Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread

Dr.4:20

Dr.4:20

Member
New guy here, 2 weeks from harvest on my first grow, wanted to give the ROLS a try. Theres no way I could have time to read this whole thread (maybe I'll get to the end someday) Just mixed up a batch that ended up being about 80 gallons. Was wondering if I can get some opinions on my recipe from the experts, maybe let me know what if anything I should add, shouldnt have added, more of, less of, so on.
1 1/4 Bale sunshine #4
1/2 Bag Happy Frog (leftover)
1/2 Bag Ocean Forest (leftover)
30 Lb Local EWC
2 cuft Coco
10 Ltr bag of Clay pepples for a little extra aeration.
2-3 cups Dolomite Lime
2 Cups Diatomaceous earth powder
1/2 cup powdered Azomite
1 cup granular azomite
1 cup Bone meal
1 cup Blood meal
1 cup 10-3-1 guano
1 cup Alfalfa meal
2 cup kelp meal

Its currently stewing but would like to know if maybe i should add to it before use, let me know!!
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Dr.4:20 said:
New guy here, 2 weeks from harvest on my first grow, wanted to give the ROLS a try. Theres no way I could have time to read this whole thread (maybe I'll get to the end someday) Just mixed up a batch that ended up being about 80 gallons. Was wondering if I can get some opinions on my recipe from the experts, maybe let me know what if anything I should add, shouldnt have added, more of, less of, so on.
1 1/4 Bale sunshine #4
1/2 Bag Happy Frog (leftover)
1/2 Bag Ocean Forest (leftover)
30 Lb Local EWC
2 cuft Coco
10 Ltr bag of Clay pepples for a little extra aeration.
2-3 cups Dolomite Lime
2 Cups Diatomaceous earth powder
1/2 cup powdered Azomite
1 cup granular azomite
1 cup Bone meal
1 cup Blood meal
1 cup 10-3-1 guano
1 cup Alfalfa meal
2 cup kelp meal

Its currently stewing but would like to know if maybe i should add to it before use, let me know!!
Click to expand...
yeah it's gonna need some tweaking. here's a quick guide of how your mix should be put together....

looks to me, from your recipe, like you have about: 7cuft of peat and coco (assuming the bale was 3.8cuft of sunshine, which expands to probably 6cuft. when broken up and moistened + the little extra u added), 4cuft of drainage, and 1cuft. of EWC. A good base mix is of equal (or close to equal) parts EWC/compost, Peat/coco, and drainage.

if you do anything to your base mix, please get more worm castings/compost, as humus is your best friend when it comes to the soil food web. you may or may not think you need the drainage, but i would say add some more as well. i REALLY like the growstone from the growstore if you have that available. recycled glass turned into pumice. holds water and air and performs CEC! lava rock, rice hulls, pumice, perlite (though not a favorite of many). all those will work fine.

now for the amendments and liming agents...

you should have about 2-3cups/cuft of your total food amendment mix (this is the guano, kelp, alfalfa, bone meal, whatever you're using all added together). generally people don't use more than 1/2cup per cuft. of one item. SO..... 80 gal of soil(which is about to become more i hope from adding EWC and drainage :)) is just shy of 11cuft. so total you should have at least 22cups (if not 30) of plant food amendments in there. your total right now is 6. so you're shy on food by a bit.

rock dusts should be at 2cups per cuft. total, and variety is a good thing here. lots of micronutes, and minerals. (DE, azomite, powdered basalt, glacial, greensand, ect).

if you have more dolomite you can use that. if not, grab some oyster shell flour for diversity. its more quickly available by solubility, and will help you out until the dolomite starts to work in the mix. use oyster shell flour (or dolomite) at 1/2cup per cuft.

Good luck, and if you roll with the mix you have now, i'm gonna say you're gonna have some issues! don't take it personal, i'm just trying to help you. BTW, you don't need to read the whole thread, but if you just read the first 50 pages even, the bulk of the good stuff is in those first pages, so take the time and do some research or you'll be sorry :)
 
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Dr.4:20

Dr.4:20

Member
Definitely won't take it personally, this is what I wanted! I was sure I was going to need to tweak it but thought I'd let those with experience tell me how. Double the dolomite, 60more lbs of ewc, I'll source some more rock dusts, and grab some more drainage. I have some growstones I got as a sample but I wasnt sure how good they were in soil.
As far as the rest of the food, I was scared to add too much because I had read certain things could be too hot. Bone meal blood meal and guano, more? Less? Most recipes I saw didn't have a ton of alfalfa or kelp either
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Dr.4:20 said:
Definitely won't take it personally, this is what I wanted! I was sure I was going to need to tweak it but thought I'd let those with experience tell me how. Double the dolomite, 60more lbs of ewc, I'll source some more rock dusts, and grab some more drainage. I have some growstones I got as a sample but I wasnt sure how good they were in soil.
As far as the rest of the food, I was scared to add too much because I had read certain things could be too hot. Bone meal blood meal and guano, more? Less? Most recipes I saw didn't have a ton of alfalfa or kelp either
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if you're going to be buying more amendments, i think things like Crab shell meal, Oyster shell flour, Neem seed meal, Gypsum, and Fishbone Meal would be FAR better options than guanos and bone/blood meals. the items i listed are much less water soluble, have a wider variety of beneficial things like micronutrients and pest deterrence as well as others, they require more breakdown by microbes which is what you want; bonus, they more healthy to your own environment. bone/blood meals and guanos can be nasty stuff, and many here will attest that they're unnecessary, including myself. some don't feel the need to use animal byproducts, in order to lessen their impact on the planet and uphold their own morals and values for animals.
 
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ivioto

ivioto

Well-Known Member
Solis PH is back down again. Have been running doing well for a year breaking down root balls letting piles sit for months turning snd keeping moist. Amending following the thread closely.

Unable to hold a PH of 7 to achieve nitrification. I'm aware listening and juggling the best i can. Don't want to overdue the oyster or gypsum, and don't use lime. What the heck do i do. So much damn soil down here and frankly loving it... Globally my soil PH spirals down over 6 to 12 months.

Less is more is how I've been playing this past year and its helped me learn lots. Now what? Any takers on this one?
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
ivioto said:
Solis PH is back down again. Have been running doing well for a year breaking down root balls letting piles sit for months turning snd keeping moist. Amending following the thread closely.

Unable to hold a PH of 7 to achieve nitrification. I'm aware listening and juggling the best i can. Don't want to overdue the oyster or gypsum, and don't use lime. What the heck do i do. So much damn soil down here and frankly loving it... Globally my soil PH spirals down over 6 to 12 months.

Less is more is how I've been playing this past year and its helped me learn lots. Now what? Any takers on this one?
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i'm new to this, but i think the oyster breaks down and is available much faster, so it doesn't surprise me that Ph is dropping as the oyster flour is depleted by microbes and taken by plant. plants use a ton of Ca. i think when oyster is amended to recycled soil people are adding close to the same amount as first amending... could be wrong....
 
Joedank

Joedank

Well-Known Member
ivioto said:
Solis PH is back down again. Have been running doing well for a year breaking down root balls letting piles sit for months turning snd keeping moist. Amending following the thread closely.

Unable to hold a PH of 7 to achieve nitrification. I'm aware listening and juggling the best i can. Don't want to overdue the oyster or gypsum, and don't use lime. What the heck do i do. So much damn soil down here and frankly loving it... Globally my soil PH spirals down over 6 to 12 months.

Less is more is how I've been playing this past year and its helped me learn lots. Now what? Any takers on this one?
Click to expand...
look into burnt lime (calicium hyroxide ) it is highly alkiline and can do the trick for long and short term use ... i use a cup per C.U. foot of DE for long term soil beds and light NEEM seed meal / shrimp meal apps. to get fugus among us fed . the slipping of the ph is fine till you hit 4.5 then you must act swiftly . i stay off the peat and use coco more often . then top dress with hay and worms :) my 5 year old bed still runs at 5.7 for last 3 years and just had a flush of fruiting fungus . lol the bokashi can do that alot ...
 
goodjoint

goodjoint

Well-Known Member
Have any of you used organic brown or wild rice for a bit of aeration? Is it a bad idea to add rice to my soil mix?
 
goodjoint

goodjoint

Well-Known Member
I'm about ready to mixup my soil, but I don't have my aeration yet. It will still be about a week until I have the biochar and pumice. Would it be OK to let my soil mix "cook" without the aeration in it, just to get things going? Or should I wait until I have the aeration first?
 
Kind Sir

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
I live in midwest so it gets super cold..can I put leaves and stuff together in a rubbermaid and have it go indoors? I use a spare bathroom for my wormbin, was debating on putting compost bin in there aswell.
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Kind Sir said:
I live in midwest so it gets super cold..can I put leaves and stuff together in a rubbermaid and have it go indoors? I use a spare bathroom for my wormbin, was debating on putting compost bin in there aswell.
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dont see it hurting anything, just make sure you don't oversaturate it and it will continue to break down.

we're getting 5" of snow today. got the tarp over my compost pile. snow will be gone by midweek next week. i pulled my last few pounds of carrots today outta the ground for thanksgiving dinner, and my lettuce and cilantro got cut today as well. i didn't make time for a hoophouse unfortunately.
 
littlejacob

littlejacob

Well-Known Member
Bonjour
I made olive today...took it from the trees..washed it...made a tea with herbs of provence... wild celery...and a bit of orange skin (the secret for a woderful taste!!) 80gr salt per kilo and pure water and in dark jar (olive like sun when it is alive...much less after!)
12kg of olive...lots of work!!!
Is there something I can do with the one I don't use...is there something good in olive for plants grow!??
Have a nice day!
 
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