How not to be a salt farmer or a wasteful grower tips

Compost
I’m not gonna go into great detail overall but mainly focus on what I do and why.
Let’s say I just started my first compost pile this year. I might make a simple wooden or pvc frame at about 5x5 and wrap it with chicken wire leaving about 8” access across bottom. I like to layer my piles so maybe I start with a layer of leaves, wood chips and/or clippings etc. then I might think it’s a good time to throw a decent layer of worm castings and worms. While those guys are all chilling. Hopefully at the same time I was getting all that started I started collecting some organic scraps in a separate bin than all the garbage. If it were my house you’d end up with a lot of tomato, pepper, onion, apple, banana, berries, eggs, yogurt, etc stuff that would be set aside for compost. But you know I just recalled that we have that big bbq and ham roast dinner we invited everyone for, we can’t just throw away all those scraps. So damn here I go again with the pvc and chicken wire. Why? If you know something is going to take at least 3 years to completely break down you don’t want that at the bottom of your first pile ever. You’re gonna want to be able to use at least something by yr 2. The long term bin now gets a portion of all the same stuff in the first one but also the stuff that requires more time. For example, manures, fish/meat/poultry scraps, fresh bay or animal excrement and so on. Ok, party over and all the compost scraps collected from kitchen. Half of what I collect goes into the ninja then added to yr 1 pile, other half gets thrown into long term pile. Hey, didn’t we end up with a huge ass ham bone and a bunch of rib bones etc ( in my case I prefer fish bone and poultry bones ). Let’s look up the diy bone meal methods on the net and make some bone meal. Yep, let’s go ahead and sprinkle that on both piles and save some for garden soil too. Oh yeah aren’t we going to the beach to hunt for muscles? Hell yeah, let’s grab those seashells, some of that seaweed and why not the crab shells. Let’s go ahead and look up how to get these all ground down nice and powdery. Again, let’s sprinkle that mix of shells and save some, then go ahead and throw seaweed into both piles as well. Rinse repeat for the remainder of your life hopefully :) obviously try to avoid any and all processed foods, chemically treated foods etc. Finally, after 7 yrs or so have gone by add your 3rd pile if desired. I use 3rd pile as a means of mixing and experimenting as mentioned in my bat guano posts above. I never use more than 10% compost in my soil preps and the amount I use for teas is variable but nominal. Over the years I’ve probably given away and helped others get started at least 30x what I’ve used myself.
 
Panic mode
Assuming you haven’t filled a 20 ga pot with miracle grow and epsom salt and are watering directly from a water softener in a tree house you built on a telephone pole for the free lighting, there is no need to ever panic unless it’s too late of course.
Just stop and take a deep breath, take an honest stock of your environmental conditions, feeding habits, watering habits and document. Then do some duckduckgo searching, search through this and similar forums, and my personal recommendation is no feeding, watering etc during this period. Only exception to that is if your entire plant is starting to get crispy you can go ahead and dump 100 ga of spring water on it for all I care :) I promise it won’t hurt at that point
 
In silly ranting mode. I like to sprinkle my arrogant and condescending statements with a little patronizing humor as of you couldn’t tell :) please take most of what I say with a grain of salt unless it’s talk of the life altering variety.
Following up on panic mode, if you look at the pics in this thread closely you’ll notice some pest damage, some lower leaves yellowing and wilting away, etc. None of that is of concern to me. I do organic, Neem oil, marigolds, mint, cloves, etc plus a good healthy soil or things like diotamaceous earth can only do so much, so I don’t worry about some damage. Someone mentioned earlier about growth/recover/death stages for plant life for which I’d add cannibalism for lack of knowing the botanical terminology for it. All those phases are happening concurrently at all times with varying degrees for any given plant. That’s why if I see a lower fan leaf at week 9 that is whithering away it’s of no concern to me. Now if I see the same at week 3-5 or so I’d be inclined to investigate. Additionally, don’t go chopping too early, those leaves are supposed to die, let your jewelers loup and trichomes determine harvest time is best for me. I happen to prefer 30-50% amber for my taste.
 
budnoob3 said:
Compost
I’m not gonna go into great detail overall but mainly focus on what I do and why.
Let’s say I just started my first compost pile this year. I might make a simple wooden or pvc frame at about 5x5 and wrap it with chicken wire leaving about 8” access across bottom. I like to layer my piles so maybe I start with a layer of leaves, wood chips and/or clippings etc. then I might think it’s a good time to throw a decent layer of worm castings and worms. While those guys are all chilling. Hopefully at the same time I was getting all that started I started collecting some organic scraps in a separate bin than all the garbage. If it were my house you’d end up with a lot of tomato, pepper, onion, apple, banana, berries, eggs, yogurt, etc stuff that would be set aside for compost. But you know I just recalled that we have that big bbq and ham roast dinner we invited everyone for, we can’t just throw away all those scraps. So damn here I go again with the pvc and chicken wire. Why? If you know something is going to take at least 3 years to completely break down you don’t want that at the bottom of your first pile ever. You’re gonna want to be able to use at least something by yr 2. The long term bin now gets a portion of all the same stuff in the first one but also the stuff that requires more time. For example, manures, fish/meat/poultry scraps, fresh bay or animal excrement and so on. Ok, party over and all the compost scraps collected from kitchen. Half of what I collect goes into the ninja then added to yr 1 pile, other half gets thrown into long term pile. Hey, didn’t we end up with a huge ass ham bone and a bunch of rib bones etc ( in my case I prefer fish bone and poultry bones ). Let’s look up the diy bone meal methods on the net and make some bone meal. Yep, let’s go ahead and sprinkle that on both piles and save some for garden soil too. Oh yeah aren’t we going to the beach to hunt for muscles? Hell yeah, let’s grab those seashells, some of that seaweed and why not the crab shells. Let’s go ahead and look up how to get these all ground down nice and powdery. Again, let’s sprinkle that mix of shells and save some, then go ahead and throw seaweed into both piles as well. Rinse repeat for the remainder of your life hopefully :) obviously try to avoid any and all processed foods, chemically treated foods etc. Finally, after 7 yrs or so have gone by add your 3rd pile if desired. I use 3rd pile as a means of mixing and experimenting as mentioned in my bat guano posts above. I never use more than 10% compost in my soil preps and the amount I use for teas is variable but nominal. Over the years I’ve probably given away and helped others get started at least 30x what I’ve used myself.
Click to expand...
Forgot to mention that I leave the 8” so I can draw from bottle of pile when it’s ready for obvious reasons, just use boards or cinder blocks etc to cover for easy removal when extracting material.
 
budnoob3 said:
Compost
I’m not gonna go into great detail overall but mainly focus on what I do and why.
Let’s say I just started my first compost pile this year. I might make a simple wooden or pvc frame at about 5x5 and wrap it with chicken wire leaving about 8” access across bottom. I like to layer my piles so maybe I start with a layer of leaves, wood chips and/or clippings etc. then I might think it’s a good time to throw a decent layer of worm castings and worms. While those guys are all chilling. Hopefully at the same time I was getting all that started I started collecting some organic scraps in a separate bin than all the garbage. If it were my house you’d end up with a lot of tomato, pepper, onion, apple, banana, berries, eggs, yogurt, etc stuff that would be set aside for compost. But you know I just recalled that we have that big bbq and ham roast dinner we invited everyone for, we can’t just throw away all those scraps. So damn here I go again with the pvc and chicken wire. Why? If you know something is going to take at least 3 years to completely break down you don’t want that at the bottom of your first pile ever. You’re gonna want to be able to use at least something by yr 2. The long term bin now gets a portion of all the same stuff in the first one but also the stuff that requires more time. For example, manures, fish/meat/poultry scraps, fresh bay or animal excrement and so on. Ok, party over and all the compost scraps collected from kitchen. Half of what I collect goes into the ninja then added to yr 1 pile, other half gets thrown into long term pile. Hey, didn’t we end up with a huge ass ham bone and a bunch of rib bones etc ( in my case I prefer fish bone and poultry bones ). Let’s look up the diy bone meal methods on the net and make some bone meal. Yep, let’s go ahead and sprinkle that on both piles and save some for garden soil too. Oh yeah aren’t we going to the beach to hunt for muscles? Hell yeah, let’s grab those seashells, some of that seaweed and why not the crab shells. Let’s go ahead and look up how to get these all ground down nice and powdery. Again, let’s sprinkle that mix of shells and save some, then go ahead and throw seaweed into both piles as well. Rinse repeat for the remainder of your life hopefully :) obviously try to avoid any and all processed foods, chemically treated foods etc. Finally, after 7 yrs or so have gone by add your 3rd pile if desired. I use 3rd pile as a means of mixing and experimenting as mentioned in my bat guano posts above. I never use more than 10% compost in my soil preps and the amount I use for teas is variable but nominal. Over the years I’ve probably given away and helped others get started at least 30x what I’ve used myself.
Click to expand...

If you live in an apartment or other place with limited space and an outdoor compost pile is not an option you still have a choice.

Vermicomposting!

I have a bin that is 18”x18” that sits in the corner of my kitchen. It stacks on top of itself, 5 gallons per bin. I have composting worms that process all of my plant materials, as well as any compostable scraps. I add my minerals like SRP, greensand, etc to each of these bins. After 2-3 weeks I am left with 5 gallons of extremely high quality worm castings that have been mineralized with ratios perfect for cannabis growth.

Space or lack of space is not an excuse to not compost!
 
A little bit of how I ended up here. Back when my father was diagnosed, my sister reached out to me and told me about all the research she had been doing and asked if I’d be willing to help make RSO. She didn’t have space to grow nor the funds required for a lb of bud even if it was spread out over a few months. I grew, bought, etc and made RSO but wanted to find a quicker easier way if it existed and came upon this site with the posts from Tim about CCO in my signature. May his soul live on forever in eternal bliss, I will always love that man even though we never met face to face. The rest is history - start from beginning is recommended highly
 
Reminder to self, mom is 9 1/2 weeks, clones are 2 1/2 weeks, and bonanza is a little over a week
 
budnoob3 said:
If anything at all, grass fed cow. I don’t put any in my shorter term piles. Worms on the other hand live in all compost, garden and worm bins. Teas are made with 70% worm castings, 30% 3yr or older compost which amounts to 3 cups total per 5 ga water brewing a min of 7 days. Each 5ga is shared at least across 20 plants evenly no more than once every 2 weeks in flower vs once every 4 weeks in veg after week 4-5 or so
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I retract this, don’t add any manure at all for garden compost. Feel free to do so in a separate pile for other uses and environmental benefits but not your garden is my stance as of now.
 
Copied from another thread because they are all awesome and I need to share for myself and others: from @ Kafka

You’re in the best place on the internet for it. Honestly, the people here are half the reason I know what I know.

The level of knowledge and experience is ridiculous.

@Azimuth is super clever and is working toward a completely closed and sustainable system while doing the grunt work of figuring out SIPs and organics.

@StoneOtter grows gorgeous plants at a blistering pace

@Stunger proves all the time you don’t need much space to grow great organic cannabis

@Melville Hobbes and I have had conversations that have driven me to more research papers than anyone or anything else, and he can debate them well and respectfully.

I know I’m forgetting others as well but they were some of the first people I met that impressed me with their experience and kno
 
Other things I learned today. I always had the observational knowledge that weeds never really invaded grandpa’s garden. He could literally have 6’ tall weeds around the back edge of garden areas and a lawn full of weeds as well but weeding the garden areas was never a problem. That’s another epiphany I got from Gee64 thread today. Very cool.
 
Thinking back on early days with gramps. That man had three favorite things to grow in the garden. Number one was sunflowers by far, he loved everything about them. Number two was peppers with an emphasis on the hot varieties although red bell was the only consistent staple I could say he had every year without fail, and thirdly it was tomatoes. Beyond that he loved to grow everything he could; we’d have corn, potatoes, onions, squash,carrots, radish, turnip, lettuce, cabbage, berries, herbs of all kinds and flowers or shrubs of many varieties. We talk about perlite and aeration methods etc and he used rocks and unmulched leaves etc to reduce compaction and improve aeration. We make teas etc and he used to call that gravy. To this day when I make my gravy I don’t use any fancy tools, I simply remember to go give it a vigorous stir every time I eat or use the restroom when I’m home. All happy accidents based on info passed down…
 
Trump said:
I've never grown sunflowers but I was told that other plants don't do very well close to them because of something the sunflower does.
Click to expand...
I don’t know the why either but the sunflowers were always along the far border of his property, lots of them. Minimum of 50’ from the garden areas so that makes sense to me.
 
Funny story how chocolate OG got to be top 3 favorite for smoking. Never grew it myself but it was one of those , hey you guys have to try this moments. So a friend gives us a couple blunts and a group of us 50 something’s at the time take off for a weekend at the cabin out of state. On our way we decide to spark up when we’re about 45 min away from cabin. Unbeknownst to us, 420 was going to be legalized in less than 2 weeks where we were. Literally 5 miles after finishing the 1st blunt we get pulled over. You know, speed limit goes from 55 to 45 to 35, back up to 45 and then down to 30. I’m on the brakes already but still at about 40 when I pass the 30 sign. The wife and a friend say hurry up and roll down the windows as we’re already almost at a complete stop and I comply. I see the smoke billowing out the windows as the driver side door of the cruiser behind me opens :) The officer gets to my window and first question is where ya heading to? To which I respond, uh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out to our cabin at lake blah. Second question is where are you coming from? To which I respond uhh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out our home in blah. Next thing he says is that he smells MJ and asks if he’d find anything if he searched to which our friend blurts out of course you are, you already know we just smoked :) it goes on and on but at the end of the day we just ended up with a $200 fine. By the time I was able to speak coherently, it was a laugh fest till the wee hours of the morning :)
 
budnoob3 said:
Funny story how chocolate OG got to be top 3 favorite for smoking. Never grew it myself but it was one of those , hey you guys have to try this moments. So a friend gives us a couple blunts and a group of us 50 something’s at the time take off for a weekend at the cabin out of state. On our way we decide to spark up when we’re about 45 min away from cabin. Unbeknownst to us, 420 was going to be legalized in less than 2 weeks where we were. Literally 5 miles after finishing the 1st blunt we get pulled over. You know, speed limit goes from 55 to 45 to 35, back up to 45 and then down to 30. I’m on the brakes already but still at about 40 when I pass the 30 sign. The wife and a friend say hurry up and roll down the windows as we’re already almost at a complete stop and I comply. I see the smoke billowing out the windows as the driver side door of the cruiser behind me opens :) The officer gets to my window and first question is where ya heading to? To which I respond, uh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out to our cabin at lake blah. Second question is where are you coming from? To which I respond uhh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out our home in blah. Next thing he says is that he smells MJ and asks if he’d find anything if he searched to which our friend blurts out of course you are, you already know we just smoked :) it goes on and on but at the end of the day we just ended up with a $200 fine. By the time I was able to speak coherently, it was a laugh fest till the wee hours of the morning :)
Click to expand...
Could have been much worse.
I know from experience :rofl:
Glad it's legal to grow now. ;)
Happy forth of July my friend. :passitleft:



Stay safe
Bill284 :cool:
 
Definitely could’ve been much worse but they had a sense of humor about the whole thing. One of the comments was you dummies, you couldn’t wait 40 min to get to the cabin and so on…
 
budnoob3 said:
Funny story how chocolate OG got to be top 3 favorite for smoking. Never grew it myself but it was one of those , hey you guys have to try this moments. So a friend gives us a couple blunts and a group of us 50 something’s at the time take off for a weekend at the cabin out of state. On our way we decide to spark up when we’re about 45 min away from cabin. Unbeknownst to us, 420 was going to be legalized in less than 2 weeks where we were. Literally 5 miles after finishing the 1st blunt we get pulled over. You know, speed limit goes from 55 to 45 to 35, back up to 45 and then down to 30. I’m on the brakes already but still at about 40 when I pass the 30 sign. The wife and a friend say hurry up and roll down the windows as we’re already almost at a complete stop and I comply. I see the smoke billowing out the windows as the driver side door of the cruiser behind me opens :) The officer gets to my window and first question is where ya heading to? To which I respond, uh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out to our cabin at lake blah. Second question is where are you coming from? To which I respond uhh, uh, uh until my wife blurts out our home in blah. Next thing he says is that he smells MJ and asks if he’d find anything if he searched to which our friend blurts out of course you are, you already know we just smoked :) it goes on and on but at the end of the day we just ended up with a $200 fine. By the time I was able to speak coherently, it was a laugh fest till the wee hours of the morning :)
Click to expand...
Man. You and I have a lot of the same type of shit that happened to us. I had a car full of friends and bag of "sinsemilla"(no "strains" in those days. You were lucky to find NorCal sinsemilla. Otherwise it was mexican brickweed.) so we decided to go show one of our surf buddies what we had. I get to his house and Mark was in his frontyard fixing his surfboard. I stopped the car in the middle of the street and call him over. We have a glass bong in the front seat and when Mark gets to the window he sees the bong and sticks his head inside to take a hit.

Just as he finishes taking a giant hit I hear radio chatter behind me! FUCK! COPS! Mark blows out the hit and makes a run for it. Cop tells me to pull over and I comply. Comes up to the window and asks me what we're up to. Before he walked up we tried to hide the bong and weed up in the seat springs of the car('68 VW Bug). I tell him we came to visit a friend. He says "The one that just ran off?". I just sat there dumbfounded not sure what to say. He orders us out of the car and sits us on the curb. He asks me if I have anything in the car I shouldn't and I tell him no. He asks me if he can search the car and I say yes hoping he doesn't find the bong and weed.

Of course he found it because we were a bunch of stoner surfer kids. He takes the bong and bag of weed to the patrol car and gets in. We were sitting on the curb sweating bullets thinking about the ass kicking we were all going to get from our parents. About 10 minutes goes by and the passenger door of the patrol car opens up and a female cop gets out. As she approaches she looks kind of familiar to me but I can't put my finger on it. She stands over me and smiles with her cop glasses on and says "Hey there Sexy Boy!". By this time, my friends are completely lost and I'm not far behind. Cop takes her glasses off and it's KATHY!!!

I met her my freshman year in high school. I had signed up for a Field Biology trying to get some extra credits so I could graduate early and get the hell out of HS. Kathy was a friend of my sisters who was a Junior. We stayed overnight in Joshua Tree National Forest and Kathy and I hooked up that night. I got to sleep in her sleeping bag!!!

I get up off the curb, still perplexed as to what was going to happen, and give her a big hug. She's chuckling the whole time she's hugging me then whispers in my ear "I took care of it.". She gives me a big kiss on the cheek then sticks her tongue in my ear! She laughs and tells me to say hi to my sister, gets back in the patrol car and the cop leaves.

My dumbass friends are still sitting on the curb with their mouths on the floor not sure what just happened so I tell them to pick up their jaws and get back in the car......

First place we go to is my connect to get more weed.....Spicoli as fuck.
 

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