^you're right Clink. I think it's just from fertilizer companies constantly pushing this "plants need monster doses of P" thing down our throats. Sure, plants need phosphorus, of course, but not in huge amounts. Not anywhere near as much as they need nitrogen, for example. It's a wonder plants can grow in the wild at all isn't it? I think it once again comes back to the heart of organic gardening: high quality compost or vermicompost will provide what the plant needs.
I have a huge bag of hydroton clay pebbles, I don't have enough perlite to make a big enough batch that I want. Can those work as well?
Hey jaybo You're talking about using the hydroton as an aeration amendment, correct? I've never used hydroton, or even seen/felt it, so I'll need a little more info. How heavy is hydroton? Are they heavy clay balls or are they lightweight?
What's your opinion on Dr. Earth products? I found a local nursery that has the whole line. Guano, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, fish bone meal and a tomato/vegetable fertilizer that has all of the above plus a little more
[quote name='"InTheGarden"'] Hey jaybo You're talking about using the hydroton as an aeration amendment, correct? I've never used hydroton, or even seen/felt it, so I'll need a little more info. How heavy is hydroton? Are they heavy clay balls or are they lightweight?[/quote] They are light, they have alot of tiny holes.
It is a great company to use. I have most of their line up as well. I would personally stay away from any brand of soft rock phosphate, triple/super phosphate, and cottonseed meal due to the great possibility of chemicals. You'll probably want to pick up the alfalfa, kelp, fish, fish bone meal, and their organic fertilizer.
Uh, dank you very much holy shit, this was sweet. Almost al of the ammendments are in the shed(can alfalfa from a bale be ground in the blender, to achieve the same nutrient profile as "alfalfa meal" or is that just the alfalfa colas?). If not, fuck it, Ill get some when I go to town today have 12 bags of down to earth soil(bark, coir fiber, ewc, prlite, diatomite and dolomitic lime...derived from ewc, fish bone meal, blood meal, oyster shell, langbenite, greensand, vlcnc ash, klp meal). its basically okay, we r doing an indoor run w it ammended with foxfarm, ewc, kelp meal, and azomite) Thinking about, for now, ammending that w a blend of karanja seed meal, neem seed meal, homemade alfalfa meal, and organic fish bone meal ( from wild caught fish. like co2, its using the waste of an industry, so its alright, i guess, and its organic) and throw in azomite in the ratios prescribed, but the nutrients, i had planned on slacking a bit, since the soil has shown to give like 3 1/2 weeks of steady growth. Definitely will find a source or coir and peat now...found a place to get yards of ewc and pumice by the yard here. look out, its on. Thank you again, got this one bookmarked to try to convince several folks to give it a shot
I would definitely not add anymore coir to the mix, just peat. If you can find an alternative to azomite, or something to use in conjunction with the azo. Can you locally source any glacial rock dust? Just a thought...
hydroton reminds me of malted milk balls, hard outer with a airy type of whatever inside. i would think they would work if crushed up more than they are. there also very dusty at first.
Hey jaybo Then they definitely can be used as an aeration amendment. How big are they? You might need to crush them up a bit though-maybe to 1/2" or so pieces.
Hey firefly. Dr. Earth products are very good. In fact, one of the brands I recommended for the dry organic fertilizer was Dr. Earth. Happy gardening!
I'm not terrified or anything, but SRP was one of the things recommended to me (I think maybe I made it up and accidently bought it) but how much merit is there to what I quoted? Not that I doubt the poster but taking it as complete fact without double checking would be foolish, and this thread is for dummies like me to figure things out lol
Not at all pistol, I'm very glad you chimed in to help out! I was just seconding your recommendation.
Why all the hate on Coir? I just mixed up a batch and am fully willing to see how it works out. Posted in my thread the other day my organic coco coir mix quoted below. I really want this to work, because the destruction of peat bogs is not a sustainable practice really considering it is a great place for numerous critters to thrive. Just saying...
Hey Jmosley. The concern with soft rock phosphate has to do with heavy metal and even radiation contamination. Whenever you're dealing with a mineral substance, these are always concerns. I don't use SRP, just because I have other P sources. At the same time, I wouldn't necessarily avoid using it. It's one of those things where you have to decide how big of an issue it is for you. Now triple super phosphate is definitely something that you want to avoid. TSP is a chemical fertilizer and not something that you want in your garden. Cottonseed meal is very acidic. Another concern with cotton seed meal is the fact that cotton is so heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides (it's the most heavily sprayed crop I believe). Soybean meal is another that some organic gardeners (myself included) avoid using due to the fact that almost all the soybeans grown in the US are GMO (genetically modified organisms). I do not support genetically modifying crops (or Monsanto and the other companies that perpetrate so much evil), so I keep it out of my garden. Soybeans are another heavily sprayed crop.
Sounds great. I'm a blacksheep in here I'm sure but the only reason for going organic is for simplifying the grow, not so i can save mother earth or be healthier. Maybe I'll try something else next time but won't let it scare me for what I've already started. Thank you PP for putting it out there and as always thanks ITG for clarifying. You members in here answering questions are doing A LOT of good towards converting more people.
Hey NOOB, Like your coir mix pictures! I really want to like coir, and I would use it as a portion of my soil mix, but I just can't get rid of peat completely. The more research I do into coir, the more reasons I find not to use it. I was just discussing this with someone the other day, and remembered an old study I had seen comparing peat and coir (several different brands of coir in fact) and the results speak for themselves. Peat beats coir all around (root growth and vegetative growth). This parallels what I have heard from other gardeners about coir-only mixes. I have never used coir to grow cannabis though. Also, I'm sure that the addition of all the humus (compost and/or ewc) that we add to our soils would make a coir mix more viable than a humus-free coir mix. I really don't like the destruction of natural habitats that comes with using peat, and peat bogs act as "CO2 sinks" so peat harvesting peat does release CO2. But, at the same time, coir is a product from halfway around the world (with the exception of Mexican coir), and must be shipped halfway around the world, so coir is definitely not a zero impact option, totally environmentally friendly option. Add to that the Calcium/Magnesium "lock up" issues that many coir growers experience, and the issue of it being antimicrobial, and it just doesn't seem like such an appealing choice to me anymore. Like I said, I really want to like coir, but it just doesn't add up for me. Maybe I'll give it a try and see. (Please note that I'm not trying to argue against the use of coir, as I would really like to give peat up for coir, I'm just outlining the issues I've seen while researching coir. Convince me otherwise!) edit: Here's the link to that study from Utah State University-"A Comparison of Coconut Coir and Sphagnum Peat as Soil-less Media Components for Plant Growth" http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...uoCgBg&usg=AFQjCNEZLU0v40qCbkCPwgGwQPe7xjOR-w
I think it should work out fine, I'm not scared of cal/mag lockout because of all the cal/mag in the mix is well over recommended amounts. I want to convince myself otherwise as well because I have heard all the negatives, I follow several coco growers though and their plants look decent. It isn't anti-microbial it just doesn't come with the wide range of fungi and bacteria that peat does, which makes it a more suitable media for hydroponics as well. I think it is still greener than peat, as it is a waste product that would be thrown away anyways. Its a great mushroom growing substrate as well, plus it holds more oxygen than peat. I've seen a lot of growers using roots and sunshine mix which both incorporate coco coir. I like the way coco looks better than peat and it breaks down much slower so in theory it could be reused more times than a peat based mix even. The first couple times I messed with it I mixed it with pro mix. I did read that coco coir contains trichoderma which probably competes with other myco products people use? I don't have any mycos in my coco mix anyways, plus my soil is too high in P for mycohrizza to thrive anyways. I've actually found the opposite about the root growth in my experiences with cloning, peat sucked for clones couldn't get anything to root with the peat. Coco coir has given me 90% success so far but I switched to root plugs because its even easier than coir. Also noticed watering coconut coir is at least 10X easier than watering peat, peat is hydrophobic and coco is hydrophillic and absorbs water way easier. I have had great success using neem cake and coco coir as a top dressing to all my containers outdoor similar to what the farmers actually do in India.
Hey NOOB I think once I can get around to it I'll try running a plant in a peat/coco mix. I can definitely see coco being superior for cloning. And it's nice not have to deal with hydrophobic peat! I re-use all my soil anyway, and I incorporate well composted bark fines into my soil, which break down very slowly. Are you using the coir as a top dressing for a peat-based soil? Can you explain the advantage of that-is it just as a mulch? Thanks for sharing your experience with coir. I'm going to test it out before too long, but I don't think I can make the plunge to all coir just yet-I love my soil too much!