Growing with purely peat, pumice, compost and worm castings?

RenaissanceBrah · Jan 14, 2021

kratos015 said:
No sir.

A source with some quotes before I go on, if I may.

"Even though a high proportion of both fungi and bacteria are decomposers in the soil, they degrade plant residues differently and have different roles in the recycling of nutrients. This is partly due to their different choice of habitats within the soil and the different types of organic matter they consume."

"The fungal population will increase at a greater rate than that of bacteria"

Consider aerobic and anaerobic bacteria.

For those that may not know, the two forms of bacteria one will encounter in organics will be aerobic or anaerobic as mentioned above. Aerobic bacteria can only exist in oxygenated conditions, and anaerobic only in conditions with zero oxygen.

Why is this important? Because all of our soil has anaerobic bacteria in it, in conjunction with the aerobic bacteria. The aerobic bacteria is just the more dominant culture, the lesser dominant culture (anaerobic bacteria) still very much exists.. it just doesn't have enough dominance to have any influence on the soil/situation.

The same is true of fungi and bacteria within a living soil, it is just a matter of which one is more dominant. They both exist within the soil, but only one can be dominant. I guess the point I'm trying to make, is that do answer your question don't "avoid" specific things/inputs to control the bacteria/fungi growth. You won't throw off the bacterial dominance, because it isn't just related to organic inputs solely. It is also related to soil conditions, soil texture and pH, the plant that is being grown in said soil, and so much more.

Effectively, the plant in conjunction with the soil is collaborating with one another in symbiosis that will ensure that they both not only survive but achieve optimal survival conditions.

Incidentally, pH plays a large factor as to whether or not your soil will be bacterial or fungal dominant. More sources here and here.

"In conclusion, this study showed that neutral or slightly alkaline conditions favored bacterial growth. Conversely, an acid pH favored fungal growth."

"Bacterial growth was highest at the highest pH values of the gradient and declined by a factor of 5 toward the lower pH values. In contrast, fungal growth was maximal at pH 4.5, and decreased by a factor of more than 5 toward the high pH end."

Acidic soil conditions = fungal dominant
Neutral and above = bacterial dominant

This is why I mentioned Blueberries and Azaleas earlier, because they literally will not grow in the living soil we use for cannabis and most other plants. Fungi is most natural in an acidic soil, bacteria in neutral or above.

tl;dr: Organic inputs will not be the determining factor of the bacteria:fungi ratio, pH will be.

Glad to be of service. Of course, everyone's mileage will vary, but this mix has provided me with much better results than the 1:1:1 ratio and I contribute it mainly to soil compaction. I'm certainly no expert, however there's something that has stood out to me in terms of knowledge/education of soil.

I feel that too much information is centered towards the content of soil, but there isn't enough about soil texture and as a result, compaction.

Compaction will be the natural and inevitable result of any no-till.

By accounting for compaction, we increase the amount of time we can continue our no-till before they become the compost that will become part of your next no-till soil.

The best soil you'll ever have, is soil that consists of the compost that was the result of your last no-till. When your no-till becomes nothing but compost and perlite, and you mix it with new peat moss and more perlite? Incredible.

I used to make a mix of the crab/neem that I would sprinkle just enough to cover the veggie/food scraps/compost in the worm bin. Then, I would liberally sprinkle the coffee grounds+OSF for grit over the top of the scraps/crab/neem mix.

There a reason you avoid neem, if you don't mind me asking? Makes worms go apeshit, but it definitely isn't mandatory.

Thanks Kratos, great info. Can't wait to take the kelp and crab meal I have on hand and start throwing it into the bins.

Do you also feed with Malted Barley Powder? I've seen some people doing that too.

Also, I had no idea no-till soil only lasts a year or so... I was under the impression you can leave the pot be forever, just have to top dress, and it'll get better every year. But it makes sense... I wonder how in nature soil compaction is avoided. Maybe companion plants or worms might be able to help with it... I wonder if there would be a way.

Regarding neem, I try to stay away from it since hearing from a breeder that cannabis is a bioaccumulator (or systemic? I can't remember the exact term), it soaks up everything in the soil and stores it in the plant. In Chernobyl they used hemp to clean the soil for that reason. Some people get sick from neem, some say not to spray it in flower since although it's safe to eat, smoking it may be dangerous. Since cannabis will soak up the neem into its plant mass, if it's in the soil it means it would be in your smoke. At least that's the way I understand it.

This might be incorrect, but it makes sense to me. I ran without neem and it was OK, I just prefer to not use it just in case.

kratos015 · Jan 14, 2021

RenaissanceBrah said:
Thanks Kratos, great info. Can't wait to take the kelp and crab meal I have on hand and start throwing it into the bins.

Do you also feed with Malted Barley Powder? I've seen some people doing that too.

Also, I had no idea no-till soil only lasts a year or so... I was under the impression you can leave the pot be forever, just have to top dress, and it'll get better every year. But it makes sense... I wonder how in nature soil compaction is avoided. Maybe companion plants or worms might be able to help with it... I wonder if there would be a way.

Regarding neem, I try to stay away from it since hearing from a breeder that cannabis is a bioaccumulator (or systemic? I can't remember the exact term), it soaks up everything in the soil and stores it in the plant. In Chernobyl they used hemp to clean the soil for that reason. Some people get sick from neem, some say not to spray it in flower since although it's safe to eat, smoking it may be dangerous. Since cannabis will soak up the neem into its plant mass, if it's in the soil it means it would be in your smoke. At least that's the way I understand it.

This might be incorrect, but it makes sense to me. I ran without neem and it was OK, I just prefer to not use it just in case.

Sorry, I must have phrased something awkwardly. No-till is supposed to last for multiple years. Its just that many people experience failure with it after a few cycles (about the 1 year mark). This is because of poor soil texture (poor quality compost, insufficient aeration/drainage) and the composting process itself. All of these things will work against you over time and result in compacted soil.

You're correct about the worms and other critters helping with compaction. It's also worth noting the size of typical plants found in a forest/nature setting. A trees roots won't give a fuck about soil texture, because they can grow through quite a bit. Something like root plants (radishes, carrots, etc) or tomatoes/cannabis/etc are much more picky about soil texture/compaction, because their roots aren't as strong.

You'll actually witness this happening yourself when running no-till. Fill the entire pot to the very top of the soil, as time goes on you'll notice the pot isn't completely full anymore.

This is why I've had success with the 40/40/20 mix, in conjunction with cutting the inputs in my soil itself down and instead favoring top dress instead.

Compost and organic amendments provide life and nutrition to the soil. These things do not need to be in the soil itself to provide life and nutrition, just a part of it.

This is also why you'll see pot size get brought up often. A 25g pot of soil will last much longer in a no-till than a 5g pot, due to the factors listed above.

Don't use neem if you're uncomfortable with it. There are plenty of other inputs that will provide sufficient N.

Just consider that neem meal isn't the same thing as need oil, neem oil is the extraction and neem meal is the waste. Consider making BHO, once you've made the BHO your trim/buds are devoid of any THC/resin due to the extraction.

loco41 · Jan 14, 2021

kratos015 said:
Jealous of your leaf mould access! Unfortunately, I'm not qualified to comment having never had the opportunity to use the stuff since I live in the middle of the desert. I have heard absolutely nothing but good things, especially when fed to worms. If I recall, Coot's feeds his worms leaf mould, OSF for grit, and Crab/Neem/Kelp meals. Having access to that kind of quality EWC will make literally anything you grow unstoppable.

I've no experience with the Bu's Blend (Malibu Compost, right?) but I've heard amazing things about it, and Coast of Maine products. However, the unfortunate reality is that by not doing things ourselves we are putting ourselves at the mercy of the people responsible for processing the product. The bottom line is that these companies are a business, and profits come before anything else.

You'll know immediately if the 1:1:1 ratio is causing you problems if you attempt to run no-till. You'll get good results the first time, but the next couple times won't yield as good as the first time due to soil compaction/clumping.

Try to think of our responsibility as growing roots, not plants.

This perspective will help you realize the importance of not loading up your no-till mix with mediocre compost. If our plants are only as good as their roots, and our plant's roots are unable to move freely through the soil mix, our plants will suck.

On paper, the extra 7% perlite and peat moss doesn't seem like much at all. But, once you're done mixing it and you run your hands through it you will know immediately. Then, you can imagine how your roots will feel when they are attempting to grow through this soil mix.

Organic food scraps are good, don't get me wrong. They'll produce EWC that will bring plenty of life to your soil. Properly cultivated, composted, and sifted EWC will also provide quality soil texture. What food scraps typically will not provide, however is nutrition. Coffee grounds are a good source of Nitrogen, sure, but the coffee grounds and eggshell's main purpose in a worm bin is for grit and not nutrition.

The exception to the food scraps not providing nutrition statement I made would be if you grew the food scraps yourself.

Take lettuce/leafy greens from a grocery store for instance. They are almost always grown hydroponically, so they're pretty much just full of water and that's about it.

Lettuce/greens grown in the soil we all try to cultivate is significantly different compared to store bought greens, even ones from the "organic" section. If you taste lettuce grown in soil that we all post about on here, you will notice multiple different things.

For one, the greens themselves will be more "dense" due to the fact they're grown in soil and not hydroponically. They'll also have flavor to them, believe it or not. As well as both a nutritional content and even mineral content from the soil that they were grown in.

Forgive the book, but I guess the tl;dr of it would be that veggie/food scraps are only worthless if they are store bought due to the commercial growing methods used to cultivate them. If the food scraps are from your own garden/homestead AND you know what's in them and how they were produced, they will provide nutritional content to your compost. Again, its just like us.

This is my biggest reason for talking about living soil so much. Not only because I received all of this information freely, but because we are so used to commercially produced garbage that we don't even know it is garbage until we produce our own product.

Great post, what you say about the veggie scraps makes a ton of sense. Can't agree more about the quality of homegrown produce too. I grew out some kale in between grows in my soils and it was of great quality in all aspects. Hopefully get to setting up the outdoor garden this year, both for myself and the worm bins.

My worms get fed a little bit of everything though, mainly veggie/fruit scraps, but also amendments/grains. I like to think of the bins in the same fashion as building up the soils, lots of varieties in smaller amounts. I find myself adding a lot of the same things in there, bananas and avocados for example, just based on my eating habits so I will try to mix in some different variety every few "feedings". Some oats or alfalfa/neem/crab for a more well balanced diet to cater to all the different types of life in there. I have no idea if my castings are of "higher" quality than any other castings, but I do know that things are moving along and that will suffice for me. Not failing is a win in my book when it comes to my worm bins. Maybe when my lazy ass gets around to harvesting my oldest bin, I will try an amendment only type thing in just that bin. Would be interesting to compare to the other bins in a side by side setting from start to finish.

DayDreamin · Jan 15, 2021

Holy shit no bullshit I’ve been reading all week about living soil and reading Kratos helped me understand everything so much better. Thanks for explaining everything you did in this thread.

RenaissanceBrah good luck with your soil.

RenaissanceBrah · Jan 15, 2021

kratos015 said:
Sorry, I must have phrased something awkwardly. No-till is supposed to last for multiple years. Its just that many people experience failure with it after a few cycles (about the 1 year mark). This is because of poor soil texture (poor quality compost, insufficient aeration/drainage) and the composting process itself. All of these things will work against you over time and result in compacted soil.

You're correct about the worms and other critters helping with compaction. It's also worth noting the size of typical plants found in a forest/nature setting. A trees roots won't give a fuck about soil texture, because they can grow through quite a bit. Something like root plants (radishes, carrots, etc) or tomatoes/cannabis/etc are much more picky about soil texture/compaction, because their roots aren't as strong.

You'll actually witness this happening yourself when running no-till. Fill the entire pot to the very top of the soil, as time goes on you'll notice the pot isn't completely full anymore.

This is why I've had success with the 40/40/20 mix, in conjunction with cutting the inputs in my soil itself down and instead favoring top dress instead.

Compost and organic amendments provide life and nutrition to the soil. These things do not need to be in the soil itself to provide life and nutrition, just a part of it.

This is also why you'll see pot size get brought up often. A 25g pot of soil will last much longer in a no-till than a 5g pot, due to the factors listed above.

Don't use neem if you're uncomfortable with it. There are plenty of other inputs that will provide sufficient N.

Just consider that neem meal isn't the same thing as need oil, neem oil is the extraction and neem meal is the waste. Consider making BHO, once you've made the BHO your trim/buds are devoid of any THC/resin due to the extraction.

Thanks Kratos, great info, learning a lot!

What begins to happen with no-till grows once compaction starts happening? Will my plants just grow smaller, or start getting sick or something?

Also, I wanted to start running 3 or 5 gallon pots alongside my 30 gallon no-tills, for running regular seeds (to separate the males easier). Any tips for running smaller pots? Not sure if I should do 3 or 5 gallon, and a plastic pot (less watering and hassle) or a fabric pot, still trying to figure it out. (Going to be growing sativa landraces outdoors in southern california)

kratos015 · Jan 15, 2021

RenaissanceBrah said:
Thanks Kratos, great info, learning a lot!

What begins to happen with no-till grows once compaction starts happening? Will my plants just grow smaller, or start getting sick or something?

Also, I wanted to start running 3 or 5 gallon pots alongside my 30 gallon no-tills, for running regular seeds (to separate the males easier). Any tips for running smaller pots? Not sure if I should do 3 or 5 gallon, and a plastic pot (less watering and hassle) or a fabric pot, still trying to figure it out. (Going to be growing sativa landraces outdoors in southern california)

They won't get sick, but they'll be in a constant struggle and state of stress because their roots can't penetrate the soil enough to grow properly. Water and nutrient intake will suffer by proxy of this, and the life in your soil will be diminished due to less oxygen content within the soil.

You'll know immediately if your soil is compacted, the plants will tell you.

If the same no-till pot that normally produced gorgeous monster plants are now suddenly producing small, scraggly, and spindly plants then your soil has likely compacted and the roots aren't able to move freely throughout the medium anymore.

I mostly run 5g pots. Same soil, top dress regimen, same everything really. Only difference is that the 5g no-till will last 1 year max (in my experience), where as I've had 25g no-tills last me 3-4 years.

The inevitable result of a no-till is that it will always become a ROLS. Not a matter of if, but when.

Eventually, a no-till pot of soil will become purely compost and perlite over time. Then, the cycle repeats and you start your new no-till once you dump your old pots. Your old no-till, that is now pure compost and perlite, can be mixed with new peat moss and a little extra perlite and the cycle begins anew.

The only exception to the above statements would be if you had a 100+ gallon mass of soil, that had enough perlite to compensate for soil compaction. Earthworms also go a long ways in ensuring that you'll never experience compaction, the issue is that not all of us live in outdoor climates that will allow worms to survive in one's soil.

Keeping earthworms in your soil will be incredibly difficult if your temps go above 90F, or below 60F. The only way worms could survive in temps like that is if the soil they live in is 2ft+ deep, so they can just burrow deep enough to not be a victim of hot/cold conditions. However, as you can imagine, this relied on incredible watering conditions.

We all live in different areas, and have different situations/challenges from our own respective areas. Its good to absorb as much information and knowledge as you can, but ultimately it comes down to just experimenting yourself too and seeing what works best for you.

That said, I'm Southern California born and raised, lived in Corona until 2015. Incredible climate for the most part, even in the most brutal SoCal summers I never had an issue outdoors. I just needed to water 2-3 times a day lol

Good on you for sticking with landrace strains, they are severely underrated IMO. Too many people focused on the next Gorilla Glue, Bruce Banner, Girl Scout, etc. They don't realize how much work it takes to get finicky strains like that to work, and doing them outdoors is an enormous challenge and headache. A landrace strain grown to its 100% potential will always shit on a Gorilla Glue/Girl Scout plant that barely made it to 50% of its potential.

Why Green Crack, LA Confidential, and White Widow are some of my favorites. They're all Afghani or Mexican/South American landrace based strains, for those of us living in the Southwest USA, these strains are pretty much idiot proof.

kratos015 · Jan 15, 2021

loco41 said:
Great post, what you say about the veggie scraps makes a ton of sense. Can't agree more about the quality of homegrown produce too. I grew out some kale in between grows in my soils and it was of great quality in all aspects. Hopefully get to setting up the outdoor garden this year, both for myself and the worm bins.

My worms get fed a little bit of everything though, mainly veggie/fruit scraps, but also amendments/grains. I like to think of the bins in the same fashion as building up the soils, lots of varieties in smaller amounts. I find myself adding a lot of the same things in there, bananas and avocados for example, just based on my eating habits so I will try to mix in some different variety every few "feedings". Some oats or alfalfa/neem/crab for a more well balanced diet to cater to all the different types of life in there. I have no idea if my castings are of "higher" quality than any other castings, but I do know that things are moving along and that will suffice for me. Not failing is a win in my book when it comes to my worm bins. Maybe when my lazy ass gets around to harvesting my oldest bin, I will try an amendment only type thing in just that bin. Would be interesting to compare to the other bins in a side by side setting from start to finish.

Castings produced by yourself will pretty much always beat commercial quality, though to be fair this holds true of just about anything. Even if your castings don't have much nutritional content, it'll still be more than the typical commercial castings that are often fed nothing more than newspaper and peat moss. They don't even get veggie scraps, typically :/

If you're making your own castings, they're likely already higher quality than everything on the market. Grab a bag of commercial EWC when you harvest your bin, do a compare and contrast.

Commercial EWC are typically grainy, or clumpy. They aren't light and fluffy like homemade. You should be able to grab a handful of your castings, and clump it in your hand. Then, you should be able to poke that clump with your finger and the entire pile should fall apart.

Coots just set an incredibly high standard in terms of what constitutes "amazing" castings. His castings are the same texture/consistency that yours likely are. However, what makes his castings so incredible is that they have the pest deterrent properties of the Neem and Crab Meals, the myriad of micronutrients/elements of the Kelp Meal, and the NPK values of all of the above to boot.

DayDreamin said:
Holy shit no bullshit I’ve been reading all week about living soil and reading Kratos helped me understand everything so much better. Thanks for explaining everything you did in this thread.

RenaissanceBrah good luck with your soil.

Happy to be of any service friend.

Northwood · Jan 15, 2021

RenaissanceBrah said:
What begins to happen with no-till grows once compaction starts happening? Will my plants just grow smaller, or start getting sick or something?

You'll get anaerobic conditions, precious nitrogen will be released out your exhaust outtake, and your roots will starve of oxygen and rot, eventually killing your plant. lol

@kratos015 is right though about the first year in a no-till from my experience too, and it's taken me literally years of playing around with what to do in order to prevent compaction. The fact is that you can't. If you add nitrogen and buffer the acidity of peat moss, then bacteria and fungi move in to basically compost it. I've lost 4" of 100 gallons of soil in my single no-till pot (4 ft diameter) in just over 2 years. That's a HUGE volume of carbon that went up my exhaust fan. I really did expect it again though.

Even perlite wont save you. What will is adding some sort of very fine mineral component to your original soil mix and even as an occasional light top application. Even clays can help, although it sounds counter-productive. Everyone knows that clay soils don't drain well right? But it turns out that bacteria love sticking microscopic clay particles together with decayed organic matter to make cities. Plus certain clays of montmorillonites such as calcium bentonite have incredible CEC. That is aggregation, and it's a glue that binds particles in the soil together in larger forms that allow water to flow between them more easily. The formation of aggregates does take a long time though for peat moss. It starts at the top and works its way to the bottom over a 2 or 3 years with a 12" to 16" soil depth. At least that's from my experience.

The other thing that helps is a healthy ecosystem, including worms. They redistribute bacteria and soil with their travels and they loosen things up, making tunnels that water can channel through. The other thing that can save us is just because it's no-till. Those roots are intact in the soil and end up decaying, leaving channels that water can flow through after the bacteria and fungi are done with them.

At first I though indoor no-till was really hard, until it finally hit me: "Why not say fuck-it and treat my indoor grow the same as I do outside in the summer vegetable garden!". Lol

Northwood · Jan 15, 2021

kratos015 said:
You should be able to grab a handful of your castings, and clump it in your hand. Then, you should be able to poke that clump with your finger and the entire pile should fall apart.

I really hate to admit it, but my castings are basically the consistency of tooth paste, with a few fruit sticky labels still in there, and a bunch of damn worms and other stuff I'll not get into on a Friday night.

I thought of it as my initial inoculation, which I've done a few times now after adding certain "questionable" outdoor inputs in my worm bins. lol

So yeah, that centipede I have that was likely caused by that "inoculation". I don't know why, but I have this obsession about seeing it after the first time. I can spend half an hour after watering just do see if I flushed it out and can get a pic. lol So yesterday, I take a look at the plants and see a centipede (maybe the same one?) crawl out of the mulch, just to disappear in a like 3 seconds. It's almost 2" long too. Seriously. Hopefully no mates around, or I may have to introduce rats to keep the population in check so they don't eat all my worms. lol

PadawanWarrior · Jan 15, 2021

Northwood said:
I really hate to admit it, but my castings are basically the consistency of tooth paste, with a few fruit sticky labels still in there, and a bunch of damn worms and other stuff I'll not get into on a Friday night.

I thought of it as my initial inoculation, which I've done a few times now after adding certain "questionable" outdoor inputs in my worm bins. lol

So yeah, that centipede I have that was likely caused by that "inoculation". I don't know why, but I have this obsession about seeing it after the first time. I can spend half an hour after watering just do see if I flushed it out and can get a pic. lol So yesterday, I take a look at the plants and see a centipede (maybe the same one?) crawl out of the mulch, just to disappear in a like 3 seconds. It's almost 2" long too. Seriously. Hopefully no mates around, or I may have to introduce rats to keep the population in check so they don't eat all my worms. lol

Imagine how long you'd spend looking for it if you were a Tweeker, lol.

I don't really have a worm bin going now, but maybe you need to add some more peat to the worm bins to lighten it up. @Richard Drysift can help more than I can for sure. I need more room before I start up a proper worm bin.

PadawanWarrior · Jan 15, 2021

kratos015 said:
They won't get sick, but they'll be in a constant struggle and state of stress because their roots can't penetrate the soil enough to grow properly. Water and nutrient intake will suffer by proxy of this, and the life in your soil will be diminished due to less oxygen content within the soil.

You'll know immediately if your soil is compacted, the plants will tell you.

If the same no-till pot that normally produced gorgeous monster plants are now suddenly producing small, scraggly, and spindly plants then your soil has likely compacted and the roots aren't able to move freely throughout the medium anymore.

I mostly run 5g pots. Same soil, top dress regimen, same everything really. Only difference is that the 5g no-till will last 1 year max (in my experience), where as I've had 25g no-tills last me 3-4 years.

The inevitable result of a no-till is that it will always become a ROLS. Not a matter of if, but when.

Eventually, a no-till pot of soil will become purely compost and perlite over time. Then, the cycle repeats and you start your new no-till once you dump your old pots. Your old no-till, that is now pure compost and perlite, can be mixed with new peat moss and a little extra perlite and the cycle begins anew.

The only exception to the above statements would be if you had a 100+ gallon mass of soil, that had enough perlite to compensate for soil compaction. Earthworms also go a long ways in ensuring that you'll never experience compaction, the issue is that not all of us live in outdoor climates that will allow worms to survive in one's soil.

Keeping earthworms in your soil will be incredibly difficult if your temps go above 90F, or below 60F. The only way worms could survive in temps like that is if the soil they live in is 2ft+ deep, so they can just burrow deep enough to not be a victim of hot/cold conditions. However, as you can imagine, this relied on incredible watering conditions.

We all live in different areas, and have different situations/challenges from our own respective areas. Its good to absorb as much information and knowledge as you can, but ultimately it comes down to just experimenting yourself too and seeing what works best for you.

That said, I'm Southern California born and raised, lived in Corona until 2015. Incredible climate for the most part, even in the most brutal SoCal summers I never had an issue outdoors. I just needed to water 2-3 times a day lol

Good on you for sticking with landrace strains, they are severely underrated IMO. Too many people focused on the next Gorilla Glue, Bruce Banner, Girl Scout, etc. They don't realize how much work it takes to get finicky strains like that to work, and doing them outdoors is an enormous challenge and headache. A landrace strain grown to its 100% potential will always shit on a Gorilla Glue/Girl Scout plant that barely made it to 50% of its potential.

Why Green Crack, LA Confidential, and White Widow are some of my favorites. They're all Afghani or Mexican/South American landrace based strains, for those of us living in the Southwest USA, these strains are pretty much idiot proof.

I love Green Crack. It's super easy to grow, smells awesome, and is perfect high. I've been growing the same clone only version for over 2 years now.

I see you're in CA. Did you get the clone only cut?

Northwood · Jan 15, 2021

PadawanWarrior said:
Imagine how long you'd spend looking for it if you were a Tweeker, lol.

I don't really have a worm bin going now, but maybe you need to add some more peat to the worm bins to lighten it up. @Richard Drysift can help more than I can for sure. I need more room before I start up a proper worm bin.

Peat on its own is something too acidic for my worm bins. I do add dried leaves, hay, and even egg cartons for carbonaceous material. I also add mineral components for girt of course. I've had these bins going for several years now. I try to keep the C:N ratio optimal for the worms' liking. The worms seem happy, and that's the main thing even if they produce tooth paste. lol

PadawanWarrior · Jan 15, 2021

Northwood said:
Peat on its own is something too acidic for my worm bins. I do add dried leaves, hay, and even egg cartons for carbonaceous material. I also add mineral components for girt of course. I've had these bins going for several years now. I try to keep the C:N ratio optimal for the worms' liking. The worms seem happy, and that's the main thing even if they produce tooth paste. lol

How about rice hulls? I heard you can substitute the peat for rice hulls. Maybe even just mix some hulls into some peat so it's not as acidic. Rice hulls raise the pH if anything I think. I have no proof though.

I started a bucket with rice hulls and stuff in it and added my extra worms from my order in there just to mess around. But I neglected them, and didn't water enough or take care of them, so I think they're all dead now. I wasn't really trying hard because I've got worms in all my pots now. But it would be cool to make my own EWC.

Ya, nothing wrong with toothpaste if it's good shit. You could lighten it up when you apply it too if you want.

I'm still a rookie, but it was just a couple thoughts I had. I've been following yours and kratos threads.

Richard Drysift · Jan 15, 2021

Northwood said:
I really hate to admit it, but my castings are basically the consistency of tooth paste, with a few fruit sticky labels still in there, and a bunch of damn worms and other stuff I'll not get into on a Friday night.

I thought of it as my initial inoculation, which I've done a few times now after adding certain "questionable" outdoor inputs in my worm bins. lol

So yeah, that centipede I have that was likely caused by that "inoculation". I don't know why, but I have this obsession about seeing it after the first time. I can spend half an hour after watering just do see if I flushed it out and can get a pic. lol So yesterday, I take a look at the plants and see a centipede (maybe the same one?) crawl out of the mulch, just to disappear in a like 3 seconds. It's almost 2" long too. Seriously. Hopefully no mates around, or I may have to introduce rats to keep the population in check so they don't eat all my worms. lol

Try adding something inert like coco for bedding. Straw is another thing that should add more fiber to the castings. I also second the egg cartons and canna leaves; you sorta need to balance their diet with equal amounts fruits/veggies and fiberous inputs like leaves and shredded junk mail. It takes awhile for a colony of worms to become fully established and a few recycles before your mix reaches full activity. Supernatural status.

Northwood · Jan 15, 2021

PadawanWarrior said:
How about rice hulls? I heard you can substitute the peat for rice hulls. Maybe even just mix some hulls into some peat so it's not as acidic. Rice hulls raise the pH if anything I think. I have no proof though.

I started a bucket with rice hulls and stuff in it and added my extra worms from my order in there just to mess around. But I neglected them, and didn't water enough or take care of them, so I think they're all dead now. I wasn't really trying hard because I've got worms in all my pots now. But it would be cool to make my own EWC.

Ya, nothing wrong with toothpaste if it's good shit. You could lighten it up when you apply it too if you want.

I'm still a rookie, but it was just a couple thoughts I had. I've been following yours and kratos threads.

For sure rice hulls would be a great source of carbon for maintaining a proper C:N ratio in your worm bin. But unfortunately I live in a country where we don't sweep rice hulls off our driveway, just leaves. So I take all those leaves from my neighbor's giant tree in the front (suburban living *sigh*) and store them packed in bags in my garage for later use throughout the year. Both my neighbors smoke weed, (Muslims from Afghanistan to the right of me now, and an old white construction company owner to the left). Only the ones from Afghanistan were knowledgeable enough to give me advice on storing my "temple balls", but the folks on the other side make great pulled pork BBQ. I fucking love Canada.

Northwood · Jan 15, 2021

Richard Drysift said:
Try adding something inert like coco for bedding. Straw is another thing that should add more fiber to the castings. I also second the egg cartons and canna leaves; you sorta need to balance their diet with equal amounts fruits/veggies and fiberous inputs like leaves and shredded junk mail. It takes awhile for a colony of worms to become fully established and a few recycles before your mix reaches full activity. Supernatural status.

Yeah I do. I've had these bins going for years now. And I gift 1/4 of bin contents to others who want to start their own too who want them in my area. But there's a lot of squiggly worms in there, even in the bin below (using nested system) until everything turns to tooth paste. They basically digest everything, even straw, dead leaves, and egg cartons, but seem really happy and lively. Anyway I don't see it as a problem since it's not my soil - as I said it's my periodic inoculant. That reminds me, I need to look for that centipede again!

RenaissanceBrah · Jan 16, 2021

kratos015 said:
They won't get sick, but they'll be in a constant struggle and state of stress because their roots can't penetrate the soil enough to grow properly. Water and nutrient intake will suffer by proxy of this, and the life in your soil will be diminished due to less oxygen content within the soil.

You'll know immediately if your soil is compacted, the plants will tell you.

If the same no-till pot that normally produced gorgeous monster plants are now suddenly producing small, scraggly, and spindly plants then your soil has likely compacted and the roots aren't able to move freely throughout the medium anymore.

I mostly run 5g pots. Same soil, top dress regimen, same everything really. Only difference is that the 5g no-till will last 1 year max (in my experience), where as I've had 25g no-tills last me 3-4 years.

The inevitable result of a no-till is that it will always become a ROLS. Not a matter of if, but when.

Eventually, a no-till pot of soil will become purely compost and perlite over time. Then, the cycle repeats and you start your new no-till once you dump your old pots. Your old no-till, that is now pure compost and perlite, can be mixed with new peat moss and a little extra perlite and the cycle begins anew.

The only exception to the above statements would be if you had a 100+ gallon mass of soil, that had enough perlite to compensate for soil compaction. Earthworms also go a long ways in ensuring that you'll never experience compaction, the issue is that not all of us live in outdoor climates that will allow worms to survive in one's soil.

Keeping earthworms in your soil will be incredibly difficult if your temps go above 90F, or below 60F. The only way worms could survive in temps like that is if the soil they live in is 2ft+ deep, so they can just burrow deep enough to not be a victim of hot/cold conditions. However, as you can imagine, this relied on incredible watering conditions.

We all live in different areas, and have different situations/challenges from our own respective areas. Its good to absorb as much information and knowledge as you can, but ultimately it comes down to just experimenting yourself too and seeing what works best for you.

That said, I'm Southern California born and raised, lived in Corona until 2015. Incredible climate for the most part, even in the most brutal SoCal summers I never had an issue outdoors. I just needed to water 2-3 times a day lol

Good on you for sticking with landrace strains, they are severely underrated IMO. Too many people focused on the next Gorilla Glue, Bruce Banner, Girl Scout, etc. They don't realize how much work it takes to get finicky strains like that to work, and doing them outdoors is an enormous challenge and headache. A landrace strain grown to its 100% potential will always shit on a Gorilla Glue/Girl Scout plant that barely made it to 50% of its potential.

Why Green Crack, LA Confidential, and White Widow are some of my favorites. They're all Afghani or Mexican/South American landrace based strains, for those of us living in the Southwest USA, these strains are pretty much idiot proof.

Thanks Kratos - I decided to grow out landraces for the high actually, though weaker, I'm searching for something that's more "friendly", not just a super potent high, if that makes sense. I also heard various accounts, some say they're harder to grow, some easier, I guess I'll find out

. Going to be running South American landraces first (acapulco gold, panama red, and Mexican punta roja).

And I heard you with the watering... I was running filtered water, so had to drive to the water store and fill jugs of water twice a week at the height of summer, not fun. Was going to setup a blumat to make things easier, but the fact it has to be 6 feet above the grow was a challenge.

100+ gallon pots would be ideal... hopefully one day. Pack a ton of perlite in there and let the worms take care of the compaction.

In a 100+ gallon situation like that, what would your perlite ratio be you'd say?

RenaissanceBrah · Jan 16, 2021

kratos015 said:
Castings produced by yourself will pretty much always beat commercial quality, though to be fair this holds true of just about anything. Even if your castings don't have much nutritional content, it'll still be more than the typical commercial castings that are often fed nothing more than newspaper and peat moss. They don't even get veggie scraps, typically :/

If you're making your own castings, they're likely already higher quality than everything on the market. Grab a bag of commercial EWC when you harvest your bin, do a compare and contrast.

Commercial EWC are typically grainy, or clumpy. They aren't light and fluffy like homemade. You should be able to grab a handful of your castings, and clump it in your hand. Then, you should be able to poke that clump with your finger and the entire pile should fall apart.

Coots just set an incredibly high standard in terms of what constitutes "amazing" castings. His castings are the same texture/consistency that yours likely are. However, what makes his castings so incredible is that they have the pest deterrent properties of the Neem and Crab Meals, the myriad of micronutrients/elements of the Kelp Meal, and the NPK values of all of the above to boot.

Happy to be of any service friend.

Btw, you ever have problems with red mites in your castings? I saw some eating away at my seedlings when I experimented sprouting seeds in the worm bin. I ordered from jim's worm farm, later I heard they sometimes come with free red mites

Also, do you just sprinkle on the crab and kelp meal as is? Or do you grind it up to a fine powder first?

kratos015 · Jan 16, 2021

RenaissanceBrah said:
Thanks Kratos - I decided to grow out landraces for the high actually, though weaker, I'm searching for something that's more "friendly", not just a super potent high, if that makes sense. I also heard various accounts, some say they're harder to grow, some easier, I guess I'll find out . Going to be running South American landraces first (acapulco gold, panama red, and Mexican punta roja).

And I heard you with the watering... I was running filtered water, so had to drive to the water store and fill jugs of water twice a week at the height of summer, not fun. Was going to setup a blumat to make things easier, but the fact it has to be 6 feet above the grow was a challenge.

100+ gallon pots would be ideal... hopefully one day. Pack a ton of perlite in there and let the worms take care of the compaction.

In a 100+ gallon situation like that, what would your perlite ratio be you'd say?

Depends on the conditions, really. For someone living in Florida, or the mid-west where it's hot and humid, sure mexican landraces will be tough to grow. But, Mexican landraces specialize in just that, Mexico type weather where it's dry and hot weather. "dry heat" lol. SoCal will be great for growing any Mexican landrace.

I always thought BluMats were cool, but I've grown so fond of the SIPs that I'll do this instead of BluMats, no troubleshooting or any BS. Always perfect.

Regardless of the amount of soil, I'll always run 40% perlite going forward. I've had mixed results with the 1:1:1 ratio, but going 40% perlite in my mix has been game changing as fuck for me. I'll never do anything but 40% perlite going forward, SIP just makes it all the better.

RenaissanceBrah said:
Btw, you ever have problems with red mites in your castings? I saw some eating away at my seedlings when I experimented sprouting seeds in the worm bin. I ordered from jim's worm farm, later I heard they sometimes come with free red mites

Also, do you just sprinkle on the crab and kelp meal as is? Or do you grind it up to a fine powder first?

Are you sure they're red spider mites and not the red predatory mites? You'll know they're predatory mites because the eggs will look similar to fish eggs, if you're a fisherman and/or sushi connoisseur. They literally look like fish eggs. I have those same red mites. If they were spider mites, you'd know. You'd have the damage and the webs. But, if you have no damage/webs, they're likely predator mites.

These look familiar?

Northwood said:
Yeah I do. I've had these bins going for years now. And I gift 1/4 of bin contents to others who want to start their own too who want them in my area. But there's a lot of squiggly worms in there, even in the bin below (using nested system) until everything turns to tooth paste. They basically digest everything, even straw, dead leaves, and egg cartons, but seem really happy and lively. Anyway I don't see it as a problem since it's not my soil - as I said it's my periodic inoculant. That reminds me, I need to look for that centipede again!

Centipedes are scary looking fuckers. I absolutely loathe them, but I can't help but be stoked when I see them because the sight of centipedes and is a for sure sign that your soil is top notch.

Your girl will likely never see them, they'll be going apeshit over what's in your soil (and I've seen your soil, I can understand why you have centipedes!) so they'll likely never leave your grow room. As much as I fucking hate looking at and seeing centipedes in general, I also like seeing them because that's a good gauge as to how healthy and lively your soil is.

Northwood · Jan 16, 2021

kratos015 said:
Your girl will likely never see them

I hope not. My wife came to Canada as a young child with her parents from a hot humid country, and she's repeatedly told me the story of how she was bit by a giant tropical centipede as a kid and spent days in the hospital. Apparently she nearly died. Even if I told her Canadian centipedes are not dangerous like those in her old country, if she found out I'd likely get extreme pressure to "clean up" my hobby. She doesn't mind everything else in there so far, but that might be a deal-breaker.

Growing with purely peat, pumice, compost and worm castings?

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