All of your minerals will come in one bag (basalt, gypsum dust, oyster shell flour) and your nutrients in another. I’ve priced out buying the items individually from build a soil it’s cheaper to buy the kit.
BAS is one option, there is also KIS organics another. you can get high quality neem from Neemresource You can also check this thread for more options: Sourcing Organic Soil Mix Components
When you guys are buying essential oils what exactly are we looking for? I’m sure not all are made the same. Also do you guys sometimes have a hard time getting the neen to emulsify with agasil? I always use warm water and shake the hell out of it but man sometimes it feels like it’s never gonna mix. do you find the dr bronners to work better?
I was interested in trying biochar but that product can not be found in my part of the country. Shipping from a retailer in Ontario was equal to 51% of my entire order. I would rather not ship a product 2-3000 kilometers as that seems counter intuitive to carbon sequestration. My other option is to use hardwood lump charcoal which some here appear to use with success however when I read about biochar, many state that biochar and lump charcoal are not interchangeable as they are manufactured at different temperatures. This is hard for me to wrap my head around as I wonder how they managed temps 2000 years ago when speaking of terra preta.I know people have used hardwood lump but I am nervous to try. Does anyone have good sucess without using biochar in their mix or is biochar now seen as an essential component of the notill mix ?
Yes there's a difference between biochar and hardwood charcoal. This would be if (big IF) the biochar has undergone a chemical procedure whereby the surface area is multiplied. I am not sure that they do. Even so you do get the benefits even if you use plain ol' charcoal. Mind you the idea stems very much from terra preta... the pre columbian amazon natives never did this chemical procedure. I use old, activated charcoal from aquariums, but when i am bored i make it out of bamboo.... real easy. Once you get the charcoal you will need to inoculate it with bacteria and nutes. this can be as simple as putting the charcoal in your worm bin or as complex as you like... I add vmc and some korean natural farming inputs. Hope this helps
Thank you for the very quick reply. I can easily find pure hardwood lump charcoal in my are so I will probably go that route. Its definitely a much cheaper alternative. If I was to charge with vermicompost from my worm bin would the addition of malted barley powder and kelp meal be beneficial? I plan to inoculate the charcoal in a bucket of VMC . I can also get liquid fish emulsion from my local garden retailer which I thought I might add, does anyone have experience with these components?
Sorry for the late reply man! You’ll want to plan out your IPM schedule for veg through Flower and stick to it, spraying 3 days apart. Until the 2nd week of flower, then you’ll want to prepare to release predators, I don’t spray Neem Oil or top dress Neem Cake leading up to the predator releases starting the 3rd week of flower and another release 2 weeks later. After the predators are released all spraying stops. Predators are very fragile and it’s important to baby them if you can, make the environment as habitable as you can for best results. Freedom in Sustainable Gardening
Charcoal will "hold" chemicals and "house" bacteria. I am not sure how volatile the enzymes of mbp are, they probably would degrade. Kelp i would do, wonder why i didn't to be honest... Fish emulsion, i would also add. All in all go for it!!!
Hey man thanks none of my garden would be possible without such a great thread and great people that contribute to it it’s very much appreciated. What exactly do you do to make the environment habitable for them?
Thank You once again for the reply. I love this No Till revisited thread. Everyone helping each other so that we all benefit from collective knowledge. I have been applying no till principles to all of my gardening en devours (Vegetable and fruit gardens). I hadn't really thought about the degradation of the enzymes in MBP but I figured that I couldn't go wrong with adding kelp meal to the inoculation mix. I think ill stick to the MBP top dress only. I am trying to get all my ducks in a row as legalization is coming to Canada.
Hey for flowering what do you su Hey that top dressing info is that for both veggies and flowering or do you do anything different during flowering.
I had great results doing this myself. I released andersoni, californicus, along with spider mite destroyers.
Check out my thread "Automatics make good Organic sinse", here in GCO. In the first couple posts I show how to use seed starter in your larger no till pot. Its the no transplant way. cheers os
I prefer the Dr Bronners over agsil. It emulsifies way faster and stays emulsified much longer. I like the 'hemp peppermint' and 'hemp lavender'. The extra essential oils in the soap I believe are very useful for our ipm . Also a good killer for 'scale bugs' should you ever get them, and a great soap to boot. Every dog owner should try this stuff. cheers os
thanks man your post is full of info. where to do buy your aeration material. I can't find it anywhere and what percentage do you use in your soil. Iv read 1 part peat 1 part aeration and 1 part compost i need 15 cubic feet for 5 20g smart pots and I'm having trouble finding 5 cubic feet of pumic stone or lava rock. olive has it for cheap price but shipping cost the same as the product.
Hey man, I am still new at this but just a little further along and have already learned a ton, mostly by making mistakes... Anyway, you do not need 15 cu. Ft to fill 5 20gal smart pots of you are doing no till. I would say 12 cuft. would be plenty. Also, look for scoria and you might have better luck regarding lava rock. Not sure where you are at but I found a vendor off my local Craigslist. Here is a picture of my pots cooking. In addition to these 4, I have another 20 gallon pot and a 17 gallon Rubbermaid tub packed full of soil cooking. I made 12 cu. Ft.
Thanks for the info but home depot sales the red lava rock but its anywhere between 1/4in to 2.5in in size will that work? Vigoro 0.5 cu. ft. Decorative Stone Red Lava Rock-440897 - The Home Depot
*Disclaimer* I'm still new and all of this is my first go, so if you pros see something I messed up, please tell me. My Mix SPM: 3.75 cu.ft. Rice hulls: 10 gallons (10 lb) Scoria: 2.5 cuft. Perlite: 10 gallons Vermicompost: 1.25 cu.ft. Vegetable compost: 2.5 cu.ft Biochar: 4-5 gallons Baslt: 30 cups MBP: 12 cups Kelp: 12 cups Crab: 12 cups Neem: 12 cups Oyster shell flower: 12 cups Gypsum: 6 cups Mykos: 1 cup Total: 13 cu.ft. -Airation: 40% -SPM: 30% -Compost+WC: 30% [Side note on my specific mix: like an idiot I didn't inoculate my biochar prior to mixing it in. Because of this, I also added some coop poop to the mix to help with the nitrogen absorption of the raw biochar] As for the lava rocks from HD, yes, they will work but I would recommend smashing it down to a bit smaller chuncks. Honestly, if you can find it, scoria is better.