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

[Heirloom]

Hard decisions Rado. But you'll find new sources, new materials and be up and going in no time.

Glad you made it to your new, old home.

 

[SweetSue]

When I filled up the second moving van, I made the hard decision and left all my soil behind (it was either keep soil or keep the custom painted wicker sofa AND the grandmother clock.)

My only supplies now are: 40 lb of 'Quoddy Blend' Lobster compost and about 2 gallons of homemade worm compost. The basement here is running about 70 degrees and 60% humidity. In a few days, I will unpack my worms and start feeding them again.

Ouch! That had to hurt the soul just a bit, eh? Now you have the pleasure of starting all over again. Maybe you can tweak this recipe just a little more and come out with even happier plants Rad.

 

[SweetSue]

BB, thank you so much for the SST tutorial. I blogged that one.

 

[santb]

Hi guys.. Sue directed me here after I posted this in her main thread:

Hey Sue; are you using rockwool cubes for your seeds for hempy? I'm looking them up, made from basalt and limestone... Could they be thrown into compost? Maybe ripped up first..
Plus, I'm thinking of accelerating the 'availability' of rock dust, eggshell, gypsum etc by mixing 50/50 with compost, adding some bennies and "cooking" for..however long.. Still a long term deal; alternatively maybe in outdoor mini-bins so the worms can get in there.. Just to make specialised amendments.. "Composted Calcium". "Composted Gypsum".. That sort of thing.. To go along with the plant extracts...
What do you think? Or is it all ultimately better off in the worm farm/compost heap...?

I've been looking more into the FPE (learned a new acronym!) thing today... Is it not possible to do a complete "hydro" grow with FPEs?
I'm sure this has already been discussed, and I will start reading back to find it. I'm still trying to track down the best plants to do it with.. Alfalfa springs up a lot but I'm thinking about "flowering" and "grow" nutes as well as growth hormone type stuff.. Is this necessary even? If anyone can point to a website/thread page, that'd be great!!
Like Sue, I'm looking into hempy style (like Kung-Fu!) but wanna do it organic if possible.. Or, in the wash, does it work out easier just to buy "organic" nutes...? I don't mind DIY; not like it's hard to chuck some plant matter in a jar and walk away..! i really just need a basic list of plants to use and confirmation that it is at least possible..
Cheers!

 

[Timmo]

There's a spreadsheet that shows the nutrient breakdown of a number of different plants that are good to use for FPEs. I found it at The Facts about Dynamic Accumulators - The Permaculture Research Institute. The link is about nine paragraphs down in the article.

You should also check out Emmie's Backyard Fermented Plant Extracts from Dandelions!.

 

[bobrown14]

BB, thank you so much for the SST tutorial. I blogged that one.

Thanks for the kind words S-ee-S... this really gets the ball rolling up to the top shelf quality. <-- see how I made a palindrome!!??

I was extra nice at work today AND creative.. it came home with me!

I thought I learned that little tool (SST) from you way back when... I was just a young'in!!

I'll do a soil mix blurb the way I do it next (in a month or 2) .... good to step thru things and read it, helps to tweak refinements.

Tip:

One of the things that I've been doing when I water in the last 6 months or so is adding in some Epsom Salts at about 1 tbs to 3 gal RO water (say once a week). That seems to help extend the large fan leaves life expectancy and keep our garden just a little more green!!

Hint: mix into warm water stir and pour into water can with water.

 

[bobrown14]

HEy Santb - why don't you just try building some soil and do it organically "the old school way"? Just an idea!

We put just about everything in our worm bin (165 gal) that doesn't have or didn't have 4 legs attached, including rock dust, tons of bio-accumulators et all. Our worm bin is moving SOOO freaking fast I'm scared to even look in too closely. It's working like there's a big ass wild pig eating up everything.

The birds will even poke thru the side holes to get worms. I just filled the 3/4's full bin to the top completely filled with comfrey about a week ago and its now only half full! Yeah... the castings that will come from that bin will be one of our main ingredients in our next soil mix.

We will be rockin down the winter & spring runs. We live in the North East USA - this heat and humidity is WAY rough (95F @90RH - ouch) ... the worms are in heaven. I'm scared to look too close .... there's more than worms in that there bin 100%.

 

[santb]

Cheers BB.. I do compost and make my own soil; just trying to find short cuts..! Worm farm is on the way, so I'll leave it til then.. I was hoping mixing rock dust or eggshells with compost would start their decomposition faster... Clearly I need to get the worms going asap. Not long til spring now.
Cheers!

 

[Timmo]

I do compost and make my own soil; just trying to find short cuts..!

I'm also making my own soil and attempting to vermicompost... and resorting to supplements, homemade and otherwise. But I prefer to refer to it as "compensating for the learning curve"!

 

[Heirloom]

We live in the North East USA - this heat and humidity is WAY rough (95F @90RH - ouch) ... .

It's been rough in the mid south too. 95+*/70+%. PRO-TEKT!!!

 

[santb]

It's been rough in the mid south too. 95+*/70+%. PRO-TEKT!!!

Is PRO-TEKT an anti-heat/humidity concoction? Cos I wanna grow this summer but high heat/high RH in a small cab... HELP!

 

[Heirloom]

Is PRO-TEKT an anti-heat/humidity concoction? Cos I wanna grow this summer but high heat/high RH in a small cab... HELP!

It's a Potassium Silicate. Stress, drought and pest resistance.

Pro-TeKt(R) --3

 

[bobrown14]

It's been rough in the mid south too. 95+*/70+%. PRO-TEKT!!!

That's the ticket right there. ^^^^ I do a top drench this time of year, not daily but probably every other watering with Pro-tekt, Ful-power and organic coconut water ... not a lot but consistently in hot humid weather. I also add that same mix to my IPM with Montery added in for the unfriendly critters.

Pro-tekt I do a 1 cap full in 3.5 gal (little more than 1tsp), 1 cap full Ful-power (1-2 Tbs) and a 1/4 cup of coconut water to 3.5 gal and water in for the win! My plants will wilt just a little bit when it's getting close to 100F in the flower room bounce right back.

I have to watch for hermies in flower tho with these temps... ya never know when stress messes with the ladies they get so hot they forget who they are!!

I try and time my run so the ladies are NOT in full flower in mid to late July.. right now I just harvested a bunch so the ladies in flower now are only 2 weeks or so in. By the 4th week of flower the heat will be mostly over here with some cool nights for relief.

I just up-potted a handful of ladies about 2 weeks into flower from a 5 gal pots to a 6.6gal AutoPots. I'm automating my watering is the reason. Reps out to Drcannabi for suggesting Auto-pots. I'm going to be traveling and need an automated watering system.

Here's a link to Doc's grow - he's a master organic gardener in my book. His journal is well worth a read and a study.
Drcannabi's BudMaster GOD - Organic Soil - Venom OG - Autopots

So Yeah back to transplanting ladies in flower... most anyone will say don't do it. probably true and not for noobie growers but it can be done and done without any issue. I just up-potted my flower room this week and thought today that I will do a kinda mini-tutorial on how to up-pot mature flowering cannabis plants. I'm doing this for that odd occasion when we get in a jam, could be a root bound plant thats suffering or hey life gets in the way and we didn't have time to transplant and the ladies got bigger than we thought they would... blah blah.. many reasons. Up-potting mature large plants in flower CAN be done and without a hic-up.

Here's how I did 2 plants tonight and it took me about 1hr 15 minutes. I've done this before and it takes 2 people. Last night I did 2 plants and didn't even get any dirt on the table or the floor! My wife was totally impressed! Not spilling soil ... yeah I always spill soil. Ah well last night I got lucky.

OK quick and sorta dirty:

First thing ... transplant when the mature plant in thirsty.. and the pot is lighter, this is the important thing.

With a large mature plant grown in organic soil, the plant will have a very large root ball. In my case a 5 gallon size root ball. If its wet it will be WAY too heavy to transplant. This is why I say to do it before you need to water and the plant is thirsty. Believe it or not a wet rootball this size when wet will break apart much more easily that a dry root ball. The dry root-ball will hold together and be much lighter which is the key.

The Hard part is getting the root-ball out of the existing pot and into the new larger pot. This procedure takes 4 hands. One person to hold the plants main stem down at the soil and another person to CAREFULLY pull the old pot off the roots.

We do this with the plant in a horizontal position - lay the pot on its side, one person holds the stem the other person gently pulls the pot off the root ball. I place the old pot on the lip of the new pot so when the old pot is pulled off the root ball the plants roots will fall into the new pot.

First thing is the run a knife around the entire edge of the existing pot to loosen the plants grip on the pot. She won't mind ... it's actually good for the plant to have the roots disturbed a little bit.. gets some oxygen in there and loosens up the root ball a bit.

Running the knife around the edge of the pot:

We are up-potting right to left here:

Here's my little friend, she's about 45" tall, done stretch and starting to build some buds. This is probably the best last chance to up-pot. Wait for stretch to be done but don't wait too long the buds get heavy and unmanageable, you'll have a mess.

I trim off all the lower LAF before up-pot - take clones ... its almost too late for clones here.

Here's the new auto pot - I put a gold material disc in the base and a 1.5" layer of clay balls

Top off the clay balls with soil I have in reserve. This is the soil I mixed based on Coots mix that was left over from the beginning of this run. We want to layer this up so the stem going into the soil is close to top of the new pot.

Here she is - up-potted with a new bamboo stake. My wife is CRAZY about bamboo stakes.. you should see our tomatoes...

Finished - I watered her pretty heavily with just plain RO water .. notice she was just a little wilted in the beginning of this process and by the end she actually looks much happier - that took about 15 minutes from watering to happiness. Done, lets puff.

 

[Heirloom]

Autopots.....precisely what I've been trying to come up with, but in DIY. Reasonably priced too. Thanks for that info BB.

 

[kelticBlue]

OK quick and sorta dirty:

Likes!

I put a gold material disc in the base and a 1.5" layer of clay balls

the gold material disc? Just Curious, the root control disc, wonder how that works.
i researched the autopot workings, not sure i have the room for a reservoir, maybe. I think mrs. might have a fit if i expand my behind the couch grow area.
lt looks like the res sits on the ground 24 inch tall I could hide it.

 

[bobrown14]

Likes!

the gold material disc? Just Curious, the root control disc, wonder how that works.
i researched the autopot workings, not sure i have the room for a reservoir, maybe. I think mrs. might have a fit if i expand my behind the couch grow area.
lt looks like the res sits on the ground 24 inch tall I could hide it.

Root control disc "I think" keeps the roots out of the btm tray so the water "carburetor" doesn't get clogged up.

2 part pot - water tray and the pot with the plant. Water runs into the btm tray and gets soaked up into the soil like a sponge. The more the plant uses, the more water into the btm tray via the carburetor thing. It's a float - when the float opens (plant thirsty), water runs in until the float closes the valve. Plant happy.. that's my plan(t) and I'm sticking to it!

Autopots.....precisely what I've been trying to come up with, but in DIY. Reasonably priced too. Thanks for that info BB.

This system is not really reasonably priced IMHO - but I'm a cheap bastid .. for the coin out so far tho I'm satisfied. Lets wait for results...

-------

The reservoir is not too large of a floor surface area. They offer several sized reservoirs. I have the 60gal version it's about as big around as a 5gallon bucket but ~40" tall.

I just up potted another LARGE full size lady into a new pot tonight and took a pick of how I get the plant root ball into the new pot without f-ing up the whole she-bang. Basically a balancing act. I grab the plant by the stalk and my wife pulls the old pot off the root ball while I rest the root ball on the edge of the new pot. Grab the root ball with my other hand and put it right down into the new larger pot.

I've done this with my entire flower room this run. The ladies have not skipped a beat. They are actually happier with more leg room.

This plant was easily 48" tall done with stretch and about 25 days in flower. The key to this process is the fairly dry root ball. It stays together when drier - wet root ball will be a total mess and probably kill the plant. Think broken main stem when trying to get the root ball into the new pot. When wet it will be easily 2x the weight.

Balancing while the master gardener takes pics

This one is the oldest of the bunch and tallest. Trick is walking around with a 50" tall plant. I usually stake while still on the table so there's no stress on the main stem when carrying it to her final resting place!

See the yellowing leaves.. at ~25 or so days the mature fan leaves with turn from an energy sink to an energy source. The flowers are using up the energy stored in the leaves to get big & fat... trying to attract me.. oh wait, I mean another male plant.

Btm line - transplanting mature ladies into larger pots in soil can be done - with a little planning a head this can be avoided. Only reason; I didn't get my kit soon enough and had the get the ladies into 12/12 or they would be 60" tall and that's a problem for me.

 

[Heirloom]

LOL, watch out for the ceiling fan!!

 

[kelticBlue]

It's a float - when the float opens (plant thirsty), water runs in until the float closes the valve.

Cool Sounds like a Holley Double Pumper. (Once upon a time i worked with carburators like Holley Double Pumpers) I can handle that.

Really looking forward to your thoughts on it after you have it going for a while. Are you going away? About 2 weeks or more.
I might be gone for 2 weeks at least come december. So just thinking out loud.

 

[bobrown14]

Cool Sounds like a Holley Double Pumper. (Once upon a time i worked with carburators like Holley Double Pumpers) I can handle that.

Really looking forward to your thoughts on it after you have it going for a while. Are you going away? About 2 weeks or more.
I might be gone for 2 weeks at least come december. So just thinking out loud.

Yes and yes... going away ... been here and have done this before. The float system looks A LOT like a Holly and reminds me of them for sure. It's a carb just uses gravity instead of a pump. Same principal.

I have backup peeps on the dial, and I can watch my grow from where ever I am. This modern day internet web stuff is pretty cool. I always go into this as if it doesn't work out, plants die.... hey it's not the end of the world.. my stash might get lighter. mmmmm <--- wont be able to do that for a few months! hahahaha

A month.... last summer we went away for almost a month. It's August and we are doing what the Europeans do, take the month of August off ... we will be hanging out on the dock at Cottage 420 FTW. No running water surrounded by a lake (island), so no water is not a problem. We used to not have electric but gotta have internet now-a-daze, oh and tunes... we pack in stereo gear! Swim for the win and kayaking.... Next year it will be Cannabis Ruduralis ... go up in early June plant seedlings ... 65 days later (August) harvest. You wanna see organic soil.. there's peat bogs all over the place.

Peat bogs are alive... actually they are the beginning of natural gas and oil deposits. They sometimes even smell like diesel... imagine some Auto Diesel growing in a bog that smells like diesel ... I can! Bogs float - roots into water soaking up nutrients. This is serious real world organic environment where Mother Nature is on the top of the chain and by a fair margin.

I'll post pics; we have some flower beds that have been going for all my life 50+ years. I helped my mom plant flowers when I was very young. The flower beds have never been managed at all. The one bed my mom and I planted together are tiger lilies. They are still going all these years.. outliving my mom and likely me too!

We will be looking to the stars and the moon and let nature guide us up to the mountain top.


Here's the whole shebang up-potted, watered in and waiting for the reservoir hookup. Sea of Green = my style of growing and I'm "sticking" to it - no pun there... We had a trim party tonight so I'm toasted (contact high) and sticky. Totally sticky...

here's the sticky stuff:

SOG .5

SOG 1.0

 

[bobrown14]

LOL, watch out for the ceiling fan!!

No doubt - We have ceiling fans in every room going full on top speed these daze. Staking is crucial.