I'm all ears!! Self sustainment or as close to it as possible is my ultimate goal. If by CL you mean Craigslist, I have. I usually end up with places over in Cali being listed rather than Yuma. Very interested to hear what you have on the subject of mesquite! Plenty of it around here that I keep on hand for smoking meat!
Re: Coconut Water 1/4 cup per gallon once a week is what I've been doing consistently for over a year now. I was sold after the first few applications and the ease of training to encourage side branching pays for itself as the increased levels of cytokinins available really jumpstarts that process! With my watering routine I felt that coconut water rounded out the menu nicely that already included sprouts and aloe. Here's an untopped untrained Gonzo - 12 days flowering. This and the other two Gonzo sisters pushed a lot of 'keepers' out of the garden lol she really just does it for me and for many patients as well, true medicinal qualities. AAA++ Turns out these seeds I popped were labeled this whole time: TO x NL5 who woulda thought! and sorry for any confusion earlier on, it was certainly not intended! Her sister Purple Gonzo, because well, it turns purple: Lastly there is also Blue Gonzo aka Gonzo #3 Flowering shots of each in the same order from last cycle: Can't wait until the next cycle when the whole room is dedicated to these 3 'strains' - the feedback has been tremendous!
I want to say bestbentonite.com and locally some pottery supply shops should sell 100% bentonite powder.
hounddog This is not a difficult material to source at all. The farm store in PDX sells 50# for $8.00 or something close to that. Chunk buys it for bedding in his chicken coops so he would have the exact price. Just curious - why bentonite? CC
Shoot even better! I think it's listed in my soil mix at the beginning - as part of my mineral mix - it was added to a good chunk of my soil in many of the notills but with such a small amount included it's not something I would add again, let alone go out of my way to find. In other words I found no difference in soils that in included it vs. those that did not.
I was talking to a guy at concentrates today about calcium bentonite. He stated that it has a high cec and comes loaded with nutrients. He went on to compare it with biochar stating that it also has a high CEC but comes without nutrients. Apparently concentrates has been looking for a source.
Good morning BlueJay and crew. Man, this party is really starting to kick in here! Welcome to GC invocation! Lookin forward to seeing some more of those beautiful garden shots. Awesome bud shots there blue!
Tree Dogg Yes Colloidal Minerals - View attachment collodialMinerals.pdf Edit: [SIZE=12pt]montmorillite = Azomite[/SIZE]
hounddog That must be the 'new guy' working the counter since Big Dan left who is sorely missed by many of us. CC
hounddog His comparison of bentonite and biochar is beyond bizarre - incomprehensible actually. It is like comparing pumice and alfalfa meal. If that....
My shopping spree yesterday enabled me to set up 4 no till 20 gallon fabric pots. Now I just need worms. What is the recommended amount per 20 gallon pot? I remember BlueJay stating that he uses reds and euros. Do you use both in your worm bin also? I'm assuming you probably just scoop some of your vermicompost along with some of the worms into your pots. FYI, sometimes I tend to over think stuff. LOL
hounddog It is claimed by many that Euros are helpful in a static bin because they stay down lower in the food stock thereby 'finishing' the material more completely. However in a vertical flow-thru design having worms near the bottom is a non-starter because that's where you harvest your vermicompost. I run a small horizontal flow-thru, a semi-commercial vertical flow-thru and 3 or 4 static bins like you are setting up with the Smart Pots. When you harvest (separate) the worms & cocoons from the vermicompost you add those to a new or existing worm bin. That's how you generate massive number of worms. Have you considered supplementing your worms with cocoons? 3,000 cocoons cost less than $60.00 (delivered). Each cocoon will produce between 3 - 5 worms each. When they're about 45 days old they are sexually mature and will begin producing cocoons - about 2.5x per week. When fully mature a pound of worms is 'about' 1,000 count - that's for Redworms, I'm not sure about Euros. Be very cautious about who you choose to buy worms from because there are more scammers than honorable people in this paradigm. I can count on a single hand the number of business that I would consider buying worms from much less cocoons. CC
Bro-ntinite coming soon to a store near you - brought to you by Brokashi! Hurry in for your broner discount! You'll get plenty of worms by simply using vermicompost, especially your own or even worm invaded home compost. To kick start the process I would add just a simple handful - 5, 10, 20 worms - they'll do what they do and you'll think you added 100 in no time!