Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread

Peace Warrior

Peace Warrior

Member
Becorath said:
Act- aerated compost tea
Caco3- calcium carbonate
Ewu? Not sure. Ewc is earthworm castings.
Fpe- fermented plant extracts
Spr- I'm assuming are sprouts.

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Thanks, I thought so an some of them but not completely
sure. I was wondering when people do a top dressing with earthworm castings do they make it muddy with water or just put in on dry?
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
GreenSanta said:
This is awesome, I started washing my buds to clean spider mites every now and again, I just give em a good spray with water from the tap, a tip here, before I hang to dry I twist in the stem in between my index and my thumb to spin the buds like a car wash thing would spin almost, takes most of the water off. I have found that when I rinse/wash my buds, they seem to dry faster! comes out very clean looking, some strain dry to look darker washed vs not washed. Thanks for sharing, makes me feel better about washing my buds when I have to and I will try the bucket technique!!
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add a humidifier to your rooms. You probably have low rh up there. Being that it's as dry there as it is here outside.

The highest it gets out here is 20-30% outside. Normally 12% . Sometimes 50% if it rains. I have a honeywell humidifier that I got from amazon. It works good. I vent the the room too. If the rh gets too high I can shut off the humidifier. It never does. The rh stays around 40% and my temps are around 75 F.
 
GreenSanta

GreenSanta

Well-Known Member
My room\basement are hovering around 40%, room runs a little hotter than it should, is a humidifier as power hungry as a dehumidifier? in my case I think I will simply use more soil in the grow room for the summer!! I dont like to go over 40% because I exhaust in the basement and there is no way I will risk the slightest bit of mold, 40% is my comfort zone!!
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
GreenSanta said:
My room\basement are hovering around 40%, room runs a little hotter than it should, is a humidifier as power hungry as a dehumidifier? in my case I think I will simply use more soil in the grow room for the summer!! I dont like to go over 40% because I exhaust in the basement and there is no way I will risk the slightest bit of mold, 40% is my comfort zone!!
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Its a regular humidifier not industrial. But better quality than what I saw at Walmart. It pulls 50 watts. Supposedly can do a 500 Square foot room. The room it's in is 12x12. It holds 1.5 gallons of water. It can run 24 hours before filling. I usually just top it off before then. The model is honeywell hcm 350. I paid $60 on amazon.
 
st0wandgrow

st0wandgrow

Well-Known Member
Peace Warrior said:
Does anyone have or know of a recipe for no-till that uses coconut coir instead of peat-moss? Or can I just replace the peat-moss using any of the good no-till recipes?
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You can absolutely substitute coco coir for peat moss. It has better structure, a more favorable ph, and is more environmentally friendly imo. The downside is it apparently has a lower CEC, but I never found that to be a problem. If you go this route, there's a couple things to keep in mind: The ph is pretty much right where you want it, so no need to add a bunch of liming agents. About 1/2 cup per cf of oyster shell flour is sufficient. Also, you will need to add sulfur. Garden Gypsum works well.

Having said that, please consider using leaf mold in the future. If you have trees in your yard, don't toss the leaves! Blow/rake them in to a pile, and run them over with a lawn mower. Project a source of Nitrogen on them (like alfalfa pellets), then wet the pile down. You can then just leave the pile be, or turn every so often to speed things up if you wish. 12 months later you'll have a base ingredient that is superior to peat/coco coir, and it's free!
 
elkamino

elkamino

Well-Known Member
st0wandgrow said:
You can absolutely substitute coco coir for peat moss. It has better structure, a more favorable ph, and is more environmentally friendly imo. The downside is it apparently has a lower CEC, but I never found that to be a problem. If you go this route, there's a couple things to keep in mind: The ph is pretty much right where you want it, so no need to add a bunch of liming agents. About 1/2 cup per cf of oyster shell flour is sufficient. Also, you will need to add sulfur. Garden Gypsum works well.

Having said that, please consider using leaf mold in the future. If you have trees in your yard, don't toss the leaves! Blow/rake them in to a pile, and run them over with a lawn mower. Project a source of Nitrogen on them (like alfalfa pellets), then wet the pile down. You can then just leave the pile be, or turn every so often to speed things up if you wish. 12 months later you'll have a base ingredient that is superior to peat/coco coir, and it's free!
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Thanks for that, especially re: the leaf mold, because I want to use it. I live in an apt and don;t have trees. But I have lots of forests around, where leaf mold could easily be harvested. What does one look for in a leaf mold? Alders are prolific here in AK, colonizers after glaciers/disturbance and grow quickly- any reason not to use outdoor, wild, alder leaf mold as a 1/3 of my soil? And can I treat it just like compost in a re-used Subcool/BAS soil?

Cottonwood, spruce and fir mold are my other easy/everywhere options.

Thank you.

Also, I gotta share this somewhere, the ROLS threats is about the best place. I work in a garden center and took a call the other day, a guy complaining he had too many earthworms! "I just pull up the grass and there's HUNDREDS, maybe thousands! What do you have that kills earthworms, but not grass?" :shock:

I'm like, well, other than being newly invasive in Alaska, most folks consider earthworms a great indicator of soil health, besides they make vermicompost, the best fertilizer, plus aeration" and on about things I've learned about in this thread and others. How cool right? :joint:

Anyway, the worms are surfacing in his yard, leave piles of castings on top (top-dressing lol) so big he's hitting them with the mower, and they're making his super smooth yard super bumpy! Lol.

Well I read up a bit about it online and there's lots of people with the same complaint. How crazy is that.

I just told him to let it dry out and water less, the worms will stay in the soil and won't come up as much, but that he shouldn't try to kill them. WTF.:wall:
 
st0wandgrow

st0wandgrow

Well-Known Member
elkamino said:
Thanks for that, especially re: the leaf mold, because I want to use it. I live in an apt and don;t have trees. But I have lots of forests around, where leaf mold could easily be harvested. What does one look for in a leaf mold? Alders are prolific here in AK, colonizers after glaciers/disturbance and grow quickly- any reason not to use outdoor, wild, alder leaf mold as a 1/3 of my soil? And can I treat it just like compost in a re-used Subcool/BAS soil?

Cottonwood, spruce and fir mold are my other easy/everywhere options.

Thank you.

Also, I gotta share this somewhere, the ROLS threats is about the best place. I work in a garden center and took a call the other day, a guy complaining he had too many earthworms! "I just pull up the grass and there's HUNDREDS, maybe thousands! What do you have that kills earthworms, but not grass?" :shock:

I'm like, well, other than being newly invasive in Alaska, most folks consider earthworms a great indicator of soil health, besides they make vermicompost, the best fertilizer, plus aeration" and on about things I've learned about in this thread and others. How cool right? :joint:

Anyway, the worms are surfacing in his yard, leave piles of castings on top (top-dressing lol) so big he's hitting them with the mower, and they're making his super smooth yard super bumpy! Lol.

Well I read up a bit about it online and there's lots of people with the same complaint. How crazy is that.

I just told him to let it dry out and water less, the worms will stay in the soil and won't come up as much, but that he shouldn't try to kill them. WTF.:wall:
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I am by no means an expert on the topic, but I would have to believe that both the leaf mold and your native Alaskan soil would be absolutely kick ass as part of your base! To be clear, I use the leaf mold as a substitute for peat/coco and not as a replacement for my compost. It certainly will have a good deal of fungi in it (I get so many mushrooms growing in my soil now it's crazy) but I still add 25%-33% EWC to my base.

I'd love to see you try it. Maybe even just a container or two in your garden with some leaf mold/native soil to see how it stacks up to your normal regiment. A lil side x side test would be cool to see....

Edit: that's funny about that guy and his worm "problem"! I actually find myself saving worms after a rain that come up to chill on my driveway. I walk around with a bucket and collect them and put them in my veggie garden. Otherwise it's a worm holocaust on my driveway the next day when they're all dried out and dead. :-?
 
Becorath

Becorath

Well-Known Member
st0wandgrow said:
ou will need to add sulfur. Garden Gypsum works well.
Click to expand...
Peace Warrior said:
Thanks, I thought so an some of them but not completely
sure. I was wondering when people do a top dressing with earthworm castings do they make it muddy with water or just put in on dry?
Click to expand...
You can do either. I tend to just top dress dry and water it in. If you did a sludge, you'd still need to water it in.
 
elkamino

elkamino

Well-Known Member
st0wandgrow said:
I am by no means an expert on the topic, but I would have to believe that both the leaf mold and your native Alaskan soil would be absolutely kick ass as part of your base! To be clear, I use the leaf mold as a substitute for peat/coco and not as a replacement for my compost. It certainly will have a good deal of fungi in it (I get so many mushrooms growing in my soil now it's crazy) but I still add 25%-33% EWC to my base.

I'd love to see you try it. Maybe even just a container or two in your garden with some leaf mold/native soil to see how it stacks up to your normal regiment. A lil side x side test would be cool to see....

Edit: that's funny about that guy and his worm "problem"! I actually find myself saving worms after a rain that come up to chill on my driveway. I walk around with a bucket and collect them and put them in my veggie garden. Otherwise it's a worm holocaust on my driveway the next day when they're all dried out and dead. :-?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the clarification re: using leaf mold as a replacemnt for coco and not compost. If I get around to harvesting some this busy summer I'll definitely post here. I figure a years-decomposed batch might almost look like pure peat? I'll start digging around when we go on hikes.

I also wonder about collecting glacier dust/gravel here- it seems funny to buy some from BAS, but I have lol. Its hard to know its make-up, but every possible size is sorted and available along river gravel bars, in infinite amounts, and it keeps coming. In fact Seward AK was built atop an alluvial fan in Resurrection Bay and the river keeps bringing the gravel to the point they have to deal with it big time. In fact there's a gravel company right on an island on your way into town, no pit required the river just keep tumbling tens of thousands of tons of rocks downstream every year, right to their ramp. Gravel fill is free for anyone, you just pay for the truck to deliver it.
 
st0wandgrow

st0wandgrow

Well-Known Member
elkamino said:
Thanks for the clarification re: using leaf mold as a replacemnt for coco and not compost. If I get around to harvesting some this busy summer I'll definitely post here. I figure a years-decomposed batch might almost look like pure peat? I'll start digging around when we go on hikes.

I also wonder about collecting glacier dust/gravel here- it seems funny to buy some from BAS, but I have lol. Its hard to know its make-up, but every possible size is sorted and available along river gravel bars, in infinite amounts, and it keeps coming. In fact Seward AK was built atop an alluvial fan in Resurrection Bay and the river keeps bringing the gravel to the point they have to deal with it big time. In fact there's a gravel company right on an island on your way into town, no pit required the river just keep tumbling tens of thousands of tons of rocks downstream every year, right to their ramp. Gravel fill is free for anyone, you just pay for the truck to deliver it.
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Yeah, I'd say you have a treasure trove of amendments at your finger tips living there. Glacial rock dust is something most of us have to buy online. Heck, with the fishing industry up there you could make some great ferments chalk full of goodies. I bet you could put together a great soil for free with everything you have access to!
 
kmog33

kmog33

Well-Known Member
Ok so for you living soil guys. Have my first run going and most of my plants in the bed look like this
dark green and happy. A couple (1-2) of them in the same bed are getting a bit lighter and getting minor deff/lockout. Like this.
any easy fix?


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