Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread

[green_machine_two9er]

Thanks for the reply man, so you would say 1 cup crab meal, 1 cup neem meal and 1 cup kelp meal per cubic foot ?

Give or take. It’s an averages game. 2-4 cups total nutrients per cf is in the ball park. And at three your sitting good I think

 

[m4s73r]

Well, I’m kind of new to this site ( lurked for years, just now participating) but I’m really active over on GC. I have a “ indoor Hugel bed “ thread over there that documenthe whole process. I’ll try to sum it up here...
Planter itself is pretty straightforward. 2x4 frame. Sheep fencing lining the sides and bottom. Landscaping fabric lining all of that. It’s a giant fabric pot basically!
I then followed standard Hugelkultur methods. Where I live I can easily source tons of cottonwood, aspen, and willow wood. It’s everywhere, and friending it in various rates of decay was a breeze. These species in particular will promote excellent fungal growth which is important for living soils.
I brought home enough to fill the bottom 4-5” with pieces ranging in diameter of 4” down to twigs. I have a huge pile of the same materials that have been chipped so I put a layer of about 2” over that. Next the I applied a 1-2” of lava rock to make sure I had aeration down low as things rotted away and turn to soil over the years. A bit of alfalfa meal sprinkled onto that layer just to keep the nitrogen good and available as it progresses.
that lest about 12” in the bed which was filled with a standard Coot style mix ( more of a 40/40/20 actually) and then mulched with more chipped material and other products.
It’s over a year old, and on it fourth (5th?) cycle. It just keeps getting better!

DUDE so it didnt really click till you said this. I read your thread over on GC when I first started looking into this. Good thread. Well I started mine tonight. Ill be posting picks of everything. I live in the midwest so im using oak and maple. Me and the wife found a rotting tree. we unearthed it and brought the whole thing home.

 

[JMcG]

Ok, got it! Thanks bud!

 

[JMcG]

DUDE so it didnt really click till you said this. I read your thread over on GC when I first started looking into this. Good thread. Well I started mine tonight. Ill be posting picks of everything. I live in the midwest so im using oak and maple. Me and the wife found a rotting tree. we unearthed it and brought the whole thing home.

That’s perfect. I used a mixture of really rotten, punky materials and fresh fallen limbs.
it’s a pretty sweet set up, it doesn’t take as much water as the other standard beds. I did have some plants fade a bit prematurely on run two, but I amended a bit heavier after that run and they seem to cruising right along now. Maybe I give them a shot of fish hydrolysate very once and awhile.
I also built a classic out door Hugel mound last summer. I just planted some random veggies in it to get some root mass into it and didn’t get much returns. This year though...

 

[SouthernSoil*]

I sure would do one of your mixes with no coco. Straight peat/aeration/ewc as base.
For 40 gallons roughly 5 cf. I would shoot for 2-3 cups nutrients per cf. so 10-15 cups between crab/ neem/ kelp or and meals really.

Thanks for the reply man, so you would say 1 cup crab meal, 1 cup neem meal and 1 cup kelp meal per cubic foot then ? If i may ask what are the best sources of information when it comes to learning how to make your own living soil ?

 

[green_machine_two9er]

Thanks for the reply man, so you would say 1 cup crab meal, 1 cup neem meal and 1 cup kelp meal per cubic foot then ? If i may ask what are the best sources of information when it comes to learning how to make your own living soil ?

Everything I learned was right here in this thread plus a few members who really helped me along my way. @greasemonkeymann where ya at !??

also podcast like cannabis cultivation and science podcast. Or shaping fire.
As far as soil building here my best advice. Take it or leave it. Lol.

when baking a cake the base is the same typically. Doesn’t matter if it’s double chocolate, peanut butter or a gummy bear cake( it’s my son’s birthday and the last cake is his request this year).
Start with similar amounts of eggs, flour, oil et.

then we flavor according to what type of cake we want.

soil is the same way. Base is the vital portion. And strong base is what provides microbes with a healthy happy home.

1/3 conpost( or better castings, homemade ifpossible.)
1/3 peat
1/3 aeration (pumice or chunkiest perlite you can find).
I’ve tried 20plus different soil recipes , but the base remains consistent.
2-4 cups nutrients. You can play with this. 3 main sources. Or 10 at 1/4 each. You choose and track your npk inputs.
4 cups minerals. Don’t skimp- butt you don’t need to add any more minerals during recycling. Just extra nutrients based on what kind of fade , or lack of fade occurred with last harvest.

the rest comes with time. The fine details and teas, enzymes, fungal food ,recycling. All the other fun stuff.
just keep it simple to start. Spend 10x more time looking at soil than plants. Actively learning how to properly maintain soil moisture levels is a huge deal. Notice I didn’t say watering. I don’t water plants. I maintain moisture levels which are beneficials to soil life and health.

do have a mineral plan in place as well as your amendments?

 

[m4s73r]

Everything I learned was right here in this thread plus a few members who really helped me along my way. @greasemonkeymann where ya at !??

also podcast like cannabis cultivation and science podcast. Or shaping fire.
As far as soil building here my best advice. Take it or leave it. Lol.

when baking a cake the base is the same typically. Doesn’t matter if it’s double chocolate, peanut butter or a gummy bear cake( it’s my son’s birthday and the last cake is his request this year).
Start with similar amounts of eggs, flour, oil et.

then we flavor according to what type of cake we want.

soil is the same way. Base is the vital portion. And strong base is what provides microbes with a healthy happy home.

1/3 conpost( or better castings, homemade ifpossible.)
1/3 peat
1/3 aeration (pumice or chunkiest perlite you can find).
I’ve tried 20plus different soil recipes , but the base remains consistent.
2-4 cups nutrients. You can play with this. 3 main sources. Or 10 at 1/4 each. You choose and track your npk inputs.
4 cups minerals. Don’t skimp- butt you don’t need to add any more minerals during recycling. Just extra nutrients based on what kind of fade , or lack of fade occurred with last harvest.

the rest comes with time. The fine details and teas, enzymes, fungal food ,recycling. All the other fun stuff.
just keep it simple to start. Spend 10x more time looking at soil than plants. Actively learning how to properly maintain soil moisture levels is a huge deal. Notice I didn’t say watering. I don’t water plants. I maintain moisture levels which are beneficials to soil life and health.

do have a mineral plan in place as well as your amendments?

I like to ad vermiculite to my mix with the Perlite. Adds silica.

 

[hillbill]

NAPA #8822 Floor Dry is diatomaceous earth, heat treated to expand. Been using like vermiculite for at least 10 years.

 

[m4s73r]

That’s perfect. I used a mixture of really rotten, punky materials and fresh fallen limbs.
it’s a pretty sweet set up, it doesn’t take as much water as the other standard beds. I did have some plants fade a bit prematurely on run two, but I amended a bit heavier after that run and they seem to cruising right along now. Maybe I give them a shot of fish hydrolysate very once and awhile.
I also built a classic out door Hugel mound last summer. I just planted some random veggies in it to get some root mass into it and didn’t get much returns. This year though...

Did a whole write up on this in my grow journal. This Should be fun!

 

[SouthernSoil*]

Everything I learned was right here in this thread plus a few members who really helped me along my way. @greasemonkeymann where ya at !??

also podcast like cannabis cultivation and science podcast. Or shaping fire.
As far as soil building here my best advice. Take it or leave it. Lol.

when baking a cake the base is the same typically. Doesn’t matter if it’s double chocolate, peanut butter or a gummy bear cake( it’s my son’s birthday and the last cake is his request this year).
Start with similar amounts of eggs, flour, oil et.

then we flavor according to what type of cake we want.

soil is the same way. Base is the vital portion. And strong base is what provides microbes with a healthy happy home.

1/3 compost( or better castings, homemade if possible.)
1/3 peat
1/3 aeration (pumice or chunkiest perlite you can find).
I’ve tried 20plus different soil recipes , but the base remains consistent.
2-4 cups nutrients. You can play with this. 3 main sources. Or 10 at 1/4 each. You choose and track your npk inputs.
4 cups minerals. Don’t skimp- butt you don’t need to add any more minerals during recycling. Just extra nutrients based on what kind of fade , or lack of fade occurred with last harvest.

the rest comes with time. The fine details and teas, enzymes, fungal food ,recycling. All the other fun stuff.
just keep it simple to start. Spend 10x more time looking at soil than plants. Actively learning how to properly maintain soil moisture levels is a huge deal. Notice I didn’t say watering. I don’t water plants. I maintain moisture levels which are beneficials to soil life and health.

do have a mineral plan in place as well as your amendments?

Thanks man, i really do appreciate you guys going out of your way to help out a random like me. One day i will to do the same and return the help to others in need.

I will definitely take a look at those sources, the more the information the better.

For my base im using Peat, Pumice & castings, however these castings are not my own. I am planning to get a worm bin very soon though. I will have to work out if im going to use my expensive pumice and peat now or at a later stage, will peat go off in anyway if stored too long ?

If i may ask, what are the differences between using , 10 main sources or 3 ? I take it if i cannot get my hands on crabmeal,kelp&neem i would then have to substitute these. So to get something similar to crab meal you would need to for instance get 3 different amendments to make up what the crab meal could have done by itself ? Please correct my understanding if im wrong.

So for my first grow , you would say i must skip the feeding and let the plants tell me what they want? If i am changing strains on the next grow, how drastic are the differences in terms of what the plants feed on ? I take it most growers stick to a few good strains and thats it, do things change alot when you want to grow a different strain each time ?

Well said though, look at the soil 10x more than the plants, this is something i am engraving into my brain, slowly but surely.

Unfortunately i dont have a mineral plan in place at all however on the amendments side, as mentioned i would stick to crab,kelp&neem if i cannot source the neem, i will have to substitute it. What would you recommend for a mineral plan ?

 

[green_machine_two9er]

Thanks man, i really do appreciate you guys going out of your way to help out a random like me. One day i will to do the same and return the help to others in need.

I will definitely take a look at those sources, the more the information the better.

For my base im using Peat, Pumice & castings, however these castings are not my own. I am planning to get a worm bin very soon though. I will have to work out if im going to use my expensive pumice and peat now or at a later stage, will peat go off in anyway if stored too long ?

If i may ask, what are the differences between using , 10 main sources or 3 ? I take it if i cannot get my hands on crabmeal,kelp&neem i would then have to substitute these. So to get something similar to crab meal you would need to for instance get 3 different amendments to make up what the crab meal could have done by itself ? Please correct my understanding if im wrong.

So for my first grow , you would say i must skip the feeding and let the plants tell me what they want? If i am changing strains on the next grow, how drastic are the differences in terms of what the plants feed on ? I take it most growers stick to a few good strains and thats it, do things change alot when you want to grow a different strain each time ?

Well said though, look at the soil 10x more than the plants, this is something i am engraving into my brain, slowly but surely.

Unfortunately i dont have a mineral plan in place at all however on the amendments side, as mentioned i would stick to crab,kelp&neem if i cannot source the neem, i will have to substitute it. What would you recommend for a mineral plan ?

I like basalt, but any high quality rock dust would suffice. Azomite, greensand anything for horticultural use is typically good. I got on the heavy side 4 cups per cf mineral mix.

Don’t forgot gypsum and oyster shell flour as buffer and soil conditioning as well as Ca source. 1 cup each per cf

As far as nutrients go. What I meant was you can mix and match. Some people like diversely. Bone, blood meals, fish, and a number of more exotic inputs as well as the coots style nutrients (kelp, crab, neem)

Some soil builders like simplicity. Down to earth has a mix call “ vegan mix” which has a bunch of good amendments.

Pest may dry out but won’t really go bad. Just a pain to rehydrate.

 

[hillbill]

This forum and this particular thread have been vital on my hill!

 

[m4s73r]

My HukelKulture bed is warm to the touch Took my temp gun back there and shes sitting at 84.4 degrees.

 

[green_machine_two9er]

My HukelKulture bed is warm to the touch Took my temp gun back there and shes sitting at 84.4 degrees.

There’s a lot happening in there.

 

[m4s73r]

There’s a lot happening in there.

You are not wrong. Its kinda smelly. Almost anaerobic smelling. Like a compost tea that got way over brewed.

 

[JMcG]

Hmmm.... kinda smelly you say? Anaerobic possibly? You have good drainage?
( how do I get to your journal?)

 

[SouthernSoil*]

I like basalt, but any high quality rock dust would suffice. Azomite, greensand anything for horticultural use is typically good. I got on the heavy side 4 cups per cf mineral mix.

Don’t forgot gypsum and oyster shell flour as buffer and soil conditioning as well as Ca source. 1 cup each per cf

As far as nutrients go. What I meant was you can mix and match. Some people like diversely. Bone, blood meals, fish, and a number of more exotic inputs as well as the coots style nutrients (kelp, crab, neem)

Some soil builders like simplicity. Down to earth has a mix call “ vegan mix” which has a bunch of good amendments.

Pest may dry out but won’t really go bad. Just a pain to rehydrate.

Can definitely get my hands on some basalt, gypsum and oyster shell flour. I would love to mix and match but have no knowledge to do so yet.

I would prefer simplicity to start with but unfortunately i cannot source any down to earth products here in South-Africa.

Will be a pain to rehydrate but, hopefully the bag has some holes in and no mold or anything anaerobic has grown. Ill check it out. Thanks bud

 

[bobrown14]

Can definitely get my hands on some basalt, gypsum and oyster shell flour. I would love to mix and match but have no knowledge to do so yet.

I would prefer simplicity to start with but unfortunately i cannot source any down to earth products here in South-Africa.

What can you tell me about Transkei from Pondoland... I'm running some seeds a friend sent me from your neck of the woods. I'm about 60 days flowering now.

 

[SouthernSoil*]

I like to ad vermiculite to my mix with the Perlite. Adds silica.

Good to know, any other benefits besides the silica though ?

 

[SouthernSoil*]

What can you tell me about Transkei from Pondoland... I'm running some seeds a friend sent me from your neck of the woods. I'm about 60 days flowering now.

Havent been there at all, i read about the strain a while back and probably smoked some at some stage back in the day. Not a region im close to and its quite far from the main cities. I read that swaziland's gene pool has been properly polluted though, not sure if this is the same for Transkei which is now called Pondolandia, i think finding any landrace strains are pretty hard these days.

I have quite a serious amount of bag seed that ive collected over the years, not even sure if any will germinate as i didnt keep them in a cold room of any sort but i can guarantee there are some land races around in that jar.