Plants look great! What cover crop is that? As long as you are happy with your grow space, then that’s all that matters. I’ve grown in closest and tents many times before. Opening that door and seeing plants is my favorite part of the day.
Nice your growing neem trees and fig trees. plus herbs! I have Comfrey seeds I want to grow when The climate gets better. Happy Growing! Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Mix of crimson clover, chamomile, lavender, Hungarian poppy, and a mix pack of about 14 different flowers. NY goal was biodiversity for this round. Edit: The only thing to sprout so far is the crimson and flower mix, the lavender and poppy can but take a while an tbh they might not even take. Sent from my 2PQ93 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Mixing new soil today and can't find my gypsum. I do have a bag of garden sulfer 90%, would I use the same amount of this as gypsum? Sent from my SM-G950U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I had to return a rented mixer this afternoon so I wasn't charged another day and didn't wait for a reply. First page says 1/2 cup gypsum per cubic ft so I took a shot in the dark and added 1 cup each, garden sulfur and dolomite lime per 3 cubic ft batch. The 3 cubic ft batches turned out to be more than 3 cubic ft in the end though. I'm gonna start a thread in the next day or 2 and I'll go over the mix there and see what anyone who cares to chime in has to say about it. I still have it in totes while I finish painting so it isn't too late to add more 1:1:1 mix to it before I fill the bed if need be.
Gypsum is CaSO4 * 2H2O with a molecular weight of 172 g/mol. Sulfur is 32 g/mol. 32/172 *100% = 18.6% Gypsum is about 20% Sulfur by weight, so to match the amount in your gypsum application just use 20% as much elemental S as you would gypsum.
Thank you. I see you liked Preppers reply and my reply so I assume I am good to go as is at 1/4-1/3 cup per cubic foot but that is more than 20% so I'm not so sure. 20% of 1/2 a cup would be a little less than 1/8 cup right? How much of an issue will having double the amount of sulfur cause?
It is hard to say without a soil test, but I don't think you should run into any S toxicity issues--I don't think that is a very common problem. IIRC I used to use gypsum at 1 cup/cf without any issues. You may need to add more lime if you only used 1 cup total for a 3 cf batch.
Here is a recent quote from mountainorganics aka MOFO: "NEW soil mix I’ve been playing with. The emphasis is on #Humus & #Minerals with beefed up #biocharcontent to help increase fertility and water retention for the long haul. It also harbors and is known to increases the diversity of microbes in your soil. Here’s the mix I used and this amount fits a 100gal pot perfectly. 4 cuF compost (@malibucompost ) 3cuF CSPM (peat moss) 3 cuF pumice (lava rock) —— alternative: 4cuF 1.5 cuF biochar ——-alternative: .5cuF 40lbs rock dust (volcanic) Worms (10 worms, 100 worms or 1000 worms, add more if you want them to turn your soil over (improving it) quicker, or add less if you don’t mind taking the slow road). First thing you’ll notice is the lack of traditional ‘amendments’ which I think the industry has exemplified well beyond their importance for no other reason than to sell you yet another ‘thing’ that you MUST have and add to that organic gardeners (cannabis and otherwise) to a certain extent like to give ‘magical’ qualities to this or that amendment telling everyone that “X” amendment is their secret weapon and makes their product ‘the best’. Well, it’s all bullshit you see, the real magic is in the quality of the humus/compost and the diversity of soil LIFE it brings to your potting soil mix and in the MINERALS aka degraded rocks aka ROCK DUST because that’s the backbone of soil, of life, that is where ALL soil nutrients originate from that are now cycling within plants and animals and our food and plant medicine supply - ROCKS and MICROBES.....an additional handful of alfalfa or neem or kelp or crab shell or comfrey or insect frass or bat shit or friggen feather, bone, or blood meal isn’t going to make or break your soil one little bit. Somewhere along the line we’ve minimized the importance of HUMUS (aka ORGANIC MATTER aka COMPOST/CASTINGS) and ROCKS (aka MINERALS aka ROCK DUST) and increased the importance of a laundry list of random ‘designer amendments’ which is just all backwards." Thoughts?
I agree with his message. Just grow with high quality inputs and you won’t need bottles. All in the soil. I just finished loading this 200gal pot yesterday. I wanted to make a truly diverse compost that was leaf dominated. So this doesn’t have any CSPM in it. Huge list of compost inputs, some highlights would be leaves, grass clippings, spent brewery grains, coffee grounds, local clay soil, and more. Also has Alfalfa, Kelp, Crab, Neem/Karanja, OSF, Gypsum, Balsalt Rock Dust, St. George’s Black (rock dust), and Green Sand. Cover crop of Fenugreek, Lemon Balm, and Dill. Should be fun!
Sweet setup, I have been reading a bunch and checking out your grow. I am going ahead with the 5 galls for this grow and switch to the 20's for the next. I just got in the 20 gal Smart pots and they are Big compared to the 5's. I just top dressed with the ground malted barley and neem cake. I added a hand full of my wigglers in each pot. I need to get some mulch and I should be good to go for a while. Great info here, getting used to this forum style. Slow but starting to understand.
Thank you! I am going to use the 5's for this grow. I am going to fill the 20's and let simmer till the next cycle. Time to get more supplies.
Sounds like you’re on the right track! I started in 3’s, then 7’s, then 10’s, lol, now 20’s and a 200gal. Veg in 20’s or a 2gal Geopot transplanter if I don’t have any free large pots. I think you’ll be very pleased with the results from the 20’s. Also, my first yield in new soil was about half of what I am getting now after it’s had a chance to cycle.
That's interesting Prepper. I've heard quite a few of the guys say that no till soil gets better with time. That is encouraging, since this is my first grow in this soil. The results so far are not spectacular, but there were many variables involved, not the least of which has been the intense heat we've had in Sydney this summer. So I'm looking forward to the next few grows!