Okay so today I returned the ancient forest humus and wiggle worm ewc today and got 7 cf of rice hulls for $15 which seemed good to me. I also located some dairy doo compost and bought the last two bags 1 cf each at $5.99 I was feeling good so I also bought some glacial bay "composted cow manure" $3.49 for 40lbs...is that the same thing as my dairy doo? Or is it more like an amendment? The bag shows an npk 05.-05.-05. Now I need neem, alfalfa, rock dust, and ewc. Would it be wise to grow out some comfrey and maybe other weeds for future teas or will that take more than a couple plants and not be worth it? Also can I have clarification on some teas? Will I be able to just let a few things steep in water or do I need something to bubble these up? I plan on getting a tea brewer/bubbler just not right away. Last question for this post I promise. I'll be using 3 gal pots so no till would be a no go, will I just dump the spent soil back in a bin add a few things and cook all over or what does that look like I'm getting really excited I'm almost ready to cook my first batch of organic soil! Thank you all so much for this thread especially Jerry.
Oh sorry I posted before with my original purchase...but I should have re-listed what i have, so I already have a 3 cf bale of peat moss, 5 lb of kelp meal, and 8 lbs of epsoma garden tone. What kind of crab? Oh and I will probably end up buying a bag of gypsum as well.
Crab shell. You can get some from Neptune's Harvest. Free shipping if you're in the States. Neptune's Harvest Organic Fish Fertilizer Nutrient
You could also use lobster meal, shrimp meal, or crab. Great source of Chitan. Chitan will cause the plant to create chitosan which beefs up the cell walls. It helps keep the bugs away.
I use both, crab has more nutritional benefits to your soil than lime. I use crab as a fertilizer amendment and gypsum as a liming agent, plus whatever extra calcium that makes available certainly doesn't go to waste because I grow plants that are known by the bottle guys as "calmag whores". I do not own a bottle of calmag. All my calmag is from the soil, from gypsum, crab meal, and sul-po-mag for the mag and potash.
Still cheaper than one single gallon of "nutes" I've got around $500 into 54cuft of my amended no-till. Complete, ready to roll, and I should get YEARS of growing out of it. That's cheap. Check out what a cuft of Roots Organic it anything else you'd buy bagged up from the grow stores. That will bring it into context.
Well yeah i get it thats a big factor on why im going organic. Im just impatient mostly because i would be harvesting this week and have plenty of xmas bud. Instead im paying high dollar for hydro. Would be harvesting but i was robbed and my plants were taken. But hey the extra time drove me to plunge into organics so i guess there is always a bright side. The question is what to do with this extra bag of roots and all these bottles of nutes. Im rambling sorry.
I have no grow friends except a guy that does hydro haha. Where do you get your amendments? Im on the west side of the state.
Local farm and feed stores mostly. Had to order neem and crab meal tho. A lot of the grow stores have crab meal, but it's pricy, easier and cheaper to order.
Jerry - a thousand thank yous for starting this thread. I arrived here from SG1's cheap bastard thread. I resemble that description. After seeing his switch to organic I followed links to this thread and I honestly think I have arrived in HEAVEN! This ROCKS. Been lurking here on GC for a month reading everything and making notes. Thought it was time to post a BIG Thank You! I live in SoCal and the Bottle Babies are enough to make me puke. I've hunted down the ingredients and mixed 8 cf of media. Been watching it cook for 3 weeks. It's cost a few hundred bucks. Big bags of stuff everywhere. Can't wait to incorporate all of this into my veggie garden next spring (hence the big bags). Looking forward to tasting organic meds! Especially after realizing the few hundred I spent on amendments will last me for a few years. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
Ironman, it is the Unwritten Rule to pass on (good and personally tested lol) good advice and information that has helped us out to newer organic gardeners looking to get off the bottle, looking to stop spending thier paychecks on "nutes". God knows I spent thousands - literally thousands on bottles over the years. So pass it on. It's good to hear you're jumping in with both feet. Organic living soil is a fascinating hobby and you can go as deep down the rabbit hole as you like, or keep it ridiculously simple. I like it both ways - sometimes I find myself continuing to study and then there's other times where I am so glad that all I need to do is to dump some tap (well) water on my garden and shut the door. Learning how to grow plants - not just cannabis is such a cool thing. Best of luck on your vegetable (and cannabis!) garden. Being able to apply this knowledge outside of our grow rooms is definetly an added bonus. Keep us all posted as to your results. Pass it on - and you're welcome. J