The Dons' Organic Garden
- Thread starter DonPetro
- Start date
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
U guys ready to see what kind of compost piles that get created when you're plaining 90 000 feet of lumber per hour?
Looks like I have my work cut out for me, and then some, lol. This is not a small operation.
Collecting several samples tomorrow for testing, thanks to my buddy and we will go from there
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Yeah hey! Wow. I need to take a cross Canada trip with a few semis prepped with bagged up sealed pallets, and load up all the shops at the same time I guess. Im looking into freight rates up here and we can compare but I bet you're right, my grandpa had a train yard on his land and he still bought a few semi's and built a house for his truck drivers so they were right there, cant beat the rate when you're setting it yourself aka true cost! If I drive myself that would be the cheapest I guess. lol. Hey good thing I helped my brother get his class 1 maybe that will finally benefit me a bit, lol.Yeah being a factory fallout town, there's a lot of empty lots that used to be places where houses stood. They rent the lots for dirt cheap (my main lot is 2 and a half acres and costs me less than a 1000 watt ballast for a whole year). The only stipulation is that they must be used for urban agriculture purposes. Most people just do community gardens. I got a touch more creative
The most difficult thing is freight rates for bulk products. Like right now, it's more affordable for me to order bulk rice hulls through the local garden center, have them pay for shipping (Im assuming they have some deal set up because they're always getting stuff shipped?) and pay more per yard. Than it is for me to get a cheaper price per yard ordering directly from PBH but having to pay freight weights. Mostly because I have to get sooo much shipped to get that lower price per yard...but by the time you add the shipping costs...so my main advice...invest in some trucks lol. Like I'd love to buy all the composted bark you got, but the shipping rates for all that stuff would probably kill me!
Whats the shipping from Build a soil by the way?
.. I see they have 1000 lb. totes for about $150 and I was gonna order one but they don't ship that to Canada !! And what is PBH bro if you don't mind. Forgive me but I'm still new to America mon, thanks in advance for all the replies too!!
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Thanks brother glad to hear it healed from a far, thats awesome! Quite the crazy expression hey
. Lucky for me the flavour and high are on par too, so its revegging successfully as we speak, very happy about that, the Pink Pheno of the Tight Dojo is living on to see another round! Will have to get it living in the fridge eventually, somehow if I can, would love this specimen to be avail via Tissue Culture so I could just keep it stashed until I wanted to run it for a taste!
Last edited:
iHearAll
Well-Known Member
i have a pretty nice glove box, if i managed to get a sample i could keep her going. i have never done tissue culture but it seems fairly straight forward and am actually setting up a 7+ strain tissue propagation as well as my favorite garden plants and myco clones. gotta save some organism's lives.Thanks brother glad to hear it healed from a far, thats awesome! Quite the crazy expression hey
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
I've barely found any info on it yet and even tried to start a thread on it but I should have known that wouldn't be able to phase you! I'd love to hear about your thoughts on the subject and to see what you're working on, you're always doing something impressive and doing it so quietly lol. awesome to hear. and agree. cant be too hard, hundreds of nurseries around the world use it as their preferred and safest, cleanest, most sterile and successful method.. so I think that says a lot right there. Way to stay true to yourself @iHearAll lets get some of this info out there brother!
iHearAll
Well-Known Member
From what i have seen practiced, it is essentially agar Tek with the supplement of a cloning hormone, miniscule dose of fertilizer, sugars, etc.
The catch is remaining sterile,, where you boil your agar solution and briefly pressure cook it into vial size petri dishes. As the agar dishes cool they form a gelatinous mold in the bottom.
The process of cleaning the plant tissue is fascinatingly toxic seeming but the plant pulls through in the end. It goes through A) a heavy rinse and soak with clean/purest available dish soap B) a 70% alcohol wash C) a 15 minute bleach solution soak and lastly D) rinsed again thoroughly in sterile water.
then in a glove box, place a small piece of plant matter with at least one node into the agar mold so that only the stem piece is in and any foliage is above. A typical cutting size is about 1" total. So you can imagine you can have dozens of strains in a small spot under a small light.
here is a DIY'ers shared recipe and recipe revision/notes.
DIY Plant Tissue Culture Media
The Gardenisto | August 7, 2014
There are various types of tissues from which a plant can be cultured. Sometimes plant propagation requires multiple stages of tissue culturing, with different media, hormones, or different media consistencies.
Similar to sitting a plant cutting partially submerged in water on a kitchen window sill, sterile liquid media can be used, but most explants should not stay submerged in media or they will be deprived of proper gas exchange and fail to thrive.
Besides keeping all your instruments clean, and properly sterilizing media, the other difficulty is getting your recipe right. Making media can be a bit like the story of ‘Goldilocks and The Three Bears’. We needed to make media, test media, and adjust media to get the correct consistency, ph, and hormone balances.
Experimenting with small batches and making adjustments is the best way to settle in on a good media recipe. Not too firm or you’ll bind up the transportation of nutrients and deprive explants, and not too soft to the point the explant would sink and become deprived of oxygen.
Our base recipe makes approximately 200ml of media. We are able to fill 10 1.5 oz vials about 1/3 full, or sufficiently fill 3 1/2 pint jars. More media can easily be created by multiplying all the values.
Sterilizing Media: This step involves any of three methods, and depends on the tools available. They are Autoclaving, Microwaving, or Pressure Cooking. If you started by reading our Intro to DIY Plant Tissue Culture, and are working off of our equipment list, then you will likely pressure cook your media. As such, we’ve included basic procedures for preparing media with a pressure cooker.
Sterilizing Media: Pressure Cooking
The pressure cooker is sometimes abused to make destructive bombs. Why? Because some people are sick and deranged. Really though, because containing increasing pressure in any sort of vessel can be dangerous. To avoid, accidents, injury or death, PLEASE READ all of the instructions included with your pressure cooker, then read them again and again until you understand them.
After some trial and error with the basic recipe, we observed some explant and media browning, and made some adjustments. We added citric acid to the media to prevent and treat phenol exudates from oxidizing.
so bare with me on this video as it is partly a sales pitch on this guys kits but they also explain the process of sterilization, propagation and the utensils a DIYer would find useful. other videos are as long as A FUCKING HOUR which is too long for me to sit and watch. enjoy
The catch is remaining sterile,, where you boil your agar solution and briefly pressure cook it into vial size petri dishes. As the agar dishes cool they form a gelatinous mold in the bottom.
The process of cleaning the plant tissue is fascinatingly toxic seeming but the plant pulls through in the end. It goes through A) a heavy rinse and soak with clean/purest available dish soap B) a 70% alcohol wash C) a 15 minute bleach solution soak and lastly D) rinsed again thoroughly in sterile water.
then in a glove box, place a small piece of plant matter with at least one node into the agar mold so that only the stem piece is in and any foliage is above. A typical cutting size is about 1" total. So you can imagine you can have dozens of strains in a small spot under a small light.
here is a DIY'ers shared recipe and recipe revision/notes.
DIY Plant Tissue Culture Media
The Gardenisto | August 7, 2014
There are various types of tissues from which a plant can be cultured. Sometimes plant propagation requires multiple stages of tissue culturing, with different media, hormones, or different media consistencies.Similar to sitting a plant cutting partially submerged in water on a kitchen window sill, sterile liquid media can be used, but most explants should not stay submerged in media or they will be deprived of proper gas exchange and fail to thrive.
Besides keeping all your instruments clean, and properly sterilizing media, the other difficulty is getting your recipe right. Making media can be a bit like the story of ‘Goldilocks and The Three Bears’. We needed to make media, test media, and adjust media to get the correct consistency, ph, and hormone balances.
Experimenting with small batches and making adjustments is the best way to settle in on a good media recipe. Not too firm or you’ll bind up the transportation of nutrients and deprive explants, and not too soft to the point the explant would sink and become deprived of oxygen.
Our base recipe makes approximately 200ml of media. We are able to fill 10 1.5 oz vials about 1/3 full, or sufficiently fill 3 1/2 pint jars. More media can easily be created by multiplying all the values.
- 1.8 – 2.0g Lab Grade Agar
- 5.4g Sugar
- 1.5ml Liquid Fertilizer with Macro and Micro Nutrients (Look for a PH adjusted Fertilizer for Hydroponics)
- 18ml All Natural Coconut Water
- 180ml Purified Water H20
- Measure out the liquid components of purified water, coconut water, liquid nutrients, and any dissolved hormones.
- Heat and thoroughly dissolve sugar into liquids.
- Let cool and adjust ph. If you used PH adjusted fertilizers, this step will hopefully be unnecessary. Otherwise the use of ph adjusting chemicals may be necessary
- Heat the ph adjusted liquid.
- Thoroughly dissolve agar into liquids.
Sterilizing Media: This step involves any of three methods, and depends on the tools available. They are Autoclaving, Microwaving, or Pressure Cooking. If you started by reading our Intro to DIY Plant Tissue Culture, and are working off of our equipment list, then you will likely pressure cook your media. As such, we’ve included basic procedures for preparing media with a pressure cooker.
Sterilizing Media: Pressure Cooking
The pressure cooker is sometimes abused to make destructive bombs. Why? Because some people are sick and deranged. Really though, because containing increasing pressure in any sort of vessel can be dangerous. To avoid, accidents, injury or death, PLEASE READ all of the instructions included with your pressure cooker, then read them again and again until you understand them.
- Fill the bottom of the pressure cooker with your pressure cookers recommended amount of media for a 3 to 25 minute cook time at 15psi.
- Place your autoclavable containers with media inside the pressure cooker. Do not seal or cover the containers with anything other than loose foil. A completely closed, or sealed container that cannot breathe will explode.
- Rapidly heat the pressure cooker to get it up to pressure. Depending on model, the pressure cooker should have some sort of lock that engages as the pressure rises to prevent opening.
- As soon as the steam pressure regulator starts bobbling, drastically reduce heat until the regulator bobbles gently.
- Start the stop watch or timer.
- The regulator should gently rock for the duration of the sterilization time, which can range from just a few minutes to 25 minutes. Time will depend on the volume of media. We manage to get 0% contamination from the volume of media that our base recipe will make, in only 5 minutes of pressure cook time.
- After cooking, remove from heat, and wait for the lock to disengage.
- Carefully, remove the pressure cooker lid when it is ready to be released.
- Without burning yourself, quickly close or tighten media jar lids that have synthetic filter disks. We do this very cautiously as the pressure cooker is still cooling, and the steam is still rising to keep any unwanted pathogens from entering the positive pressure environment of the cooling pressure cooker. Running the hood fan on the stove during this process also helps prevent the settling of any unwanted pathogens.
After some trial and error with the basic recipe, we observed some explant and media browning, and made some adjustments. We added citric acid to the media to prevent and treat phenol exudates from oxidizing.
- 1.8g – 2.0g Lab Grade Agar
- 4.0g Sucrose
- 1.0ml Soluble Liquid Fertilizer with Macro and Micro Nutrients ~PH 5.0-5.8
- 18ml All Natural Coconut Water (LESS THAN 10% concentration, greater concentrations caused callus death ~PH 5.2)
- 180ml Purified Water H20 PH 7
- 1.0 mg/l IBA(Indole-3-butyric acid) You may need to dissolve this with a solvent prior to usage
- 50 mg/l Citric Acid Or Less.
so bare with me on this video as it is partly a sales pitch on this guys kits but they also explain the process of sterilization, propagation and the utensils a DIYer would find useful. other videos are as long as A FUCKING HOUR which is too long for me to sit and watch. enjoy
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
PBH is the brand riceland foods sell their rice hulls under! I'm not sure what the shipping rate for buildasoil is but I would definitely contact them and see if they'll give you a deal better than what's offered on their site.
But yeah man if you had your own trucks that would be the real ticket man!
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
From what I've read there are different levels of quality, but most mines are either in New Mexico or New Hampshire I can't remember. The sources used for fertilizer and animal feed are certifiable for organic production. And it's supposed to have a very low salt content. I apply the mineral pretty easily, and only every couple recycles just to be sure that salt build-up isn't excessive.
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Great idea but I was thinking for you! Although I guess PBH is the place to go for bulk rice hulls hey? they probably sell larger than 1000 lbs at a time hey, lol. I see they even do private label, imagine them Rasta hulls, that'd be the best brand of them for sure!
There's actually a mill nearby the plant that shut down in the whole region and there are lines of trucks on some roads for sale, just sitting there. Damn, my buddy actually lives on the same block of the owners of the company so im gonna get in touch with the owners as soon as the tests are back, which first one gets collected and sent tomorrow. We surveyed today and yesterday, looks to be land every covered in abandoned piles, the lumbar region here is about the size of Vancouver Island, its massive. And its not focussing on dotting every I and crossing every T, they just want to hit they're quotas per hour and keep flying at 100 miles per hour, no room or time for error or cleaning up and being non-wasteful lol
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
Haha yeah, I gotta work on a bit about how I want to give your garden crabs for my crab shell meal. But yea that's where I get my rice hulls from. Quality is solid! It's insane the amount of waste that gets generated by a quite a few different types of businesses. There's a lot of opportunity for those of us willing to take the time to spin shit into gold!
natureboygrower
Well-Known Member
for half of the year i have access to huge amounts of lobster and mussel shells.i dont know where to start though. critter and odor control is a concern
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
You lucky mother fucker!
That is the challenge of this kind of business, you need equipment and staff to properly process in a timely fashion. Package, and maintain the quality of these products while they're in storage (in the case of composts and soils). On top of needing a place to store them. Then there is the opportunity cost. If it costs me $.01 cents a pound to process, but costs me x amount too much a month to store, and I can only get x amount a pound for selling it, and having to pay for shipping or whatever. It's not worth it. But I think with some thinking and a little investment to get your initial equipment, it would be worth it.
greasemonkeymann
Well-Known Member
ahh, well I suppose it al depends on your goals, I don't really do anything at all specific to the stages of the plant itself, the exception being coco and aloe teas that I only do during flowering.
But my goal with the compost is to sorta have virtually everything the plant needs and in varying availability rates, that way the soil is never deficient
that's why I reaaaally like the SLOW release nutrients.
You mentioned langbeinite, I've used it extensively, and it really is a great nutrient, the ONLY concern I have is it's lopsided potassium content, it's much quicker than a normal mineral input into the soil to be ready, and that can of course upset the cation balance.
But considering the amount of magnesium and potasium and relatively no calcium it's more recommended for mixes with more calcium inputs. Organic growers sometimes can go crazy with the cal inputs, crab meal, fish bone meal, egg shells, d-lime, Epsom, etc.
it's crucial you don't use langebienite with d-lime, or Epsom... too soluble, too much cal, too much mag.
I really stress the cation balance/ratio, which seems, in my opinion anyways, to be a fairly important aspect.
I like to match the potassium inputs with cal and mag (not evenly, at the correct ratio of course), an example is comfrey, kelp, alfalfa, neem meal even.
a good rule is the more plant-based nutrients for the cations as possible, or at least this is what I've noticed.
Just don't confuse that with vegan-grows, cuz i'm not really into that.
I like me some crab meal, insect meal, doghair, manures etc..
also if you are making a vegetative based compost it's gonna be LOADED with potassium, I think we sometimes forget how much of that is in a compost pile, but virtually ALL plant based compost inputs are high (relatively) in potassium.
grass, leaves, etc.
but I don't think theres an advantage to creating a fruiting and veging mix, primary reason I say that is, if you are giving the plants some room and are giving them a compost based soil, they simply don't have any deficiencies, that's sorta the allure of it all.
As far as the microbial content, the slower and "colder" the pile is, the more fungal growth, also a "leaner" carbon to nitrogen ratio does also, which in turn makes the composting much slower.
but with that much sawdust being it's gonna be fungal...
course you could richen up the greens and force it to go faster for a more even pile.
Last edited:
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Thanks for breaking it down that helps paint a clearer pic for sure! How much do you like to add per cubit foot or per yard, if you may be so kind, Rasta!
I love how coco and aloe are big parts of your finish, how do you like to approach those two if you don't mind the side note, I personally love me some foliars in the first couple weeks of flower and veg if a long veg but very cool that you use some of the most sustainable, abundant, and cheapest, most natural things to help a natural herb finish.
And I'll get to your other points as well but first, just a big big thanks for dropping that man,
Appreciate it a lot, as I'm sure some readers will too, you communicate with ease my friend
This makes a lot of perfect sense to me, I didn't come across properly, I work until exhausted most days, sorry, def should have clarified, my fam's soil (~3Mil cubic yards, is high N and perhaps great for vegging, as is? Yet for flowering I think its too rich in N, and could use a cut back and a balancing out to make it sing.
The compost, well that's like 100's of thousands of tonnes of a much more fungal Dom 100% wood based product, so yeah, that wouldn't make the best vegging mix eh
What I would love to do is make fully rounded glacial soil with all the composts full of life (anaerobic, bacterial and fungal, aka the bokashi, Lacto, etc and the worm and thermophilic) and have it all built for marijuana, have it be 5 to 10% biochar, but to raise money, enough to mix and amend (let alone transport) piles the size of big acreages that are 1800 km apart, I may need to raise sell sawdust as animal bedding, turn some into a bunch of bokashi, then yeah slab into bio char just by itself, and amended alpine fir flowering compost, as well as coloured mulch by itself.
One of those 5 companies or a combo there of yields 6+ figures and then a small fleet of trucks and soil machines (at least on lease) are ours. Self financed without an investor. Although we may entertain the idea there too.
Although I could be pragmatic, keep the pressure down, buy one truck and start shipping back home or just to my buddies in BC. Or just hire out til we have our 5 acre covered in piles. Each load carries 10 tonnes I'm just trying to get a price on the trip out but some crazy shit happening at work today lol.
I love me some crab meal and insect meal too lol. I can't wait for my comfrey too. The borage started first so got lots of those leaves as top dress now. So you find using a combo of a bit more comfrey, kelp, alfalfa and neem is a more sustainable, careful, plant based sub for langbeiniete or for Potassium and a better ratio of cal and mag (that, and lower iron)? Or just any one, you personally prefer over? Happy to send you guys some beans for all your advising!
Interesting interesting stuff Grease.. I was reading and watching this big organic youtube guys garden tour vids of other veggie gardens on how pure wood chip (2 to 3 years thermophilic process) compost and how just plain unamended fungal Dom compost improved the yields of their crops the next year, they grew serpent melons that were so big the had to be supported in multiple places, they were almost little anacondas, and all they did was all wood chip compost that year and saw a spike in flavour and yield. So this is very intruiging stuff to me. Luckily this place is so big they have piles that have been sitting for years and are already composted! Even big bark slabs, turned right into dirt, I gotta pull some pics up.. for texture !
Last edited:
greasemonkeymann
Well-Known Member
ahh yes, I have been very impressed with what comfrey brings to my grows, I have found it's the only thing I really add to my soils, and I really believe it may be the perfect nutrient.
literally has everything, and at a carbon to nitrogen ratio that it practically melts on it's own, especially if you shred it and mix it with fresh castings as a topdress, absolutely the greatest stuff.
it works amazing
the more I am experimenting, the more I am realizing the subtle secrets to successful grows.
fresh humus, lots of aeration, cation balance (ratio), and slow release nutrients that were composted along with the pile.
granted fresh humus is SO much more than just that, the amazing CEC, the microbial diversity, humic acids, etc
but for me?
fresh compost and comfrey are must haves.
with my respects for neem meal, kelp meal and crab meal, but those you can get away without, especially if you are using comfrey and compost.
But comfrey and kelp do almost the same stuff... some of the growth hormones the comfrey is lacking though, cytokinins in particular are found in the cocowater and kelp
I have theories that dandelion root may be a good input for the soil for cytokinins too... also I imagine the micros from that would be great as well.
I've been pondering the idea of pulling a good 20 or so dandelion up from the ground, roots intact, and then shred those bad boys up for a green input on my pile.
problem is that I have enough finished compost to go till at least 2020 or so
and I feel compelled to make a new pile each year too... I have too many different things I want to experiment with in composting..
a "free" compost, with no money invested (grass, nettles, dandelion, comfrey, and leaves ONLY)
a plant based "vegan" compost, with karanja meal, alfalfa, and kelp
a mix based on manure
a mix based on peat as the carbon (interested to see how peat could further degrade)
a mix with NOTHING added past grass and leaves
an aforementioned fungal driven pile...
anyways, you see my dilemma?
oh well, this kid likes to play in the dirt a bit much...
I gotta move east and hang with @Rasta Roy and go play in his bigass compost piles or something
Last edited:
natureboygrower
Well-Known Member
i'm getting ready to mix soil for six new planters.im going off of coots mix.using goat compost and happy frog for the base.found a friend who has a bunch of comfrey im going to transplant(yes,its the invasive kind,lol) how much greensand per cf @greasemonkeymann ? any other tips on additional amendments that arent on coots mix?
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Man, that was the best post ever, I love when you go all out, bro!
Definitely got me super inspired to go nuts with Comfrey! And to come and visit both you and Rasta sometime this year if that would be cool with you guys! @Rasta Roy
Cause yeah, I'm really liking how you're simplifying it and trying these blends out, I was gonna make soil the same way, just for myself to grow in different kinds, and to do that, I was gonna make different composts cause thats how I love to amend, once I tried it I had the best round ever, so expressive and so easy, all the way to the end. I had a buddy taint a bit of my soil with sand and water I didn't approve of and now I'm looking to make all fresh soil for I'm always looking for an excuse to! I love making a fresh batch every year, you and DP are like so funny, man.. wish we were all in the same spots! wish a bunch of us RIU'ers were all able to garden together a bit, that'd be so sick.. thank Jah for Riu though, talking itself is a blessin mon!
Last edited:
DonTesla
Well-Known Member
Basically a cup of each per cubic foot but correct me if I'm wrong please Grease
Also this is for what ends up in each 7gal basically, after mixing, not souly compost per se
Shell Crab Meal 1/2 cup ideal, 1 cup max
Neem Meal 1 cup
Alfafa Meal 1 cup
Kelp Meal 1 cup, push up to 2% total volume for amazing terps/smells
Greensand 1 C, lasts for years
What I would be curious to know, is how much comfrey (chitin source aside) would it take to replace the above!