The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

[Gee64]

I call shotgun on Matts couch!

 

[Azimuth]

Brew the molasses and other ammendments for 24 hours in a warm room and then toss in the EWC for another 18-24 hours and see what that does.

What's the thinking behind this? I would think I'd want the microbes in the RWC to help breakdown the minerals and meals. I imagine there's probably a starter set of microbes that went dormant but what is happening in the day prior that it's important to wait a day to add them?

I have to admit, I wouldn't mind a small brewer too for the very reason you just stated. Clean-up is a bugger on a big brew.

I went and reread the prior TLO book on the teas since he's largely abandoned teas in his new book. He recommends diluting the tea before use so every 1 gallon of tea expands to double that for the garden.

I'll do half that and have some left over for the input plants and veggie garden.

 

[Azimuth]

Ok, got my set up in place and am giving it a go.

1G pitcher w/half a gallon of dolo rain water, 1/2 T molasses, and 1T each bone meal, Seaweed JLF, and Fruit & Flower JLF.

I'll let that bubble for a day and then add 8T of castings

 

[Gee64]

What's the thinking behind this? I would think I'd want the microbes in the RWC to help breakdown the minerals and meals. I imagine there's probably a starter set of microbes that went dormant but what is happening in the day prior that it's important to wait a day to add them?

You can toss it all in at once if you like but water is a solvent so it starts breaking things down and the molasses stews into any matter in the tea such as kelp. Then the microbes eat it better as molasses is in everything.

I went and reread the prior TLO book on the teas since he's largely abandoned teas in his new book. He recommends diluting the tea before use so every 1 gallon of tea expands to double that for the garden.

Yes, always cut your tea in at least half. Sorry, I have mentioned it so many times in here I figured you knew that.

Once you get your soil built enough to give you high brix you don't need teas, which is what Rev is onto now.

He also recycles everything so his microbe population is stable and abundant.

1st run soil always needs teas if you want the best results. 2nd run usually needs a microbe tea for the extra boost.

Gee logic says if you are brewing a microbe tea why wouldn't you put kelp in? and mineral dusts are P, and the whole point is to mine P, so add those too and coat them in molasses so when the microbes hit the dirt and the plant squirts sugar onto the minerals in the pot they know what to do.

Again, why wouldn't you?

Once you are on 3rd run soil you don't need teas but again, why wouldn't you at least make a microbial tea from the same EWC that has built the biome, and then again why wouldn't you add at least some kelp and some minerals.

I find that one microbial tea at 4 weeks from sprout and 1 right before or at flip to power stretch always gives better results.

Logic says that if you aren't going to use teas then why bother topdressing either?

At least teas add microbes, top dressing doesn't even do that.

Just don't go crazy on molasses. I use 1 tbsp/5gal pail, then cut it 50/50. It's not to sugar the soil, it's to keep the microbes alive until they reach the dirt.

Brewing for 24 hours before adding EWC also oxygenates the water.

But putting it all in immediately and only brewing overnight will work, just as adding all your ammendments to your recycled soil and skipping the cooking process will work. It's just not the best way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of liquid feeds, but a microbe tea with a low dose of molasses and some kelp and mineral dusts is only the molasses away from being a top dressing, your just combining the top dressing and the EWC, then multiplying the microbe population by brewing it with some molasses.

It's not really a liquid feed. It's a microbial boost. And a great opportunity to get some high P crumble into the plant quicker.

My original point was that if you are going to pour molasses in then make it way better by going full microbial tea. Your soil isn't Rev's, so you need it.

And the extra tbsp of molasses is a one time shot in the arm for the microbes that are already in the pot.

So for you, who has good O2, good calcium, and microbes, it covers P and C, and boosts the microbes already in the soil too.

You need to decide if you want to recycle this soil. If you don't then just pour molasses water straight in weekly to the end, but if you want to recycle it then you are better served to fortify it now and make your microbes robust, not lazy.

 

[Gee64]

Sorry if that sounds like a lecture, it's not. It's just the logic behind it if you want to recycle your soil.

 

[Gee64]

Ok, got my set up in place and am giving it a go.

1G pitcher w/half a gallon of dolo rain water, 1/2 T molasses, and 1T each bone meal, Seaweed JLF, and Fruit & Flower JLF.

I'll let that bubble for a day and then add 8T of castings

Calcium in a tea is safe if your soil can use the extra calcium, but putting Ca into teas is a bad habit to get into. Sooner or later you will burn your leaves. You are better to keep teas and dolo water or calmag seperate. Just an FYI moving forward.

As for your potions, this is very interesting, but if the leaves fry we won't know if it was the potions or the calcium, but your soil has room for more nutrition right now so my guess would be you won't see detriment.

This is what I have been waiting to see. It will be freaking awesome if you get a brix spike!

 

[Gee64]

Fruit and flower JLF, is that your crumble?

 

[Gee64]

Day 3 of Veg for the LC-18's.

Day 1 for Miss Sticky.

6 RVDV clones cut from the one in the black tub outside.

And my first bag of goji berries headed to the freezer.

 

[Gee64]

The 3 RVDV programmers.

This is the one I cut the clones from.

The 2 in the cubes are in the double calciumed soil cut in half with uncalciumed soil, but the double calciumed soil was my good Durban soil, so if they like it then I have 30 gallons of really good soil still in tubs that I can start to use again. Otherwise, the tub cooking right now will be 1st run to start a perpetual soil cycling all over again. The double calcium fiasco was a costly mistake if I can't resurrect it. So far they look happy.

The revegger all lollipopped. She is a very thick beast. Once flower starts I will thin her some more.

Somewhare in there is the manifold.

The eggplants keep the weed company on the ledge.

Fruit begins.

 

[Gee64]

They are cuties. I found them generally how you described but there were a few times I was on the trail and they felt threatened! Close winding rocky places. You don't want that at all! Fierce fatties they are when they're thinking you're too close! I forget exactly where. Most likely the Banff area or north of there. Whistlers!

Thats right, I forgot that you road tripped thru here once upon a time. They are definitely fatties!

 

[Azimuth]

You can toss it all in at once if you like but water is a solvent so it starts breaking things down and the molasses stews into any matter in the tea such as kelp. Then the microbes eat it better as molasses is in everything.

Ok, that makes sense.

Yes, always cut your tea in at least half. Sorry, I have mentioned it so many times in here I figured you knew that.

I'm sure you did. Because of the hassle, and the fact that my main brewer produces way more than I need, I've never really focused on teas. When I read the book originally I kind of skimmed that chapter, but I'm now paying attention. He also says not more often than once every 10 days, and if one doesn't use spikes, then teas are a must.

So, looks like I'm getting into the tea game.

You need to decide if you want to recycle this soil. If you don't then just pour molasses water straight in weekly to the end, but if you want to recycle it then you are better served to fortify it now and make your microbes robust, not lazy.

Definitely recycling the soil as a one-third part of my mix.

Sorry if that sounds like a lecture, it's not. It's just the logic behind it if you want to recycle your soil.

No worries there. I like to know the "why's" of what I'm doing as it helps solidify the practice in my mind. That's why when I answer questions around the site I try to give the reasons behind a practice.

And I appreciate the patience you've shown retelling me things over and over.

I'll get there, but sometimes it takes a while to really learn the lessons as various things can seem unrelated until you can step back and see the whole picture.

Calcium in a tea is safe if your soil can use the extra calcium, but putting Ca into teas is a bad habit to get into. Sooner or later you will burn your leaves. You are better to keep teas and dolo water or calmag seperate. Just an FYI moving forward.

Ok. The Rev said he uses his dolo water every time and my rain water is very low in ppm and pH so I was just trying to bring it up to a good starting place. Probably no harm as my calcium line is sort of fuzzy but seems to have room to improve.

This is what I have been waiting to see. It will be freaking awesome if you get a brix spike!

Hopefully that happens. I really only need 2-3 points so shouldn't be a big ask and hopefully it provides the boost to get the soil kick started to maintain things itself, but I don't think my mix is there yet with the lack of global P.

The next round should be better on that front and we'll have a chance to see what that change will do.

But still, given my small pots and lack of spikes, if I have to tea regularly this smaller setup should make that easier and i can just add it into my routine.

Spikes are another thing I skimmed over on my original read as that's another thing I don't do.


Sigh. So much room for improvement.

Fruit and flower JLF, is that your crumble?

No, that's a Jadam extract of various fruits and flowers. That's what I gave the last plant that didn't have the K issue I often got 3-4 weeks into flower. A "liquid feed" as you call it.

 

[Gee64]

Ok, that makes sense.


I'm sure you did. Because of the hassle, and the fact that my main brewer produces way more than I need, I've never really focused on teas. When I read the book originally I kind of skimmed that chapter, but I'm now paying attention. He also says not more often than once every 10 days, and if one doesn't use spikes, then teas are a must.

So, looks like I'm getting into the tea game.

Teas definitely work. You can always make teas without EWC which negates the need for molasses.

Definitely recycling the soil as a one-third part of my mix.


No worries there. I like to know the "why's" of what I'm doing as it helps solidify the practice in my mind. That's why when I answer questions around the site I try to give the reasons behind a practice.

And I appreciate the patience you've shown retelling me things over and over.

I'll get there, but sometimes it takes a while to really learn the lessons as various things can seem unrelated until you can step back and see the whole picture.

No worries. It's how LOS works. You need to hear it over and over until you get out the other end. It's like I told Keff when I first met him. It's extremely complicated until you see it start to finish, then it's like "Really? thats it? anyone can do that."

Ok. The Rev said he uses his dolo water every time and my rain water is very low in ppm and pH so I was just trying to bring it up to a good starting place. Probably no harm as my calcium line is sort of fuzzy but seems to have room to improve.

One time for you, with room for more calcium won't hurt, but if you use your calcium seperately then tilth is there before you add the tea, plus it's easy to cross the line into too much and fry your plants if you aren't paying close attention.

You, starting with zero ppm rain water, negates the risk somewhat, but for people using dechlorinated city water it's really easy to cross the line, and if you ppm your tea you don't really know the amount of the reading that is calcium.

If you do add calcium to your teas, at least add it 1st so you can ppm it.

Hopefully that happens. I really only need 2-3 points so shouldn't be a big ask and hopefully it provides the boost to get the soil kick started to maintain things itself, but I don't think my mix is there yet with the lack of global P.

I agree, and possibly soil carbon, only because the other parameters have been eliminated. But when we analyzed your mix and compared it to my recipe, which is more or less a copy of Rev's, yours did show low on P.

The next round should be better on that front and we'll have a chance to see what that change will do.

One round at a time, thats how it works when you are creating a recipe from scratch. It's easy to add more, but impossible to remove some if you added too much, so this is the way.

But still, given my small pots and lack of spikes, if I have to tea regularly this smaller setup should make that easier and i can just add it into my routine.

Definitely..... for now.... eventually you will get your soil to where you want it and teas will become microbial boosts, not feeds.

Spikes are another thing I skimmed over on my original read as that's another thing I don't do.


Sigh. So much room for improvement.

Thats actually a good thing. You only need slight improvements, and spikes are a big improvement.

They should be looked at as extra fortification for an already strong mix to hold starvation off, as you only need to get thru 8-9 weeks, not as a cure-all.

You need to have good strong balanced soil and then you need the spikes to compliment that to make it last longer. They shouldn't be looked at as a way to bring things that aren't already in your mix.

No, that's a Jadam extract of various fruits and flowers. That's what I gave the last plant that didn't have the K issue I often got 3-4 weeks into flower. A "liquid feed" as you call it.

Ok cool, just making sure I understand what you are brewing.

If brix jumps we still won't know if it was a P thing, or a microbe thing, or a C thing, but it doesn't really matter.

Next round when you have plugged a few holes on your base mix you can start a closer analyzation.

Right now you just need to escape the bug zone and get into the healthy zone.

This will be fun to watch and a great learn

 

[StoneOtter]

If you guys love critters you really need to holiday in SA. We definitely have some cool critters here. It will be Kak cheap too

I hear!

Day 3 of Veg for the LC-18's.

Day 1 for Miss Sticky.

6 RVDV clones cut from the one in the black tub outside.

And my first bag of goji berries headed to the freezer.

How do you use these little goji beauties?

 

[Gee64]

I hear!

How do you use these little goji beauties?

They are being stored in the freezer until the bush is picked clean as they all don't ripen at once. After the full harvest get's tallied my plan is to toss some onto my oatmeal every morning, unless of course the Big Boss puts the kibosh on that

 

[Azimuth]

My brew was really frothy after 24 hours even without the castings and its still super hot in the cabinet so I let the mix go another 12 hours before adding the castings for the final 12. I know in cool temps you have to brew longer and I'm hoping for not a huge mess when I check it tonight.

I left the cover to the pitcher on and fed the airstone through the pouring spout to try to minimize and direct any overflow and have a catch basin under it so we'll see what happens.

 

[Gee64]

My brew was really frothy after 24 hours even without the castings and its still super hot in the cabinet so I let the mix go another 12 hours before adding the castings for the final 12. I know in cool temps you have to brew longer and I'm hoping for not a huge mess when I check it tonight.

I left the cover to the pitcher on and fed the airstone through the pouring spout to try to minimize and direct any overflow and have a catch basin under it so we'll see what happens.

lol I usually brew in the bath tub. You may be in for a mess. Hopefully not. I couldn't log into 420 all day yesterday, did you have the same problem?

 

[Azimuth]

I had issues last night. Was many hours for me. Thought it might be on my end so I checked with a different browser and had the same issues, but could access other sites no problem so must have been site related.

And, I don't want no mess!

 

[Gee64]

I have to travel this morning until Sunday night.

The RVDV that was hanging was just perfect to be tubbed for it's 1st sweating.

5 days is a bit long, hopefully it's OK Sunday night.

I had to give the 3 seedlings a full soaking, which was a bit early in their lives for that, but they are looking good with their 2nd sets of leaves poking thru. The other 2 never sprouted so I planted 2 Durban Poisons in their place. Hopefully they sprout OK. If they get helmet-head they are on their own.

The 4 outdoor plants worry me, it's supposed to be in the high 90's all week and they won't get watered until Sunday night now.

I power watered them, a full on root drench of 7 gals per 7 gal pot and the 2 big pots at 25gals each, got 10 gals of water poured thru.

I moved the 7gal cubes back against a wall so at about 2pm they will be in the shade for the rest of the day. It kind of sucks as this is a great blast of sun for them, but droughting in veg probably won't have the desired effect.

 

[Gee64]

It's a reunion amongst old friends that I'm travelling to, lets get the party started!

8 grams of Primo Durban Poison bud and a half gram of shatter.

After a few too many drinks I'll pull it out. I call it Vladimir Pukin'.

 

[Azimuth]

When you feed your teas is it a normal 12.5% watering or do you try to really soak the soil?