Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

ment for the microbes to replicate. As they reproduce, more water and sugar is added, creating a slurry. e slurry is continually fed and diluted with water. is then be comes the base of all their products. For the kenkashi (composting additive), the base is added to the kenaf (ground hemp stalks), and then is dried on racks and packaged. e soft substance smells faint ly of molasses and crumbles at the touch. e rest of the base is used to develop their liquid solutions: soil conditioner, foliar feed, com post activator and liquid microbial concentrate. “We amend the tar geted applications with nutrients that are often lacking in a lot of soil or that all plants, all crops, all houseplants need,” says Wilson. APPLICATION Kenkashi products are perfect for the at-home gardener and cook, espe cially those who garden in raised beds — as the beds lose their nutrients every year — but Wilson and Anderson see the potential for Kenkashi to be used on a larger scale as well. “I’ve heard farmers around here complain about the price of fertilizer and this could be a solution. I mean, you can put $30,000 worth of fertilizer — fertilizer that’s basically all oil —on a farm in one season and it could all fail,” says Anderson, “but farmers are historically conservative when trying new things because they have so much of their money and time — their whole life invested into it.” In order for Wilson and Anderson to sell their product at a commercial scale, they need to have more hard data on the value of their product. ey have completed trials with Virginia Tech, which show a noticeable increase in yields and microbial activity in the soil. “We need to have more targeted studies done. We’re very much in the proving stage straight now. ere’s plenty of people open to using something like this,” says Wilson. Another area they are exploring is odor reduction at the industrial level. eir products cut down on odor and accelerate decomposition, which turns byproducts such as spent grain at a brewery into usable soil. “Wastewater treatment plants, pig farms, breweries, paper mills such as the one in Covington, you’ve got big industrial waste with smells. If you get in on the cycle and introduce a biological response to that, the mi crobes would just start eating the paper pulp and change the odors,” says Anderson. “ at’s our passion,” Wilson adds, “to be out on the ground, talking to people. We see the potential. We’re a scrappy start-up but we have high hopes.”

Opposite: Kenkashi Products.Top Left: Happy Microbes. Top Right: Kenaf.

You can purchase Kenkashi products by visiting their website or the following retailers:

Lichen or Knot, Floyd Roanoke Co+op, Roanoke Seven Springs Farm Supply, Check Virginia Mercantile, Clifton https://kenkashi.com/

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