Plant living in lava rock. How best can I keep it organic?

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Not a cannabis question. I've gone 100% organic inside and out. All my bottled nutes and synthetics are put away.
This plant has been with us for 10 years. Survived for years getting a weekly 1 hour dunk in a bucket of vegas 500ppm tap water.
I've experimented with very low doses of synthetic nutes and also used ff big bloom at 500ppms in the past.
I've been using various mixes of RO and tap water. Sometime I'll add some GO cal mag + if I'm heavy on the RO. Tuff little plant.
I want to get the microbial life that I'm assuming is in there as happy as I can. I don't know if a tea is a good idea or if there was a way I could just feed the microbes that are in there. If there are any in there. I assume there are.
Using the put it in a bucket of water for an hour once a week method? How would you feed the colonies that are already there and how often?
Happy Growing!
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Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
@DonTesla thanks for the advice I will look into it. I've read some of your postings and appreciate you stopping by. I made my 1st soil that has been cooking for 6 weeks and some of the ideas came from your threads.

@green_machine_two9er Thanks also. I just visited your journal. Love the pics especially the close up crystal. Saturday I stopped by to revisit my 1st Thread in the introduce yourself section that died off in Feb 2016 and left this post with this pic.

This was my 1st Thread on the day I joined RIU in Feb 2016. Learned a lot since then. At 1st a lot of bad stuff so be careful Newbie's. Takes a long time to know who to listen to on these forums, but once you start to know who to listen to the information becomes extremely useful here.
Just revisiting old threads and giving everyone here a like.
Happy Growing!!!
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green_machine_two9er

Well-Known Member
@DonTesla thanks for the advice I will look into it. I've read some of your postings and appreciate you stopping by. I made my 1st soil that has been cooking for 6 weeks and some of the ideas came from your threads.

@green_machine_two9er Thanks also. I just visited your journal. Love the pics especially the close up crystal. Saturday I stopped by to revisit my 1st Thread in the introduce yourself section that died off in Feb 2016 and left this post with this pic.

This was my 1st Thread on the day I joined RIU in Feb 2016. Learned a lot since then. At 1st a lot of bad stuff so be careful Newbie's. Takes a long time to know who to listen to on these forums, but once you start to know who to listen to the information becomes extremely useful here.
Just revisiting old threads and giving everyone here a like.
Happy Growing!!!
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Thanks for the visit. I haven't had time to update any journals in years it feels like. Once I learned how to grow sustainable and organically I realized that I could spend 20 minutes a day in the garden. And I used to convince myself it was a full time job lol. Don't know where I would be without the gurus here on rollit up. Now I have time to vacation. Work. Play and the results of recycled lv8ng soil is unbelievable. Happy growing !!
 

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the visit. I haven't had time to update any journals in years it feels like. Once I learned how to grow sustainable and organically I realized that I could spend 20 minutes a day in the garden. And I used to convince myself it was a full time job lol. Don't know where I would be without the gurus here on rollit up. Now I have time to vacation. Work. Play and the results of recycled lv8ng soil is unbelievable. Happy growing !!
Sounds great! I've been growing for 20 years and was a stealth grower. Learning a lot. Just transplanted a plant into my 1st try at an amended soil yesterday. So far so good :)
 

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
I am in the basic learning stage of organics.
I think from a novice sense that in my soil there are bacteria fungus, protazoa nematodes and arthropods and I'm guessing the food chain ends there indoors.
Does the lava rock have the same activity as a quality soil. Does it have basically the same players in the rock as would be found in indoor soil under a microscope?
 

calliandra

Well-Known Member
I am in the basic learning stage of organics.
I think from a novice sense that in my soil there are bacteria fungus, protazoa nematodes and arthropods and I'm guessing the food chain ends there indoors.
Does the lava rock have the same activity as a quality soil. Does it have basically the same players in the rock as would be found in indoor soil under a microscope?
No the lava rock very probably doesn't have anywhere near the microbial diversity a soil would.
You don't have organic matter in there! -- unless you've been leaving roots dying off in there over the years? Then it depends on so many factors playing together over time, the only way you can really know what exactly your microbial population looks like is to examine it under the microscope.
That said, it is possible to make an educated guess on some aspects of it. :mrgreen:

So the likelihood that you will have a well-developed fungal population in there is very low due to the absence of innoculants (=woody stuff in soil). So logically, you won't have fungal feeding nematodes either.
Bacteria are always and everywhere, all over the world. So you have them.
But what kinds? And you only have nutrient cycling if you also have those predators in there (protozoa & nematodes).
Honestly, your plant, at least on that pic, doesn't look very happy, so it's pretty safe to assume the microbial life is sparse and struggling.

Also I don't get where it's actually growing? is that chunk all of it or just weird optics I'm getting and actually it's a hole in the lid of that bucket and the plant roots are growing in there???

So there are a variety of paths you can take from here.
(If the whole root ball is in that chunk, I'd plop it into a pot of soil and be done with it tbh)
You can start watering with good compost teas.
Or, more simply, you could just start topdressing compost and watering it into the lavarock over time, thus converting it into a more soilly substrate.
 
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Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Thanks, that really helps alot. I will look at how I feed it in a new light. I took a few pictures of the plant and base.
I took pics with and without it misted to try to clean up the leaves. The may fade when they dry. I have never seen roots come out of the base, I have seen other pics online with alot of roots coming out of the base.
The soil is a great idea, but the soiless lava rock feature is one of our favorite aspects of the plant. I just want it to be happy.
The brown on the leaves I'm pretty sure is residual ff big bloom.
With out me speculating like a noob as to why it doesn't look happy, what do you see that makes you say it doesn't look happy?

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jonsnow399

Well-Known Member
Not a cannabis question. I've gone 100% organic inside and out. All my bottled nutes and synthetics are put away.
This plant has been with us for 10 years. Survived for years getting a weekly 1 hour dunk in a bucket of vegas 500ppm tap water.
I've experimented with very low doses of synthetic nutes and also used ff big bloom at 500ppms in the past.
I've been using various mixes of RO and tap water. Sometime I'll add some GO cal mag + if I'm heavy on the RO. Tuff little plant.
I want to get the microbial life that I'm assuming is in there as happy as I can. I don't know if a tea is a good idea or if there was a way I could just feed the microbes that are in there. If there are any in there. I assume there are.
Using the put it in a bucket of water for an hour once a week method? How would you feed the colonies that are already there and how often?
Happy Growing!
View attachment 3974972
What are you trying to accomplish by using organic?
 

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
What are you trying to accomplish by using organic?
I've gone 100% organic inside and outside in the garden and lawn and use no bottled nutes except for this plant. I want to put the ff big bloom away with my other bottles and synthetics and go 100% organic without the ff.
Just want to keep the plant healthy, not looking for growth.
 

jonsnow399

Well-Known Member
I've gone 100% organic inside and outside in the garden and lawn and use no bottled nutes except for this plant. I want to put the ff big bloom away with my other bottles and synthetics and go 100% organic without the ff.
Just want to keep the plant healthy, not looking for growth.
I don't want to derail the thread with a organic vs chemical ferts debate but I see no reason to use organic ferts for potted plants. My wife grows a huge flower garden outside and its totally organic. Outside there's a lot of advantages to growing organic, inside potted plants, not so much.
 

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
I don't want to derail the thread with a organic vs chemical ferts debate but I see no reason to use organic ferts for potted plants. My wife grows a huge flower garden outside and its totally organic. Outside there's a lot of advantages to growing organic, inside potted plants, not so much.
I don't mind you guys having a debate about it. I'd find it interesting. I'd sit on the sidelines and watch of course as I'd have nothing to add, but go at it if you guys want. I already have good info above to continue my research.
My indoor plants all look good and have had no ill affect when I switched to organic. This indoor plant 25" tall is in a 4" clay starter pot and has been organic. I left it in the pot along with another that I topped to see how big I can grow them.

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jonsnow399

Well-Known Member
I don't mind you guys having a debate about it. I'd find it interesting. I'd sit on the sidelines and watch of course as I'd have nothing to add, but go at it if you guys want. I already have good info above to continue my research.
My indoor plants all look good and have had no ill affect when I switched to organic. This indoor plant 25" tall is in a 4" clay starter pot and has been organic. I left it in the pot along with another that I topped to see how big I can grow them.

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There's plenty of threads on the subject, I don't wanna argue about it! lol I will say this tho, organic is the only way to go for outside, and I only use organic pesticides even inside.
 
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Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
There's plenty of threads on the subject, I don't wanna argue about it! lol I will say this tho, organic is the only way to go for outside, and I only use organic pesticides even inside.
That's cool. I made the full switch outside last year, this year in April, I almost sprayed pesticide on the grass and in a corner where I discovered baby praying mantis. I let that area over grow and lost site of them about a week after this picture. Bad picture, when I took it I thought there was one, only saw the other later. One is near the center the other is to the upper left, they are blurry but can be seen.
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jonsnow399

Well-Known Member
That's cool. I made the full switch outside last year, this year in April, I almost sprayed pesticide on the grass and in a corner where I discovered baby praying mantis. I let that area over grow and lost site of them about a week after this picture. Bad picture, when I took it I thought there was one, only saw the other later. One is near the center the other is to the upper left, they are blurry but can be seen.
View attachment 3979479
Sometimes I find praying mantises in the woods, I catch them and bring them home to put in the garden.
 

calliandra

Well-Known Member
Thanks, that really helps alot. I will look at how I feed it in a new light. I took a few pictures of the plant and base.
I took pics with and without it misted to try to clean up the leaves. The may fade when they dry. I have never seen roots come out of the base, I have seen other pics online with alot of roots coming out of the base.
The soil is a great idea, but the soiless lava rock feature is one of our favorite aspects of the plant. I just want it to be happy.
The brown on the leaves I'm pretty sure is residual ff big bloom.
With out me speculating like a noob as to why it doesn't look happy, what do you see that makes you say it doesn't look happy?

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OMG!! I finally get it too now -- it really is just in that lavarock chunk!!AND it's a bonsai! what a feisty lil plant! :D
Thanks for the pix!

Yeah it was the dusty looking spots that made it look to me like it was moping and struggling - and those spots still are a bit visible post beauty parlor, as in a tad more yellowish, jussst that bit? Do you see what I mean? Also, the way the leaves hang down from that first "joint" near the leaf stem, whereby that could be just a variant trait, I have seen schefflera leaves grow like that before, so not sure... No matter, basically I was just looking at the total aspect, to guess at the overall microbial situation without actually sampling (which would beat me anyway, how to do it in this case!) ;) But everything is relative too - so that plant still looks super healthy for the pebble it's growing in haha!

Anyway, I think I now have a better idea of what you're going for, and yeah, just plopping it into soil really isn't an option at all here! :mrgreen:

So it's growing in that pebble and assuming the flat clay pot you had in the first picture is where the pebble sits normally.
Definitely, compost tea it is, but soak the pebbles as well as foliaring it as DonTesla was suggesting.

Another thing I get really positive feedback for from my plants is chlorophyll water - taking a handful of plant matter that has the properties you would like your plant to have more of (lush green foliage? lots of growth? strong stems? flowers?), covering it with water in a blender and mixing that up well, then watering the plant with it.
In this case I'd be tempted to strain the plant matter out (usually I just water it into the soil, it's like a topdress then), as otherwise you'll have these fiber shreds drying on the lavarock and maybe clogging the porosity that surely is important to have here.
You can do the same with a leaf of comfrey now and then, which is pretty much like a bottled nute liquefied like that. :-P
Cheers!
 

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
OMG!! I finally get it too now -- it really is just in that lavarock chunk!!AND it's a bonsai! what a feisty lil plant! :D
Thanks for the pix!

Yeah it was the dusty looking spots that made it look to me like it was moping and struggling - and those spots still are a bit visible post beauty parlor, as in a tad more yellowish, jussst that bit? Do you see what I mean? Also, the way the leaves hang down from that first "joint" near the leaf stem, whereby that could be just a variant trait, I have seen schefflera leaves grow like that before, so not sure... No matter, basically I was just looking at the total aspect, to guess at the overall microbial situation without actually sampling (which would beat me anyway, how to do it in this case!) ;) But everything is relative too - so that plant still looks super healthy for the pebble it's growing in haha!

Anyway, I think I now have a better idea of what you're going for, and yeah, just plopping it into soil really isn't an option at all here! :mrgreen:

So it's growing in that pebble and assuming the flat clay pot you had in the first picture is where the pebble sits normally.
Definitely, compost tea it is, but soak the pebbles as well as foliaring it as DonTesla was suggesting.

Another thing I get really positive feedback for from my plants is chlorophyll water - taking a handful of plant matter that has the properties you would like your plant to have more of (lush green foliage? lots of growth? strong stems? flowers?), covering it with water in a blender and mixing that up well, then watering the plant with it.
In this case I'd be tempted to strain the plant matter out (usually I just water it into the soil, it's like a topdress then), as otherwise you'll have these fiber shreds drying on the lavarock and maybe clogging the porosity that surely is important to have here.
You can do the same with a leaf of comfrey now and then, which is pretty much like a bottled nute liquefied like that. :-P
Cheers!
Thanks for all the info. I have a lot of homework to do and will keep it happy as I can. Most of the leaves do hang down like that. One came out sometime last year uniquely flat. It has some bend now but from a baby to full grown it was flat. It still has better posture than the rest. Wish I knew what month because it would have been cooler in the winter were it sits by a sliding glass door. A new leaf came in from that branch after it and it was in the bent stem position from the start but color and leaf health appear the same whether they are flat or bent. A pic of that flat leaf today before and after cleaning. Big bloom was visible on the tissue. It grows one leaf every two or three months. If one comes in flat I'll take a pic.
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