I wasn't sure if it would be too hot for both right now.. There were some creepy crawlies in the compost we added, and some worms in the free castings I got w/ an order.. but need more worms for sure. In lieu of red clover (don't have yet) I do have a shitload of herb seeds... fenugreek is one I've seen mentioned a lot, I have thyme/basil/oregano/lavender etc. I have english peas and bush beans as well. Just scatter a bunch of stuff and get a good thick top layer? Then when it comes time to plant our cannabis, are we chop+dropping the cover crop as mulch? Or do you just let it grow around as the cannabis matures? Do you keep a cover crop going all the time and just cut it back when it starts getting unruly?
Hey Ficky I was wondering how you determined that it was fusarium and not pythium or the host of other diseases that all resemble each other? About a year ago I lost 2 or 3 plants to what I believed to be pythium. I did a lil reading this morning and I'm inclined to believe it was fusarium or black rot. I'm not sure though. I've only seen this on other time when I was working in NorCal. At the time we believed it was due to overwatering and leaving the rockwool cubes for cloning attached to the base of the stem. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide was sprayed at the base of the stem (which turned black) and all of the half dozen or so visibly infected plants were saved. RD
If you can successfully germ cover seeds you can add worms and plants for that matter. Did you add the alfalfa?
If you have a few worms kicking around you don't really need to buy more. https://www.redwormcomposting.com/general-questions/will-a-red-worm-population-double-in-3-months/ You can be as creative as you'd like to be with your cover/companion crop. I had a GF throw squash seeds in my wormbin years ago and they were popping up on me all the time! Lol. If you do your job properly 90-100% of the living mulch will die back due to lack of light. It's fun to play with and I utilize it on new grows until the spider mites arrive. Then I'm done with it. RD
Coot got me into alfalfa over 10 years ago,grabbed a 50lb. sack which sat in my garage for two years and supplied one resident rat who caused serious Mayham till he was caught! Never did try using it so I dunno.
If you want to know if it's hot...stick your hand down into the center of the pile. Red wigglers are very good at moving to the edges where it's much cooler. RD
Thing is those worms may not be equally distributed between the 8 pots.. I'd have to look for em and redistribute. One thing I have been doing (which has been more comical by the day) is collecting worms in the back and adding them to vermicomposter I just made. I thought I got real lucky and found worm eggs, later looked them up and I think they were actually slug or snail eggs.. rofl.. I thought I saw people were happy to have centipedes in their worm bins, so I added a cpl of those. then I read that they might eat the worms. Lol, I've not done so good w/ that so far but hoping I get some reproduction going on. Pretty sure I got a lot of composting worms in there. Hopefully the centipedes go for the slug/snail eggs ahah, but I actually don't think they're too bad to have in a worm bin.. The issue would be transfering those eggs to the pots, but I'd just compress the compost to get rid of them first.. As for being too hot.. I didn't leave the soil in a big pile, both cause we had nowhere to leave it like that and cause I didn't read that it was better to do that.. 120 gal is split up between eight 15 gal pots. I also fucked up and ran hose water to dampen them... god dammit I'm still not used to water being harmful. We're not that chlorinated but I should have let them just get rained on, probably wiped out a lot of microbial life.. shitty. We have all started rain barrel systems here for watering, we get a lot in this area.
That's good to know,cover can and will be food for bugs and it's not a bad thing? So glad you pointed that out,that would of had me worrying.
companion planting is a well known technique in permaculture. Give pests more than one option, especially an option they like BETTER than what you're trying to keep them off works great.. Solves your problem. Even works all the way up to deer etc - plant them a food source they really like away from your productive plants so they stay out of your garden. I don't necessarily think it would work in the same no-till pots if they were small, however if you were to companion plant in the same room nearby, it would probably work great. Plants get targeted by pests when they are weak, as well. If the plant/soil is strong (high brix soil important here), it's harder in general for pests to even begin. This was highlighted for me this yr, when I had radishes and other root stuff going in an uncomposted/low nutrient, sandy ish bed, with greens and other stuff in well maintained beds right next to it. The radishes got obliterated by ants very quickly, and later taken over by aphids. The whole time, not a hint of infestation/barely even saw a bug in any of the other beds just feet away. This is because the radishes etc were just weak in general and an easy target for pests. They simply did not migrate at all the whole growing season to the other beds even though they were full of tasty stuff too.
Oh and for any Canadians (or really anyone), price checked pre-bagged no-till soil. It would have cost us $420-430 for our 8 pots worth of soil, then we'd have to buy more stuff - top dress amendments, pots, etc. Ended up spending the same and got 10 smartpots, LED sunglasses, then for leftover amendments - 5kg neem meal (from 9kg bag), some crab/alfalfa/kelp meal leftover, malted barley powder, fish hydrolysate, 12 cans of coconut water... etc etc... It's really, really worth it to mix your own rather than buy pre-mixed, we have so much extra stuff from doing it this way. It seems like it would cost almost double to buy pre-mixed soil.
BNw; Do you use GC just in veg or throughout your grows? Do you ever need to use it more than once a week? I do MBP topper every other weekend and a Neem/kelp every other,doing BT Wednesday's,do you recommend BT on tuesdays and GC Thursday's to spread things out some?
RD, What I was seeing, is a perfectly looking healthy plant going tits up late in flower. One day it looks great, the next morning it looked like I hadn’t watered. Looked like permenant wilt. These where SIPs, so watering wasnt the issue. Fusarium can move within the water column. Pythium from my understanding, will take down branches and crowns. Fusarium will take down the whole plant. There was a podcast with medical genomics (Shaping Fire, iirc) and he was saying it moves within the plant, so if it’s determined its there the whole plant is infected. While determining what it was I had put a new clone into the same pot. Sure enough, tits up a few months later.
You're all good man. Centipedes are pretty territorial and won't decimate the population. I saw one in a bin and left it alone the other day. I think you're trying to do too much. Lol. Go rake some leaves in a pile and start composting. Watering once with chlorinated water is fine. The last run of my old no till bed was watered the entire time with chlorinated tap water...just to see if I could. What I was trying to mention before is that companion planting with cannabis is tricky if you encounter spider mites. They will infest things like clover, fenugreek, and chocolate mint. I know they will avoid barley. I think @Organic sinse knows of a few others that work even in the presence of mites. Personally I just stop using companion planting when they arrive. RD
@Notillerson just curious, how do you increase brix in soil. Ive seen guys promoting brix blends and such but havent really delved into it.
Thanks man, it hasn't been an issue for me at all for a few runs now. Still something I should read up on. Appreciate the reply. I wonder if it's a more common occurrence in your part of the world? RD
I missed "spider",you say "when" they arrive. These are black hats,do they always arrive in your grows? Do you do both indoor and outdoor?
Currently my shop is in an area with probably 100 other growers packed into a square mile. We are in a northern climate and many of them rely soley on air circulation. All sorts of critters flying around. I'm not sure I've ever had a grow where they didn't show up eventually. Much easier to take care of or completely eradicate as a "one and done" soil grower than it is when there's 40 yards worth of raised bed. For me it's a game of keeping them in check...full eradication just isn't likely to happen. RD
I believe it just has to do w/ how healthy the soil is in general, the microbial/fungal life and the availability of nutrients to plants - not just the density/mix of nutrients, how easily the soil environment allows the plants to use them. So, I was going to go with doc buds high brix blend until I realized it was just a flashy version of basically coots mix and no-till. It's been refined for pro-mix specifically, probably really good but at the end of the day I have basically replicated it for a better price and more longevity. I'm pretty certain most no-tillers would find themselves already growing in high brix soil if they tested.