Building A Better Soil: Demonstrations & Discussions Of Organic Soil Recipes

[Guy Cavallero]

Guy, be aware that different manures require different amounts of time to become usable. I don't know the various times other than that rabbit takes zero time, as Bobrown noted, and that donkey manure stays hot for over a year, which I found out the hard way. You'll want to do a little research on whatever manures you end up using.

Regarding your city's free compost: A lot of municipal compost has bits of plastic and other garbage in it. Not saying yours does, but take a close look at it before you use it.

For sure. I dont have any particular manure in mind, but if Im looking around for one.....I wanted to be sure its cool to use.

So if theirs plastic and crap in it, Can it be saved? One can only assume that it's " mostly" good stuff.....no? For sure it's municipal waste like leaves and brown bag stuff, and not our GREEN bin materials that takes our food scraps every week.

 

[Timmo]

Whether it can be used is a case-by-case judgment call for the grower, I'd say. A little plastic is probably not inherently evil, though others might disagree.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

So when your manure has been composted down to an acceptable level, I'm assuming it is only intended to be used as an additive or an amendment to an existing base soil, am I correct in that assumption? If so, is there a particular ratio that you should be adding to your base soil in order to still make it viable?

 

[Conradino23]

Yes that's correct, for healthy soil a volume of organic matter should't exceed 10-12% and manure is basically composted shit so it is just that. Treat it as an amendment not as the base.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Do you have any experience with cyclorganics? The representative at the hydro store was in the other day and they dropped me off a pouch, I'm just a little paranoid to try it LOL.

 

[Conradino23]

Not really, man. I don't even know what it is.

 

[Van Stank]

If people in here don't know anything about it, I would be hesitant in using it without extensive research. Unless you do a comparison grow with it.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Not really, man. I don't even know what it is.

Apparently it is a product that was created by a Serbian astrophysicist or something. It is a much faster way of breaking down manure using flies and a series of recirculating conveyor belts. It was developed in an attempt to break down organic waste in space.

Product Information - Canadian Export Idea: Cyclorganic Fertilizer

 

[Guy Cavallero]

If people in here don't know anything about it, I would be hesitant in using it without extensive research. Unless you do a comparison grow with it.

Not to mention that the fact that the package never came with any writing on it LOL.

 

[Conradino23]

Ok man I looked it up. For starters the website looks like it's a leftover from first dotcom bust, but ABSOLUTELY no info about nutrient content of the product is raising SERIOUS red flags. Yes it looks like it's just another type of EWC, but someone thought it'd sell as a novelty product by buzzing it up with a lot of loud copywriting... but he didn't convince me

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Me neither then.....nobody will notice it's on your advice lol....shhhh!!!!. Maybe I'll try it on a houseplants.. ..then if it does, I'll blame someone else lmao.....

 

[TheFertilizer]

My Panama x Malawi are growing quite differently from each other, but I think it might be because I FIM'd one more successfully than the others that simply topped. Anyway there's two that are 3 ft tall and the rest are closer to 2 ft and so I think I'm going to have to scrog them just to keep them from stretching out above my ceiling height which is only 5 ft thanks to my light's big ass hood.

Anyway, my worry is that the stems aren't really very flexible and I worry that even with the scrog net I won't be able to get the tops of the tall plants in under it well enough to get the canopy level with the other ones. I tried to super-crop the stem on the big ones and it was just not having it, when I bent it over the epidermis was split open like a banana peel and I didn't like that so I propped it up and taped it.

Scrog netting will get here tomorrow and I figure I should give it a week to heal that boo-boo before I try to shove it under the scrog net, but I"m kind of thinking I might just have to snap them and protect the wound after the fact.

 

[Timmo]

Fert, I've had good luck bending stiff stems by going back and forth repeatedly, gradually bending them farther. After a minute or two of this yoga, the part I'm working gets pretty soft and will bend to a pretty steep angle. You can almost fold them in half without splitting or snapping them.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Lol whoops I didn't realize I was replying to the Build a Better Soil thread with that, meant to ask in the Landrace Genetics 101 thread, but thanks for the advice Timmo!

So far so good with the soil though. It's a little hot for them I think to be honest, but the growth still seems good. They're growing, there's just some little burn marks at the tips. My "Base Mix" was doing that too, I think the EWC I got was a little hot since they also added kelp meal and rock dusts to it. The original Base Mix was 33% EWC, 33% Perlite, 33% Peatmoss. Using that, I added 2 cups neem meal, 1/2 a cup Bio-Live and 18 tablespoons of Azomite to 2.4 cu ft ( 18 gallons ) to make my "amended mix". I wasn't liking how the Base Mix was draining, so I added a heap of perlite to it, changed it to 50% Perlite, 25% EWC and 25% Peatmoss. So then finally I mixed the revised Base Mix 50/50 with my Amended Mix ( after it cooked 4 weeks ) and transplanted them into 3 gallon pots with it.

I'm a little concerned, since they were initially planted into Happy Frog, and then those solo-cup sized root-balls were planted into the original Base Mix (which seems like it was burning tips already but was growing well ) and then transplanted that gallon size root-ball into a 3 gallon pot with that 50/50 combination of revised Base mix and Amended mix. I'm just hoping that as they get bigger they will appreciate that more nutritious layer on the side, or just instinctively stay away from it if they don't like it.

 

[Guy Cavallero]

So a quick question about my cook when I get all of my amendments and my base soil together. Is it necessary to allow the sun to do the cooking for you or is it the actual soil and all of its additives that are doing their thing? It's going to be winter time here by the time I need it and I was going to use a tarp in the backyard covered and folded accordingly, now it looks like it's going to be trash cans in a warm environment. I will use a mixer and drywall paddle to keep it mixed up throughout its process if needed.

 

[TheFertilizer]

So a quick question about my cook when I get all of my amendments and my base soil together. Is it necessary to allow the sun to do the cooking for you or is it the actual soil and all of its additives that are doing their thing? It's going to be winter time here by the time I need it and I was going to use a tarp in the backyard covered and folded accordingly, now it looks like it's going to be trash cans in a warm environment. I will use a mixer and drywall paddle to keep it mixed up throughout its process if needed.

So from what I've been told about this, they will go dormant in very cold weather, and a little more warmth will help speed up the process. Basically like most living things, they're more active in warmer climates.

I plan to bring mine in once the temperatures are staying below 60 all day. For now as long as it gets somewhat warm during the day I'm hoping they will still have some activity, but once it gets into "winter" I think they will just go into full dormancy so that's when I plan to take them inside.

 

[bobrown14]

For sure. I dont have any particular manure in mind, but if Im looking around for one.....I wanted to be sure its cool to use.

So if theirs plastic and crap in it, Can it be saved? One can only assume that it's " mostly" good stuff.....no? For sure it's municipal waste like leaves and brown bag stuff, and not our GREEN bin materials that takes our food scraps every week.

Wait ... I almost missed something.

What's this "green bin" material you speak of? Is it your kitchen scraps? If so see if the compost made from that is available.
Any compost you make home made will be better than anything you can purchase in a bag.

They have that service where we live, we pay to have it collected and then also pay for the compost. Needless to say we do our own.

We have one "HOT" bin - with manures in it, green and brown... and a "cold" bin with kitchen waste (ONLY veggie scraps).

The hot bin finishes in 6-8 weeks the cold bin takes a year ... both are a fair bit better than anything bought in a bag.

That said there's 2 bags of compost I will buy and use:

1) Coast of Main lobster compost (my local nursery carries it) - East Coast supply
2) Malibu's BU Blend (harder to find locally this is a west coast supply)

 

[Van Stank]

Wait ... I almost missed something.

What's this "green bin" material you speak of? Is it your kitchen scraps? If so see if the compost made from that is available.
Any compost you make home made will be better than anything you can purchase in a bag.

They have that service where we live, we pay to have it collected and then also pay for the compost. Needless to say we do our own.

We have one "HOT" bin - with manures in it, green and brown... and a "cold" bin with kitchen waste (ONLY veggie scraps).

The hot bin finishes in 6-8 weeks the cold bin takes a year ... both are a fair bit better than anything bought in a bag.

That said there's 2 bags of compost I will buy and use:

1) Coast of Main lobster compost (my local nursery carries it) - East Coast supply
2) Malibu's BU Blend (harder to find locally this is a west coast supply)

That Main Lobster compost is some good stuff Bob, I use it in my outdoor veggie garden....my absolute favorite stuff. Was thinking about adding some into my next batch of soil I mix for my girls.

 

[bobrown14]

So a quick question about my cook when I get all of my amendments and my base soil together. Is it necessary to allow the sun to do the cooking for you or is it the actual soil and all of its additives that are doing their thing? It's going to be winter time here by the time I need it and I was going to use a tarp in the backyard covered and folded accordingly, now it looks like it's going to be trash cans in a warm environment. I will use a mixer and drywall paddle to keep it mixed up throughout its process if needed.

Hey there Guy.... I put my soil in extra large bins and cover it to keep the moisture content up... what we are doing by "cooking" the soil is actually getting the bacteria and fungal colonies established. There are a few inputs that need to compost some but not completely. Say we added in some Kelp Meal to the soil mix. There will already be bacteria in the Kelp Meal that will start to break down the meal...

What happens when the bacteria begin the breakdown process, Nitrogen gets locked out for a bit.. say a few weeks. After a few weeks the N will be released back into the soil mix and readily available for plant up take.

So that's the short answer to how and why we "cook" the soil. It's actually beginning the process of getting the micro organisms ramped up. You can plant into the soil mix right away, starts/seedlings can die and it will take a few weeks even for established plants to begin to thrive so we wait it out a little bit.

I've done it in the winter time and my compost bins are outside as well so its all good. Believe it or not there's a lot of bacteria and fungi that are not hampered by VERY hot and VERY cold temps... humans wouldn't be here if that were the case. The worms self adjust.. too hot they go dormant, too cold they go dormant (meaning they lay eggs/cocoons and die).

Not the "ideal" but cold temps are not a show stopper by any means. You only need a few weeks, a month is good.. I've waited 6 months to use new soil and I've used it right away no wait. Letting it sit, by far the best approach.

We can ramp up the micro herd with a nice compost tea - water the soil and let it do its thing until you are ready.

 

[bobrown14]

That Main Lobster compost is some good stuff Bob, I use it in my outdoor veggie garden....my absolute favorite stuff. Was thinking about adding some into my next batch of soil I mix for my girls.

Mix with rock dust, soil amendments and some aeration... GTG.