So, I've have several grows under my belt using DWC because that seemed to be simple. Each crop I've improved yield and quality, which has been my goal. My room has 4 X 8 of grow space and a 9 foot ceiling. I'm working on mostly Sativa hybrids right now. The room is actually larger (9 ft X 10 ft), but I keep everything in the room such as a constant supply of 5 gallon carboys of reverse osmosis water, all of my nutrients (I currently use Technaflora but am switching to Jakes 3-2-1 for the next run), etc. Lighting is a mix of LED burple lights and QB's (working on slowly moving over to QBs). Total true wattage is around 2,000 watts. The room is vented with an inline vent (into my donkey/goat stall on the chicken coop side of the building to reduce any odors that neighbors might pick up) and I have a portable HVAC in the room to control temps. Currently, I'm growing six plants - 3 Maui Wowie and 3 Blue Dream. Somehow, I stumbled in here and discovered this no-till stuff. This seems perfect for me. I have a small farm with donkeys, goats and chickens so that should give me the worms and some of the fertilizers I need. All of our animals are pretty much free range and fed non-GMO feed. So, I know it will be good shit! We have acres of woods, which should provide some good compost from under the leaf beds. Then I saw being a beer homebrewer helps because I have hundreds of pounds of grains that I mill to brew beer, which will be good for my worm farm. And, I even have a 50 pound bag of rice hulls that I use as an adjunct that will come in handy in putting a bed on top on my planters. Right now, I'm a little overwhelmed with all of the soil variations and different ways to amend the soil. Unlike DWC, there doesn't seem to be any standards. No two recipes seem to be the same. So, it is a bit confusing, but I have time and this place for a resource. My plan is to start a worm farm this weekend and see how that goes. I'll have a five tray worm farm 360 coming in on Saturday. If it takes off, I'll add a 20 or 25 gallon cloth planter to my room and work on creating a good soil. My plan is to increase my no-till grows by a plant or two each grow until I've converted everything over to no-till. That will give me a gentle step into no-till gardening and allow me to perfect the technique without major disruption. I've learned a lot by looking around in here and will be reading a lot between now and when the first no-till pot is ready. I'm guessing it may take me 4-6 months before the first no-till pot gets planted. So, I've lots of time to learn. Going back to lurking now. Thanks for all the information in here. It may be confusing, but it also is very helpful. I had no idea that most of what I need for no-till gardening is already on my farm!
Hey Bent welcome to GC, here's a nice thread from someone very knowledgeable Indoor gardening without bottled nutrients
Thanks, that is a great thread with some simple mixtures for soil! Just what I needed. I'm thinking I should probably start composting the chicken bedding after clean out the coop next time. Composted chicken waste might come in handy. I'm so looking forward to an organic grow now! I just have to be patient and get nature started so I will be prepared when I'm ready to get that first plant going.
Welcome to the organic rabbit hole, enjoy the ride! The difference in standardization between soil growing and hydroponic growing is much like the difference in standardization between food choices for a healthy person and hospital tube feeding for coma patients. In soil, many things are food and the plants' digestive systems take what they need from what's available. This make lots of apparently different soils work well, like many different sandwiches are good for lunch. Making a good soil is a lot like making a good sandwich. (mmmm think I'm getting hungry....) I envy your resources, you have all the makings of the world's best medicine right at your doorstep.
I'm going to vote for the notill thread recipes. The indoor gardeneing thread is good, but I think notill is more straight forward and a little more recent. Look for the Coot's Mix recipe. No-Till Gardening: Revisited and composted chicken bedding works great! Peace! P-
So, I've made some progress in my conversion to no-till. I ordered a five tray Worm Factory 360 and seeded it with 2000 worms. After looking at it and mulling on how much EWC I will probably need in the future decided it wasn't enough and ordered a Mega Worm Inn flow through bag and will build a stand for it this weekend. In my reading, EWC is a very important part and I want enough to take care of my grow and garden. There are (8) eight 25 gallon Geo Pots on the way, which will be for the plants themselves. I think these will be big enough for no-till. In addition, this weekend I'll be setting up two large composters. Hopefully, by this Spring, I'll have some good compost and castings. I went out and dug around in the donkey manure and only found a few worms, but it is December and cold so I really didn't expect to get much. I will start composting leaves, donkey manure, goat manure and maybe some chicken manure within a week. My current grow will be harvested in February and I hope to have one maybe two 25 gallon soil pots started sometime around the next few weeks (with store bought soil and amendments) so it probably will be too hot for the next crop. I guess that I'm at least five months out from planting my first no-till plant. I'm continuing to read and learn through this process, but am a little concerned with things like Spider Mites and other harmful insects. With DWC, I haven't had to worry about them because my room is isolated and kept clean. The thought of insects damaging my babies will be a concern as I move forward. My plan is to set up my first no-till pot and leave it in the grow room to cook up and get ready while my next crop grows in DWC. So, that means I have a potential for problems in the room with living soil sooner than expected. I'll need to be proactive to prevent unwanted pests. I love the thought of being 100% organic, but do worry that as I use compost from my farm, EWC from my bins and other organic materials from my farm for bed cover that I may be introducing bad things in my grow room along with the good. How does one deal with these concerns proactively? I want to be ahead of any issues rather than reacting to problems.
Companion planting is a great way to stay 100% organic and it seems you have the room for it. Here's a link and a good read, hope it helps. List Of Companion Plants For Quality Cannabis - RQS
I would run both the worm bin setups, especially since you have a "shit load" of supplies to run thru them. I bet if you dig around the donkey poo pile long enough you will find a ton of worms. They tend to all go to the place where it is broken down just right, at that moment in time. You are off to an astounding start, keep it up! I bring outdoor stuff in all the time and have zero issues. It seems like the organic plants are so much healthier, and that pests go for something else that's easy pickens. cheers os
Geopots are in and I've ordered EWC from BuildASoil since my worms and composters were just set up. I've ordered some perlite and am going shopping this weekend. One question on the 25 gallon geo pots - do I just set them on my concrete floor in my room, or do I put anything under them? Also, should I put some gravel in the bottom? I'm only setting up one to get me started. Eventually, I'll have 6-8 of these bags set up, so if I need something under the bags, it should be for each bag, so I can grow by a bag or two at a time. The bags are big - 21 inch square bottoms. I don't think regular potting saucers will work. They are round. I'm not worried about hurting the floor. It is painted concrete. However, I don't want the bags to not have enough airflow and rot out on the bottom. I'm thinking maybe an old pallet? Or am I concerned over nothing? Thanks.
You will want them off the floor so they aren't cold. The concrete is a big heat sink. There are saucers out there that will fit that. A lot of guys use stuff like kitty litter pans or dish 'bussing' pans. hth cheers os
The best thing I've found (thanks @Possuum), is the pink, ~2" thick, insulation, sold in sheets at HD, Lowes etc. You can cut to size or, for me, the 2'x3' pre-cut works perfectly for my T8 seedling/cloning set up in the basement. The large cement mixing tubs, also at HD, work well for a variety of things and go right on top of the pink insulation. The small ones are Ok for individual plants, but are slightly too small to hold 2-3/5 gallon pots side by side. They do work well for kitty litter though. LOL I don't bother with them any more, but have 6 or 7 of the larger size. If the small ones were ~2" longer and wider they would be more useful. Made in Israel, they are super durable and tough, no surprise there. Wet
After hitting a nurseries and then Amazon, I think I have everything I need to start a few pots. Two 25 gallon Geo-pots (50 gallons total) will be filled with : 16 gallons - Canadian Peat Sphagnum 8 gallons - Mushroom Compost 8 gallons - Earth Worm Castings 16 gallons - Perlite 7 cups gypsum 14 cups kelp meal 7 cups crab meal 7 cups dolomite lime 7 cups Azomite Rock Dust 7 cups neem & kraanja seed meal 7 cups oyster shell flour I also have on order Balalt (will I need that given the above?) and some Espoma Tomato Tone. However, I'm not planning on using these in the no-till pots unless I get feedback here that it is needed. For top dressing, I'm going to use rice hulls, malted barley flour and some more EWC. Before I screw it up, wadda ya think? Good soil or am I missing anything?
*I've*got a couple of "thinks" on the mix. Cut the kelp meal down to 7 cups. Light, semi-regular top dressings work a whole lot better than a heavy amount at mixing. Plus, you avoid any antagonistic responses from excess K. 1cup/cf is the max I use for fresh mixes and usually a bit less. There is no need for both dolo and OSF @7cups of each. *I* would suggest 7cups of dolo for the Mg and OSF for in the future pH adjustment. The dolo will still be releasing Mg after the Ca is depleted and the Ca only nature of OSF is perfect for reamends. No need for basalt with the Azomite you're including. *I* only use Azomite and greensand for minerals now (both @1cup/cf), and no longer use 'hard' rock dusts like basalt or granite. IMO, you are missing both a N and P source. For P, I've always used steamed bone meal @1cup+/cf. For N, it's mostly soy meal for me, but there are plenty of N sources to choose from. Just not neem or karanja. I made a BUNCH of soil toxic by using neem/karanja meal as a N source over several years. I still add some in the initial mix, but no further top dressing, which is what got it to toxic levels over time. I've also cut the initial amount down to 1/2cup/cf which is fine for repelling bugs. Was a hard lesson to learn. Now for the hard part. LOL Myself, I've never had any luck with mushroom compost and really avoid it. Suggest the same for you if it's not homegrown from someone you know. Are your worm castings from your own bins, or, in a bag? My own are super dense and much more than 10% makes the mix too dense. I don't use any "compost" at all, but use pine bark mulch instead in a mix very similar to yours (50/50 pine bark, VC). I would think the pine bark mulch would serve you better than the mushroom compost, but do a little research first. Besides myself, there are several here whom also use it. OS and RD come right to mind. That's it for now, my brane hurts! Wet
Thanks! on the pine bark, I thought pine contained elements that were toxic to plants and should be avoided? All items were purchased. I've just started two compost tumblers and two worm bins, so in the future I will have enough organic material (from donkeys and goats) to supply me. But, for this first couple of bags, I wanted to get some soil cooking. Thanks again.
Wet, I'm curious why you like Azomite over Basalt? Obviously the grind is far more important than the kind of dust, but from what I have seen, basalt has better numbers across the board? Also curious if you know anyone else that has gotten neem to toxic levels? I know myself and others have top dressed neem for long periods of time with no problems. Seems like the neem meal, crab meal, and compost would have a good amount of N in them? P-
Azomite, as a clay, is available much faster than "hard rock" is one thing. I mean, yes, the grind is the most important thing by far, but to get hard rock dust it's about a 95% probability that it's going to need to be shipped as is azomite. *I* just feel that if shipping is involved, azomite is the 'more bang for the buck' for me. Sourcing locally is a different ball of wax. I can get granite meal locally for $5/75lbs, but is also about like beach sand in grind and is nearly useless in a mix with such a slow release (a year at least in my observations). This is all personal experiences/observations over the years that got me to the azomite/greensand point where I'm at today. Plus the OP already has azomite on hand and IMO the basalt would just be a needless expense. If he had basalt dust on hand I would suggest he just stick with that for the time being. Either one is fine, it mainly boils down to grind and cost. All you really need is just one. Yeah, neem is a great N source, but the toxic levels came later, over time. On the neemresource site there is a warning about neem amounts and seed germination, seedlings and young plants. This first surfaced a couple seasons ago when I lost an entire garlic crop planted in notills that had been frequently top dressed with neem AND added before the garlic was planted. That was entirely on me being forgetful. After the failure I grew peppers in the same notills with zero neem added to 'use up' the neem. The next year I again planted in the same notills that had been neem free for over a year. Not quite as bad, but 90% was deformed and misshapen. So, whatever was causing the problem didn't get 'used up' and persisted in the soil. I've always added 1cup/cf to fresh mixes, but I'm going to take the advice of people with long term experience (over 10 years), that noted in the very early discussions of neem, that 1/2cup/cf is more than adequate for repelling soil pests. It sure seems to me that, that ingredient persists in the soil and is also the same as what causes the deformities in seedlings and young plants/clones. We'll see what happens next spring if I'm still sucking air. Wet
The more I read, the more things get confusing. However, that is what learning is - getting out of your comfort zone and pushing boundaries. What I'm learning is that you talk to 100 no-till growers and you ask a question, you will get around 200+ answers!
All I can say is, you are gonna love growing organically. No ph, no measuring nutes, no ppms, no need for ro water, no flush. And on and on and on.
That's interesting about the neem. I can see how anything that high in N could cause issues with germination and seedlings. Probably best not to use anything too high in N on said plants. Seems IIRC Coot and Bluejay always recommended 1/2c per cu ft. Bluejay was feeding neem teas on a regular basis. I've only used neem for about six years now, but haven't seen anything like what you are describing. Was that at 1c per cu ft? I need to do a little refresher on rock dusts. Curious if yourself or anyone else has any links on availability? Quick google search isn't providing much information. This is some info I had saved on mineral levels. First column is Gaia Green glacial rock dust, second is azomite, third is basalt. I can't remember what the last couple were. P-
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the N, but the slight amount of oil left in the meal, or rather the active ingredient in the neem oil. I used 1cup/cf in the initial mix and bi-weekly top dressings. They were light, but that adds up in a couple 3 years. Plus not adding any for a full year and it was still in the soil. No bugs to speak of though. LOL I haven't quit with the neem, but, I'll stick with my soy for N now and just use the 1/2cup in the initial mix. Wet