would these values hold true to a heat pile? also while my pile is still small and not making its own heat, if i throw a few worms in there, will that help speed up the process? or will they just leave?
oceansgreen Avoid the Dolomite lime and for minerals you'll be far, far ahead of the game by using glacial rock dust to increase fungi colonies. (Luebke Method). It's probably safe to surmise that the 165F temps in a thermal compost process won't be doing much to crushed rock so go with the one 'mineralization agent' shown to achieve these worthy goals. A plant that you'll want to get up and running is Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and it will provide you with a number of benefits. Here's a link to a photo of this plant's flowers. The flowers of this plant will attract pollinators, increase the soil's microbial colonies through its exudes and the tea made from the flowers is a highly effective insecticide. But important to your process, Yarrow literally ignites a compost pile's microbial activity - it's almost like pouring gasoline on glowing embers. Within 96 hours your compost pile can easily be hitting 140F - almost to the goal of 160F - 165F (depends on who you're talking to but you get the idea). Not a bad deal for the $3.00 for a pack of seeds. For biomass you cannot beat comfrey. A single plant will give you 100 - 125 lbs. of biomass each season and once established it could be more (depending on your geographical location). Comfrey, Yarrow and Stinging Nettle will give you the finest compost available. Toss in Dandelion and Valerian Root to round out the full profile. According the horticulturist who developed the Bocking 14 Cultivar, Lawrence Hills, and author of Comfrey: Past, Present and Future (available online free here), comfrey leaves contain the same level of the macro nutrients as farm manure. Except for Potassium - comfrey contains 4x that of farm manure. [cite] Comfrey tea is one of the best plants to use for tea. It will smell. Overwhelming. Worse than having 2 hogs in your back yard. But it works. It also works as a mulch (green manure) if you're not interested in pissing off your neighbors. This is a plant that anyone can grow at home and costs $2.00 for the root start (i.e. crown). HTH LD2
main reason i wanted to know is so i could print it and see what kinda nutrients my kitchen scraps were putting into the pile for me not sure that i want to plant anything directly into my compost as that will likely soak up some nutrients to grow and i don't wanna soak up any really... are you talking about throwing the plant in there after its dead? though it looks very interesting, i'll have to look into it somemore, any part of it edible? the comfrey is something i was looking into getting a plant or two going of, just because of its healing properties(a freind of mine's brother got a HUGE chunk taken out of his ass by a dog, his mother had him chew on some comfrey and make a poultice out of it every day, it healed faster and there is NOT EVEN a FAINT SCAR, also useful in teas though i can't say i enjoy the taste much) thx for the info though
G'day all, Sorry I haven't updated. I was fighting the ph fuckup. Everything went south the day after I applied the lime. Yellowing on everything very fast. I transplanted all the seedlings and removed as much lime as I could. I applied Espomas' organic soil acidifier. I applied extra to my strawberries. I started seeing minor improvement the next day or at least no new yellowing. Everything is looking great with lots of new growth, in both gardens. And my strawberries are loving life. The Purple Kush is within a week of harvest and the 3D is close as well. I'll post at pics at that time.
G'day all that care, Been a while since I last up dated, so here's where things are now; The mmj recovered from the ph issue w/o too much damage. I did harvest the purple kush and 3D on the 14th. 24g purple dry; 15 3d dry, plus trim. Not pleased with the yields. The purple kush is among the best indicas I have ever smoked. Couchlock and staying power. Very, very potent. The 3D isn't as potent, but definetly good. She ended up polenated by one of the unknowns. Check it out though; After two weeks of 12/12, this bagseed produces several female pistils, so I gave no more thought. I'm looking it over and I spot 2 unopened male pollen sacs. I pull them and open them away from everything. Nothing inside; just empty space. I look more closely and find a single opened male flower, tucked in with a bunch of female buds, but no pistils. Wild! I pulled the flower and examined the rest of "it" very closely, but found nothing further. I have let her continue as she looks like the female part of her has dominated, but am watching her very close. She should be in her fattening up period, though she is absolutely covered in female pistils and is beginning to get top heavy. If I wasn't in such need of replenishing my stash and now, we're really cash strapped, I would have culled it. I now have 50 seeds from the 3D, which probably affected final potency. Thinking on backcrossing to the mother if she comes back. Any thoughts? I am trying to reveg both ladies. Gave them Alfalfa AACT and the Kellogg veg ferts in AACT. Neither are showing anything, yet. Can more be done for them? I harvested the 1st Blue Dream last night. Tested some and am very pleased with it. Be a while for the weight, but looks a bit better than the kush. Again, some very powerful hitting smoke. Not long lasting though. She's in reveg, now. Later, guys.
Glad to hear your garden is recovering. I whipped a 2x2 box a few days ago out of some reclaimed fence posts after seeing all of this cool square foot gardening on the 'city. I plan on putting out some more boxes once things stabilize around here (recovering from an injury). In reference to post 58, do you have a recommendation on feeding wood ashes? What would be considered a safe dose? Also, do you have a list of the ingredients in the Kellogg fertilizer you brew with? I checked their site, but maybe I'm missing it or something.
Thanks. Square foot gardening is very cool. Go verticle and the yield from vines, tomatoes, etc is amazing. The Kellogg site doesn't list their ingredients that I know of either. The flower and veg bags have the same list of ingredients: Primary nutrients derived from: Bone meal, dried poultry waste, feather meal, alflafa meal and potassium sulfate. It's the non plant food ingredients is where things get interesting: Colony forming units/ gram: Bacilius pumilus - 1 million Bacilius subtilus - 1 million Bacilius lecheniformis - 1 million Bacilius amyloliQuefaciens - 1 million 2% humic acid derived from leonardite + 444 viable mycorrhizae/ gram and < 1% vam,(little use in my ACCT but mix in the soil before plant is the benefit here). The flower formula has 1/2 of the bacilius subtilis as the veg. Someone with a bit more knowledge will hopefully chime in on the wood ash, as I haven't come across a need, yet.
nice garden. a friend of mine owns a building and lives in the top floor that walks out on the roof. been trying to get him to do that kind of deal. i tried silver queen and had no luck a couple of years ago. went to a red sweet corn, ruby queen and it was delicious and actually matured here. had my first green beans tonight, xlnt. might even get some limas this year, the first time ever. sooo nice to get away from that old crap they sell at the stores, fresh organic everything this time of year. such a long winter here. j