Kimchi Fermentation Jar with Fresh Garden Herbs and Leafy Greens with Turmeric and Cayenne Pepper

I've always loved cole slaw, sour krout, pickles, and kimchi, though it wasn't until the last couple of years that I started to become a serious fermentation geek. I'm one of those eternal bachelors who never learned to read a recipe book and just makes every home prepped meal a one-off experiment. Someday I plan to settle down more and really master the art of following recipes step by step, but I've been able to impress myself and others, not always but enough of the time, with my culinary experiments.

Featured in these pics are examples of my "anything goes" fermentation vat formula. I've survived and thrived for over 2 years now with a stable diet of 25-40 percent fermented herbs, greens, veggies, and ground seeds. Following the rule of thumb of approximately one table spoon of salt per quart jar of food. Before I upgraded to these gallon sized jars I would fill the quart jars no more than about 70% with food, then pour filtered water in a level about 85% of the jar. Then pour the water back out, mix it with a table spoon of sea salt to ensure it's well distributed, then pour the solution back into the jar and let it do it's thing.

Now that I’ve upgraded to these gallon jars, there's a much more varied pattern of harvesting, rotating, refilling, etc. I've found that for me as one person, from a micro scale veggie and greens garden, my spent green tea leaves, and even random leftovers, I can just continually cycle through the materials and estimate how much spice to add for flavoring, sometimes add vinegar for more of a pickling effect and taste, etc.

Generally if I'm adding all small amounts at a time, I haven't found the need to add a strict proportional amount of additional salted water, however if I'm adding an amount close to half or more of a quart jar, I'll directly drop a table spoon of salt in the mix and just get a flurry of stirring going for a while. To date, it's never been too salty, had any foul odors, or tastes, and only rarely does any mold grow on the top. When it does, it tends to stick together like a mat, roll up onto a spoon or fork and stay in one piece on the way to the compost.

I understand how people who are very used to extremely polished culinary experiences would be shocked at how "wild west" this type of wild fermentation is, but because I have faith and trust in ancestral diets and I know that chemical disinfectants are very new and often get misused and thereby cause more harm that good at times, I'm happy to take responsibility for the hygiene of my ferments. I'm I like the freedom to experiment within ever more time-tested basic safety guidelines.