Cooking First Batch of Organics

Called around to a couple more grow stores around me and nobody has crab meal. The closest I can get is the shrimp meal. Reading up on it a little bit, the shrimp also contain chitin but break down faster than the crab. The crustacean mix is generally a mix of the 2 which sounds ideal to me.

I think I will end up going with the shrimp meal for this one, I plan on watering/mixing today. I will add 1 cup of oyster shell and 1.5 cups of the shrimp meal. Sound about right?

iPerculate said:

Called around to a couple more grow stores around me and nobody has crab meal. The closest I can get is the shrimp meal. Reading up on it a little bit, the shrimp also contain chitin but break down faster than the crab. The crustacean mix is generally a mix of the 2 which sounds ideal to me.

I think I will end up going with the shrimp meal for this one, I plan on watering/mixing today. I will add 1 cup of oyster shell and 1.5 cups of the shrimp meal. Sound about right?

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if this were my mix (the one you posted)... personally i would cut the amount of guano and blood meal in half from what you posted. I would also add another 5 qts of perlite to the mix (your recipe looks a little dense assuming 30% perlite in FFOF). if you still plan on using dolomite, i would split the OSF and dolo 1/2 and 1/2 for 1 cup total (and honestly ocean forest already has buffer in it so you could probably go 1/4 and 1/4 for 1/2 cup total).

The recipe from my first post in this thread has already been mixed up and cooking for about a week so I can't really take anything out, just add to it at this point. It does seem a little redundant to add both OSF and dolomite as they both balance ph and have plenty of calcium. Maybe I should only add 1/2 cup of the oyster at this point. I will definitely improve on this mix next grow, looking to get rid of blood meal and guano.

Still thinking 1.5 cups on the shrimp for this one though

Also it does look like around 30% perlite in the mix. I can take some pics while mixing it up here shortly.

iPerculate said:

The recipe from my first post in this thread has already been mixed up and cooking for about a week so I can't really take anything out, just add to it at this point. It does seem a little redundant to add both OSF and dolomite as they both balance ph and have plenty of calcium. Maybe I should only add 1/2 cup of the oyster at this point. I will definitely improve on this mix next grow, looking to get rid of blood meal and guano.

Still thinking 1.5 cups on the shrimp for this one though

Also it does look like around 30% perlite in the mix. I can take some pics while mixing it up here shortly.

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i would definitely add some more perlite to it. i shoot for about 40% drainage with my recipes.

So i picked up the 6-6-0 Shrimp Meal. Emptied my mix out onto the tarp and put 0.5 cups oyster shell and 1.5 cups shrimp meal into the mix. It was definitely drier than I thought it was, but was still a little damp. Maybe I should have watered with more than 1 gallon. It had a layer of the white spider web looking stuff on top before I mixed it.

I didn't add any more perlite at this time, looking at the mix it looks a little more than 30% but hard to say. I'm not sure what % of perlite normally comes in the FFOF, but I could calculate the total % of the mix if I knew that value.

Here's a couple pics of the mix from today. 1st being mixed on the tarp and 2nd in the tote after being watered. Still have the lid on the tote but open a crack on each side. I figured that I could always add more perlite when i'm doing the final mix before transplant. Let me know what you think from the pics, I trust your experience.

iPerculate said:

So i picked up the 6-6-0 Shrimp Meal. Emptied my mix out onto the tarp and put 0.5 cups oyster shell and 1.5 cups shrimp meal into the mix. It was definitely drier than I thought it was, but was still a little damp. Maybe I should have watered with more than 1 gallon. It had a layer of the white spider web looking stuff on top before I mixed it.

I didn't add any more perlite at this time, looking at the mix it looks a little more than 30% but hard to say. I'm not sure what % of perlite normally comes in the FFOF, but I could calculate the total % of the mix if I knew that value.

Here's a couple pics of the mix from today. 1st being mixed on the tarp and 2nd in the tote after being watered. Still have the lid on the tote but open a crack on each side. I figured that I could always add more perlite when i'm doing the final mix before transplant. Let me know what you think from the pics, I trust your experience.

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yeah it looks like you have decent perlite content, but remember when you water in on the top, it exposes the perlite and makes it look like more than there really is . it's hard to eyeball. Usually the bags of premixed medium have the perlite content listed in the ingredients. most are 25-33%

iPerculate said:

It does seem a little redundant to add both OSF and dolomite as they both balance ph and have plenty of calcium.

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Dolomite is mostly for the magnesium and you will need the OSF to balance the Ca to Mg ratio. It's called your "Base Saturation Ratio" Ca-Mg-K. You know, like acid and bases. These are you base cations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base-cation_saturation_ratio

How is your soil cooking up iPerc? About to start myself and have been following this thread.

So far so good, it's been cooking for 2 weeks now. Since the last post I have picked up some langbeinite to add more potassium to the mix. It just got delivered yesterday, and I'll be home on Saturday so I haven't mixed it in yet. I still haven't decided how much langbeinite i'll put in there as I still have a lot of reading to do, but langbeinite will definitely be the last ingredient that I add to this mix.

I planted 3 feminized Lemon OG Haze seeds and all 3 sprouted 2 days ago. Also still have a couple Wonder Woman clones but i'm going to wait at least 1.5 more weeks before I transplant into this mix.

There was a layer of white fuzz growing on the top within the first few days, and then reappeared after I mixed it up after the first time, but since then it has gone away and I hear that is normal. I have been trying to keep it within a good moisture range, I dig in a little with my hand to see what it's like a little lower down but try to avoid it. I know this sense of moisture level will greatly improve with experience so i'm not too worried about it. Learning a lot and loving it.

ShLUbY said:

i would definitely add some more perlite to it. i shoot for about 40% drainage with my recipes.

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^^^^THAT^^^^^ +1

Wet

Alright guys so I got home today and went to work mixin. Got my langbeinite 0-0-22 and decided to put a whole cup into the mix. It has tons of K, Mg, and S. Also added an additional half cup of oyster shell to help balance out the added mg.

It did look like it could use some more perlite so I went ahead and added another 2 qts as well. Moisture level was really good when mixing it up, gave it 1/2 gallon when it went back in the tote.

This is the final mix recipe for this round with everything included. Thanks for the input from everyone.


1.5 cu ft - Fox Farm Ocean Forest
10 qts - Earthworm Castings 1-0-0
7 qts - Perlite
2 cups - Bat Guano 0-13-0
2 cups - Blood Meal 12-0-0
1.5 cups - Kelp Meal 1-0.1-2
1.5 cups - Shrimp Meal 6-6-0
1 cup - Alfalfa Meal 2-5.0.5-2.5
1 cup - Fish Bone Meal 3-16-0
1 cup - Dolomite Lime
1 cup - Azomite 0-0-0.2
1 cup - Oyster Shell
1 cup - Langbeinite 0-0-22

seems a little strong especially with the already hot Ocean Forest.
You might want to use it like Kind Soil, and only use it on the bottom half of the container with plain Ocean Forest or what ever on the top half.
Or maybe cut your mixed soil with some Light Warrior to use on the top half.

This thread is great. I am currently using a Cootz style mix in two 15 gallon fabric geopots. And a Subcools Super Soil in two earth boxes. One earthbox is on its second round. I also have been using a product similar to EM1 and I have a bokashi and ewc mat of mycelium growing on top.
I just got some neem cake meal how much should I top dress with. And will it help with fungus gnats.

And I was wondering how the crab shell meal works as IPM

bearded.beaver said:

This thread is great. I am currently using a Cootz style mix in two 15 gallon fabric geopots. And a Subcools Super Soil in two earth boxes. One earthbox is on its second round. I also have been using a product similar to EM1 and I have a bokashi and ewc mat of mycelium growing on top.
I just got some neem cake meal how much should I top dress with. And will it help with fungus gnats.

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Yeah it helps with the gnats big time. I just sprinkle a light dusting on the soil surface. I use it in my worm bin too if I see gnats hanging around. Only problem with it is it breaks down real quick! It’s more of a deterrent than an insecticide though. You could also make a neem meal soak to spray, Ive seen people recommend that on here, though I’ve never done it myself

Crab meal activates the SAR response

Cootz is a really big fan of neem. Listening to him talk about it makes me want to mix some in with my next batch.

Well I planted 6 plants in 3 gal fabric pots each with this mix 2 days ago and they seem to love it. Now that everything is in the pots, it does seem like a heavy mix. Perhaps even more perlite could have helped, but the soil looks and smells great now.

I use a produce called Growstone Gnat Block.
It looks like perlite, but is rougher and the gnat larvae don't like to crawl through it.
I haven't seen any for a while. And you can reuse it.