Hey guys, I just purchased some Crab meal, Kelp Meal, Alfalfa meal & Azomite to mix in with some Happy Frog potting/FFoF soil. Do I need to let this 'cook' for a month or so before planting into it.
Are you familiar with Black Kow? I actually thought about adding some of that as well..but its an already aged manure. Would I need to let it cook then? Much appreciated
sorry i'm not sure..i can tell you with reg manure the mix gets hot..theres so many nu products..it would be great if you could just mix it in with no cook time..save lots of prep time that often you don't have
Its not so much the composted manure that heats up, provided its been properly composted, but the alfalfa meal certainly does. if adding alfalfa its certainly a good idea to " cook " cycle your mix Sent from my LG-D852 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Mix up your soil and put a small plant in a gallon or two right after mixing. Sometimes the only way to know...is to know.
Good idea indeed. I will have extra soil and I always have some kind of plant handy...thanks for the info
Alfalfa for sure needs to cook, it really gets hot. Black Kow is GTG right out of the bag, it's well composted and I use it for everything. Good stuff.
Ok thanks. Yea I use Black kow for all my vegetables and figured I'd reammend some soil with it and give it a shot for my girls too.. excellent stuff indeed and cheap just how I like it
I think it depends on how much alfalfa and your humus source. I can use pelletized alfalfa at 1/2 cup per c.f. in my mix w no problems at all.
I was late getting all my soil into 65 gallon pots this year outdoors so I planted them right away no cooking the soil as I wanted to get them established it was already June. I added a half cup of ground alfalfa pellets along with a half cup of crab shell meal, kelp meal, and need seed meal per cubic ft and had no problems my plants are nice and healthy but I'm willing to bet they would be even bigger if the soil did cook for at least a month before transplant.
Oh, I totally agree with that 1/2 cup bit and we probably learned that from painful experience. It's just that a 1/2 cup looks so small most noobs will add more than that, so I recc the cook time just to be safe.
No painful experience with alfalfa in my soil or as a tea. I've always run the old Coots mix w 1/2 cup of everything except rock dust. That recipe didn't call for gypsum and I've never bothered with it. Never had alfalfa tea burn anything, 1-2tbs per gallon. I think you will get a kick out of this. Yesterday the lava rock arrived. So I began mixing it w the amended and mixed peat/compost. I had all the peat/compost piled to one side of the raised bed. To my surprise...it was hot. Like steaming hot! I'm gonna stick my hand in the beds today and see if they've cooled now that lava rock has been added and the beds leveled. No alfalfa in the mix at all. Just the standard 1/2 cup Coots mix.