The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Gee64]

So, that makes it sound like, given my small pots and therefore limited overall storage tank size, that maybe I'd be better off using just a little LM in the mix to get it on the buffet table, but supply extra reserves as a top dressing.

Which, I suppose, is how Mother Nature does it. There's no crew constantly mixing up the soil on a global basis, but rather a steady annual top dressing of raw leaves that turn into LM over the course of years. Well, earthworms but that's one particle at a time.

So maybe supply the basics in the pot and supplement from above with a steady stream of cal/Mag, worm castings, LM etc.

Yes?

You bet. Any easy way to find homeostasis is to lessen the carbon in the final mix until water retention is perfect. This is one of the few places where perfect is better than in the ball park, as we all know watering is the biggest hurdle.

Proper carbon leads to proper water and then Cal and mag can be balanced and it all just works. So here is the next step.

Make your Carbon and your greens count. Keep them in balance, but make a huge list of all the possible ingredients you could use, study what they bring to the table for ammendments, then create a recipe that balances browns and greens and covers all nutritional needs.

Just remember, carbon is the base, it has to be correct to supply Hydrogen correctly, and hydrogen comes from water, then oxygen is next, which Ca and Mg control, and that sets the CEC to deliver the rest of the minerals.

The recipe needs this 1st, and then add your proteins and minerals in. If C,Ca, and Mg arent correct, ph won't be fun and everything else is a moot point. Get it right and plant size will be your issue

Your potions are medicine, and medicine isn't needed if you aren't sick. Don't rely on your potions as food, put them in the medicine cabinet and use them freely when sickness arises or when you think their immune systems need a boost.

Global mix and good calcium rich topdressings are your horse power.

Potions are great boosts for the stretch-zone heeby-jeebies. And of course for real sickness. Too much potion csn fill colloidal spots that are needed for what we discussed earlier. This is how too much foods can cause lockout.

You are better to react to a hungry plant than try to remove things from the soil to unlock the plant.

Once your global mix is correct it will recycle really well.

 

[Gee64]

And for anyone who's head is spinning and your like WTF!!! Just find a good reputable recipe, follow it, trust it, ignore these 10 million words above, and you will be just fine.

Enjoy the ride or enjoy driving the car. You don't need to know about carbon's intimate details. Azi does because he's sciencing some really cool stuff. Once he gets it dialed he will share it as he always does, and by he I mean she... those hands...

 

[StoneOtter]

I'll get it just not today Gee! Thanks for laying it all out! Makes sense to read but doesn't linger in my head long. Some things do. Little bits at a time. One day they'll all come together and a bell will go off!

 

[Gee64]

You make my head spin. I’m still so far behind on organics that this thread still intimidates me and makes me feel stupid. I’m psyched to drop all my bullshit growing techniques and get serious once I finally move. Jeez.

lol Jon you crack me up. I think you will do ok...

 

[Gee64]

I'll get it just not today Gee! Thanks for laying it all out! Makes sense to read but doesn't linger in my head long. Some things do. Little bits at a time. One day they'll all come together and a bell will go off!

Thats all you can ask for when it comes to carbon. It's the tricky one. But just having it and trusting it works really well too

 

[Keffka]

You make my head spin. I’m still so far behind on organics that this thread still intimidates me and makes me feel stupid. I’m psyched to drop all my bullshit growing techniques and get serious once I finally move. Jeez.

Don’t let Gee confuse you. He very often forgets that most people aren’t inside his head. Take it slowly and simply. Ignore all of the elements and nonsense.

You want good organic matter, and compost. That’s it. Everything else is fluff that you don’t need to understand to be successful. Once you’ve got that down and can watch the plants react, all the other stuff makes sense on its own. Trying to understand organic without actually doing organic is almost impossible. So much of it takes place at a microscopic level that you need to have your hands on it for it to really make sense.

I HIGHLY advise anyone interested in organics, gets their hands on it first. Trying to understand it from a book, or the internet without being able to have your hands on it isn’t really helpful, especially because everyone’s environment creates different results

 

[Azimuth]

I've recently gone back to adding a small topdressing of castings each week. Mine are just too good not to use. I had gotten away from them because I seem to get mites and thrips about 2 weeks after adding them and got tired of dealing with them. But, I still have to spray every three days to keep them in check, so I figured I might as well get the benefits from the castings I'm missing out on since I still have the bug issues anyway.

So, I've gone back to adding them on top at a rate of 2 tsp per gallon of soil weekly but am also adding 1 tsp/g of my top dressing mix as well to hopefully counteract the bug problem. By adding small amounts weekly I figure that 4-5 weeks out I'll have some of the ingredients at all the various stages of breakdown with fresh inputs constantly on the way.

My top dressing mix is equal parts of neem, karanja, Comfrey, Nettle, Alfalfa, malted barley, and dried flowers. I'm hoping the neem and karanja address the bug issue allowing the castings to perform their calcium magic.

I also cover my soil in a combination of my leaf mold and compost to a depth of an inch or two. I haven't gone the spikes route yet but I guess that's something else I could consider.

 

[Azimuth]

Once he gets it dialed he will share it as he always does, and by he I mean she... those hands...

Once again for those in the back, those were not my hands. I was responding to another grower who showed a picture with thrip damage that she couldn't see. It was obvious to me given my extensive experience with the little bastards so I marked up her picture to illustrate my point.

 

[Azimuth]

Your potions are medicine, and medicine isn't needed if you aren't sick. Don't rely on your potions as food, put them in the medicine cabinet and use them freely when sickness arises or when you think their immune systems need a boost.

This is a good point. I stopped adding them to my vegging plants a while ago and they didn't seem to notice. Maybe even look better which I assume is the plant working the soil and microbes to get what it needs, when.

My next run will be the first with a much broader array of inputs including the various kinds of calcium mixed in so it will be interesting to see how far it can get without my potions. I'll still do the top dressings in dry form which I then mist in to get them started.

It'd be great if that's all I needed to do.

 

[Lerugged]

Once again for those in the back, those were not my hands. I was responding to another grower who showed a picture with thrip damage that she couldn't see. It was obvious to me given my extensive experience with the little bastards so I marked up her picture to illustrate my point.

Yeah sure !
Haha

 

[Keffka]

I’ll repeat this again because I’ve heard comments a few times.

Organic is really simple. It’s what nature does on her own. You don’t need to know the atomic structure of carbon. You don’t need to know how Nitrogen cycles. You don’t need to know any of it. All you need to know is how to compost. Learn how to compost or vermicompost, and you will have a self sustaining, all natural, organic garden that supplies its own nutrients. My worm bin is 18”x18”. Almost everyone has 18”x18” available space.

What we are talking about here when we get into the microscopic detail of stuff is satisfying the hunger for knowledge. If you aren’t the kind of person who has to know how things work, you don’t need to waste your time trying to understand it, it unnecessarily complicates things. It’s not needed to be able to grow well, organically. Learn to compost and you’ll wind up learning most of it on your own anyway.

 

[StoneOtter]

Thats all you can ask for when it comes to carbon. It's the tricky one. But just having it and trusting it works really well too

When I started to trust my tools and education is when things took hold many years ago. Trust is a good way to sum things up. It's a start. I've been trusting the recipes in Rev's book. I just want to be able to get out of trouble when I get into it. That needs a step or two up in base knowledge. I'm slowly getting there.

 

[Gee64]

I’ll repeat this again because I’ve heard comments a few times.

Organic is really simple. It’s what nature does on her own. You don’t need to know the atomic structure of carbon. You don’t need to know how Nitrogen cycles. You don’t need to know any of it. All you need to know is how to compost. Learn how to compost or vermicompost, and you will have a self sustaining, all natural, organic garden that supplies its own nutrients. My worm bin is 18”x18”. Almost everyone has 18”x18” available space.

What we are talking about here when we get into the microscopic detail of stuff is satisfying the hunger for knowledge. If you aren’t the kind of person who has to know how things work, you don’t need to waste your time trying to understand it, it unnecessarily complicates things. It’s not needed to be able to grow well, organically. Learn to compost and you’ll wind up learning most of it on your own anyway.

You nailed it Keff, you don't need to know this. Azi does because He-with-her-hands is formulating recipes that Lazy Gee will eventually pry out of Himher

 

[JiggiLotus]

I've recently gone back to adding a small topdressing of castings each week. Mine are just too good not to use. I had gotten away from them because I seem to get mites and thrips about 2 weeks after adding them and got tired of dealing with them. But, I still have to spray every three days to keep them in check, so I figured I might as well get the benefits from the castings I'm missing out on since I still have the bug issues anyway.

So, I've gone back to adding them on top at a rate of 2 tsp per gallon of soil weekly but am also adding 1 tsp/g of my top dressing mix as well to hopefully counteract the bug problem. By adding small amounts weekly I figure that 4-5 weeks out I'll have some of the ingredients at all the various stages of breakdown with fresh inputs constantly on the way.

My top dressing mix is equal parts of neem, karanja, Comfrey, Nettle, Alfalfa, malted barley, and dried flowers. I'm hoping the neem and karanja address the bug issue allowing the castings to perform their calcium magic.

I also cover my soil in a combination of my leaf mold and compost to a depth of an inch or two. I haven't gone the spikes route yet but I guess that's something else I could consider.

Farmers almanac has organic plant spikes, I was considering trying them out. They're 5-5-5. I'm kinda a dumb shit when it comes to understanding the #s and exactly what you were saying earlier, I'm one them people's, gotta get my hands on-in-and around it physically to gain and catch the understanding in order to apply what was taught.
Farmers almanac 5-5-5 spikes..yay em or nay em?

 

[Gee64]

Azi, the thing you really need to look at is what kind of leaves you use and what minerals they supply, then balance the rest from there and use leaves as your cooking carbon if you like, then add more as humate if you wish, but those humate ones no longer contain much, they are just soil structure. Excellent soil structure, but not food.

 

[Gee64]

Farmers almanac has organic plant spikes, I was considering trying them out. They're 5-5-5. I'm kinda a dumb shit when it comes to understanding the #s and exactly what you were saying earlier, I'm one them people's, gotta get my hands on-in-and around it physically to gain and catch the understanding in order to apply what was taught.
Farmers almanac 5-5-5 spikes..yay em or nay em?

I have never used them and they don't say what they are made of, so I would be careful but they may be just fine too.

 

[Keffka]

Farmers almanac has organic plant spikes, I was considering trying them out. They're 5-5-5. I'm kinda a dumb shit when it comes to understanding the #s and exactly what you were saying earlier, I'm one them people's, gotta get my hands on-in-and around it physically to gain and catch the understanding in order to apply what was taught.
Farmers almanac 5-5-5 spikes..yay em or nay em?

I spiked my plants in the PGC grow with All Purpose 4-4-4. I bought a bag of all purpose fertilizer, used a funnel, and poured it into a hole in the soil that I made from top to a little above the bottom. As long as you do it before roots are there, and the product is quality you should be okay.

I also spiked with all purpose and kelp meal. Spikes help if you’re in small containers or big containers for a long time.

 

[Azimuth]

Azi, the thing you really need to look at is what kind of leaves you use and what minerals they supply, then balance the rest from there and use leaves as your cooking carbon if you like, then add more as humate if you wish, but those humate ones no longer contain much, they are just soil structure. Excellent soil structure, but not food.

Mostly maple and oak. The maple leaves fall first so they get mowed up first and then the bins get topped off with oak as needed. So mostly maple, like 80-90% probably.

 

[Gee64]

Mostly maple and oak. The maple leaves fall first so they get mowed up first and then the bins get topped off with oak as needed. So mostly maple, like 80-90% probably.

I came across an article on my google news feed of all places today that had a great description of leaf mold. The article itself wasn't really that good but the summary description of what leaf mold is was spot on. Here is the description.

"Benefits of Leaf Mold
Leaf mold is a great soil amendment. It is essentially a soil conditioner that increases the water retention of soils. Leaf mold also improves soil structure and provides a fantastic habitat for soil life, including earthworms and beneficial bacteria.

However, it doesn't provide much in the way of nutrition, so you will still need to add compost or other organic fertilizers to increase fertility"

 

[Gee64]

When I started to trust my tools and education is when things took hold many years ago. Trust is a good way to sum things up. It's a start. I've been trusting the recipes in Rev's book. I just want to be able to get out of trouble when I get into it. That needs a step or two up in base knowledge. I'm slowly getting there.

Well you better speed up Stone, you barely broke 5 million pounds of bud last year