Building A Better Soil: Demonstrations & Discussions Of Organic Soil Recipes

SweetSue said:
TOAST is an old hand at this. He farms an entire hillside in California and runs one of the best reading journals on this site. I've not had that kind of courage yet either. :laughtwo:
Click to expand...

Agreed:thumb:

There's the hillside....the garden.....the treehouse......the waterfall....can't wait to see what he gets up to indoors too :) (hope I'm not missing anything there just now?)
 
A friend recently brought a poop issue to my attention and I thought I should pass it along.

I live in a very rural area that is infested with deer. I would often walk around and fill a five gallon pail with deer berries and dump them in my compost, then use the compost in my soil mix. I have never had a problem but there is a danget and I will not use deer poop again.

In many areas of the country (Not Montana) deer are infected with Chronic Wasting Disease which is related to Mad Cow Disease. Deer also carry E coli. It is possible to be infected with either of these through contact with deer poop. I DID NOT KNOW THIS!

It is perfectly safe to use after you 'hot compost' it. That still leaves the risk of exposure before composting. I am sure the risk is slight, but in my opinion, there are a lot of alternatives to deer poop.

Although CWD has never been found in Montana, I can live without the deer poop.
 
Great info Llama. :thumb::thanks:

There are lots of nasty microbes contained in many of the organic soil amendments that are commonly used. Most if not all manures contain E. coli along with a smorgasbord of other bacterial and viral microbes. I forget the name of the disease but bat guano is known to cause an ocular disease that can result in blindness. Sheep and goat manure can contain a nasty bug that causes paralysis and death. Bone meal can contain mad cow disease and other nasties - I recall reading that bone meal is not available for purchase by the general public in the UK because of the risk of mad cow disease. ACT's can harbor a host of nasty bugs that have the potential for causing health issues. The list goes on and on and on.

We should always take precautions when working with any of these types of organic soil amendments that have the potential to contain infectious diseases. A few of the minimum precautions that we can and probably should take anytime that we handle ingredients that pose human health risk:
1. Make sure to wear a dust mask when handling raw materials.
2. Lightly wet any dusty type materials before handling to minimize ingestion or contact with dust borne microbes.
3. Never handle organic materials that have potential for disease if you have any open cuts, sores, etc.
4. Hot compost prior to use.

Anyways, thanks again for flagging some of the health hazards associated with manures. :Namaste::peace:
 
Thank you both for the insight. This is why I stick so close to both of you. Well, also you're both such darned good company. :battingeyelashes: :Love:
 
I just ended reading all the pages from this thread, and it was a great reading. I was surprised to find a local store when I was able to buy some nutrients. So far I have this to prepare the soil:

worm casting
compost
crab shell
Kelp meal
egg shell ( i recycle my shells and grind them)
bat guano

They sold me the soil as compost although is more like a potting mix with soil a small amount of perlite and I think peat moss(but not sure).

I will not use peat moss and will use 50% compost, 30% aeration(I'm thinking in using rice hull but need to find where to buy it), They had azomite but since I read here about the aluminum stuff I decided to not buy it. The other 20% will be worm casting. Will add kelp meal, bat guano, egg shell, crab shell and planning to buy Neem meal. Also need to buy rock dust.

Is this okay? Any advice or suggestion is welcome and appreciated.
 
jueyman said:
I just ended reading all the pages from this thread, and it was a great reading. I was surprised to find a local store when I was able to buy some nutrients. So far I have this to prepare the soil:

worm casting
compost
crab shell
Kelp meal
egg shell ( i recycle my shells and grind them)
bat guano

They sold me the soil as compost although is more like a potting mix with soil a small amount of perlite and I think peat moss(but not sure).

I will not use peat moss and will use 50% compost, 30% aeration(I'm thinking in using rice hull but need to find where to buy it), They had azomite but since I read here about the aluminum stuff I decided to not buy it. The other 20% will be worm casting. Will add kelp meal, bat guano, egg shell, crab shell and planning to buy Neem meal. Also need to buy rock dust.

Is this okay? Any advice or suggestion is welcome and appreciated.
Click to expand...

There're some really talented cultivator's who know much more about building a soil than I (I took the easy road and purchased a kit), and they'll be along soon to assist you with this. I'll PM you a source for the rice hulls.

And :welcome: to both you and Max. You won't regret the choice. They tell me that growing with LOS enhances the quality of the product. I wouldn't know about that, because this is the only way I've ever grown, but I know what I grow is so much better than anything I've ever purchased that I refuse to purchase at all.
 
SweetSue said:
There're some really talented cultivator's who know much more about building a soil than I (I took the easy road and purchased a kit), and they'll be along soon to assist you with this. I'll PM you a source for the rice hulls.

And :welcome: to both you and Max. You won't regret the choice. They tell me that growing with LOS enhances the quality of the product. I wouldn't know about that, because this is the only way I've ever grown, but I know what I grow is so much better than anything I've ever purchased that I refuse to purchase at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the pm, since I can't send pm yet, thanks for taking the time to advice me.
 
I think I will have to choose something else that rice hulls, it will be expensive for me buying it online for the shipping and is quite expensive on Amazon, I think I will have to go with rice pumice or whatever I see that can work.
 
jueyman said:
I think I will have to choose something else that rice hulls, it will be expensive for me buying it online for the shipping and is quite expensive on Amazon, I think I will have to go with rice pumice or whatever I see that can work.
Click to expand...

If you can find lava rock at a local landscaping or big box establishment, that's an option too.
 
SweetSue said:
If you can find lava rock at a local landscaping or big box establishment, that's an option too.
Click to expand...

I will try that. For some reason finding that online has become troublesome. The only thing I found local was azomite, but if I can't find anything I will go with perlite unless I choose to spend for an expensive one online.
 
jueyman said:
I will try that. For some reason finding that online has become troublesome. The only thing I found local was azomite, but if I can't find anything I will go with perlite unless I choose to spend for an expensive one online.
Click to expand...

The big concern for me in choosing pumice - my preferred aeration component with rice hulls added for diversity - is the cost of shipping something that heavy. If you can find lava rock locally it's bound to be cheaper. It's used all over for landscaping, so I'd expect you could find it locally. I wish it were that easy for me. I have no vehicle to procure said rock with. Perlite, though frowned upon by many gardeners, will be a perfectly acceptable substitution. If it's what you can get, use it without hesitation.

As it turns out, my favorite shopping site for soil building is out of pumice and I refuse to pay the price other sites are charging, so when I make more soil next week perlite may be the way I go too.
 
jueyman said:
I just ended reading all the pages from this thread, and it was a great reading. I was surprised to find a local store when I was able to buy some nutrients. So far I have this to prepare the soil:

worm casting
compost
crab shell
Kelp meal
egg shell ( i recycle my shells and grind them)
bat guano

They sold me the soil as compost although is more like a potting mix with soil a small amount of perlite and I think peat moss(but not sure).

I will not use peat moss and will use 50% compost, 30% aeration(I'm thinking in using rice hull but need to find where to buy it), They had azomite but since I read here about the aluminum stuff I decided to not buy it. The other 20% will be worm casting. Will add kelp meal, bat guano, egg shell, crab shell and planning to buy Neem meal. Also need to buy rock dust.

Is this okay? Any advice or suggestion is welcome and appreciated.
Click to expand...

Good morning Jueyman :)

It looks like you have made a great start :thumb: and as Sue said :welcome:

For your rockdust, if you have a rock quarry or landscape business nearby, ask them about "crusher dust". It is a by product of crushing rock for gravel. It is a cheap alternative to the rock dust you would buy online and if you topdress your pots with it (about 1/2" thick) it will give you the benefit of rock dust and at the same time, prevent gnats from invading your grow.

RC
 
Here's what I currently use for soil. If anyone has any suggestions for improving it, I'm all ears.

18 gal peat moss
18 gal compost
18 gal perlite
16 cups worm castings
1-3/8 cups soil sweetener
1-1/2 cups bone meal
3-1/2 cups bat guano (9-3-1)
2 cups greensand
1/4 cup Ful-Humix
3-1/2 cups Azomite
2 cups Mykos

A couple of batches back I substituted 0-12-0 seabird guano for the bat guano for half the mix and then made two layers in the pots.

For my next batch, I'm thinking about getting a 20-lb bag of hardwood charcoal, smashing it up, and adding it. Does that sound like an appropriate amount for a 55-gal batch of soil?

Also, since making my last batch, I've acquired more potential ingredients: Crab meal, neem seed meal, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, and yucca extract. And I'm going to get some basalt dust on my next trip to the gardening center. Any thoughts on which and how much of those to add? How much do I need to cut back on the guano or anything else if I add these? I know there are soil-nutrient calculators that would help me get the proportions right--I'm just being lazy here and hoping someone can just tell me what I need to do.

I'm contemplating switching from peat moss to coco, which I have zero experience with. Would I need to make other changes to the recipe if I do that?

I'm currently growing White Widow, AK-47, Northern Lights, Cactus, and Mystery Bagseed in this soil. I water with Earth Juice Grow and Bloom. I also have a bottle of Bio-genesis High Tide seaweed that I sometimes add.

I'm super interested in the living soil idea. It's the sort of geekery that's right up my alley. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
Thanks for the advice, like Sue mentioned I was able to find lava rock in a landscaping store. Is funny they thought that it was for orchids . I also bought some crushed charcoal from them. I'm almost ready to make my mix.
 
Want to add that I was able to buy glaciar rock dust by amazon. There was other good places online but the shipping was to expensive.My intentions were for a basalt and glaciar dust mix(with egg shell) but couldn't find any in amazon(with prime) and the other place that Sue suggested to me, with the ship the end price was $30 for 5 gall. So I will use the glaciar rock with the egg shell and some grinded charcoal.
 
Screenshot_2016-01-28-18-58-11.png


This was my first time "making" my own soil. I bought the ingredients before learning about the kits available from BAS, any suggestions?
 
Don't know if this was mentioned here but those whey is useful for fertilizer? One of my hobbies is making cheese and I was told in a cheese forum that the whey that was left after coagulation was a good fertilizer. Does anyone have tried this or read about this?
 
Back
Top Bottom