Epsoma Tomato-tone 3-4-6

Smidge34

Smidge34

Well-Known Member
Yes, if you can source and use Greasemonkey and other organic heavyweights' recipe you will be a leg up. Those guys use a base similar to mine, but amend with kelp meal, alfalfa meal, neem meal, crab shell meal, rock dusts etc. great mixes.
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
MustangStudFarm said:
I really wanted to move to a better mix but I just bought a mini split a/c and it took most of my money. Espoma is cheap and easy to use. I was just saying dont mix it unless it is going to sit for a couple of months. If you use it right away, topdress. I use tea when the leaf curl starts to happen.
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You must of run it to hot. I use the garden tone, alfalfa, compost, manure, worm castings, lime, crushed oyster shell. I plant all my vegetables straight to it.
 
Smidge34

Smidge34

Well-Known Member
All organic matter must be broken down (ingested) by microbes and other critters in the soil, THEN the resulting waste matter is in a form that can be easily taken up for use by the plant.
 
MustangStudFarm

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
I could be wrong, but I think it is the blood meal that causes curl in SOME of my strains...

I would rather topdress with lots of casting over the tea but that is a lot of castings!
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
ImAMotionPicture said:
What's the rates you using your amendments
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My garden is 75ft x 75ft and I put two truck loads of cow manure, 40 pounds of alfalfa, couple 40 pound bags of oyster shell. Couple Pounds of lime powder, few Pounds of pellet lime, few wheelbarrows of compost and all the worm castings I could get my hands on.

For potting soil I use a 55 gallon drum. I mix an equal mix of a generic organic humus and generic unfertilized topsoil. In that 55 gallon drum I will put a coffee can of alfalfa and oyster shell each. About five gallons of compost and worm castings each. Couple to a few cups of garden tone. I also put a couple cups of a mix that had fish, bone, blood meal in it. That batch I let cook. I also run it fresh. If I run it fresh I cut it by 50% with a inert mix. I also cut it with perlite if need be. Some of the bags of humus contain sand. I eyeball it for drainage.

Also that mix I will cut with sphagnum for water retention for outdoors. Summer gets 100 plus sometimes here. It really helps in hot weather.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
MustangStudFarm said:
I was trying to learn GreaseMonkey's formula. I am far from an expert. Most people on here look down upon Espoma. It is all slaughter-house byproducts. Look at the contents on the bag.
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you guys are too kind. I appreciate the kind words and respect.
So, it's not really that we look down on the slaughterhouse stuff, it's not like a high-horse thing or a veganics (annoying)
My number one complaint is bonemeal can potentially have dangerous prions in it, and those can kill you, deader than hell... Madcow, spongiform encelapathy (know I spelled that wrong)
google CFE or madcow disease.
My other complaint is that blood meal is sorta hard to control, it is in fact a fairly good source of nitrogen, but it breaks down and becomes available to the plant SUPER fast, almost to the degree of it all being soluble, which it is, and isn't (I know, it's confusing), just hard to slow down the "dumping" of nitrogen to the plant, a 15-0-0 is a strong nutrient..
in my experience it's a good nutrient if you can't source another nitrogen input, such as alfalfa meal, neem meal, fish meal, even high nitrogen guanos, and manures (alpaca and rabbit are the best, FYI)
personally I use my compost as my nutrient source, I amend it as the leaves breakdown, with high nitrogen inputs to accelerate the thermophillic composting, alfalfa meal, fish meal, grass clippings, those work great for that, but I also sprinkle fish bone meal(great slow release of phosphorus, and a good replacement for bovine bone-meal) also kelp meal, crab meal, egg shells, oyster flour and shells (I like the shells, I use the chicken feed ones)
sprinkle minerals of varying bio-availability, such as azomite, and rock phosphates for quick release, and greensand/langbeinite for long term, as I re-use my soil.
I LOVE slow release high nitrogen amendments, used to LOVE feather meal for that reason, it breaks down soooo slowly, but feather meal is loaded with toxic shit now)
key is with dry amendments is you want to use slow, medium and fast release amendments.
for example, fish meal, alfalfa meal, blood meal, are relatively fast to be useful, guanos, and manures a lil slower, and hair/beard, clippings/dog clippings are the slowest.
I mix all my nutrients up in my compost and by the time the compost is ready, the nutrients have long cycled.
pure humus and cycled nutrients, add aeration and plant, easy as hell, and yet not.
no aging needed because it's already been doing that.
I feel it's important to add that nitrogen is your friend, people that use different nutrients (for diff stages) for their plants, do so, unnecessarily. In other words, mixing a nutrient tea of like just phosphurus and potassium for flowering is hydro-logic.
Key to good and easy growind success, is to get a reaaaally good source of humus.
Really.
Good compost or a good castings source.
Preferably both, I've done runs with JUST ewc, and I had better results with a mix of compost AND castings.
Not sure why, but I didn't argue with the plant.
 
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