Hi everyone, I'm growing outdoors this year with organic soil mixed per ITG's thread. I'm using 1/3 peat 1/3 homemade compost 1/3 perlite as the base and continued on as instructed with rock dust, nutrients, etc. The humus portion was actually cut about 20% with EWC since I didn't have enough compost ready. Last year I was still doing nutes and FFOF so this organic soil is new for me. In my mixing bins the soil seemed to have a good consistency. It clumped in hand but fell apart when agitated. My girls are clones in 1 gallon smart pots. I planted the rock wool cubes into the soil last Friday and watered the pots until I had a little bit of runoff (not 20% as I read organic soil doesn't need so much). However now I'm a little concerned because it's holding water so long and the wet mass of it seems much firmer in the pot then last year's FFOF. The top of the soil is dry and crusty but looks to be mostly perlite with some dried compost, although if I prod below it's still moist. I have new growth on the girls and they seem to be doing alright. I know i should be mindful of LITFA but I'm asking for some guidance from you guys on this. I plan to water them tomorrow but only because the top is a bit crusty and after 7 days on one watering I dont imagine I'd be overwatering. However the pots still have some weight to them and the heaviness of the soil makes me concerned about potential root rot. I will try and get some pics tomorrow before watering to give you a better look but I'd appreciate your input before then. Just trying to get a good handle on this at the start. I did well last year and i give my girls a lot of attention...I'd hate to do something that hurts them!
Rush is awesome. Great name! Great idea going all organic man, hopefully we can get you squared away as best we can. First question: did you hydrate your spm before mixing with the rest of the ingredients? The biggest issue I have with perlite is its tendency to float to the surface, especially if you water too fast. Lava rock, pea gravel, and rice hulls don't have this issue. Topsoil dryness can be easily controlled with a bit of mulch. Straw is good, as well as a lite compost mulch, dried comfrey leaves, and even a living mulch would be great. If it were me, I would moisten the topsoil, throw some mulch down, moisten, and let the whole thing soak up/dry before another soak. Hope this helps, good luck! Lu
Haha yep I got tickets to see them for this tour too, can't wait. Got my PAX and harvest from last year to enjoy them with I didn't hydrate the spm separately but I kept everything moist while cooking the soil and also mixed everything by hand to disperse the moisture evenly without clumps The soil my plants are in cooked just shy of three weeks, a little short I know but by the time I started prep work for this year it was already May (I just grow as a hobby each year for family and giveaways). The rest of the soil is still cooking for my final transplant to 5 gal. I actually would have gone with rice hulls but by the time I got that deep into the soil thread I had already bought and mixed the perlite in lol. Ok then it sounds like I'm good to go so far. As for mulch, I have a lot more homemade compost I can spread on top of the pots if that's acceptable and just keep it moist? I assume by lite compost you mean to remove any carbon remnants? I'm really very excited for the organics. To know that my compost began as fruit, veggies, eggshells, coffee grounds, leaves and flowers and is now the broken down component parts off all that is so cool.
I watered today and my girls really loved it I was gonna upload some photos of my soil but I'm on an Ipad and not sure how to get my exif data removed s gotta hold off. Thanks for the lead on mulching, I answered my own question there after looking it up so this week I'll get some compost on top with shredded leaves on top of that. I know I said it before but i'll say it again, real excited with this soil guys. Actually found a bean sprout growing with one girl today lol. Once i get to the next transplant I think my soil will be perfect for them. Once I figure out the exif thing I might get a journal going to for some nice exposure for outdoor organics from a beginner perspective.
Rush, Good going! Glad things are working out. Hey it's great that you mention a bean sprout. If you have more seeds, plant a few little bean seeds in your final soil, when you think it's ready, and see what happens. It's a good way to judge the "readiness", and the roots will give you some goodies too. Keep on truckn', and reading. Read all you can. As well, ask away, we are here to help. Good luck! Lu
I'm in the same boat as you, Rush, just beginning this whole organic soil thing. It's definitely a lot of fun and this forum has an absolute wealth of information and help from friendly people! My soil is still cooking (about a week in) and am just growing some clover in there and will be introducing some worms soon. Are you going to be using any teas in your grow?
I suppose if i need to I'll figure out how to make and use the teas but for now I'm just using water. I have my compost in a tumbler and i usually use a stick to break up or agitate some of the compost, then i rinse the stick i my water bucket. That's not a tea and I'm not actively aerating it, but i figure the compost residue inthe water might add some good funk to the water. Love to hear you're adding some worms, I'm on the lookout in my garden for a few to add too haha.
Alright I said I'd get some photos so I finally got them. First here's my soil: Here are my clones after i brought them home and transplanted them: And here they are two weeks later (today): L-R Strawberry OG, AK-47, King Louie and Animal Cookies The runty one is a King Louie. She's growing slow but I don't see any deficiency so she might just be fussy. No biggie to me.
Hey RushFan you have some pretty ladies! I'm in the same boat as you, im new but the help here has been overwhelming good What will be the final home for the ladies? What pot size? Are you adding worms to the final pots and make it a "no till garden"?
Thanks, they're in1 gal smartpot right now,my next and final transplant will be to 5 gal although i might reconsider and downsize to 3. They're growing pretty fast especially that AK and i can't have them too big or I'll be tempting fate with my neighbors. I'm completely legal but i don't really want my neighbors walking their dogs past 'the pot house' and giving me shit. I'll see though. The King Louie seems a little weak so maybe i need to do some troubleshooting. Maybe she got shifted into neutral and thinks she should flower or something else might be going on, She's green with some new growth but she just seems like she has problems getting going and is a little weak in holding her body language. I'd love to get some worms in those final pots! My final mix that's cooking has a couple worms in it but i'd like to find more. I read that wet cardboard left overnight on your lawn will have worms underneath in the morning so i might try that.
I'm thinking maybe the King Louie wants soil with a little more mix time or maybe some other amendments that didn't make it into my mix. My mix contained kelp meal, tomato tone and crab meal but no alfalfa or neem meal and i only had three weeks on the cool. The good news is i have a separate batch i mixed a few weeks ago with neem meal substituted for the crab shell, which i will fold into the main bulk of soil that's going for their 5 gal final pots. Hopefully she'll like that and can hang in there while it finishes a minimum cycling.
Indeed they are! My King Louie is doing good now too after I tied her down. Maybe she just wanted a workout to kick her into gear. I'm really happy with this soil and what it's doing for my girls.
Depends on the weather, pot size, soil saturation capabilities. Kinda hard to overwater in 90F+No rain... I've worked at commercial nurseries where I got to play with watering...everyday in hot weather (July-September) here and they love it... Now bring a plant inside in 75F and a low vpd...thats a different story... Oh yah, your mix looks kinda heavy in my opinion and your plants would do better if you took that non-decomposed mulch off the top, its suck Nitrogen from the soil/plant in order to facilitate decomposition.. Damn rookies xD haha jp
I read that shredded leaves were a good mulch so i added them on top to prevent evaporation. I figured since they're on top of the soil and my compost is finished that they wouldn't cause a problem...you're saying they could still rob nitrogen from the plants? This is my first time organic so please correct me if I need it
http://ohioline.osu.edu/sag-fact/pdf/0016.pdf What Ohio AGI says is religion, trust me From my experience the best mulch is either 1.) Living (Clover..) or 2.) Decomposed
I can understand how mixing high carbon components into the soil might affect microbial sequestration of N, and therefore limit what might be available for uptake by the plant in the short scheme of things. Considering that the grand majority of microbial activity takes place within the top 6" - 8" of the soil column, what makes you think that any appreciable amount of nitrogen contained within said soil might be lost due to top dressing with any of the high carbon/low nitrogen materials that are commonly and universally used as "mulches"?
Because I mulched $15,000 worth of Green arrow spruce with fresh mulch chips and killed them, just my experience, take it for what it is.. Anything lost is appreciable in my garden, idk about yours..
Can you guys clarify 'living' or decomposed mulch for me? Are either of those finished compost? My plan is to transplant these in a few weeks to their final 5 gal fabric pots, with a good dollop of finished compost on top. Ontop of that I may add the shredded leaves again; they may interact with the compost but I'm thinking that the compost is separate from the soil so it wouldn't matter. Would love input on that, and yes I did say dollop. Oh regarding heaviness, I added the rest of my perlite to the mix I still have cooking for final transplants. It was another gallon of perlite into about 25 gallons of soil, not much i know but my mix already had 1/3 perlite on the whole so I didn't want to do anything too disruptive. For what it's worth my plants look great and are thriving so my original concern likely unfounded cause I'm an organics noob.