Hi Pak! Yeah its been quite awhile but its GC and old habits die hard. hope you and yours are well pal. j
Hello man! Sure - the woodstove saves the day. Just a touch colder than you but boy was that brutal ey?! I’ve had one pipe that kept giving me a headache but after more insulation behind it this afternoon I think I’ve got it beat. These 200+ year old farmhouses can be a real bear sometimes. Hope you and yours are well m’man!
Wow Wow Wow! @jerry111165 What an amazing thread and I'm only about 5% into it. I'm eager to go organic, tired of nutrient deficiencies when using bottled nutes. I grow indoors, in a tent using fabric pots of around 5gallons. I think you mentioned (about 10 years ago ) that going the super soil route also works with smaller 5 gallon pots. I would just reuse the soil and top it up with WC, compost and some kelp meal before going again - right? Also, I'm trying to get my head around the base substrate, understandingly is just peat, dolomite lime and compost mixed together. But I found some bagged substrates I think could be good enough - could you confirm? The substrates are: 1) Compo Bio and contains: 83% peat and enriched with natural Guano, sand and a high percentage of humus. 2) Premium soil with Zeolite and contains: white and black peat and enriched with humus, perlite and zeolite Would any of these do for a base substrate? I'm leaning more towards the zeolite one. Thanks!
@lubdub, Jerry is not on GC as often as he used to be. This thread has a wealth of knowledge for folks converting over to no-till or ROLS. The first several pages are worth reading. No-Till Gardening: Revisited
The base mix is 1/3 sphagnum peat moss, 1/3 compost (preferably vermicompost), and aeration material (I prefer pumice instead of vermiculite). You do have some leeway in the 1/3 divisions but this is a good baseline. For amendments (based on one cubic feet or 7.5 dry gallons of base mix) - 1 cup each of kelp meal, crustacean/crab meal, alfalfa meal, neem cake, and fish bone meal. I use my own mineral mix of 6 parts basalt, 3 parts glacial rock dust, 1 part each of oyster shell flour, soft rock phosphate, bentonite, and gypsum. My goal is to provide diversity to the micro-herd and let them use want they need. I also add ground malted barley to act as a catalyst for breaking down the amendments into smaller molecules that the bacteria and fungi can use. Then it is just water only. If you search for my thread I go through my experience of moving from bottled nutrients to making my own soil.
I stopped using bottled nutrients a good 5 years ago, I use a range of Westland plant feed(cost less than £40) from my local garden center with 20% sand, does the job and I reuse the soil, I remove the root ball and mix some plant feed in before potting the plant up, these boxes of plant feed have lasted me years.
Thanks for this Pakalolo, very helpful. The peats I'm finding around me come mixed with perlite, some compost and fertiliser. Is that the stuff I'm looking for or should I find just peat?
I used this compost for years but the new mix is peat free, last years compost had about 65% peat included
You want sphagnum peat moss and not the peat moss with perlite. I do use ProMix (with perlite - BX has less perlite) for cloning but I get a bale of sphagnum peat moss for soil mixing. I don't like perlite as aeration for soil because it seems to 'float' to the top over time when I water it. Sphagnum peat moss is the top of the plant that is harvested similar to mowing where peat moss is harvested from digging it up. You should be able to source it from Lowes or Home Depot.
I make my own compost using rotted straw, maple leaves, and horse manure. Once I have the thermal compost finished (about 10 weeks of turning it) I feed it to my worms. I add kelp meal, crab meal, ground malted barley (from brewery stores) and neem cake to the compost before adding my worms. The amendments will be broken down by the enzymes found in the malted barley and the bacteria will consume the food. The worms will eat the bacteria and digestion adds more nutrients to the compost. When I make a new batch of soil I take about two cups of the vermicompost with a little molasses and bubble it for 24 hours in a 5 gallon bucket. I use the finished water in my soil mix. The molasses with the bubbling increases the bacteria count to "jump start" the micro-herd. I've been using the same soil for over ten years. I grow in 5 gallon pots and recycle my soil by adding amendments like kelp, crab, ground malted barley, and neem cake. About a 1/4 cup of each to the recycled 5 gallon soil.
Sounds really good, but i live in town with a small concrete back garden so I keep things as basic as i can.
@lubdub. If you're in the EU. You may find it easier to source leaf mold and drop the amount of liming agent down to 1/2 cup of crab or crustacean meal per cubic foot of growing medium as leaf mold has a neutral pH. I understand the EU is phasing out the use of peat in their growing mediums. There are many EU growers here on GC. I believe there is even a thread dedicated to just the EU. This thread may be of some help. Sourcing Organic Soil Mix Components . Post # 756 has some resources that may help.
Yeah I'm seeing some options for sphagnum around me (Europe). Some come with lime and other minerals added, a bit hard to find pure sphagnum but I could adjust accordingly, it's not a deal breaker I think. What do you think of a 26gallon fabric pot as my bed? (Flowering tent is 3x3foot). Super helpful link thanks bro
3x3 foot tent doesn't give a lot of room to grow large plants. 26 gallon fabric pot would grow a large plant. I use 5 gallon pots at the legal site we grow. It takes about 2 weeks to root a clone. I transplant to 1 gallon pots for about 4 weeks and the plants are around 18" tall. Then I transplant to 5 gallon pots and flip them. Usually takes about 8 weeks to get them to harvest. I use to let them veg longer and get bigger but what I got was some nice top buds with many smaller buds on the lower branches. Reducing the veg and flipping early gives mainly top buds in about 3 1/2 months verses 4 - 6 months with longer veg. Outdoors is a different result. Last summer I got about 1 1/2 pounds per plant. Nothing beats the sun for growing cannabis.
I've been thinking about larger beds and no-till. But maybe I'll stick to the 5gal pots i also currently use. I've found a 'Farmers Mix' of nutrients and amendments that seems to tick many boxes, buying everything individually is far more expensive than what this mix offers. It's ingredients are: Bat Dung, Bone Meal, Kelp, Azomite®, Organic Alfalfa, Insect Frass, Blood Meal, Dolomite, Langbeinite, Humic and Fulvic Acids, a complete blend of beneficial Rhizobacteria and Trichoderma. NPK: 2-8-3 What do you think about using that in my soil mix? At about 2-3 cups per cubic square foot of soil?
Sorry for the delayed response. I was playing in a pool tournament all last week. If you have a beer brewing store that you can get some malted barley that would be a great additive to your soil mix. Your "Farmers Mix" is adequate and should work okay. FYI, if you don't have a coffee grinder for the malted barley, usually the brewer store can grind it for you.
I know it's an old thread but could use some advice, thanks in advance. When adding multiple amendments to a new soil mix (fisk,kelp,bat guano,insect frass,etc etc) do you add the reccomended amt (on the box) ??? I've been using less when using multiple amendments??? MY thought is U can always add more (top dress). whaddaya think?
Basic rule of thumb is to add one cup of each amendment per cubic feet (7.5 dry gallons) of the base soil mix. It's best to top dress with vermicompost if you have it. At the legal cannabis grow we sometimes add a 1/4 cup when top dressing but not very often.