Will the rock dust be as good as the "glacial" rock dust? Gaia Glacial Rock Dust for Organic Gardening - West Coast Seeds or Rock Dust (Mineral Fertilizer) for Soil Remineralization and Regeneration, Alternative to Golf Course Chemical Fertilizer, an Organic Soil Additive.
melkor- both of those are quality rock dust products and you'd do well to choose either of them. i recently purchased the agrowinn minerals rock dust and have been feeding it to my worms as well as amending my soil with it. if you want the best, most complete option buy them both and mix together as variety is what you're really going for. i mix my agrowinn minerals, gaija green glacial dust, green sand, and soft rock phosphate together in my soils to give them as complete a blend as i can.
btc2112, My bad, this topic was already covered by LD. There is so much info on here, I must have missed this (quote below) when I did my search. From your conversation with LD, I wanted to ask you... What nursery in California do you get the gaia green at? My options are a little pricy, and I'm in So Cal, so I thought you might have some more good info for me.
no worries my friend. i actually had to order my glacial dust from here; http://www.groworganic.com/browse_349_Trace_Minerals_.html ended up at under $50 for a 50 lb bag including shipping. should last me a while... have a look at some of their other organic fertilizers, they've got some pretty good stuff. otherwise i go to walter andersons nursery in san diego, they stock both the eb stone and dr earth lines of soil and their single ingredient organic fertilizers. innovative grow solutions(igs) is my local hydro shop and that's where i head for my smartpots and aggrowin minerals. hope that helps. blue skies
btc I'm over a year into my 50# bag of Glacial Rock Dust, and by the looks of it, It'll be around for for 2-3 more years. ......It definitely goes a long way. Now that I'm using Naomi's Mineral Mix (the one described in LD's above quote) I'll have more minerals than I know what to do with. I really like the DR.Earth lineup........You can't beat their dry blended Tomato,Vegetable and Herb fertilizer and the Bud and Bloom fertilizer. They suit my needs because I can buy the blended product without having to buy several 50# bags of the individual ingredients. Plus.....they contain most of the primary components LD uses in his blended fertilizer mix. Melkor.....welcome to the organics community....... Take care, chunk
hehehe... i know exactly what you mean. if i ever have children, their kids are going to have all the minerals they'll ever need...
Interestingly, I put about 500-600lbs of rock dust in the dumpster today hahaha.....I work in the granite/marble trade (I'm a stone fabricator) and we cleaned the traps under our bridge saw today. If there weren't chunks of granite scraps mixed in with this slurry, there would probably be some value to it. When your taking a few TBSP's at a time from a 50# sack.......the sack will degrade before the damn dust disappears....lol peace out guys, chunk
Hello everyone, looking to source rock dust for the Minneapolis area. Anyone have any leads? Thanks in advance.
^^^ Try to source a local gravel supplier that mines river bed rock. Lots of different rock types washed down through time. High diversity of minerals available. You want the fine stuff. 200 mesh size or smaller (like fine wheat flower). They'll probably give it to you for free. Chunk, if you see this, why would you throw out that good material? It's my understanding that slurry from granite and marble fabricators is top notch. That is, in fact, what I used as a "rock dust" component to amend my soil. I dried it out, sifted out all the "crap" and large rock chunks, and used it. Plants are happy. I'm just curious as to why you'd buy a 50# sack of Glacial Rock Dust when have a source of rock dust at your place of employment. Peace, wak
Wak, Thanks so much for the sourcing information. Great idea on saving me some $. Also, very interested in the granite or marble slurry as I recall several granite/marble fabricators near where I live. I actually just emailed one of the shops asking if they would help me out with some of the dust leftover after fabricating. I think it's such a cool thing that this fall under the "one mans garbage is another man treasure" notion. On a side note I read somewhere that the slurry leftover from brewing beer can be a great substitute for the smelly fish hydrosolate. Oh yeah, now I remember seeing a video from kelp4less regarding what they dub "liquid gold." Newbie on his fourth ever grow...with this being my third organic garden. Each time I learn a little more and are consistently having bigger and better results largely in part because of what I have learned on GC. So much thanks to all who contribute! I love my hobby, Paul
swanee- Check out Jerry's thread on rock dust... it's a VERY important amendment to organic soils. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1111289-rock-dust.html wak
Wak, Yes Jerry's thread, I did stumble across it a while back. Actually got into organics as a result of Jerry, Microbeman (or something like that) and of course LD. I did my first grow using Lucas formula but then I started reading what the guru's have to say and I haven't looked back since. It's just so amazing and even a little funny that my local hydro shop now carries many organic amendments because of the little bit of knowledge that I have been able to share with them when asking about sourcing organic amendments and what each amendment provides to the organic gardener. They are now brewing experimental teas and conducting tests in their shop. Again, kudos to all who contribute...I owe my successes to each and every one of you.