How To Make Effective Microorganisms –

Step By Step

Last
night, when deciding what to write about for today, I looked around my apartment, saw my
probiotic fermenting away on the shelf, immediately took this photo, and proceeded to write this
step by step process for making effective microorganisms.

In gardening, there’s a lot of talk about chemistry – the fertilizer, NPK, carbon, etc.

All important stuff, but I like to spend just as much time on the biology – the microorganisms,
insects, animals (and of course plants).

It’s especially the microorganisms that really rule our world, our bodies (we contain 10 times as
many microbes as we do human cells), and our gardens.

Today I’m pumped to get right into teaching you about these good microbes and how to make
effective microorganisms.

These efficient microbes improve the soil, increase plant health and yield, help keep pests away,
and are some of the most important beneficial bacteria and yeasts that make up our world.
They can be purchased as a liquid that contains specific species mixed at specific ratios.

This is done in a lab, so you can’t make it from scratch yourself, but you can get what’s called a
‘mother culture’ and then make 20 times that amount. This not only saves money, but wakes up
the dormant microbes, making them more effective.

That process is called activating the effective microorganisms. It’s a fermentation, like wine and
yogurt, but the result is much better for you and your garden. And today I’m going to give you
my own effective microorganisms recipe.

I’m not going to get into the details of what it is and why you should make it because this post is
just about how to make effective microorganism solution (I’ll give you a link to the what and
why at the end of the post), but I will just say that I believe this is the most important thing for
most people to bring into most gardens. I’ve seen seemingly miraculous results with it, both in
the garden and in people who drink it (I’ll talk about the drinking part another day).

Now, EM Effective Microorganisms® (it’s called EM or EM1 for short) is actually a brand
name. I tend to use the term generically like ‘Band-aid’, but I don’t even use the EM product. I
actually use a similar product made by SCD Probiotics.

But both brands are great, so go with whatever you can get your hands on.

And this is a great time of year to start the process…

Here are the steps:

1. Mother culture. First you need a mother culture. The one I’ve been using for 10 years (and
started selling in the U.S. last year) is called ‘ProBio Balance’ (you can get it here). The ‘Bio
Ag’ product on that page is for people who don’t want to do this activation process, as it’s
already activated for you and can’t be reliably activated anymore.

2. Molasses. Get some unsulfured blackstrap molasses, from me or from the grocery store.
Unsulfured is important because sulfur is used in some molasses to actually kill microorganisms,
while we’re trying to multiply them. Blackstrap is important because it’s lower in sugar and
higher in nutrients. Organic is not all that important for this, but I always prefer to go organic
when I can (note: it’s never been an issue for me before, but I recently read that organic molasses
may have a ‘pH buffer’ in it that can stop the pH from falling in the activated EM, so some
people add an amount of vinegar equal to the organic molasses to overcome that – again, this is
new to me and I’ve never done it, but thought I’d mention it here).

3. Container. Find a used plastic container with a tight lid, like a water or soda bottle. Any size
will do, but I usually make batches in 1 quart, 2 quart or 1 gallon containers. If you’re lucky
enough to have a carboy (pictured above), that will work too because it allows the gases to
escape that are formed during fermentation. But if you don’t have that, the reason plastic is nice
is because it has some flexibility and can handle the gas pressure better than a regular glass
container.
4. Water. Fill the bottle approximately half full with hot water – not boiling, but something
that’s slightly too hot to take a bath in. If you can use spring water or dechlorinated water, that’s
great, but you know what, I’ve made this plenty of times with city water with chlorine or
chloramine in it and it works fine as long as it’s not over-chlorinated – the microbes probably
even clean that up because some of them are detoxifiers.

5. Mix in the molasses. Add the unsulfured blackstrap molasses to the water at 4% of the
container’s volume (table below). The heat coupled with your swishing (which you can
commence forthwith) will help dissolve it.

6. Mix in the mother culture. Add the EM1 or ProBio Balance at 5% of the container’s volume.

7. Nutrition. This is a bonus step. You don’t have to do it, but it will add some more nutrients in
there. If you have sea salt or kelp powder or sea minerals, add one of those in at 0.25% of the
container’s volume.

Container Hot Water (80- Molasses Mother Culture Sea Minerals

Size 85%) (4%) (5%) (0.25%)
1 pint 1 ¼ Cups 1 ¼ Tbsp 1.5 Tbsp ¼ tsp
1 quart 2.5 Cups 2.5 Tbsp 3 Tbsp ½ tsp
2 quart 5 cups 5 Tbsp 6 Tbsp 1 tsp
1 gallon 10 Cups ⅔ Cup ¾ Cup 2 tsp
5 gallon 4 Gallons 3 ⅓ Cup 4 Cup 3 Tbsp

The percentages don’t add up to 100% because I leave a 5-10% air space on top. Also note that
while I’ve given fairly exact numbers above, you don’t have to be nearly that exact. Just try to
use a little more EM than molasses.

8. More water. Fill the rest of the bottle up with more hot water, leaving an inch or two of space
on top.

9. Shake. Gently, but firmly, like you’re playing shaker in a Sergio Mendes song – not like
you’re a machine that shakes paint cans.

10. Warmth. It will do best to sit somewhere between 90-110 degrees Fahrenheit, so put it in the
warmest part of your house. I actually put mine in my oven with just the oven light on, and a post
it note on the ‘Bake’ button to let the cook of the house know it needs to be removed if any
cookies are to be made (learned this one the hard way). It will work okay at 70F, but will take a
lot longer.

11. Leave it. I leave the cap off for the first 24 hours, but after that I screw it on tight because
this is a fermentation (without air). It will take at least 1 week until it’s okay to start using, and
more like 2-4 weeks until it’s really good (or 6-8 weeks if you can’t find a warm place for it to
sit). Even at a warm temperature, it’s nice to give it 1-3 months to reach peak perfection. That’s
why it’s nice to start this process now, so it’s ready for spring.
12. Burp it. If you don’t have a carboy, you’ll eventually want to ‘burp’ it daily by simply
unscrewing and screwing the lid back on, to release the gases that will start forming after 2-5
days depending on the temperature.

13. Test it. Once you’ve been doing this for awhile, you can get a feel for when it’s done by
smell and taste, but I still like to do a test with pH paper (or a pH meter) that gives readings in
the 2.5 -4 range. Anything below 3.8 and above 2.7 is okay, with 3.0-3.5 being ideal. 3.8 and
above are no good.

14. Use it. I’ll leave those instructions to my more detailed page on Effective Microorganisms
and SCD Probiotics, but in short, I use it monthly as a spray on my plants, soil and compost, at
1/2 cup per 1000 square feet.

15. Store it. At room temperature, not in direct sunlight, but not necessarily in the dark either, as
it seems to like a little indirect light (I’m not sure how important the light level is, and I’m not
sure how the bright oven light affects it during the fermentation period). The mother culture has
an expiry date, but in my experience will last a year beyond that. Your homemade activation is
most effective within the first month after the pH drops below 3.8, but will store for months after
that. If you make a few bottles, once the activation is done, you can use one bottle to fill the rest
up to the brim so as to store them without air, and then just use that bottle first. A little air is okay
during the fermentation, but not during storage if you want it to last a long time.