So who here is growing in true organic living soil?

Rrog said:

Abe- How's the soil?

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abe supercro said:

Hey Rrog- the soil is ok.
So this fall I rush mixed a batch of everything I had around. I know for sure I have to educate myself more, am lacking neem cake, need to start cooking sooner and have to find better econo suppliers for amendments.

I didn't use tarps or some huge corner of my yard to blend... neatly lined up ten 25 gallon bins (nothing is really quantified properly either/ -abe "free-pour" broham) and commenced with evenly allocating some old bags of roots and fox farm. plus orange label pro-mix to begin my base. plenty of bags of wiggle worm castings and other fancy labeled over priced bags of general organics ancient forest (ha, that bag literally contains many rocks in it) and marine green by aurora.

I cleaned off a shelf of those darn ($) dr. earth amends, like alfalfa, kelp, fish meal, fish bone meal. also azomite and glauconite in addition to every half-empty bag of mycos... azos mostly. oh also a little blood, additional bone and then bat shit for good measure. BT too! the best new addition in there is crab shell meal. I've been told I need to add ample Lyme but I'm kinda skittish about that one. One problem is that I don't let things 'cook' for long enough (planing) and usually need to get plants in soil. while I generously add pro-mix to the top horizon of the container to avoid burning upon transplant, I'm concerned a lot of lyme may make mix too hot, early on, and/or drive ph too low.

As soon as the first sign of snow flurries i brought those bins in from the cold. wouldn't some of the microbes diminish as well as slow the breaking down of materials? Is neem cake available this time of year? Isn't it a pulpy byproduct of the after harvest neem seeds? It'd be nice to find a supplier only a few states away. shipping on lg. bags adds up.

you can see my program may be lacking some, is overpriced and still needs work. ...finally gettin back to work and expect to make positive strides this year, 2014, w ma dirt. thanks for any feedback and thanks for asking Rrog.

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abe supercro said:

Hey Rrog- the soil is ok.
So this fall I rush mixed a batch of everything I had around. I know for sure I have to educate myself more, am lacking neem cake, need to start cooking sooner and have to find better econo suppliers for amendments.

I didn't use tarps or some huge corner of my yard to blend... neatly lined up ten 25 gallon bins (nothing is really quantified properly either/ -abe "free-pour" broham) and commenced with evenly allocating some old bags of roots and fox farm. plus orange label pro-mix to begin my base. plenty of bags of wiggle worm castings and other fancy labeled over priced bags of general organics ancient forest (ha, that bag literally contains many rocks in it) and marine green by aurora.

I cleaned off a shelf of those darn ($) dr. earth amends, like alfalfa, kelp, fish meal, fish bone meal. also azomite and glauconite in addition to every half-empty bag of mycos... azos mostly. oh also a little blood, additional bone and then bat shit for good measure. BT too! the best new addition in there is crab shell meal. I've been told I need to add ample Lyme but I'm kinda skittish about that one. One problem is that I don't let things 'cook' for long enough (planing) and usually need to get plants in soil. while I generously add pro-mix to the top horizon of the container to avoid burning upon transplant, I'm concerned a lot of lyme may make mix too hot, early on, and/or drive ph too low.

As soon as the first sign of snow flurries i brought those bins in from the cold. wouldn't some of the microbes diminish as well as slow the breaking down of materials? Is neem cake available this time of year? Isn't it a pulpy byproduct of the after harvest neem seeds? It'd be nice to find a supplier only a few states away. shipping on lg. bags adds up.

you can see my program may be lacking some, is overpriced and still needs work. ...finally gettin back to work and expect to make positive strides this year, 2014, w ma dirt. thanks for any feedback and thanks for asking Rrog.

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HGK420 said:

what process do you use for recycling? do you break it all down into a pile or just replant each pot individually?

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Rrog said:

Base Soil

1/3 Sphagnum Peat from Premier Peat or Alaska Peat
1/3 Aeration material (2 parts Perlite, 2 parts chunky coco, 1 part Vermiculite)
1/3 Humus (1 part EWC, 1 part local / used topsoil, 1 part leaf litter, 1 part compost)

Per Cubic Foot of the Base Soil:

½ Cup DE
½ Cup Espoma Starter Plus
1 cup Charcoal
½ Cup Epsom Salt
4 cups Rock Powders (4X Glacial, 1X Bentonite, 1X Oyster Shell, 1X Basalt)

½ Cup Neem Meal (2 g / L)
1 Cup Crab Shell Meal
2 Cups Kelp Meal (Espoma makes it)
2 Cups Fish Meal
2 Cups Fish Bone Meal
1 Cup Sul-Po-Mag
½ Cup Alfalfa

1.5 Cups Montmorillonite clay
1.5 Cups Pyrophyllite Clay

Moisten with Fresh Aloe (2 Tbs Juice with 1 gallon water) and Accelerant Tea (Comfrey, Yarrow, Horsetail or Nettle)

I pre-inoculate with BTI and Nematodes. Let rest for 4 weeks.

Recipe largely courtesy of Gascanistan and Clackamas Coot. Tried and true. With amendments, they don't even till the soil. Chop one plant, plop a seed or clone right next to it and keep going. 12-13 generations like that and the fungal colony just gets more and more efficient by not disturbing the soil. Add a few worms. They're free. Red wigglers, not nightcrawlers.

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Someacdude said:

Hey what kind of sand should i use?

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Adonis said:

The neat thing about castings, as Coot's suggests, is that I can create any sort of special nutrient recipe necessary by simply feeding the raw materials to the worms.

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Rrog said:

You are going to collect Lactobacillus from the air around you.

Add 1/2 cup of uncooked rice to 1 cup cool water in a bowl and stir. The water will become cloudy with rice starch.

Pour just the rice wash into a 1 quart mason jar or similar

Place the open mouth jar (no lid) within 2 feet of the floor for a couple days. I might leave on my back porch step for an afternoon, etc. We’re just collecting microbes at this point. The air will deliver them.

After 2 days, loosely place a lid on mason jar. Keep in room temp dark place for two more days.

After two days there will be a stinky film on the top. This is perfect. You have all sorts of wild bacteria, fungus, and yeasts. Be we only want a certain type of bacteria, Lactobacillus.

We selectively feed Lacto B the lactose in milk. The rest of the organisms in that rice wash don’t do so well in that environment, and Lacto B dominates.

So we have 2 cups of room temp milk. Skim, whole, 2%, whatever. Not hot and not cold. 70F is great. To that milk, add just a teaspoon or so of that stinky rice wash. Throw away the rest of the rice wash.

Two days later, the Lacto B will have separated much of the protein from the yellow whey (serum). Scoop out the cheese-like protein so you can get at that yellow serum. Animals love that protein, BTW.

Mix the yellow serum 1:1 with molasses, and 20 parts water. It’s ready to store in the fridge. The molasses will also feed the Lacto B.

This is still concentrated. You can add a couple tablespoons of this to a gallon of water for soil or foliar. You can add this to soil to start the microbes after a new soil mix. You can spray as a foliar in veg or early flower.

This will keep for months in the fridge. Will not smell, etc.

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