Weasel Forges Ahead

[The Celt]

Morning mate,

Thats an interesting recipe but way more complicated than needs be. You really don’t need to get that elaborate with organic soils, and as @bobrown14 said above, you have everything you need for a good LOS soil in your backyard, FREE.

Not sure how much rabbit crap you can collect (I know you’ve used it) but of all the common manures, it has the highest NPK levels. They are near on par with the NPK breakdown of hemp/cannabis, but shy on K. It also contains a lot of the needed micros.

Lime is easily sourced and I know you now have some gypsum as well, not to mention access to sea shells. Calcium sources.

Seaweed and Kelp (Dry weight) has a NPK of ~ 1:0:4 so there’s a great K source along with loads of micro nutrients.

Ground crab shells are a low NPK source but have calcium and he shells are made of the same compound as insects. When added to LOS it attracts micro-organisms that break it down and also breaks down the shells of pests like Thrips and Gnats...organic pest control.

You can make an awesome LOS, water only, mix from peat and the above, or use Promix and skip the lime.

 

[Skybound]

I'm with Celt on that, the list of ingredients is over redundant. Like 5 sources of trace minerals, also a lot of different Ca N and P. I'm sure if you looked at the GA of each one, you'd see a lot of overlapping, not that this is bad, just redundant or repetitive. Most of it requires soil microbes and a lot of time to be made ionic also. Woody shared a good link about Blood and Bone meals the other day (on my thread maybe?) that discussed the downside of adding too much P.

 

[Van Stank]

Morning mate,

Thats an interesting recipe but way more complicated than needs be. You really don’t need to get that elaborate with organic soils, and as @bobrown14 said above, you have everything you need for a good LOS soil in your backyard, FREE.

Not sure how much rabbit crap you can collect (I know you’ve used it) but of all the common manures, it has the highest NPK levels. They are near on par with the NPK breakdown of hemp/cannabis, but shy on K. It also contains a lot of the needed micros.

Lime is easily sourced and I know you now have some gypsum as well, not to mention access to sea shells. Calcium sources.

Seaweed and Kelp (Dry weight) has a NPK of ~ 1:0:4 so there’s a great K source along with loads of micro nutrients.

Ground crab shells are a low NPK source but have calcium and he shells are made of the same compound as insects. When added to LOS it attracts micro-organisms that break it down and also breaks down the shells of pests like Thrips and Gnats...organic pest control.

You can make an awesome LOS, water only, mix from peat and the above, or use Promix and skip the lime.

I'm with Celt on that, the list of ingredients is over redundant. Like 5 sources of trace minerals, also a lot of different Ca N and P. I'm sure if you looked at the GA of each one, you'd see a lot of overlapping, not that this is bad, just redundant or repetitive. Most of it requires soil microbes and a lot of time to be made ionic also. Woody shared a good link about Blood and Bone meals the other day (on my thread maybe?) that discussed the downside of adding too much P.

The mix is complex and has quite a few components to them for sure. There are several sources of different N, P, and K. There are reasons for those, some are fast release, some average release, and some are slow release and take a longer time to break down. The soil is designed to be a legit water only . They may be 'redundant' and overlap, but there is a reason for it. Not each component that is a source of N is the same, often times its what else is in the amendment that I am after. Certain amendments have chitin in them while others don't etc. There is a method to the madness. The results speak for themselves. Most other soil recipes people use seem to run out of steam and the plants are hurting by the end. Yields aren't what they could be though much of that could be attributed to the light as well.

You don't need a soil as rich or complex as mine for sure. And I do find it can be too much for the landrace stains so I have been tinkering blends for different strains with fairly good success. But again, my goal when I created the mix and modified it was to find soil that didn't lose energy, had everything my plants needed, and was a legit water only. The soil mix of mine does required a bit more time to adequately break down for use though and my only growing issues have really been from "cold" cooks. I tried mixing up batches, and cooking them in my basement in the winter time and that DIDN'T work well AT ALL. Seems there is minimum temperature and time combination and whatever I gave it wasn't sufficient.

I'll leave you all with this parting thought. Not every species of plant has the same requirements from the soil they grow. Corn, mint, tomatoes, cucumbers, or flowers all have different soil requirements. Cannabis is one of the most aggressively growing plants you can grow, and it puts a demand on the soil greater than most things we grow. Creating or using a soil recipe thats been adequate for other things like trees or veggies won't have the same success with a majority of cannabis strains. Its why so many organic growers "can't" grow in smaller pots or why you see them posting "help, i've got a deficiency and I don't know what to do". I've flowered out in 2 gallon pots with no issues at all in my soil, leaves stay healthy all the way through flower in most cases. I'm trying my stuff in 1 gallon pot right now, just to see if 'it can be done' since everyone seems to think 1 gallon pots are too small to flower out organically. My soil also averages just over an ounce of dried flower per gallon of substrate, which I can promise you is higher than most other organic growers are getting. Granted lights have a lot to do with maxing out yield capacity, but thats still a high yields in soil.

 

[The Celt]

I hear you @Van Stank and was by no means criticizing your mix mate having a rich soil with multiple sourced amendments is great

I was trying to make the point that a complete water only soil can be made without getting too complex. This especially applies to those working on a tight budget or like those in Weasel’s case, can’t source a lot of those ingredients without paying through the nose for shipping.

The recipe I use, and like you, devised myself and most current, uses:

- 2 bales of peat (6 cuft)
- 25kg (~55lbs) alfalfa
- 2 cuft black peat (called Black earth but is really just well rotted peat from the bottom of the bog and is a great source of humid acid.
- 11 cups Blood meal
- 16 cups Bone meal
- Potassium Nitrate (because I have a 50lb bag but once used up will be replaced with molasses)
~ 2 qts of hydrated lime (for buffering)
- 2 cups Kelp meal
- and 1/2 qt DE

This has enough NPK in it to grow approximately 1lb of dried and cured bud per 5 gallons, makes ~ 130 gallons of mix and is water only start to finish.

I am actually working on an organic hydro solution using those same ingredients, not sure how well it will work, but time will tell

Due to where I live, I can source all these ingredients at the local feed mill and costs-per-pound are about 20% of what you would pay at a nursery or garden centre. Works out to about $1/gallon for me, but for Weasel, that same mix would likely run closer to $8/gallon due to where he lives.

When discussing organic mixes, I generally try to work with what is locally available to the grower I am talking too as in Weasel’s case. He has access to things that are great sources, cheap (or free), that many of us don’t.

Cannabis, although a specialty crop due to its cannabinoid production (Among other things) is still essentially a grain crop like wheat and corn, but requires denser nutrient loads, and ratios, in the soil to maximize yield. That is simplifying it, but you get my point come to think about it, that is pretty much what you said in closing

 

[Van Stank]

I hear you @Van Stank and was by no means criticizing your mix mate having a rich soil with multiple sourced amendments is great

I was trying to make the point that a complete water only soil can be made without getting too complex. This especially applies to those working on a tight budget or like those in Weasel’s case, can’t source a lot of those ingredients without paying through the nose for shipping.

The recipe I use, and like you, devised myself and most current, uses:

- 2 bales of peat (6 cuft)
- 25kg (~55lbs) alfalfa
- 2 cuft black peat (called Black earth but is really just well rotted peat from the bottom of the bog and is a great source of humid acid.
- 11 cups Blood meal
- 16 cups Bone meal
- Potassium Nitrate (because I have a 50lb bag but once used up will be replaced with molasses)
~ 2 qts of hydrated lime (for buffering)
- 2 cups Kelp meal
- and 1/2 qt DE

This has enough NPK in it to grow approximately 1lb of dried and cured bud per 5 gallons, makes ~ 130 gallons of mix and is water only start to finish.

I am actually working on an organic hydro solution using those same ingredients, not sure how well it will work, but time will tell

Due to where I live, I can source all these ingredients at the local feed mill and costs-per-pound are about 20% of what you would pay at a nursery or garden centre. Works out to about $1/gallon for me, but for Weasel, that same mix would likely run closer to $8/gallon due to where he lives.

When discussing organic mixes, I generally try to work with what is locally available to the grower I am talking too as in Weasel’s case. He has access to things that are great sources, cheap (or free), that many of us don’t.

Cannabis, although a specialty crop due to its cannabinoid production (Among other things) is still essentially a grain crop like wheat and corn, but requires denser nutrient loads, and ratios, in the soil to maximize yield. That is simplifying it, but you get my point come to think about it, that is pretty much what you said in closing

I hear ya brother.....and I don't take it as a knock on my mix. I realize that my mix is definitely not easy to put together for someone off the beaten path or for someone that has to source locally. I'm in a legal state where I have a fair amount of options. Ultimately I would love to get to a point where I can locally source much of what I use, but for now I'll stick to the stores.

I kind of equate it to peoples diets. Based off what you do, and the lifestyle you choose to live, you have certain dietary needs. A professional athlete will have different nutritional needs than a couch potato. I person living in the Arctic tundra has different dietary needs, and certainly a hell of a lot more fat in their diet than someone living along the equator. Someone living on the equator would see the diet of a person living on an arctic and say "Man that is way too much fat in your diet, you don't need all that."

Can any of those above examples get by on one of the other's diets for a while....sure in most cases. Maybe not the guy living on the Arctic tundra, but most can. Same with plants. Growers can go as simple as they want. I have seen and thought about trying to grow in the simplest mix I could think of....Kelp meal. Kelp is probably the single most versatile amendment you could use, containing more than 70 micro and macro nutrients in that one amendment. Likely you could grow from start to finish with that as your sole amendment in some active soil with only minor issues. But is it going to produce the results that match a soil that has any and everything that plant and the microbes need or that optimizes cannabis growth? No it won't and I can promise you that it won't look or smell as good.

So I guess I was a bit short sighted in my statement that I wanted a soil that would get me from start to finish with water only. Yes that is the goal, but the over arching goal for me is to grow the absolute best cannabis in terms of smoothness, flavor, terps, potency and long lasting high and continue to work on finding ways to improve those things. Its impossible to improve without changing, but not all change is improvement.

I've tried smoke from people that have grown in different organic soil blends and while they are better than weed grown from bottle nutes, I don't find the highs as fully rounded, long lasting, or potent as what I get from mine. The only exception to that is the Brix growers. Their stuff is exceptionally tasty, and smooth.....but it doesn't test as potent as mine does. I've tested strains that Neiko grew in Docs kit and had tested and compared those same cuts to the ones grown in my soil. I can't quite match the flavor they get, close yes, but nod still goes to the brixers, but potency I beat his cuts every times, by 1.5 to 2% on THC for each cut. Their highs don't last as long either in my opinion.

There are always more than one way to skin a cat, its always a matter of preference. I'm curious though, where does your calcium and magnesium source come from. I don't really see much in your mix, and those are two of the things I NEED lots of in my growing conditions.

 

[The Celt]

Hey @Van Stank ,

I actually have 3 sources of Calcium, the lime obviously, but also bone meal is high in Ca and the alfalfa meal has about the same wt/wt percentage of Ca as Cannabis as well as Mg. I also use Epsom Salt, forgot it in my description

Alfalfa is the closest crop to Cannabis, that I have found, for N: P: K:Ca:Mg percentages of dry weight matter considering the entire cannabis plant, not just the bud we keep Cannabis uptakes more of all but not by a lot.

N : P : K : Ca : Mg for Alfalfa is ~3 : 1 : 2 : 1.5 : 0.32
for Hemp (THC deficient cannabis) we have 4 : 1 : 3 : 1 : 1.6

having THC in the Cannabis we use makes no difference in those ratios, THC doesn’t contain any of those elements, they are needed for the green matter required to produce THC and those ratios for hemp may be high in P & K compared to what we grow. Hemp being a seed crop will use more of both during seed production.

When I was designing my current mix, I was working with these ratios and basically doubled the values.

For example, assuming 5 gallons of mix and “wanting” to produce 1/2lb of smokable bud. Now I had to make some assumptions on how much dry weight of plant was required to produce this and these are my assumptions:

1 - smokable bud is NOT dry in this sense, we need 0 moisture content so it’s “friable” therefore a green weight water content has to be assumed, I went with 90% water content on the stump. Most bud loses ~ 75% wt during dry/cure so my 1/2lb becomes 2lb wet weight. Now I am going to convert to metric (sorry guys, it’s easier this way ) 2lbs = 908g wet weight which assuming 90% water becomes 90.8g of friable bud plant matter but we still need to account for stalk, limbs and roots.

2 - assuming bud accounts for 25% of the entire weight of the plant we get from above
90.8g x 4 = 363.2g of “friable plant matter” in the entire plant. BTW that’s about 3/4lb

Now with the assumptions and the NPK info for Hemp I can estimate how much of each will be taken up by the plant.

363.3g x 4% N gives 14.5g of N needed. Bone meal being ~15% wt/wt means we have 15g of N for every 100g of Bone meal.
Following the same math, I can work out what is need of each amendment.

Now after all that, knowing a proper LOS soil rarely burns plants (when properly cooked), and because I had to make assumptions, I just double everything my girls never want for nutrients

One thing I am missing, which you mentioned, as did I in a round about way, is chitin or crab meal which I will be adding to the next batch, for no other reason than to combat those damn gnat and thrips I deal with

edit: “N : P : K” becomes N:K without quotes or spacing

 

[The Celt]

I can’t comment on quality of my bud, but I have had no complaints from those that try it

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks guys I appreciate it. And yeah this is exactly what I was hoping to talk about. The different ways of skinning a weasel and how I can find a way in my location.

Six years ago when I joined the forum I looked a lot at organic mixes and I was like -WTF! I never heard of most of this stuff. Realistically I can not source and order by mail a lot of obscure ingredients and commercial products online, especially anything large or heavy.

The more stuff I do actually order, the more the price skyrockets and the whole thing just seems to be the opposite of what ‘organic’ is meant to be.

I intend to order some neem and karanja cake, and whatever else I need and can find, but that’s waiting on the next round of money to fall out of the sky and so won’t happen for a month or two especially given the pace of our mail system these days.

I feel a little bit bad about flogging this horse with this subject so many times over the years but whatever....
If I can, I would like to make a simple organic mix now -to put some of my new sprouts in. Not a lot. Just enough for a few tester plants. Something which could be amended later if necessary, because it probably will be necessary.

Here is what I actually have on hand right now or can get very easily.

- endless amounts of peat/spagnum

-near endless amounts of rabbit crap

-a bit of gypsum

-3 or 4 pounds of rock phosphate

-compost

-little bit of perlite

-worm castings

-endless kelp and other seaweed

-‘leaf mold’ assuming that scrapings from under the Red Alder trees qualify.

-a couple gallons of three year old fish remains in bucket

-random soil from my garden, plus some stores have bags of soil (not sure what exactly right now)

-one or two coco bricks.

- a bit of fulvic/humic kelp meal blend

-a small bag of frass

-diatomaceous earth

-a few cups of glacial rock dust.

-dolomite lime

-oyster shells - which I can grind.

- a bit of gypsum

-various beneficial/myco products

-about a cup of this stuff.

Flower power

• Weaselcracker
• Feb 4, 2021

-I’m probably forgetting some stuff.
———————————————

Some stuff I can probably find locally but have to take time to drive and search for:

* crab shells and fish bones

* clay. But apparently some of the local clay is naturally high in mercury so that might be another quest

I just called the farm supply outfit here which is about the only source of soil amendments around, and it looks very promising. They used to only cater to farmers with chemical fertilizers but I know they have been under a lot of pressure from locals like me who want to grow organic dope. Basically our plot of ‘Let’s get everybody to keep phoning them and asking them for this stuff’ seems to be paying off.

They said they’re open to requests if there’s anything special that I need. But it might be a few months before it comes in. I know I used to see greensand on their list- didn’t see it last time but maybe they can get it again.

They have or are getting in the next few weeks:

Alfalfa meal
Blood and bone meal
Worm castings
Alfalfa and kelp meal
Rock phosphate
Canola meal

They also had a couple bags of 4-3-7 organic soil which seemed to contain many of the ingredients I’m looking for -so I reserved that. Forgot to ask the name though.

Edit. @Van Stank you are so right about the fat intake comment. It’s all that keeps us warm! No vegans here. The ones that do come here quickly realize they’re out of their bubble and they basically have to adapt, leave, or freeze and starve.

I can’t comment on quality of my bud,

I can and it’s very good. Also amazingly dense compared to anything I grow. I need a grinder for that Blue Dream.

 

[The Celt]

I can and it’s very good. Also amazingly dense compared to anything I grow. I need a grinder for that Blue Dream.

I will have to give credit to that to Ole Mother Nature, I made the soil, but she provided the BIG bulb in the sky and the water

 

[The Celt]

Quick question @Weaselcracker , do you make/use LABs?

 

[Weaselcracker]

I will have to give credit to that to Ole Mother Nature, I made the soil, but she provided the BIG bulb in the sky and the water

Here she just provides the water.

Quick question @Weaselcracker , do you make/use LABs?

No....
I brew benny teas sometimes.

 

[Skybound]

Do you still have Triacontanol powder? That's the active ingredient in the alfalfa meal I think.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yes I do and that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about lately Do you still use it? I’m just kind of slow to getting around to exploring new things but it’s on my shortlist

 

[Spitz]

A couple gallons of 3 yr old fish remains? I can only imagine... lol

 

[Weaselcracker]

I also have some kelp that’s been sitting in a bucket for 2 1/2 years but last I checked it doesn’t seem to be breaking down at all - I guess because I had a lid on and there’s no oxygen maybe... ? I’m gonna go check it now and give it a stir- see how it smells

 

[Weaselcracker]

Sea soup

• Weaselcracker
• Feb 4, 2021

Still smells horrific but better than last year. Like a volcanic vent full of rotten eggs.

 

[Skybound]

Yes I do and that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about lately Do you still use it? I’m just kind of slow to getting around to exploring new things but it’s on my shortlist

nah, I stopped using it when I stopped foliar spraying when I stopped trying to reverse engineer the brix kit. I've read that it can be used in the soil, it just allegedly has less effect than if used as a foliar. Though I've been tossing about the idea of mixing up a 25ppm solution and just tossing it into the micro jug and see how that pans out, but I never got around to cooking up the batch.

 

[Van Stank]

I also have some kelp that’s been sitting in a bucket for 2 1/2 years but last I checked it doesn’t seem to be breaking down at all - I guess because I had a lid on and there’s no oxygen maybe... ? I’m gonna go check it now and give it a stir- see how it smells

You will likely need to grind wild kelp once it's dried.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Normally around here we grab a few truckloads off the beach and throw it on the garden in early spring. The bull kelp, which has long hollow thick juicy stems, breaks down incredibly fast. I can pile it up 6-10 inches deep and within a few days it turns into a thin layer of sludge on the surface of the soil. The giant kelp, which is the stuff in the picture, has a couple tougher bits on it but still rots very fast.

Kelp

• Weaselcracker
• Nov 22, 2018

The stuff I put in the bucket was from that pile in the photo. A mix of kelp and a little of whatever other seaweed was in the pile on the beach.

Whatever it is, I’m impressed how long it has remained intact! I should probably take some sort of blender to it. I just haven’t given that bucket any love because I keep forgetting about it. Probably on purpose....

 

[Amy Gardner]

Beautiful! We use local seaweed the same way. We also dry it and grind it up as well as making a tea from it (fermented juice actually). If you’re thinking of these avenues I can very highly recommend adding some Lactobacillus into the mix. It’s easy to make and a little goes a very long way - it can be used to accelerate teas or compost and also to provide some beneficial microbes to fertigation and foliar sprays and is also useful in other ways around the house.