Plant Alchemy With KNF: Korean Natural Farming And Jadam

I've decided to test my theory that organic material in the reservoir part of a SIP is not a very good idea by potting up a clone into that exact situation. My mix is about 50% leaf mold and another 6% worm castings so this should be a reasonable test to see how it works. I'll probably use smell initially to determine success or failure and then look to see how the plant fares.

I am familiar with the smell of anaerobic rotting material submerged in water from my various Jadam ferments and that's definitely  not something I can have in the house. On the other hand, I do use this same mix above the water line without any issues in all of my other SIPs and it stays pretty wet especially close to the reservoir, so maybe it will be ok.

So, I packed down some of my usual mix into the bottom of the container and around an inverted applesauce cup that I melted a bunch of holes into to serve as a dome or void for the water/air chamber, planted my clone and filled it around it with more of the mix.

The mix the clone was in was already plenty moist so I'll leave the reservoir empty for a few days to let the plant get established and then I'll fill the rez and see how it works and also compare it to the others that have hydroton clay balls in the reservoir area to see if I notice any differences.
 
Testing one!
 
Azimuth said:
That was indeed what I saw. The seed leaves pushed above the soil overnight, no seed coat in sight. Now I'll water from the top for a few days to help get the roots established but I'll also put some water in the reservoir as a prize for the first roots to find it.
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I saw the seedling praying to the light this morning which I suspect means that the roots have found the reservoir. It's been 8-9 days and that's just about what I expected. It's in my new, larger 2 gal SIP pot so I can't see the roots, but I like what I'm seeing on top at least.

From my other experiments with clones it seems like there is another 7-10 days for the roots to get established before the growth really takes off, so we'll see if that applies to seedlings as well.
 
Azimuth said:
I saw the seedling praying to the light this morning which I suspect means that the roots have found the reservoir. It's been 8-9 days so that's just about what I'd expect. It's in my new, larger 2 gal SIP pot so I can't see the roots, but I like what I'm seeing on top at least.

From my other experiments with clones it seems like there is another 7-10 days for the roots to get established before the growth really takes off, so we'll see if that applies to seedlings as well.
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Those are some very helpful experiments you are doing! And thanks for all the helpful posts! It will be great some day when you can post photos.
 
Dried Castings

I'm going to harvest another round of my fresh worm castings soon and, since I already have enough for my present needs stored up, I'm going to try something new and dry them this round.

The worm castings work great as a nutrient resource because of the special properties the raw inputs acquire going through a worm's gut, and the castings come out the other side as the famed 'unicorn poop' which is chock full of microbes and nutrients already broken down for plants.

But. The fresh castings also bring with them some things I do not like, namely thrips and mites. I seem to have a fresh round of the little bastards every time I up-pot and I don't think they'd be coming in any other way.

Castings are often commercially harvested by scraping the dried out castings from the bottom of a worm bed, and then are bagged and shipped directly without further processing. Since they still seem to retain quite a bit of goodness in that format, it seems like a reasonable way for me to store them and just maybe neither the thrips nor the mites, or even their eggs will survive the drying out process. I don't really know but I've never heard anyone else complain about bugs coming in with the worm castings they purchase and I don't think they are treated in any way other than being dried out.

I'm going to quickly run out of what I want to be my main nutrient input, my dried comfrey reserves, since my planting is only one year old and hasn't really produced as much as I can use, so I have to come up with an alternative. I've been top dressing with the fresh castings and then dealing with the bugs after, but it would certainly be easier if I could add a measured amount of castings to the plants every few weeks and call it good.

The first step will be to dry and then process the castings. I'll try thin sheets and clumps and see what works best. I have found that if I leave a layer of fresh castings on top of the soil without covering it with a mulch, they quite quickly dry into a concrete-like substance that I can't believe is all that useful to plants, and certainly in that format it is more difficult to spread evenly around to various plants.

Then, if this seems to work well, I might just run my comfrey, nettle, horsetail fern, and all my other inputs right though the worm bin and skip the individual processing I have to do for each one. Talk about simplification!

So that's the theory. Let's see how it works in real life...
 
Azimuth said:
Dried Castings

I'm going to harvest another round of my fresh worm castings soon and, since I already have enough for my present needs stored up, I'm going to try something new and dry them this round.

The worm castings work great as a nutrient resource because of the special properties the raw inputs acquire going through a worm's gut, and the castings come out the other side as the famed 'unicorn poop' which is chock full of microbes and nutrients already broken down for plants.

But. The fresh castings also bring with them some things I do not like, namely thrips and mites. I seem to have a fresh round of the little bastards every time I up-pot and I don't think they'd be coming in any other way.

Castings are often commercially harvested by scraping the dried out castings from the bottom of a worm bed, and then are bagged and shipped directly without further processing. Since they still seem to retain quite a bit of goodness in that format, it seems like a reasonable way for me to store them and just maybe neither the thrips nor the mites, or even their eggs will survive the drying out process. I don't really know but I've never heard anyone else complain about bugs coming in with the worm castings they purchase and I don't think they are treated in any way other than being dried out.

I'm going to quickly run out of what I want to be my main nutrient input, my dried comfrey reserves, since my planting is only one year old and hasn't really produced as much as I can use, so I have to come up with an alternative. I've been top dressing with the fresh castings and then dealing with the bugs after, but it would certainly be easier if I could add a measured amount of castings to the plants every few weeks and call it good.

The first step will be to dry and then process the castings. I'll try thin sheets and clumps and see what works best. I have found that if I leave a layer of fresh castings on top of the soil without covering it with a mulch, they quite quickly dry into a concrete-like substance that I can't believe is all that useful to plants, and certainly in that format it is more difficult to spread evenly around to various plants.

Then, if this seems to work well, I might just run my comfrey, nettle, horsetail fern, and all my other inputs right though the worm bin and skip the individual processing I have to do for each one. Talk about simplification!

So that's the theory. Let's see how it works in real life...
Click to expand...
Azi, may I please ask, what is your theory for the top-dress?
What are the advantages to top-dressing, as opposed to mixing in with the soil?
Because if you mix it in with the soil, then don't you have less exposed at the surface for the mites and gnats to live in?
In fact, why not put a 1" topdressing of regular soil specifically WITHOUT the wc, to get rid of bugs in the house?
These are just questions. You know your own situation much better, and what works best for you.
 
el gringuito said:
Azi, may I please ask, what is your theory for the top-dress?
Click to expand...
A top dress is a rather thick layer of typically a loose, organic material that serves to both feed the soil as the microbes break it down, as well as to conserve moisture by keeping the surface of the soil away from drying winds and low humidity environments. Screened compost is often used but many things will work. I use leaf mold.

el gringuito said:
What are the advantages to top-dressing, as opposed to mixing in with the soil?
Click to expand...
Primarily the moisture retention. Mixing it with the soil doesn't offer the same properties.

el gringuito said:
In fact, why not put a 1" topdressing of regular soil specifically WITHOUT the wc, to get rid of bugs in the house?
Click to expand...
Regular soil is not a top dressing but just an extension of your mix.
 
Azimuth said:
I've decided to test my theory that organic material in the reservoir part of a SIP is not a very good idea by potting up a clone into that exact situation. My mix is about 50% leaf mold and another 6% worm castings so this should be a reasonable test to see how it works. I'll probably use smell initially to determine success or failure and then look to see how the plant fares.

I am familiar with the smell of anaerobic rotting material submerged in water from my various Jadam ferments and that's definitely  not something I can have in the house. On the other hand, I do use this same mix above the water line without any issues in all of my other SIPs and it stays pretty wet especially close to the reservoir, so maybe it will be ok.

So, I packed down some of my usual mix into the bottom of the container and around an inverted applesauce cup that I melted a bunch of holes into to serve as a dome or void for the water/air chamber, planted my clone and filled it around it with more of the mix.

The mix the clone was in was already plenty moist so I'll leave the reservoir empty for a few days to let the plant get established and then I'll fill the rez and see how it works and also compare it to the others that have hydroton clay balls in the reservoir area to see if I notice any differences.
Click to expand...
Hi Azi. Why the Hydroton IN the resevoir?
 
This test is to try it without them, but in the others I use them to keep the organic soil above the water. The clay balls seem to wick enough moisture for the SIP to work as intended, but I want to see if my concern about the organic soil going anaerobic is maybe unfounded.
 
Azimuth said:
The first step will be to dry and then process the castings. I'll try thin sheets and clumps and see what works best. I have found that if I leave a layer of fresh castings on top of the soil without covering it with a mulch, they quite quickly dry into a concrete-like substance that I can't believe is all that useful to plants, and certainly in that format it is more difficult to spread evenly around to various plants.
Click to expand...

I'd have to say the first trial size of drying out the castings was a success and I think I'm going to like using them this way, so I'm drying out most of what's left of the last batch.

The next step is to up my castings game by running everything through the worm bins first. I'm going to split what I have left of my comfrey, s.nettle, and flower crumbles over the next 4 castings batches and also add some of all of the amendments to each batch. Then I only have to wait 6 months to see if this is going to be a viable approach. :rolleyes:

But I like my chances.
 
Azimuth said:
I'd have to say the first trial size of drying out the castings was a success and I think I'm going to like using them this way, so I'm drying out most of what's left of the last batch.

The next step is to up my castings game by running everything through the worm bins first. I'm going to split what I have left of my comfrey, s.nettle, and flower crumbles over the next 4 castings batches and also add some of all of the amendments to each batch. Then I only have to wait 6 months to see if this is going to be a viable approach. :rolleyes:

But I like my chances.
Click to expand...
Would love the worm bin, would it smell in a basement?

Still collecting snail shit, may have at least 1/2 teaspoon once dehydrated, maybe 1/4...it shrinks alot.

Cheers!
 
Azimuth said:
Well, I'll let you know on the worm castings hopefully in a few days.

But generally, good sources of N include fish, comfrey, dandelion, nettle, etc.

Seems like anything that really stinks up a JLF barrel is the ticket as it's the nitrogen that's getting broken down that really smells the place up.

But, once you put them on your plants, the smell goes away pretty quickly.

There's still time to collect dandelion at least, and any of the others you can find. Pick a bucket of leaves, add a small handful of microbes in the form of leaf mold soil or worm castings, cover with water and then a lid to contain the smell and let it sit out by your plants. Full sun is fine. It will be usable enough in a week or so but will get better with age. Dilute it 1:20 at least with non-chlorinated water. I usually go 1:30.

I also dry some for my Crumble and topdress with it once a week. I use comfrey and nettle for general purposes but also make individual crumbles for each variety from the leaves I pull when thinning or rooting cuts, etc.

The healthy green leaves of any of your plants have the exact right proportions of each of the elements for that specific variety. So, some plants want more or less of any of the key inputs, but a healthy plant stores the exact right proportions of each in its leaves so by feeding the healthy leaves of a specific strain to that plant gives it back in the exact right proportions.
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I was reading a little of your thread and wondering what you think would be best Jadam for my girl who just started to flower couple of weeks ago? Thanks 🙏 CL🍀
 
scottreid1966 said:
Would love the worm bin, would it smell in a basement?
Click to expand...
No smell unless you're doing it wrong like too much food or too wet. The worms will eat 50-100% of their weight each day so you can scale your beds to match what you want to run through them.
 
CaptainLucky said:
I was reading a little of your thread and wondering what you think would be best Jadam for my girl who just started to flower couple of weeks ago? Thanks 🙏 CL🍀
Click to expand...
Assuming you've got the N handled, flowers and fruits have what they'll need. Halloween is coming up which means there's lots of pumpkins and squashes around.
 
scottreid1966 said:
Still collecting snail shit, may have at least 1/2 teaspoon once dehydrated, maybe 1/4...it shrinks alot.
Click to expand...
You're working too hard. My system produces about 3 gallons (12 L) every couple of months and mine is a pretty small system.

Pretty easy project to build and will keep you from chasing snails around the yard. :laughtwo:
 
CaptainLucky said:
How would I make something to keep her mold/fungus/rot free?
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That is the question of the day. We have a community science project going in the Bud Rot and Mold Vs. MICROBES thread to try to answer that very question.

We've got various approaches being tried and growers are reporting successes and failures over there.
 
Azimuth said:
I've decided to test my theory that organic material in the reservoir part of a SIP is not a very good idea by potting up a clone into that exact situation. My mix is about 50% leaf mold and another 6% worm castings so this should be a reasonable test to see how it works. I'll probably use smell initially to determine success or failure and then look to see how the plant fares.

I am familiar with the smell of anaerobic rotting material submerged in water from my various Jadam ferments and that's definitely  not something I can have in the house. On the other hand, I do use this same mix above the water line without any issues in all of my other SIPs and it stays pretty wet especially close to the reservoir, so maybe it will be ok.

So, I packed down some of my usual mix into the bottom of the container and around an inverted applesauce cup that I melted a bunch of holes into to serve as a dome or void for the water/air chamber, planted my clone and filled it around it with more of the mix.

The mix the clone was in was already plenty moist so I'll leave the reservoir empty for a few days to let the plant get established and then I'll fill the rez and see how it works and also compare it to the others that have hydroton clay balls in the reservoir area to see if I notice any differences.
Click to expand...
I must have damaged the roots of the plant at up-pot and it never really got going, so I replaced it today with another clone that was started right off in a SIP. So still probably another week before I can start testing the 'organic soil in the reservoir' thing.

I used the opportunity to also add a fill/air tube as well even though these 1L containers don't offer a lot of space for it.
 
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