Mixing up Coot soil: can I moisten with tap water?

[ChefDGreen]

Hey folks,

so I’ve got my first batch of Clackamas Coot soil mixed up and Im ready to lay her down to cook for the next 30 days or so. I need to moisten the mix a bit more, but before I do I want to make sure of this. Can I moisten my soil with water straight from the tap? Logical thinking tells me that the Cl should evaporate off over the next 24 hours, so it shouldn’t bother the colonies from forming over the next month. I just want to be sure. What do you organic growers say?
@Emilya @stoneotter @Van Stank @bobrown14

 

[Emilya Green]

I say absolutely not. Even if the little bit of chlorine in tap water could kill 10 of my microbes, that is 10 too many, especially when I can avoid this problem by using anything but... ro, lake water, rain water... etc

 

[ChefDGreen]

I say absolutely not. Even if the little bit of chlorine in tap water could kill 10 of my microbes, that is 10 too many, especially when I can avoid this problem by using anything but... ro, lake water, rain water... etc

Thanks Em. I figured that’d be the answer, but I was just hoping that I could moisten it and be done with it for a month. I’ll pull it out tomorrow when the bucket of water I just filled up had gassed off.

 

[Emilya Green]

im still not convinced about gassing off either... throw a 1/4 vitamin c tab in there just to be sure. Just think of the lives you may save...

 

[Emilya Green]

and by the way.. i love lake water and usually during the summer months will actually throw some of the water from my fish buckets out of the lake, into the grow. Just image the new an unique microbes and fungi that come in with that! Can we say, the opposite of tap water?

 

[ChefDGreen]

Youll have all kinds of stuff in that water! Do you aerate it to get the good micros working overtime first?

you know when you mentioned rain water I realized that it was raining outside now. I could probably find enough water on the lids of buckets and stuff to moisten the soil now... but Im tired. I’ve been cooking and mixing soil all day. I’ll go collect some water to use tomorrow.

 

[Emilya Green]

Youll have all kinds of stuff in that water! Do you aerate it to get the good micros working overtime first?

you know when you mentioned rain water I realized that it was raining outside now. I could probably find enough water on the lids of buckets and stuff to moisten the soil now... but Im tired. I’ve been cooking and mixing soil all day. I’ll go collect some water to use tomorrow.

no, never even thought about the possibility of the bad stuff being in there too until you mentioned it, but I swim in that water, have had plenty in my mouth and nose and it seems pretty safe. Its not like it is brackish blocked off pond water... this is spring fed and about as clean as lakewater with lots of fish in it gets. Probably not something you would want to do in a lab setting I guess, but for me, organics was always about getting a little dirty and down close to nature... this fits right in, fish guts and all.

 

[ChefDGreen]

no, never even thought about the possibility of the bad stuff being in there too until you mentioned it, but I swim in that water, have had plenty in my mouth and nose and it seems pretty safe. Its not like it is brackish blocked off pond water... this is spring fed and about as clean as lakewater with lots of fish in it gets. Probably not something you would want to do in a lab setting I guess, but for me, organics was always about getting a little dirty and down close to nature... this fits right in, fish guts and all.

Yeah that’s true, the water is probably oxygenated plenty if there’s fish living in it. Organics is definitely about getting down, dirty, and close to the earth.. just look at cultures who have been growing organically for thousands of years, like Peru. The farmers there are just continuing practices built up over 10,000 years.

 

[StoneOtter]

Hi Chef, I'll use excess compost tea or tea made from lactic acid bacteria in mine to give it a microbe boost. I believe they help with the cook. I'm not sure if they will still be alive when the soil's ready but can't hurt.