Chef De Green Does It All: Reveg, Clones, Autos & Photos

[PCaddict]

I know of no other way to use it... it was never intended for top dressing or as the name might imply, adding some vigor back into a bad soil by adding it to a compost pile. When I used RealGrower's Recharge, I used it at the 1 tsp / gallon rate, every time I watered.

Thanks Emilya When I get the recharge I will make sure to use 1tsp per gallon of water. I was referring to the Vulx when I was talking about remixing my soil. When it gets here I will mix the Vulx into my soil. I need to fill 4 10gallon pots two with SCSS and two with Coots mix. The bucket I bought will be mixed in with those soils. I want to compare the two different soils. I know it will not give me a real representation of what the two soils will do over a wider range so not a real scientific approach but I would still like to try it.

 

[Emilya Green]

ah... I understand now. You will notice the difference as soon as you mix the Vulx in... it gives the soil a certain slickness. I think I could judge by the hand feel of the soil how much vulx it had in it compared to another sample... it is that dramatic.

 

[ChefDGreen]

Hey Chef, just caught up again and seeing your plans for mixing your own soil and don’t see anywhere mentioned about the expansion of peat. Most peat is baled at a 2:1 compression, this means that your 3.5cuft (26 gallons) bale becomes 7 cuft (or about 50 gallons) once wetted plus all the volume of your amendments.

you know that may be true about the bale of peat, but it doesn’t matter cause I’m not using the whole bale. The peat comes in a compressed 3.8 bale. I’m going to break up and measure 8.5 gallons and that’ll be the only peat in the mix. After adding perlite, compost, and Earthworm castings my total volume will be 3.5 cuft, or 26.25 gallons. To which I will add my entire pack of coot amendments. All of the measuring is done post decompression, and I won’t be using anywhere close to the entire bale. Not even a quarter of it.

 

[PCaddict]

I have to make enough for 40gallons to fill my 10gallon pots, 20gallon of Coots Mix and 20gallons of SCSS so when the Vulx comes I will mix it all up and get it in my pots. Then at each watering I will use the Recharge I ordered..

 

[beez0404]

Make sure you wear a dust mask start to finish with the breaking up the peat all the way thru the mixing.

 

[PCaddict]

I didn't buy Peat but the soils I used has lots in them, I used Fox Farm Happy Frog, FF Ocean forest, and Coast of main. I added Perlite and Rice hauls for aeration then the stuff to build Super Cools Super Soil and I made a batch of Coots mix. I am going to get a bail of Promix BX which is all I can get around me. They say the only difference is less perlite in BX then HP so I will add in extra perlite. I have to mix some up for my Doc Buds soil but I will keep a little back for top dressing and refilling the pots. Duggan has me trained well. I sure hope they get thing worked out for him and he gets back on here.

 

[ChefDGreen]

Make sure you wear a dust mask start to finish with the breaking up the peat all the way thru the mixing.

This I will absolutely do. Thanks for the reminder. I’m gonna take my perlite bag outside and dump it into a tote so the wind can blow off a lot of the dust. Then of course I’ll rinse it later also.

I have to make enough for 40gallons to fill my 10gallon pots, 20gallon of Coots Mix and 20gallons of SCSS so when the Vulx comes I will mix it all up and get it in my pots. Then at each watering I will use the Recharge I ordered..

PC, I don’t think the recharge is necessary every water. @Emilya correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you use the recharge every 10-14 days? Which coast of Maine soil did you use when you were building your soils?

 

[PCaddict]

I don't remember because we mixed it last summer and I have that CRS thing pretty bad. Cant Remember Sh^t….. My old brain has problems with memory any more.

 

[Pennywise]

Lol I feel ya

 

[PCaddict]

This I will absolutely do. Thanks for the reminder. I’m gonna take my perlite bag outside and dump it into a tote so the wind can blow off a lot of the dust. Then of course I’ll rinse it later also.




PC, I don’t think the recharge is necessary every water. @Emilya correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you use the recharge every 10-14 days? Which coast of Maine soil did you use when you were building your soils?

Thanks for the Heads up Chef. Emilya will answer soon so I know for sure.

 

[ChefDGreen]

Lol I just laugh at myself when I can’t remember shit. If you mixed it over a year ago it’s probably pretty nicely cooked up at this point.

 

[Emilya Green]

PC, I don’t think the recharge is necessary every water. @Emilya correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you use the recharge every 10-14 days? Which coast of Maine soil did you use when you were building your soils?

One of my favorite lines of questions... the choice between what is necessary and what is desired.
Yes, as the packaging recommends, it can be given very effectively every 10-14 days, just as it is recommended to do so with an AACT. I have yet to even hear of a situation where someone had too many microbes and too many myco in their organic grow and my take on this is that you can't have too many microbes. You also read on the packaging about aggressive feeding and I am all into that. I figure if you can double the dosage with no problem you can also give it with every watering, and my last couple of grows doing so proved this to be very helpful. From their website:

TOO MUCH RECHARGE?
Nope, but you will likely experience diminishing returns if using more than 1 tbsp per gallon. Recharge at high application rates will not harm your plants. Recharge does not force-feed nutrition to your plants, it makes more nutrition available to your plants. Your plants will only take what they need from the soil. Recharge will not burn your plants at any concentration.

So no, it certainly is not necessary to give it with each watering but since there is no downside to giving a lot, other than that you stop seeing additional increase in effectiveness after 1 tsp / gal, what do you have to lose? Especially if one wanted to get by with using tap water with no filtration in a grow, this heavy dosage of Recharge would make the magic happen anyway. Recharge in my eyes is a little bag of freeze dried magic.

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• Emilya Green
• Jun 26, 2019

microbial super pack

 

[Emilya Green]

oh... and I used Subcool's original recipe, he updated it 6 or 7 years ago.

 

[bobrown14]

My ACT recipe is actually 1 cup of EWC or vermi-compost and 1/2 cup of kelp meal in a bucket of water.

I use microbe Tim's microbulator and a pretty large air pump like he suggests on his website.

ACT is all about amount of oxygen. Bigger pump more oxygen. Anaerobic or the bad bacteria die off in a highly oxygenated environment.

Not a biologist here but I've studied anaerobic and aerobic bacteria enough to understand how they both thrive.

The Rev, read his book fed it to my worms. True story. So its living on in my soil. Thought it appropriate.

 

[ChefDGreen]

My ACT recipe is actually 1 cup of EWC or vermi-compost and 1/2 cup of kelp meal in a bucket of water.

I use microbe Tim's microbulator and a pretty large air pump like he suggests on his website.

ACT is all about amount of oxygen. Bigger pump more oxygen. Anaerobic or the bad bacteria die off in a highly oxygenated environment.

Not a biologist here but I've studied anaerobic and aerobic bacteria enough to understand how they both thrive.

The Rev, read his book fed it to my worms. True story. So its living on in my soil. Thought it appropriate.

duly noted!

what size air pump are we talkin here? I’m pretty sure the little dinky one ive got will be too small then

@Emilya with the recharge my concern wouldn’t be so much harming my plants as it would be using it when plain water would’ve been just fine. It’s easy to add inputs you know? Getting it right is being just lazy enough

 

[Emilya Green]

@Emilya with the recharge my concern wouldn’t be so much harming my plants as it would be using it when plain water would’ve been just fine. It’s easy to add inputs you know? Getting it right is being just lazy enough

part of this comes from my previous experience in brewing my own teas and finding that every 10-14 days was not enough. I wanted to be able to have a brew going for every watering or at least every other watering but it was never possible in a busy house to constantly have a bucket brewing to be ready for the next watering. As a result of my grows not being LOS, but TLO, I knew that the lack of nutrition I was seeing was a direct result of not having enough working microbes in the soil. If everything was in there, why was I getting fade and leaf die off?
What I noticed is that the more often I could manage to get a tea in, the better my plants looked. This evolved into my wanting to try Recharge and its ability to be given with every watering, with very little effort as compared to making my own teas. Of course I didn't give the full teaspoon early on, but as the plants got bigger and we moved into flower, I thought it appropriate to move up to the high performance level. As a result of these additional microbes, my last two grows using recharge resulted in no fade, no die off and no deficiencies. My original hypothesis that the problem before had been a lack of microbes, was proven to be true by experimentation.

 

[ChefDGreen]

part of this comes from my previous experience in brewing my own teas and finding that every 10-14 days was not enough. I wanted to be able to have a brew going for every watering or at least every other watering but it was never possible in a busy house to constantly have a bucket brewing to be ready for the next watering. As a result of my grows not being LOS, but TLO, I knew that the lack of nutrition I was seeing was a direct result of not having enough working microbes in the soil. If everything was in there, why was I getting fade and leaf die off?
What I noticed is that the more often I could manage to get a tea in, the better my plants looked. This evolved into my wanting to try Recharge and its ability to be given with every watering, with very little effort as compared to making my own teas. Of course I didn't give the full teaspoon early on, but as the plants got bigger and we moved into flower, I thought it appropriate to move up to the high performance level. As a result of these additional microbes, my last two grows using recharge resulted in no fade, no die off and no deficiencies. My original hypothesis that the problem before had been a lack of microbes, was proven to be true by experimentation.

It would be interesting to try and dial back the recharge to the sweet spot of value, where you’re getting maximum return in recharge used. Maybe like 1/4 for watering and a regular does once every 10-14? Or something in between?

 

[bobrown14]

duly noted!

what size air pump are we talkin here? I’m pretty sure the little dinky one ive got will be too small then

Here's the microbulator I use - I purchased mine several years ago and on my 2nd pump now.

Tim points to one on his website.

Here's a link to the microbulator I use with the pro pump, its got info for a pump there as well. You should be able to source one cheaper. I paid $30 for my last one.

Compost Tea Brewer - 5 Gallon Mini Microbulator

You can use your smaller pump no problems just don't aerate too long. With a smaller pump time is your enemy so do a shorter bubble say 12-24 hrs max.

I graduated to the microbulator. It makes things go pretty quick and with that much air we know we got the goodies going.

For amounts of microbes. Too much is just enough. A handful of compost and water is pretty cheap. When we start purchasing products like Re-charge or Mammonth-P which are basically compost teas, the price goes up exponentially in comparison. So a few pennies for compost tea vs the store bought stuff.

To be honest I haven't noticed any difference between compost tea and Re-charge. I think I got some re-charge free so I'm OK using it. lol

Like Vulx - same thing. There are much less expensive alternatives. I think we should be building soil sourced from stuff we can get locally as much as possible and it's possible for sure.

 

[ChefDGreen]

To be honest I haven't noticed any difference between compost tea and Re-charge. I think I got some re-charge free so I'm OK using it. lol

Like Vulx - same thing. There are much less expensive alternatives. I think we should be building soil sourced from stuff we can get locally as much as possible and it's possible for sure.

Well I’ll stick with the tea cause I’ve already got the EWC and I know I’ll be getting kelp meal pretty soon. What do you think about espoma brand kelp meal? I know the I can find it in stores vs coast of Maine I’ll have to order

 

[Emilya Green]

It would be interesting to try and dial back the recharge to the sweet spot of value, where you’re getting maximum return in recharge used. Maybe like 1/4 for watering and a regular does once every 10-14? Or something in between?

why should any watering be singled out as special or not as special as any other one? I am all for dialing it in, but at the price of recharge, I guess I got lazy seeing such crazy good results.

Bob got no extra benefit from either Recharge or Vulx, but I did, big time. Go figure.