So I made myself some CalPhos...

[iHearAll]

as you guys probably know, I lost about 50% of my compost to the redwoods roots.
Trees don't mess around.. when they get food? They SUUUUCK it up faster than you can compost it.

i just planted a mimosa hostilis into 75% compost in a 5 gal container. damn tree is livin and the roots have pushed to the drainage holes already. same recipe killed three of my 2 month old cannabis haha

 

[calliandra]

Update on the compost I did....................worked great............didn't accurately measure temps, but it got right up to temp and gradually settled with regular turning.

It'd been sat for about a month, maturing and full of worms, 'trying' to cut a long story short, I'd started a mealworm farm with the intention of making my own frass, while giving me food for my carnivorous plants and my mates chickens.............. Mates chickens got ate by fox, I gave away my VF traps..............no need for the mealworms or all the bedding(organic oats, already filled with insect frass and loads of shed exoskeletons{chitin})..................So, on a whim, thought It'd be a great idea to just tip it into my compost pile and turn it in.

Next day my compost pile was steaming like a huge pile of manure would, I had to turn it twice a day for 4 days to keep temps under control and I've been turning it every day since(3 days), it's just settling down again now.

Do ya think I've screwed it, or just added more goodies to the party?

Wow sounds stressful! But could be a method to help get temps upwards in cold situations
How much oats to the pile was it?

My guess is that since you kept turning it you definitely haven't added anything bad?
But it does make me wonder whether the practically finished compost you added it to gets, yeah eaten up?

Great story about the mealworms too - I wanna be able to be that succinct one day too haha!

 

[iHearAll]

Update on the compost I did....................worked great............didn't accurately measure temps, but it got right up to temp and gradually settled with regular turning.

It'd been sat for about a month, maturing and full of worms, 'trying' to cut a long story short, I'd started a mealworm farm with the intention of making my own frass, while giving me food for my carnivorous plants and my mates chickens.............. Mates chickens got ate by fox, I gave away my VF traps..............no need for the mealworms or all the bedding(organic oats, already filled with insect frass and loads of shed exoskeletons{chitin})..................So, on a whim, thought It'd be a great idea to just tip it into my compost pile and turn it in.

Next day my compost pile was steaming like a huge pile of manure would, I had to turn it twice a day for 4 days to keep temps under control and I've been turning it every day since(3 days), it's just settling down again now.

Do ya think I've screwed it, or just added more goodies to the party?

id have let it burn up for a week before turning it. do you see the skeletons in it still?

edit: i think you can look at it like feeding the compost or ammending the compost... i think you're currently somewhere in the middle since it did have that thermophillic reaction. so you kinda fed it.

i pulled the week waiting thing out of my ass so you dont need to listen to me.

 

[DonBrennon]

Wow sounds stressful! But could be a method to help get temps upwards in cold situations
How much oats to the pile was it?

My guess is that since you kept turning it you definitely haven't added anything bad?
But it does make me wonder whether the practically finished compost you added it to gets, yeah eaten up?

Great story about the mealworms too - I wanna be able to be that succinct one day too haha!

Quite a lot, at a guess I'd say around 15-20 liter's of 'material' into a 1m3 pile. But they'd been going about a year, so there a lot of frass in there and loads of their skins, so it may not have been just the oats that did it, not sure.

 

[greasemonkeymann]

OK right, compost haha

Sounds terrible, what happened to that pile in the storms, I imagine that even after it dried out there were still microbial traces of that event for a good while. My reasoning is that sooner or later nature takes care of it in any case, without the heat it just takes longer, and you have to be content with having viable seeds in your soil. Something I don't mind at all, actually I love having stuff coming up as ground cover and mulches all on their own. less work for me
So when you went to use that pile eventually, did you notice anything about it or was it as good as?

Now 130/140 is good going, and if you got that in your freezing, I will get it easily in mine?
Maan you're gonna have to learn centigrade and metrics over here...

But the real question is how the emissions could be harvested without compromising your pitbull's wellbeing and freedom of movement?

shit, you don't know my pitbull..
all ya gotta do is hook up an exhaust to the bottom of the room (methane is heavy)
then you can just lit it, like they do on the natural gas pipes... to burn away the residuals..
And I know metrics, i'm an automechanic, and I specialize in japanese cars, so I got the metric system..the dumb americans are the ONLY damn people to NOT use the metric system..

Update on the compost I did....................worked great............didn't accurately measure temps, but it got right up to temp and gradually settled with regular turning.

It'd been sat for about a month, maturing and full of worms, 'trying' to cut a long story short, I'd started a mealworm farm with the intention of making my own frass, while giving me food for my carnivorous plants and my mates chickens.............. Mates chickens got ate by fox, I gave away my VF traps..............no need for the mealworms or all the bedding(organic oats, already filled with insect frass and loads of shed exoskeletons{chitin})..................So, on a whim, thought It'd be a great idea to just tip it into my compost pile and turn it in.

Next day my compost pile was steaming like a huge pile of manure would, I had to turn it twice a day for 4 days to keep temps under control and I've been turning it every day since(3 days), it's just settling down again now.

Do ya think I've screwed it, or just added more goodies to the party?

hell no man! that's totally fine, you just kicked up the temps by the added "green" input from the frass and such

It's basicly insect meal, I use the bejesus out of that
buy a thing of this, and mash em up

 

[greasemonkeymann]

i just planted a mimosa hostilis into 75% compost in a 5 gal container. damn tree is livin and the roots have pushed to the drainage holes already. same recipe killed three of my 2 month old cannabis haha

killed?
you killed an established cannabis plant with compost?!
was it still composting?
cuz that'll piss em off BAD..
the compost microbes rob almost everything from the soil, and the temps are too high for roots

 

[greasemonkeymann]

I know you guys have probably read it, but here is a copy and paste of an earlier post regarding the insect meal.

regarding mealworms
https://www.rollitup.org/t/interesting-find-for-insect-frass-users.851214/
and also this one, for specifics on macro and micros
http://www.moonvalleyreptiles.com/crested-geckos/diet-nutrition/feeder-insects

 

[calliandra]

shit, you don't know my pitbull..
all ya gotta do is hook up an exhaust to the bottom of the room (methane is heavy)
then you can just lit it, like they do on the natural gas pipes... to burn away the residuals..
And I know metrics, i'm an automechanic, and I specialize in japanese cars, so I got the metric system..the dumb americans are the ONLY damn people to NOT use the metric system..

Ah excellent, then you're pretty much Europe ready lol What about weights? haha
And it's settled, your dog is getting her own room - I mean, it's kind of embarassing I still find farts funny, but THAT, sounds more like, yeah, a production system! lmao

 

[greasemonkeymann]

Ah excellent, then you're pretty much Europe ready lol What about weights? haha
And it's settled, your dog is getting her own room - I mean, it's kind of embarassing I still find farts funny, but THAT, sounds more like, yeah, a production system! lmao

hahaha, yeaa... i'm closer to 40 than 30 and I think farts are hilarious..
Kinda like the Canadians on southpark...love that episode

"i'm not your buddy, friend!"
"I'm not your friend, buddy!"

I got the weights down eaaaasy too, I have my own Olympic weight set, that ONLY uses kgs.
plus selling a bunch of herb in my youth sharpened my metric skills too

 

[calliandra]

hahaha, yeaa... i'm closer to 40 than 30 and I think farts are hilarious..
Kinda like the Canadians on southpark...love that episode

"i'm not your buddy, friend!"
"I'm not your friend, buddy!"

I got the weights down eaaaasy too, I have my own Olympic weight set, that ONLY uses kgs.
plus selling a bunch of herb in my youth sharpened my metric skills too

Haha I'll look out for that one!
I love Southpark when I'm in the right mood - just like everything hey

Wow you're full of surprises - Olympic weight set sounds dangerous! haha
Like those gigantic drum sets - dam I forgot the name of the guy or band, just have the image in my mind and that it was totally melodious what he played on all that haha - a whole fricking landscape of percussion instruments from a gong, to those electronic drums... I can imagine you'd know him!
So is it like that? (omg please say no haha jk)

I've just been off looking at my plants, and this one will lift my mood anytime!



Oh and I just realized, today is day 21, aand we have the first pistils showing - they're on the main stem
We're at 7 tops, and they're growing pretty level, with just a tiny bit of leaf bending to make space for them:


Kind of looks like she's thanking you all for making sure I do the very best for her and All Those That May Come After Her haha
Cheers guys!

 

[iHearAll]

killed?
you killed an established cannabis plant with compost?!
was it still composting?
cuz that'll piss em off BAD..
the compost microbes rob almost everything from the soil, and the temps are too high for roots

for the past 4-5 years iv been growing outdoors and using this type of compost with 100% success. but i just moved from under the family wing into an apartment so im learning to implement my outdoors TEKs into indoor container TEKs. I like to try and stay halfway unique (so failure is invited)

the mix i offered was almost entirely compost lol. i had to try it. i actually kinda figured it would go the way it did. i was banking on the off chance it explodes with joy. i was following a fruit tree "super" soil recipe. like the kind of soil/compost thatll put a dozen papaya on a tree within year one. which could have gone really well . but that's how you can find out information that nobody else would know ha

so i cut the mix i 1:1 into a normal soil mix of mine and transplanted the remaining plant. doing fine and dandy now. she's accepting nice and strong fermented fruit foliars.

i had also light starved them prior to this to keep them from growing. i had been reeaaaaalllllyy mean to these cuts. they were kind of my play around ones

survivor (being cloned)

mm wonderful dirty ply box

 

[calliandra]

But it does make me wonder whether the practically finished compost you added it to gets, yeah eaten up?

Beware: old thought-system brainfart haha

I have recalled a microscope picture of finished compost - it's just leftover organic matter totally encrusted with microbes, not much to eat but lots who want to eat So yeah, what IHearAll said - adding those oats n frass was feeding those trillions of inhabitants, and they had a giant, week's long orgy courtesy of DonBrennon haha

i was following a fruit tree "super" soil recipe.

Sounds intriguing, do you have it posted in your thread?
I'd like to understand better how that compost could have been so hot!

Oh and those red leaves in that playbox, is that a kind of chards?

 

[DonBrennon]

adding those oats n frass was feeding those trillions of inhabitants, and they had a giant, week's long orgy courtesy of DonBrennon

I hope they all remember it well and pay me back later..........LOL

 

[DonBrennon]

id have let it burn up for a week before turning it. do you see the skeletons in it still?

edit: i think you can look at it like feeding the compost or ammending the compost... i think you're currently somewhere in the middle since it did have that thermophillic reaction. so you kinda fed it.

i pulled the week waiting thing out of my ass so you dont need to listen to me.

The pile was in serious danger of getting fire-blight, it was a bit too damp and I could smell anaerobic conditions on the 1st couple of turns and the temps were over 80degC in ambient temps of around 10degC.

I didn't notice if the exoskeletons had broken down yet, I'll have a closer inspection later. But some of the meal worms and beetles are still alive, as well as the compost worms. I think they must just move to the outside where temperatures don't get so extreme.

 

[iHearAll]

Beware: old thought-system brainfart haha

I have recalled a microscope picture of finished compost - it's just leftover organic matter totally encrusted with microbes, not much to eat but lots who want to eat So yeah, what IHearAll said - adding those oats n frass was feeding those trillions of inhabitants, and they had a giant, week's long orgy courtesy of DonBrennon haha


Sounds intriguing, do you have it posted in your thread?
I'd like to understand better how that compost could have been so hot!

Oh and those red leaves in that playbox, is that a kind of chards?

yes im just utilizing this light area. i have a dozen more outside.

are you familiar with bokashi buckets? you have an empty pail and sprinkle an initial cup of bokashi on the bottom of the pail. the add and inch of food scraps. the a cup of bokashi then another unch of food scraps then another cup of bokashi and repeat making layers until it's filled the pail. kwep it sealed constantly when not adding anything.

next ferment the contents by sealing it undisturbed for two weeks. grows the white molds.

dig a 7 gal hole pour in fermented contents. should smell really sweet at the point. nauseatingly sweet.

cover with soil and jab wirh a shovel to mildly mix it in.

wait two weeks for the soil to digest the fermented kitchen garbage. FKG

plant an established tree seedling directly into this without tilling.

tree explodes.

i have done this outdoors with a few strains and different vegetables at various volumes of the FKG in the soil. theyv all worked previously.

so, to implement this indoors i needed to compost it aerobicly so i mixed 10 gallons (2 pails) of FKG with 10 gallons leaf mold, steamed bone meal, gypsum, and bokashi and bd500. I and turned over two weeks. i fed it humic acid tea, kombucha, more bokashi. and since the outdoors recipe looked SORT OF like 5 gal compost in 2 gal soil i figured start at this ratio and dilute to find the hottest maximum ratio.

i see that iv already tweeked from the original by adding leaf mold. i actually thought it would cut the nutrient content to something bearable.

the current dilution works fine and iv saved the hot mix in pails until last night when i mixed it all into a trash can to mature.

heres what some of the pails of soil looked like

 

[calliandra]

yes im just utilizing this light area. i have a dozen more outside.

are you familiar with bokashi buckets? you have an empty pail and sprinkle an initial cup of bokashi on the bottom of the pail. the add and inch of food scraps. the a cup of bokashi then another unch of food scraps then another cup of bokashi and repeat making layers until it's filled the pail. kwep it sealed constantly when not adding anything.

next ferment the contents by sealing it undisturbed for two weeks. grows the white molds.

dig a 7 gal hole pour in fermented contents. should smell really sweet at the point. nauseatingly sweet.

cover with soil and jab wirh a shovel to mildly mix it in.

wait two weeks for the soil to digest the fermented kitchen garbage. FKG

plant an established tree seedling directly into this without tilling.

tree explodes.

i have done this outdoors with a few strains and different vegetables at various volumes of the FKG in the soil. theyv all worked previously.

so, to implement this indoors i needed to compost it aerobicly so i mixed 10 gallons (2 pails) of FKG with 10 gallons leaf mold, steamed bone meal, gypsum, and bokashi and bd500. I and turned over two weeks. i fed it humic acid tea, kombucha, more bokashi. and since the outdoors recipe looked SORT OF like 5 gal compost in 7 gal soil i figured start at this ratio and dilute to find the hottest maximum ratio.

i see that iv already tweeked from the original by adding leaf mold. i actually thought it would cut the nutrient content to something bearable.

the current dilution works fine and iv saved the hot mix in pails until last night when i mixed it all into a trash can to mature.

heres what some of the pails of soil looked like View attachment 3797407 View attachment 3797408

Ah thank you for the description!!

I think I get what's happening there -- the way I understand bokashi (and EM) is that we're culturing a big herd of facultative microorganisms, who are essentially biology starters. (Hm, actually, if I think my soil is so bad, I should be putting THAT and not all the flimsy stuff I have been, into it FIRST!) . Think lactobacillus, actinomyces. But perhaps also tending a liiitle bit towards anaerobes?

When dumped into a hole in the ground, in that waiting period the masses of facultative microbes activate the soil making it more attractive to the true aerobes, and off we go. The concentrated (and maybe not so very beneficial) fluids of the bokashi dissipate in the soil around - which is openended in the outdoors, but constrained in a pot. And with the fluid the microbes also are spread out.

So by finding the perfect mixture that will be good in your pots you are actually gauging how far that bokashi affected the surrounding soil outdoors.. so how much have you gotten it diluted now?

 

[iHearAll]

Ah thank you for the description!!

I think I get what's happening there -- the way I understand bokashi (and EM) is that we're culturing a big herd of facultative microorganisms, who are essentially biology starters. (Hm, actually, if I think my soil is so bad, I should be putting THAT and not all the flimsy stuff I have been, into it FIRST!) . Think lactobacillus, actinomyces. But perhaps also tending a liiitle bit towards anaerobes?

When dumped into a hole in the ground, in that waiting period the masses of facultative microbes activate the soil making it more attractive to the true aerobes, and off we go. The concentrated (and maybe not so very beneficial) fluids of the bokashi dissipate in the soil around - which is openended in the outdoors, but constrained in a pot. And with the fluid the microbes also are spread out.

So by finding the perfect mixture that will be good in your pots you are actually gauging how far that bokashi affected the surrounding soil outdoors.. so how much have you gotten it diluted now?

in the one plant indoors it's diluted to a safe 33% compost to volume. so the juices and such have been contained by using a compost tumbler type action in my indoors situation. that makes sense as to why the soil leaching works as a slow releases for plants own the road 8 or so months later.

with THAT in mind i should remain keepng an eye on this mimosa for root rot situations. especially when i bring it in for the winter.

 

[calliandra]

in the one plant indoors it's diluted to a safe 33% compost to volume. so the juices and such have been contained by using a compost tumbler type action in my indoors situation. that makes sense as to why the soil leaching works as a slow releases for plants own the road 8 or so months later.

with THAT in mind i should remain keepng an eye on this mimosa for root rot situations. especially when i bring it in for the winter.

Yeah but for the mimosa to thrive so well in those conditions, there must be something about it she approves of, and that can't be dangerous? - so what is the mimosa's favorite natural habitat? Some really active soil kind of situation maybe?

 

[calliandra]

An observation regarding the quartz sand mulch:

Roots are beginning to form in the lower half of the mulch layer, where there is no more chlorophyll - the sand layer usually goes up to where there's that green spot on the middle of the stem:



The sand in that depth is juuust a bit moist.
Looking at that long fat one on the right (top of the dark spot) gives me the feeling this did not just start today Covered them up real fast again as not to disturb them lol

I may need to be more careful of opening drenches for the smoothies now.
But then again the next one I open will be at pot rim, farthest possible from the stem. I have been following the plant's drip line outward when feeding the soil to be near the outer root tips. It's at the edges where the most action is, as they say

 

[whitebb2727]

@calliandra I didn't realize you are a woman.