Let me start out thanking all of the folks that have help me enter into organic growing through their insightful posts and playful banter. I started out in hydro and left that for soil-less. Got tired of buying all the nutes and spending tons of my time checking pH levels, EC and remembering what day it was for each plant and mixing up the appropriate nutes. After months and months of investigation and reading every post I could come across, I started R.O.L.S. After a kind soul turned me on to Dr Elaine Ingram, I started learning about no-till and figured that is where it really is. Mimick nature as best as possible and let MN do her thing. So, I bought some 7 and 20 gallon fabric pots, mixed up my soil from a post AD gave in the no-till thread: 33% CSPM - not peat moss, Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss 33% Pumice - not perlite. Not Growstones (some new stoner product at Hydro Heaven) 33% Malibu Biodynamic Compost Compost My Fix-It Mix - per cubic foot 1/2 cup kelp meal 1/2 cup neem meal 1/2 crustacean meal 4 cups basalt rock dust I'm also adding in 6-8 cups of bio-char per cf. Plenty (20 lbs) of 6-row malted barley to grind for top-dressing. three giant 3 foot tall aloe plants and every amendment possible (listened to too many people on other forums). I have 16" saucers with "rocks-that-don't-roll" lining the bottom to lift the 7-gallon fabric pots off the plastic saucers. My issue comes with what to put under my 20 gallon fabric pots (19 7/8") so they get air underneath. I thought about building a frame out of 1x6 and lining it with a double layer of black/white poly with a layer or two of rocks, but I am not sure that will be thick enough to not tear. 24 inch saucers are too expensive at $25/ea. Any suggestions? I also am wondering if I might be able to setup my own blumat system using their sensors and my feed lines. I already have a 65 gallon water tank and I am sure, with all of my fittings from my hydro days that I could hook something up. Anyone have any luck or should I just bury my ass in debt to purchase a system from Topf? Lastly, I have a cover crop of Dutch white clover and some barley straw for mulch and cover crop. I plan on getting a bale of 1st cut alfalfa hay to go with the barley straw. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance, Biggo
Sounds good. I grow water only organic. Only problem I can see is the need to charge the bio char unless it is pre charged. If it is not charged it will rob nutrients from the soil and plants. Worm castings. You need them. You can setup a worm bin even in an apartment. This is a good book for worms. A good book for organic growing. I have both.
Just a couple of things to consider... Pumice is heavy as hell. You may have issue maneuvering 20 gallon pots with the stuff in it, especially when saturated after watering. Also, if you're using the Malibu compost, you're going to want to increase the percentage of aeration amendment. That Malibu compost is really dense, and better suited as is for use in an outdoor garden. For the drainage for your 20 gallon pots, see if you can source some PDM lining (?) in your area. I think you're going to have tear issues with regular poly lining over time. PDM is the thick rubber like material used for lining backyard fountain set ups and coy ponds. 1-2 inch sections of 2" PVC piping work well for keeping the pots up off the liner. Just make several to space evenly around the foot print of the pot to evenly support the weight. It's what I do to keep pots up off the bottom of my drain pan. I water by hand, so really can't offer anything useful for setting up an automated watering system like you've described. I do believe that at least one of these guys might be able to help in that arena.... @Sc00byD00bie & @FickySiskers. Oh. Many of us here have determined that 4c/cubic foot rock dust application is a bit overkill. It's made several soil mixes in these parts overly dense and affected drainage in a negative manner. I would think especially so with the compost you're planning on using. You'll be more than fine applying it at 2c/cubic foot. That's all I wanted to comment on. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply, WB. I have a worm bin that I started a year ago. I've been feeding them yummies like comfrey, horsetail, stinging nettles, burdock and borage and plan on putting some of the vermicompost and a handful of worms in each pot. I have already charged my bio-char, but thanks for the thoughts. I also have the Teaming with Microbes book and have read just about everything I could find from Tim Wilson who has blessed me with quite a bit of his knowledge. My no-till setup will not get daily ACTs unlike I've read a lot of folks suggest. I plan on going with suggestions made by AD and BlueJay with letting the microbes and fungi do their own thing with little input from me other than topdressings, cover crops and mulching. Trying to make this as natural as I can and let Mother Nature take it from there.
The basalt that I am using for my rock "dust" is about 1/16" and not too terribly much dust...just enough to be available for bacterial and fungi and the larger should breakdown over time, but in the meantime I figure it adds a little bit of aeration. My aeration is broken down from the 33% in 1/3 pumice, 1/3 rice hulls and 1/3 lava rock. I've looked at the pond liners but they want big money near me for a measly 10x6 rubber liner...Amazon wasn't any better for price.
I plan on using the sensors and 3mm drip lines from Topf. It's just back from there that I plan to use my own tank, lines and connectors.
I have just about every imaginable size of hose and connectors from 1/8 and up. You have a blumat setup, don't you Scoob?
those 3mm lines need to connect to a 8mm line, unless you have a fitting that can connect a 3mm to something else. now, you will need an elevated reservoir, assuming yours is or can be elevated you can either run the 8mm line directly from your tank to your plants and back (its a good idea to make a closed loop). you cut into that feed line and connect the supplied T with the 3mm line that goes to the sensor. for that you would need the blumat tank connector: or, if you have pvc lines already you could connect to those via a 8mm top hat rubber grommets. something like this:
Sounds like you got it figured out. I add a handful of castings to each pot once a month with a pinch of garden tone. I am a fan of "Down to Earth" all purpose. Its good stuff. It has all the different meals needed. Non burning.
That would be outer diameter. If you look on amazon they sell a "superflex" 8mm tube for blumats. If you need to buy more tubing I'd get that instead of the regular 8mm that comes with the kit which is stiff and harder to work with. Also, if you plan on placing more then one sensor per pot I'd look into the distribution drippers they sell instead.
Awesome job, Scooby! I planned on placing one "long" sensor per pot in the side about 3/4 the way down the pot and then routing the drip line up the side and into the top of the pot. Would that work?
you mean by inserting it through the fabric on the side? meh ive seen that way of installation but i cant say i see a benefit to doing it that way. if you ever want to remove the sensor (for refilling with water for instance) soil will start to fall out, the fabric can rip in time and the hole can get bigger...idk i prefer to do it the normal way and stick it into the soil from the top.
That is what I was thinking, but you bring up a valid point with the removal and subsequent enlarging or the hole in the pot. My thought was to get the sensor toward the middle bottom of the root mass, but since you been doing this longer than I, I will follow your suggestion.
i use maxi sensors on my 100g smartpot, thing must be 2feet deep? works great! btw, you should take a look at the blumat digital moister meter, they are a little pricey ($50ish) but they are very good units and compared to a professional tensiometer its dirt cheap. they work on the same principal as a tensiometer and are very reliable, unlike those cheapo 3 in 1 meters you can buy in the garden shop which are more useful as yellow sticker holders then moister meters, lol!