Coming up on using the same soil for 3 seasons, planted oats and peas overwinter to help replenish the soil. Also applied to gypsum and we had a ton of rain in southern California this winter thankfully The soil is Pro mix BX with 50% Roots organic bagged mix and about 1/12 worm castings Last season I added about two cups of the full recommended mix in post one to each 35 gallon pot to replenish. Should I start with new soil this season or try replenishing the soil again? Planning to add a bunch of worm castings again along with all of The usual suspects from post one Sent from my LG-Q710AL using Tapatalk
Hey bugsy714 what did you decide on? I'm going to re amend mine from last season. My question is around Compost and EWC. I had more than enough delivered last year for the veggie and weed garden. I have a huge pile of compost and about 1/2 yard of EWC that were left out all season. Anyone know with tons of rain and some snow this past year what sort of loss is there is to these especially the EWC...vermicompost? Trying to decide if I'd be better mixing in with my veggie garden vs 300 gallon fabric pots. Also being that the pots are out in the elements rather than an indoor grow I would imagine there would be a greater loss to amendments in the soil so we'd be upping what we use in original recipe for re amending correct. Anyone have suggestions and what's worked for them.
I amend with Composted Chicken Manure once or twice a year and toss in a tablespoon of Sulfur dust while I'm at it as my water is High PH. BNW
1. There are no rules with an Organic garden and what rules there are were made to be broken. 2. To make sure you won’t run out of steam, just add the same amount of amendments you originally used - and I highly suggest using chicken manure pellets in the mix. Just make sure the re-mix has time to Sit and cycle a bit before use. 3. Same with the compost and vermicompost - just make sure there’s plenty in there. 4. Aerate as needed. Squeeze a clump of your soil as tight as you can in your fist. It should fall apart easily and not stay in a clump. If it stays in a clump them simply add some more aeration. 5. MULCH MULCH MULCH with old autumn leaves. Do the same at the end of the season - THICK AS YOU CAN. J
My second season harvest went very well, actually harvested more than the first season on though I would attribute that to the complete and total lack of pruning the second time around. First season yield it nice banana colas while the second season was a lot of little branches. Also I cheated the first time around and use some Earth juice for the flowering portion of the expedition. Definitely throw all of your compost and vermicompost into your pots along with some additional paralite or premise to maintain your ratios. Also a good idea to spread some gypsum on the top of the pots and let it water through thoroughly as it will flush any additional salts. Sent from my LG-Q710AL using Tapatalk
hi everyone, I'm building my orgonic soil mix using the recipe (Coots) that is on the first page of this thread. I purchased Baltic sphagnum peat with a pH of 3.5 - 4 I wanted to know, should I first stabilize the pH of the peat before mixing the other amendments? to bring the peat blond to PH 6, 4 kg of calcium carbonate per m3 should be used. and after the correction the pH rises on average by one point after 7 days what should i do?
So last year I had a soil mix of peat moss compost earthworm casings neem meal alfalfa meal kelp meal glacial rock dust lime.and an organic all purpose fertilizer. Just wondering what I should reamend with this year?if amything other than compost and ewc.
New to the forum. Just read a lot of your posts from 2012. Still using the same soil mix from back then?
I STILL can't find chicken manure in SC! I really liked the Stutzman (sp?) I got from Planet natural on a free shippind deal a few years ago though. The funny thing is, there are a number of large chicken operations in the state. Nothing like Ca though. Wet
I get mine at the local Lowes and I see Home Depot now carries it at my local store, HD didn't in the past. Call either and see if they will free ship to your local store if it's not an in stock item in your zone. I've done that with HD on a few items and they are happy to ship to the local. I just nabbed 2 bags of it to amend the stretch of flowerbed I grow Tomatoes in, and I'll be adding a 1lb coffee can to every hole as I put the Summer plants out. BNW
Jerry, how important do you think adding a liming amendment is to recycled soil such as mine? I have some oyster shell flower laying around but not much. I've already got a good amount of calcium, some crab and shrimp meal etc. So that's covered I know liming is used to help mitigate the acidity in peat moss. But the base of my soil contains mendo peat which I believe is redwood peat so do I need to mediate the pH still? Is liming essential and or should I add gypsum instead?
You can take your soil to a local Garden store that does soil PH testing and see where the pH is at then adjust accordingly. Personally I add oyster shell every cycle mine is Canadian sphagnum Moss AKA Pro mix BX with some coconut coir as well. I am a big believer in gypsum when you are reusing soil, for $10 you can buy a giant 40 lb bag at Home Depot which will be more than enough to treat several hundred gallons of soil plus it adds sulfur Sent from my LG-Q710AL using Tapatalk
Yow! This is proving more difficult than I expected. Both the local Lowes and HD have notices to the effect of "Delivery to store; unavailable", "Delivery to home; unavilable for this product". Even Planet Natural has it as "Out of stock". But they just may be awaiting a restock. I've had that happen before and it was just a temporary thing. I'll find it eventually. LOL Wet
No, the concerns about solubility you find in synthetic cultivation aren't the same in soil..outside of solution at least. Carbonate controls Ph with H binding CO3 forming H2CO3 (carbonic acid), which dissolutes in weakness to h20 + co2. Mix your soil, wet it, aerate it, and wait a week. Plant.
I *think* PN is going to continue their online sales, but the physical store is no more. And as I say that, I went to their warehouse and it was empty as well. Not sure if they have another warehouse location, but expect changes from them. P-
Totally and completely depends on the initial mix, I’d imagine... Some may say differently but I guess I personally can’t be bothered with all the fuss over the pH of soil be it the garden or big containers of mixed potting soil indoors - Either way, base your soil - FIRST AND FOREMOST - on high quality compost and/or vermicompost. If you’re using Peat then sure - mix a good dollop of your choice of calcium carbonate type amendment into the initial mix. Make a diverse mix - use a bit of this, a touch of that and a solid dollop of love... lol!! - but seriously - a good diverse soil will make sure your plant have a bit of everything and won’t be wanting for everything. By a “quality compost”, or vermicompost I’m not referring to an expensive product, and I highly recommend you make them yourself - but what I mean is a good compost that is ALIVE - a compost that is simply crawling with life. Base your soil - garden or potting; doesn’t even matter - on living compost, and not peat. It doesn’t hurt anything to use Peat but don’t base your mix on it - instead base the mix on LIFE... Make sure it drains well. This is uber important. Mulch. Then mulch some more. Leaf mold is what you want. Hit the woods if you can and get the material down low that is already years old and is black, crumbly and unrecognizable. At this point you can then start mulching here and there with assorted and diverse OM - tossing/sprinkling in some kelp sometimes, some chicken manure pellets, some crab or shrimp meal. These items will slowly break down on their own and continuously feed whatever it is you’re growing. Worms. I read online once that worms are good... lol J/k - seriously, add some worms to the mix. When I peel back the assorted multi layers of mulch - indoors or out, whatever, they’ll thrive below the mulch. You’ll peel it back and they’ll be swarming and breaking down the bottom layers of mulch, laying eggs, making more worms... They’ll travel through your soil, creating passages for oxygen and water to flow - and as they do, the “slime” on their bodies will “lime” your soil constantly - as this slime is almost pure calcium carbonate... There are two types of organic gardens - yessir there is. The first type of organic garden uses whatever bagged soil amendments mixed in with a soil and relies on these amendments to feed your plants - these amendments keep breaking down over time , feed the plants, get replenished - this garden relies on the amendments to feed the plants - “NPK Gardening”... The second type of organic garden doesn’t rely anywhere near as much on store bought soil amendments - instead the soil is HEAVILY based on a well aerated compost - compost built with diverse ingredients. Again with the leaf mold in the compost - as it is springy, drains very well yet holds mucho water... This soil is friggin loaded with life - with fungal webbing throughout it, it is loaded with bacteria and it doesn’t care anywhere near as much whether a bag of soil amendments is mixed in or not - it doesn’t care if lime is used or not, it doesn’t care what pH it is as it balances itself...this soil is constantly mulched and the worms thrive below the surface. The bottom layers of mulch that continuously broken down by the soil life and the worms so it is constantly feeding it self which in turn feeds any plants that are growing in it - I started out using all different kinds of soil amendments from the farm store - it worked well. Over time I got lazy - but I also continued to step up my compost game, my leaf mold game. I made my wife and kids save those damn shrimp shells and the lobster shells, the egg shells and all of the scrap produce and we got into the habit of throwing them out the back door into a heap. I kept massive piles of leaves always breaking down - so I now had a steady supply of leaf mold and diverse compost. These two items were always mixed together. When layers were pulled back there would be so many worms, cocoons, it was loaded with fungus - With LIFE... I stopped buying Sphagnum Peat. I stopped buying Kelp, I stopped buying Neem, even Lime - I stopped buying anything. Nothing. $0.00... I ran the material through a hardware cloth screen - gently so as not to kill the worms. I put this material in my big pots, with no Peat, with no lime, and with no soil amendments. As the plants grew I continued to mulch it. I do the same in my vegetable garden only now it’s more of an “in place composting” by adding mulch and more and more and more mulch. I don’t buy anything anymore ever. I don’t need to and I don’t want to. I’ll never buy another soil amendment again - perhaps with the exception of an occasional sack of chicken manure pellets to get things cranking a little bit in the spring. NPK gardening or living compost gardening methods - They both work of course - but mine works well for me because I am extremely lazy and cheap - and mine could care less what I throw at it, whether it’s hard water or whatever… I don’t never even think about pH anymore. Different strokes and all of that. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. J