Going organic remixing old promix

stoobeey said:

I think I just found a local ewc source sorta by my work. 8-10$/gal. Can't imagine I need more than 2 gal worth for now, I'll chuck 1 gal into my soil mix since God knows if that vermasterra stuff was any good (added 3# to the soil when I amended). I made a 24 hour tea with 1/4c casting and 1 tbl molasses in 1.5 gal water and fed all that into the tote.

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Locally sourced ewc or just plain compost is always going to be a great option. For potting soil I reccomend making it 15% of your mix and to top dress with large handfuls throughout the growth cycle. Depending on your source you might be able to lean on it pretty hard as your main fertilizer. You'd be surprised. If you can get a hold of some manure based castings or compost you are in a good place.

If I've got a good rich manure based ewc and or compost ill do a mix that's 15% castings/compost and the rest 1/2 peat moss or composted bark fines. Then ill just mix in the standard reccomended amount per cubic foot of bone meal and dolomite lime.

For waterings I would steep a large couple handfuls of compost/ewc for every 5 gallons of water for about 30 mins to an hour before applying.

Then I would top dress with a large handful of ewc/compost every few weeks during veg and every couple weeks in flower. I would lay off the amount if it was effecting the drainage of the soil at all.

green_machine_two9er said:

That seems super expensive.

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Yeah when I was selling castings on Craigslist I did em $20 bucks for a five gallon bucket worth. $15 if you brought your own bucket.

Rasta Roy said:

Yeah when I was selling castings on Craigslist I did em $20 bucks for a five gallon bucket worth. $15 if you brought your own bucket.

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Sucks just realized the real close spot they just moved there and have no inventory for people buying under 20gallons lol, waiting list under 20. May be driving a 2hr round trip to get some today elsewhere

stoobeey said:

Sucks just realized the real close spot they just moved there and have no inventory for people buying under 20gallons lol, waiting list under 20. May be driving a 2hr round trip to get some today elsewhere

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The biodynamic farm my buddy manages sells theirs at 15/qt

green_machine_two9er said:

Wow a what’s left in your mix? What’s state are you in? You basically named all my ingredients except neem and sand. Lol

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I'm in Michigan. I've Cali and Washington have stricter tests though. I prefer to lean pretty hard on manure (mostly rabbit + cow) than meals...but if I were to reccomend a mix of meals I would reccomend

Neem seed meal
Alfalfa meal or blood meal
Bone meal
Langbeinite or Sulfate of Potash
Lime either dolomite or calcitic

Along with ewc of course.

stoobeey said:

Sucks just realized the real close spot they just moved there and have no inventory for people buying under 20gallons lol, waiting list under 20. May be driving a 2hr round trip to get some today elsewhere

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Check out your local nurseries or places that sell wildflowers or landscaping supplies. A lot of them will sell affordable compost. Kind of out of season right now but definitely a great local option in the spring and summer.

Rasta Roy said:

I'm in Michigan. I've Cali and Washington have stricter tests though. I prefer to lean pretty hard on manure (mostly rabbit + cow) than meals...but if I were to reccomend a mix of meals I would reccomend

Neem seed meal
Alfalfa meal or blood meal
Bone meal
Langbeinite or Sulfate of Potash
Lime either dolomite or calcitic

Along with ewc of course.

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Nice. What about minerals. You crossed out basalt which I really heavily on?
Fellow Michigander here, I’ve heard of a lot of products flagging test result. But never thought my kelp and crab would bring heavy metals. Wondering if the source has an effect on levels?

Rasta Roy said:

Check out your local nurseries or places that sell wildflowers or landscaping supplies. A lot of them will sell affordable compost. Kind of out of season right now but definitely a great local option in the spring and summer.

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I'm in cali/la no such thing as out of season haha. I work in produce industry and work with local farms too

green_machine_two9er said:

Nice. What about minerals. You crossed out basalt which I really heavily on?
Fellow Michigander here, I’ve heard of a lot of products flagging test result. But never thought my kelp and crab would bring heavy metals. Wondering if the source has an effect on levels?

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Source definitely has an effect. If you've got the resources to test your amendments, and your product; than you can see if your source is clean and leaving you with a clean product. My approach is to blanket out anything that might be a risk; but not everything that falls under that blanket is inherently bad always. Honestly if you were to do tissue testing of your plants and did side by sides where you did a mix minus the basalt, I don't think you would see a difference. I would be interested to see your results though!

stoobeey said:

I'm in cali/la no such thing as out of season haha. I work in produce industry and work with local farms too

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Ooo man I miss the produce in California, even more down south there. But about those castings. They must be speckled with gold for 15$quart! Wow or I need to start my worm farm biodynamically. Lol. I do .50c a lb which is usually 20$ for 5 gallon bucket. And even roots organic castings are what 20-25$ a bag. There’s gotta be a cheaper source around la for quality yet affordable castings.

Rasta Roy said:

Source definitely has an effect. If you've got the resources to test your amendments, and your product; than you can see if your source is clean and leaving you with a clean product. My approach is to blanket out anything that might be a risk; but not everything that falls under that blanket is inherently bad always. Honestly if you were to do tissue testing of your plants and did side by sides where you did a mix minus the basalt, I don't think you would see a difference. I would be interested to see your results though!

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Can I send you a sample lol

green_machine_two9er said:

Can I send you a sample lol

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I wouldn’t know where to start a test

green_machine_two9er said:

Ooo man I miss the produce in California, even more down south there. But about those castings. They must be speckled with gold for 15$quart! Wow or I need to start my worm farm biodynamically. Lol. I do .50c a lb which is usually 20$ for 5 gallon bucket. And even roots organic castings are what 20-25$ a bag. There’s gotta be a cheaper source around la for quality yet affordable castings.

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Probably going to a spot on irvine. Be a 2hr round trip, but not expensive to buy.
Watch on amazon prime the biggest little farm. It's about this farm. 1 of 2 brewers next worm house that I didn't take a photo of for some reason. They gravity feed into the irrigation system. Watch that movie, the farm is nuts, I've been .coolest place . I don't even get a discount hahahah

stoobeey said:

Probably going to a spot on irvine. Be a 2hr round trip, but not expensive to buy.
Watch on amazon prime the biggest little farm. It's about this farm. 1 of 2 brewers next worm house that I didn't take a photo of for some reason. They gravity feed into the irrigation system. Watch that movie, the farm is nuts, I've been .coolest place . I don't even get a discount hahahah

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nice, im gunna check it out! just realized i have amazon video too ( have had prime for years)

green_machine_two9er said:

I wouldn’t know where to start a test

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green_machine_two9er said:

Can I send you a sample lol

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I'm just a humble gardener my friend. The company I work for sends everything to a few different testing facilities (some are quicker than others depending on their current workload, we always go with whoever can provide the quickest results at the time that testing is required.

N

green_machine_two9er said:

Ooo man I miss the produce in California, even more down south there. But about those castings. They must be speckled with gold for 15$quart! Wow or I need to start my worm farm biodynamically. Lol. I do .50c a lb which is usually 20$ for 5 gallon bucket. And even roots organic castings are what 20-25$ a bag. There’s gotta be a cheaper source around la for quality yet affordable castings.

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So I ended up going down to Irvine for a 5gal bucket packed full. He has a couple of set ups. One was a constant flow, and some standard setups. He said he does add in a tiny bit of org matter and vermiculite to prevent it turning into rocks.. and I know I've seen plenty people talk about ewc compacting soil if not amended correctly with aeriation. I added a few more quarts to the soil tote since this is fresh stuff. I'll do a tea again next week to try and get it all going before I do my last upottings.

I've been doing 2gal (getting as good or larger harvest than I was in a 5 gal and half soil usage).. I understand I should maybe move to 3s at minimum for organics? I know 5 is better.. I presume this is mainly due to the amount of food available to the plant and I'll just be top dressing a tiny bit more often maybe?

Rasta Roy said:

You don't need the hydrolysate.

If you got:

EWC
Alfalfa Meal
Bone Meal
Langbeinite
Kelp Meal
Lime

Than you're good my friend no need for anything else. Neem seed meal will decrease the need to add additional Alfalfa meal in later vegetation stage of more heavy feeding strains.

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So I ended up mixing some fresh soil too now.
Made 1.5cuft

1/3 peat
1/3 black lava
1/3 half local ewc half malibu compost
3/4c crab, kelp, alfalfa
1/2c bone (or should I just do 3/4c)
2 tbl langbeinite
2 tbl humic
1.5c dolomite
I see a lot of people with gypsum in their mineral mix, am I lacking this or covered by other shit,

Made a tea with 1/2c ewc, 1/4c compost, 1tbl kelp, crab, alfalfa, 1 tbl molasses in 2 gal RO water. Bubbled 24hrs, used that diluted 50% and watered in. I have a thermocouple style thermometer istuck in the center of soil (I didn't pile it up should I?). Hit like 93 deg today (was warm in socal today) bit I know it's already dropping in temp since sunset.

I've already cut out liquid nutes on correct grows finishing and my jack auto (which is surprising small still unsure why or if it's about to stretch like mad in week 4). I too dressed the nls a few weeks ago and they'll finish in 3 maybe 4 weeks. We'll see if I kill a clone in amended roots soil, then in a month we'll see what happens in my soil.

In smaller containers should I be top dressing every like 2 weeks? Considering it'll take 2 to get going?

I have an auto starting to flower that just didn't get big, I mean I tied it down a good bit early .. it's in 5 gal of roots with shitty ewc and lime. (Before I had amendments). Ive done nada except ro water, 1 tea, and 2 top dress (2nd is yesterday). Did I not feed often enough.. I thought maybe bc it was in a 5 gal I didn't need to feed for a month. I mean never had signs of deficiency.