LD When you state: "Even with this mix, I only add about 2 cups to 1 c.f. of my potting soil mix. I depend on the quality of humus to be the driving source." ...are you referring to the following meal mix, which you also reference later on as the "fertilizer mix, mineral mix"? =================================== 3x alfalfa meal 3x linseed/flaxseed meal 1x soybean meal 1x canoa/rape seed meal 1x sunflower meal (this had to be sourced from an organic dairy as it seems that sunflower meal is used to increase milk production. Don't bother - LOL) 1x organic fish meal (nitrogen) 1x organic fish bone meal (phosphorus) .5x kelp meal .5x neem seed meal .5x crustacean =================================== Also, Sunshine #4 is not the same thing as the Sunshine Growers Organic Mix, correct? It is it's own product? ...just wanting to make sure I understand your recipe correctly. 1.) Mix up the "meals [aka - fertilizer/mineral mix]" at the rates listed in an amount great enough to cover the correct amount of "meal mix to Sunshine Growers Organic Mix" you wish to create (to create about 6 cups worth in this case). 2.) Mix up the organic humus components in equal parts (to create 1cf in this case). 3.) Throw the humus mix (1cf.), fertilizer/mineral mix (~5.75 cups? to the 2.8c.f. of Sunshine Growers Organic Mix), and 8 cups of bokashi bran together and mix for 15 mins. 4.) Add a bag of the Sunshine Growers Organic Mix and about 1/2 pail of organic rice hulls (to get the 2.8c.f of Sunshine up to 3 c.f), in the mixer with the organic humus components and mix for another 15-20 mins. 5.) Enjoy your hard work. ...last question is, if this is correct (if not, please correct me), do you let this mix rest for any period of time and/or do you wet it at all (in general and/or before letting it rest)? Thanks in advance.
Yes. Sun Gro manufactures the Sunshine Line. Here is a link to their website's products page. Sun Gro Horticulture | Products | | Sunshine Mix #1 / LC1 Also wanted to bring light to Sunshine's ADVANCED Mix #4, now with mycorrhizae!
Short answer to all of your questions is 'Yes!' LOL HTH With regard to your final question, specifically, I think that spraying the 'cooking soil' benefits form an application of an AACT vs. straight water. Even the addition of some form of lactobacillus culture (i.e. EM-1) is beneficial and probably should be applied a few days after the inoculation of your AACT as these specific anaerobic bacteria prevents 'rotting' that can create some microbial colonies that you do not want. By fermenting the plant material in the soil mass will keep these agents from rotting (creating putrid agents) and then available for consumption by the aerobic microbe colonies. Something like that........... LD LD
I love the lengthy answers the most. I check my email that I signed up with, just to see if the bill finally came. Some of the best free knowledge I've come across on the net. Lumperdawgz, Would it be fair to say, one of the role AACT plays in this process, is comparable to how penicillin dominates a culture? Thanks Monk.
holynazi I don't know this for a fact in that I'm not employed by Sun Gro Horticulture but from some new products popping up (like a new Sunshine Organic Mix #2 in 3.8 c.f. bales vs. the former organic 2.8 loose packs) and some other things I've heard here and there, I wouldn't be too shocked if the Sunshine Organic Growers Mix (the 2.8 c.f. loose pack sacks) go by the wayside. Just sayin' and such.............. LD
man this thread is amazing. LUMPER< you and I had talked about the marine kelp that I use as an additive. I get it from an artesian well that creates a 40 foot circular pond. the sand,rocks, and whatnot can be seen churning and bubbling at the bottom at all times. When I remove it I just let it dry and then pulverize it when it turns white and has the texture of shreded wheat cereal. Any way my question is how do I have this analyzed or whatever fancy stuff you smart ones do to tell us about the product? Is it expensive? I live close to MSU and the AG dept there is said to be pretty good, but I don't know the first thing about who to talk to in what dept. or whatever. Hell till I started readin your posts I never concidered doing it but now I have a huge interest in it. Keep in mind that I may need you translation when I get results... thanks in advance man, your my "go to guy" on all this stuff sorry if I pulled off topic. peace, "G"
Damn I wish someone could put this recipe together and sell it haha. It's going to be a challenge to find all these ingredients. I want to have an all organic soil, I eat organic, so I might as well have my plants organic as well. So with this recipe I take it you don't add any nutes? Except for the items you listed that you spray on?
This is an ignorant question, but I don't have much time and cannot read through this entire thread. I am only going to be doing one grow, one cycle. Could LD or someone else tell me what's the best way of going about getting a soil for one cycle? Is it best just to go buy a company organic mix? Or is there a short list of things I can go buy to do an organic soil myself? Any help would be great.
degrassman, What part of the country do you live in? If you happen to live in the Northwest, I have some ideas for you, but if you don't, there are options through Amazon, Ebay, your local nursery etc. Give us/me a heads up what big box stores, garden centers, farm supply stores you have handy to you, and we can work from there. HTH chunk
Just moved to the Northwest to get out of the Colorado fiasco. Everyone wants hydro. As a result, it was hard to source amendments in Denver, especially glacial rock dust. Not so here in the northwest. Any tips on good stores in the Eugene area? Ive been going to Aquaserene but it seems pricey. Also what kind of yield has anyone experienced with LD mix. I used it several times and noticed a large decrease in yield from hydro, which of course was expected. Just wodered what the pro's were getting. I am working with grape ape in a 4x4 bed. Also gonna start some electric avenue, some monkfish, some purple rhino ibl x lambsbread (boulder, co seed co)
BlackDogBotanic Down-To-Earth Fertilizer is based in Eugene and they have 2 stores. The one on Olive Street is the largest I believe. At any rate at their stores they carry their full line of dry amendments - both straight and mixes. They also carry their line of liquid fertilizers including liquid bone meal, fish hydrolysate, et al. They also carry several of the humic acid products from Bio Ag out of Independence, Oregon. Bio Ag HumiSolve, Bio Ag TM-7, Bio Ag CytoPlusUSA as well as the Bio Ag Ful-Power which is a pure fulvic acid product. Their potting soils and compost are not very good. And I'm being very kind in that assessment. The very best potting soil made in the Pacific Northwest is Vital Earth out of Phoenix, Oregon. Their potting soils are made with their own thermal compost, their own earthworm castings, etc. This soil is amended with perlite and pumice, glacial rock dust, mycorrhizal fungi, etc. - it's ready to use out of the bag and you can simply top-dress whatever soil amendments that you wish to use, i.e. alfalfa meal, guanos, fish meal, et al. It runs about $9.00 per 1 c.f. around NW Oregon. HTH LD
Unfortunately I live in NY. The other side of the country. Thanks for wanting to help me. I work at Lowes, and I have Ace Hardware, HD, and then I have a big garden shop across from lowes which is called Gullo's. I should go in there and see what they got. I also have hydroponic stores around. But if not, seriously is there any straight out of the bag organic stuff I can use and just put in some gauno or easy add ons?
thanks LD. Thanks for the info on all the stores and WOW, local products. Coming from a new residant without a job, it feels especially good to know the money you are spending is going right into the local economy, feeding the family right next door so to speak. What is your opinion of the roots organic line. It is $11.00 for a 1.5 cu bag at the store I have been shopping at (aqua serene) since moving here. This soil is cheaper than the bale of #4 organic at $40 a bale. I want to mix my own soil, but if I do not have to, or I can use a base soil and slightly amend it. Also, if I am using your soil recipe, how long do I need to let it sit or bake before I can use it, and what am I waiting for? Thanks again for your wealth of knowledge and your desire to share with others.
Hey thanks they have a retailer right down the street from my work. I'll go in there and talk with the salesmen to see what the right soil would be to use for indoor tomatoes
BlackDogBotanic The Roots Organic potting soil is okay - i.e. it's a start. BTW - Aqua Serene is the parent company of Roots and their rather odd line of products. They buy their base products from the same supply house that I do so I find some of their concoctions pretty interesting. The Sunshine 3.8 c.f. bales only cost $40.00 at grow stores. At nursery supply houses the cost is between $25.00 - $27.00 for Sunshine Mix #1 thru Sunshine Mix #4 or about $6.50 or so per 1 c.f. The Sunshine Organic Growers Mix is around $19.00 for 2.8 c.f. so it's also about $6.50 per 1 c.f. - i.e. about the same price per c.f. This Saturday, November 13, is the last day of the season for the Lane County Farmers Market. One of the largest and probably the oldest farmers market in Oregon. Almost all of the vendors are selling organic, sustainable produce and other products like soaps, candles, etc. I think that you would benefit from hitting this before they close and talk with some of the growers and ask them where to source earthworm castings, compost, etc. They'll have a line of the best in the Willamette Valley. Eugene, Oregon is the center of organic farming in Western Oregon and the resources available are the best you'll find. Talking with farmers will help you immensely. If traveling to Portland is something you might consider then you can get everything, literally, at one organic farm store which is about 2 miles east of downtown Portland. Been around since 1938. HTH LD
Hi LD, thank you for sharing your soil mix and advice it is very interesting stuff! I use a dry fertilizer based on feather meal and poultry manure so I would like to look into the seed and fish meals you mentioned instead. Thanks for that link to the Coast of Maine products. There are a few stores within driving distance that carry their products. In regard to pumice, I am on the east coast also so it could be more expensive to source. I read about a base soil mix on gardensweb that uses peat and diatomaceous earth instead of perlite/vermiculite. The DE is calcined clay with microscopic pores from fossilized freshwater algae. Napa sells it in 25 lb bags and calls it Oil Dri or something alone those lines. It has a great particle size and since it is made from silica do you think it might lend the helpful properties of liquid silicon?
SupraSPL Hi! The only reason that I know anything about Coast of Maine's potting soil is that I was over on the Oregon Coast 3 years ago at the start of crab season. I stumbled on this small nursery sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean and I stopped. The guy that owned the place was an interesting gentleman and a top-notch nurseryman. He used to live in New England and he started using this soil several years ago and was stubborn enough to have it shipped 3,000 miles to his operation. Weird. He sold me a bag and I ran a plant with the usual amendments and I thought that it was a very nice commercial product. Better that 90% of what's out there. Small company. They use agriculture plant waste and marine-based waste and other solid ingredients. One thing to note is that in looking at their product line a few minutes ago it seemed that many/all contain composted lobster shell which is a good thing. Crustacean meals contain about 30% Calcium in the form of Calcium Carbonate which is also a good thing. The reason that I mention this is to give you something to consider if you use some type of liming amendment (limestone, gypsum, dolomite lime, etc.) it would probably be helpful to consider the content in the soil right out of the bag. Silica from mineral sources is a good thing to add to a soil. Particularly in raised beds and production acreage where the goal is to build the soil's health from one year to another. Mineral sources generally take 7 - 9 years to hit even 80% availability to the plant and that's spread over the range I mentioned. So in a short 3 - 5 month garden cycle some things have to be adjusted. Silica is one of those adjustments that when implemented will give you results that will justify their application. Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt is cheap and it's been shown in several studies that applying liquid silica in several small doses is preferable to larger less frequent applications. The rate for Pro-TeKt is 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. per gallon as a soil soak and you would cut that in half for foliar applications. I think that the quart is around $10.00 - something like that. You can use certain plants and make a tea from them and get a readily available source of silica (for example). Stinging nettle contains 6,500 ppm of Silica which is really, really high. If you're not inclined to dress-up and play Daniel Boone and tromp through the forest to drag home nettle plants then you can buy organic dry nettle leaf for less than $10.00 per lb. I'd say that you'd want to use 1 oz. of nettle leaf to 1 quart of water and let it stand for several days. Strain and dilute to make 1 gallon of nettle tea and apply to the soil and this ratio is safe enough for spraying on the leaves and plants. It's my experience that the silica in nettle leaf is assimilated faster than liquid silica (generally potassium sillicate) Comfrey is also a good source of silica (as well as phosphorus, potassium, trace minerals, Vitamins A - K, phytohormones, auxins, etc. same as nettle leaf). Comfrey runs a bit more (about $1.00) per lb. The top plant source for silica is probably rice - 140,000 ppm and it takes a bit more work/effort to coax it from the grain but it's doable. HTH LD