certainly my objective with Gbiota.

The Gbiota Tribox is something that virtually everyone can benefit from, and the food actually costs less than buying
from a supermarket.

I understand that many people who read my posts are relatively affluent, have large gardens and take growing their own
food—which will make them healthy—very seriously. There are plenty of articles on this web site for them.

The Gbiota Tribox was developed to provide healthy food for virtually all people.

It is a social movement and I welcome people to adopt the technology and spread the word so it becomes a genuine
social movement.

Logistics

A Tribox goes through a natural cycle. Ideally, the middle box for growing soil is fully loaded with organic waste,
minerals, inoculants and worm eggs, then simply left for the natural breeding and decomposition process which will
take at least eight weeks.

The top box for growing plants will go through a similar process of germination, growing and harvesting.

I strongly advocate growing baby greens—that is, the stage beyond microgreens, when plants have immature leaves and
roots that are already extracting nutrients and microbes from the soil, but have not yet reached the stage where they
are under serious insect attack and start producing bitter chemicals to repel them.

Again this means a cycle of at least eight weeks.

Obviously a lot depends on the size of the family and the space available for growing, but I think in terms of having a
base of some four Triboxes, with a new box being set up every two weeks.

I expect most people will be using kitchen waste as their main supply of organic waste (grass clippings are great if you
have access).

It is possible to use the middle box to store the kitchen waste as it is produced; it just means lifting off the top box
and loading the middle box.

It just suits my life, but I prefer to collect the kitchen waste and store it in a sealed container for a couple of weeks,
by which time I have enough waste to pretty much fill the middle box and load it with the minerals and inoculants and then
never touch it again until the end of my eight-week cycle.

By this time the level has dropped significantly, so I now make this my top box for growing plants and take the mature top
soil out of the old top box to top it up.

This means I am seeding into mature soil and giving the soil at the bottom of the box more time for further decomposition.

I then use my old top box as my middle box so I am continuously swapping.

I will start off a new box every couple of weeks.

This is a system that works for me, but you can work out a system that works for you.

Choosing the box

You can buy suitable boxes from your local hardware store or supermarket.

I recommend the type that nest with a lid with a lip so the boxes can be nested.

You will need to lift these boxes, so they should not be too large. Twenty litres is a manageable size, but you can use
a bigger box and make it into a terrarium with just the base being filled.

The bottom box, which just holds the flushings, can be the same as the other boxes with a lid, but it is also practical
to use a smaller box with no lid. This does save a bit of time when watering, but it is not a big deal either way.

Terrariums are great as they need hardly any watering and they keep the flies, insects and birds away. The soil is always
moist so it makes germination very easy—often seeds just sprinkled on the soil surface will germinate in a terrarium.

Thirty litres is a good size for a terrarium box.

It is important that the flushing in the bottom box is not allowed to become stagnant. I aim to re-flush twice a week but
sometimes I get a bit hectic midweek, so I just water the top box with clean water and re-flush at the weekend.

Not perfect, but we don’t live in a perfect world.

Supplies

At this moment I am working out how to set up a supply system.

I am working with a seed company to produce seed mixes with a variety of varieties under different categories. The categories
I am looking at are coniferous vegetables (members of the cabbage family), diabetic plants (like Fenugreek), herbs and spices,
green smoothie mix (linseed, alfalfa), soil regeneration plants, etc.

I am also working with growers to produce a complete mix of minerals, inoculants and worm eggs.

At this moment I can supply limited volumes in Australia only. I suggest you email me at
colin@gbiota.com. You will need to tell me your location as some states have
restrictions on entry.

You may also like to look at a previous post on Gbiota TriBoxes called
Gbiota easy.