Like you TL.OG34, I don't like wasting anything. I love fishing and gardening so to me it just makes sense to recycle my fish carcasses. I'm not sure about the Asians in the worm bins. I do have them in one bin now so only time will tell. The link I posted about the Asian Jumping worms states. Do NOT buy or use jumping worms for bait, vermicomposting or gardening. This is to slow the spread of this invasive species. So, I wouldn't encourage it.
Scary shit haha. Doesn’t worry me too much. According to scientists there were zero worms in the US at one point. I was just reading and they’ve been in southeastern US for awhile. If I recall Uncle Jim sells them. The reason they say they’re cause for concern is they compost too fast and will end up composting the leafs of the forest floor which protects the soil. When are humans going to learn you can’t stop nature. If it’s not mustard garlic, it’s burning bush, now Asian worms, lol head for the hills we’re being invaded! Don’t people realize everything’s invasive, including us. Living things evolve to reproduce and spread. There’s no cure or solution to eradicating all the earthworms so why stress about it. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Here's a breakdown of all the goodies found in aloe vera: You can see that AV is rich in vitamins, enzymes, amino acids and (my favorite) salicylic acid, a growth hormone. Malted barley (powder) is loaded with enzymes and one of the heavy hitters is chitinase. The actions of chitinase are enhanced by certain abiotic factors one of which is salicylic acid. By using aloe vera to water in MBP and vermicompost, it helps a plant's SAR (systemic acquired resistance) Chitinase was described for the first time in 1911 by Bernard in orchid bulbs in which it behaves like a thermo sensitive and diffusible antifungal factor. In animals the presence of chitinase was marked in snails by Flach et al. (1992). Since then these molecules are unanimously considered as a tool to strengthen plant immune response against a variety of pathogens by various workers owing to its property to lyse fungal cell wall and components of insect exoskeleton. Besides this, dramatic increase in chitinase levels by numerous abiotic agents (ethylene, salicylic acid, salt solutions, ozone, UV light) and by biotic factors (fungi, bacteria, viruses, viroids, fungal cell wall components and oligosaccharides) also proved their role in plant defense response (Punja and Zhang et al., 1993; Gupta et al., 2010b). Excerpt from: The Role of Chitinase in Plant Defense Along with my home made vermicompost, I figure the 7 dollar a jug investment for aloe along with the .89 cent per pound malted barley is a cheap way to keep my garden healthy.
Lol if that’s pampering. what do you call the $35-40 bottles they sell at the hydro store and all the other gimmicky rubbish. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
@TimJ the Asians reproduce without mating. One worm can produce eggs by itself. And they reach maturity within 60 days of hatching. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I dont doubt AV, but come on $7 a jug whats the point how is that cheap? You must be spending thousands of dollars a month on the stuff just for a personal grow even at $7 a jug. ITs madness.
I dont use that shit so I dunno. I do know though that those bottles are concentrated and therefore how can they compare with $7 per jug of watering. Thats insane beyond belief.
I respect every ones choice to grow in the way they choose. There are many highly experienced growers here and I appreciate all they have and are teaching me. Good luck with your grow thenaturalwaytoroll.
I'm not knocking I just dont see why teach people to spend $7 per gallon of water going in. Literally thousands of dollars per month for a hobby grow that's teaching stupidity with all due respect. Aloe is great stuff, no doubt about it but doing this is the reserve of the very wealthy.
I'm far from rich. I thrive to produce the cleanest, highest quality med's I can as do most here. I use Aloe twice a month. It costs me very little, not thousands of dollars. 1/2 cup per gallon is what I believe is the dilution rate for the product Chunk listed. Use fresh Aloe plant at 1/4 cup leaf to one gallon water if you like. Or use freeze dried at 1/4 teaspoon to one gallon of water. Or better yet, don't use it at all, your plants will still grow. Happy trails to the gardening style you choose. I'll keep reading and learning to improve my grow every day.
I get it for $6 and you only need 1/4 cup per gallon because it’s concentrated. And you don’t have to do aloe drench every day once a week is enough and does wonders strengthen stems keeps soil moisten and has all types of enzymes and trace minerals. Not only can it be used as drench and foliar spray, I also use fresh aloe filets for cloning (way cheaper than cloning gel). The jug is just convenient. You can buy a plant at grocery store for 5 bucks and have unlimited supply. It’s actually very inexpensive technique. But as @TimJ said with a high quality soil with good humus water only will give you great results as well. Many ways to skin a cat my friend. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh I thought he was feeding its every watering as is. Panic over lol I thought he was maybe a Russian billionaire lol
Lmao yea I like to water with leprechaun tears and I mulch with Peruvian gold leaf really does wonders not too expensive. Diamonds are way better aeration than that pumice or perlite crap. Haha Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I absolutely love using fish and sawdust for making compost. Fish is one of the highest N sources and sawdust is one of the highest C sources around. Very easy to make a large compost pile quickly and very easy to turn it over. I like to keep the pile consisting of only these two ingredients for the first week or two and then build a pile with everything else added and let it do it's thing without mixing it up after that. RD
@ElRanchoDeluxe I have heard you mention 'horizontal flow thru' worm bins. Would you have any tips on design/shapes, and any comments on how they perform. I'm kind of scheming something for outside for part of the year, and a second something much smaller for inside. I would be using the same worms transferred seasonally from unit to unit. Thanks in advance cheers os
I harvested my vmc that I made with European nightcrawlers over the winter. I agree with everyone out there, that thinks they shred the bedding way too much. Even the small bark nuggets were unrecognizable. They broke stuff down to a point that I don't normally see. Based on that observation, I would urge real care when adding them to notil containers. I think a lot of em, over a long period of time could make that muddy goo we all hate in our pots. cheers os
I had some Canadian night crawlers left over from fishing once so I decided to throw em in my pots. Gotta be couple years ago now but iirc they didn’t do very well I think they died within a couple weeks. I remember smelling somthin terrible then finding the carcasses on the topsoil. I already had some wigglers in there at the time, don’t know if they got pushed out or over run or what but my one night crawler attempt in pots was definitely a failure. The wigglers euros and jumpers seem to be the only worms that I can get to populate and stick around. I’ve been having recent success with the jumpers that are coming from my compost piles. They’re much bigger than wigglers and seem to be just as hardy they compost very quickly and the castings have that airy granular like texture. The wigglers seem to have lightest fluffiest castings of the 3 Varieties ime anyways. Edit: today I came across a ginormous jumper that looked about 13 inches long in my raised tomato bed outside. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
The Canadian night crawlers need really cool temps. They can't really do room temp for very long. cheers os
That makes sense. They probably cooked in the pots. they wanted out I remember I had to pull everything out of my tent and wipe the trays floor and everything down with hydrogen peroxide. Smelled awful. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum