DB's organic gardens and DIY projects thread.

[calliandra]

It was a photographer that dug it for a dark room over 20 years ago. There's one creepy af over exposed photo of 2 kids down there. Luckily enough I'm a skinny enough dude to fit down there too

eww yikes that's waaay creepy lol
I'd want to cleanse the place of any bad energies too... just in case!

Hhahaha......sorry for dropping it in like that, I've read about it on many occasions , but it's like 'Teaming with nutrients', the chemistry(and biology) of it all really baffles me. AND without actually getting a soil test done in a professional lab(fecking expensive here), it's a totally moot subject, I suppose. I admit to being totally out of my depth when it comes to what's going on at those levels and still find it hard not to have a 'feed the plant' mentality, when my soil ain't doing the job for me.

....................hmmmmnnn, just had an idea, how do you fancy sampling some of my soil(I'm sure you offered me a freebie once, Lmfao), see how the life compares to yours? Not sure how the couple of days transport would affect it or how best to package it tho?

You already seem more confident with your identifications, but I suppose taking good samples must be a tricky process and can't imagine how you'd accurately quantify what you're actually looking at.

I think I probably just need to simplify things and concentrate on making some good compost and EWC

Aye, the good compost - thermal or worm or leafmold - will be the answer to all our woes, pretty sure of that too

I just did a fresh assessment of my last VC and lo, I've got a bacterial to fungal balance of 596:650 µg/g of soil, that is a proportion of a bit over 1 (which to my mind would be ideal).
The PE soil was at 0.2 a few days ago, meaning 0.2 units of fungal biomass per unit of bacteria, so waaaay bacterial despite sprouting fungi, too bacterial even for those who lean more towards bacterial dominance in their preference for our favourite plant (even for them, it should at least then be over 0.5 ). I still need to check on that nitrogen cycling, but AFAIK off the top of my head plants need more NO3 (nitrate) for vegetative growth, which is provided by nitrifying bacteria, but more NH4 (ammonium) instead later on. That alone could explain the signs of nitrogen deficiency the PE showed in stretch, but it's all speculative still at the mo.
So topdressing that VC should push the soil into a more fungal direction, which I'll check on a week after application - and improve the conditions for providing the ammonium needed for later stages. And even when that soil has great diversity of everything in it, to keep checking during the grow to make sure no microbial armageddons happened along the way.
Just to exemplify how we should be thinking when working with full microbial focus. But yes, we are prone to lose that focus, it's like a knee-jerk response somehow LOL I keep doing it myself, and it does help to tide them over too haha

Of course my offer to look at your soil stands! The results may not be 100% scientifically "clean" yet, but I daresay we'd at least get a general idea where it's at at the mo. We just need to look into the mailing times, it would be good to be able to keep them somewhere around 3 days max, but there are a few things we can do to give us a bit of leeway, like taking the samples after watering - so yeah let's PM on that!

Oh and a chemical soil test is probably moot for living soil anyway (unless you're checking for toxins maybe). As I currently understand it, when you test for soluble nutrients (i.e. the forms that can be taken up directly by the plant), the results will be deceptively low (because the nutes aren't freeflowing, but tied up in the microbial mass), while when you test for total nutes (which measures all forms of nutrients), the values are going to be so ridiculously over the top they'll say you have all sorts of toxicities in there? lol

Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

seems it originated around the same time as Liebig and Francé were exploring the soil too

Oh and brainfart alert! Liebig let his theory loose in the 1840's, whilst Francé was active at the turn to the 20th century.

 

[DonBrennon]

Just been browsing some of my photos and found some spider porn, pmsl
View attachment 4019138

Cant believe nobody has commented on how well hung he is...........well, TBH it's the 1st time I've ever seen a spiders cock, so he may actually be a pee-wee, lmfao

 

[Colanoscopy]

Cant believe nobody has commented on how well hung he is...........well, TBH it's the 1st time I've ever seen a spiders cock, so he may actually be a pee-wee, lmfao

You're off your nut lad haha. Cheers for the tube. Ended up being a bit quicker than anticipated but still just missed you. Tomorrow is actual moving day so tonight is baked af with a take away.

Just been up and checked on my room. All is well. JH is very happy all new growth coming through nicely. And managed to get rid of Cannagetasmokes signature mile long node spacing for your mate.

Cola's seriously considering a soil run next time purely for flavour. There's something lost in hydro and its unsettling me.

 

[calliandra]

Cant believe nobody has commented on how well hung he is...........well, TBH it's the 1st time I've ever seen a spiders cock, so he may actually be a pee-wee, lmfao

lmao I didn't register it, was admiring the colors and looking for his eyes

 

[DonBrennon]

eww yikes that's waaay creepy lol
I'd want to cleanse the place of any bad energies too... just in case!



Aye, the good compost - thermal or worm or leafmold - will be the answer to all our woes, pretty sure of that too

I just did a fresh assessment of my last VC and lo, I've got a bacterial to fungal balance of 596:650 µg/g of soil, that is a proportion of a bit over 1 (which to my mind would be ideal).
The PE soil was at 0.2 a few days ago, meaning 0.2 units of fungal biomass per unit of bacteria, so waaaay bacterial despite sprouting fungi, too bacterial even for those who lean more towards bacterial dominance in their preference for our favourite plant (even for them, it should at least then be over 0.5 ). I still need to check on that nitrogen cycling, but AFAIK off the top of my head plants need more NO3 (nitrate) for vegetative growth, which is provided by nitrifying bacteria, but more NH4 (ammonium) instead later on. That alone could explain the signs of nitrogen deficiency the PE showed in stretch, but it's all speculative still at the mo.
So topdressing that VC should push the soil into a more fungal direction, which I'll check on a week after application - and improve the conditions for providing the ammonium needed for later stages. And even when that soil has great diversity of everything in it, to keep checking during the grow to make sure no microbial armageddons happened along the way.
Just to exemplify how we should be thinking when working with full microbial focus. But yes, we are prone to lose that focus, it's like a knee-jerk response somehow LOL I keep doing it myself, and it does help to tide them over too haha

Of course my offer to look at your soil stands! The results may not be 100% scientifically "clean" yet, but I daresay we'd at least get a general idea where it's at at the mo. We just need to look into the mailing times, it would be good to be able to keep them somewhere around 3 days max, but there are a few things we can do to give us a bit of leeway, like taking the samples after watering - so yeah let's PM on that!

Oh and a chemical soil test is probably moot for living soil anyway (unless you're checking for toxins maybe). As I currently understand it, when you test for soluble nutrients (i.e. the forms that can be taken up directly by the plant), the results will be deceptively low (because the nutes aren't freeflowing, but tied up in the microbial mass), while when you test for total nutes (which measures all forms of nutrients), the values are going to be so ridiculously over the top they'll say you have all sorts of toxicities in there? lol

Cheers!

Yup, I've been considering what I've done differently this run and although I am working with a totally different environment and containers, the only other difference is not having any homemade compost, relying purely on shop bought castings. The leaves have already started falling around here and the big drop will be coming soon, I'm gonna collect as many as I can this year. I've got a sack full of alfalfa pellets and quite a lot of comfrey and other fresh greens if it all stays mould free long enough.

I'm also gonna have to build a new worm bin, I released my last lot of worms into my slow compost pile on the allotment and the 2 flowering plants are now in the old bin. I've got materials around for the build and I've also got a small starter colony of worms...........was it grandpagreenjeans who had a great wooden build in his thread? Tried doing a search on that name and all I get is an error????

I think it'd be real interesting to watch how that balance changes over the course of a plants life-cycle, especially if you were confident enough in your soil to do a true water only run(therefore allowing the plant to truly dictate which microbes thrive). I'd imagine studies have already been done on this for most agricultural plants, but for MJ?

With regards to the soil testing being moot in organics, I'm not disagreeing with you, I don't understand it enough............but why does Jeff always bang on about it's importance so much? I personally feel that getting the soils ph

I'll go on to PM to discuss your very generous offer, muchos gracias senorita

 

[DonBrennon]

You're off your nut lad haha. Cheers for the tube. Ended up being a bit quicker than anticipated but still just missed you. Tomorrow is actual moving day so tonight is baked af with a take away.

Just been up and checked on my room. All is well. JH is very happy all new growth coming through nicely. And managed to get rid of Cannagetasmokes signature mile long node spacing for your mate.

Cola's seriously considering a soil run next time purely for flavour. There's something lost in hydro and its unsettling me.

No worries pal, was just pulling onto the m-way when the phone went................shit!!!

Has Cannagetasmoke flowered this JH cut before? I told my mate about it the other night and he was buzzing, but started asking me questions I didn't have answers for . I know you told me, but I totally forgot who the breeder was, LOL

Hope the move is going well

 

[Colanoscopy]

No worries pal, was just pulling onto the m-way when the phone went................shit!!!

Has Cannagetasmoke flowered this JH cut before? I told my mate about it the other night and he was buzzing, but started asking me questions I didn't have answers for . I know you told me, but I totally forgot who the breeder was, LOL

Hope the move is going well

He flipped and reverted due to space and strain. You know it's defo a female anyway. Greenhouse seeds the breeder. And don't worry about it bro I was only tryna catch you to give you that ally and the cut. Move has gone well stuff is in. I'm currently decorating the lounge

 

[DonBrennon]

He flipped and reverted due to space and strain. You know it's defo a female anyway. Greenhouse seeds the breeder. And don't worry about it bro I was only tryna catch you to give you that ally and the cut. Move has gone well stuff is in. I'm currently decorating the lounge

Shit man, you don't hang around, do ya?

got no plans whatsoever this weekend and not getting dragged into any, so might be able to sort something, cheers for the info bro.

 

[Colanoscopy]

Shit man, you don't hang around, do ya?

got no plans whatsoever this weekend and not getting dragged into any, so might be able to sort something, cheers for the info bro.

No time to hang around bro. Need to get it decorated before carpets go down and shit comes out of boxes. So far so good. And no worries just gimme a shout over weekend. No probs about the info I'd be asking the same questions

 

[DonBrennon]

Shit day 39

 

[DonBrennon]

My hungry/fussy frosty pink Space monkey, also day 39

 

[calliandra]

Yup, I've been considering what I've done differently this run and although I am working with a totally different environment and containers, the only other difference is not having any homemade compost, relying purely on shop bought castings. The leaves have already started falling around here and the big drop will be coming soon, I'm gonna collect as many as I can this year. I've got a sack full of alfalfa pellets and quite a lot of comfrey and other fresh greens if it all stays mould free long enough.

I'm also gonna have to build a new worm bin, I released my last lot of worms into my slow compost pile on the allotment and the 2 flowering plants are now in the old bin. I've got materials around for the build and I've also got a small starter colony of worms...........was it grandpagreenjeans who had a great wooden build in his thread? Tried doing a search on that name and all I get is an error????

I think it'd be real interesting to watch how that balance changes over the course of a plants life-cycle, especially if you were confident enough in your soil to do a true water only run(therefore allowing the plant to truly dictate which microbes thrive).


With regards to the soil testing being moot in organics, I'm not disagreeing with you, I don't understand it enough............but why does Jeff always bang on about it's importance so much? I personally feel that getting the soils ph

I'll go on to PM to discuss your very generous offer, muchos gracias senorita

Absolutely yay for leaves!
Yep I've sworn aaaaallll the leaves off the trees in our yard are miiiiine this year haha

Ohman, yeah I can't find grandpa greenjeans either anymore too bad, he popped up on the forums a few months ago then disappeared again. May have deleted all his stuff and left...
It was a really simple build, very shallow trays made from -- omg there goes my English - squared timber? battens? lol they were like 7x5 cm or something like that, he just screwed them together at the corners, though he had some thinner erm wood pieces stabilizing the right angles in the corners which he mounted so that there was a gap at top and sticking out at the bottom to make like feet, that then also plugged into the next tier, stabilizing the stack.
Gosh do I hate it when I don't have the words to describe something!

I'd imagine studies have already been done on this for most agricultural plants, but for MJ?

Ah your imaginings are optimistic indeed. I think there is a distinct lack of such studies. It has to do with the funding. Which aims at finding stuff the sponsors can make money off. Hence all these singl-microbe-studies and what superpowers they have. It's like the gingko/acai berry/whatever-the-superfood-of-the-moment-is trend...
OR people are doing studies and can't get them published lol

As for Jeff... he's in a really weird in between world somehow and sometimes gives me the feeling he didn't really understand how essential microbial participation in the whole feeding process is - he even lists microbes as amendments when he discusses "fertilization"... i.e. he still thinks in the chemical mindset. I'm not a fan of teaming with microbes btw! Only thing I did with that book, waaay in the beginning, was to rewrite his 19 rules list for myself because it bothered me it was all chaotic and unstructured haha

Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

My hungry/fussy frosty pink Space monkey, also day 39View attachment 4021979 View attachment 4021980 View attachment 4021981 View attachment 4021982

Ahh I seeeeee... but maybe it's a feature, not a flaw? I think they look quite beautiful still, all tuttifrutti and dressed-to-match-the-season
But her tips don't seem to be curling anywhere near as much as the shit's, do they?

Gosh do I hate it when I don't have the words to describe something!

like this


I love the simplicity and functionality of it!
In fact, I'm about to build a 2nd wormbin, now that I've gathered some experience with my prototype bin and my worm population is big enough to be slpit up. The tiers of my prototype are 15cm high, and I have the feeling they'd be better shallower, like 7-8cm. Makes for faster harvests, plus I get the feeling that 15cm get really dense and tilt into the anaerobic here and there. I'm thinking of then using the deeper prototype for batch cultures - filling up the whole box with a nic C:N ratio of materials and just letting the worms do their thing on it for a few weeks without further inputs. FIguring it a nice way to cycle all the autumn debris I want to go through a worm's system before it gets reintegrated into the soil (to get rid of the spider mites that got into my deck plants this summer for example, don't want to just mulch that in...).
cheers!

 

[DonBrennon]

Absolutely yay for leaves!
Yep I've sworn aaaaallll the leaves off the trees in our yard are miiiiine this year haha

Ohman, yeah I can't find grandpa greenjeans either anymore too bad, he popped up on the forums a few months ago then disappeared again. May have deleted all his stuff and left...
It was a really simple build, very shallow trays made from -- omg there goes my English - squared timber? battens? lol they were like 7x5 cm or something like that, he just screwed them together at the corners, though he had some thinner erm wood pieces stabilizing the right angles in the corners which he mounted so that there was a gap at top and sticking out at the bottom to make like feet, that then also plugged into the next tier, stabilizing the stack.
Gosh do I hate it when I don't have the words to describe something!


Ah your imaginings are optimistic indeed. I think there is a distinct lack of such studies. It has to do with the funding. Which aims at finding stuff the sponsors can make money off. Hence all these singl-microbe-studies and what superpowers they have. It's like the gingko/acai berry/whatever-the-superfood-of-the-moment-is trend...
OR people are doing studies and can't get them published lol

As for Jeff... he's in a really weird in between world somehow and sometimes gives me the feeling he didn't really understand how essential microbial participation in the whole feeding process is - he even lists microbes as amendments when he discusses "fertilization"... i.e. he still thinks in the chemical mindset. I'm not a fan of teaming with microbes btw! Only thing I did with that book, waaay in the beginning, was to rewrite his 19 rules list for myself because it bothered me it was all chaotic and unstructured haha

Cheers!

I've found GGJ's stuff, it's all still there, you've just got to use a space between Grandpa and GreenJeans for anything to come up. Here's a link to pics of his worm bin in the vermicomposters unite thread https://www.rollitup.org/t/vermicomposters-unite-official-worm-farmers-thread.637587/page-36#post-12309700....................wouldn't mind asking him some questions though.........@Grandpa GreenJeans , where are you?

I saw when he popped back up briefly and thought he was gonna start posting again, hope all is ok..........

..............so it seems MJ may be the pioneer with regards to actually isolating, identifying and studying individual microbial roles within the soil food web, purely because there are serious profits to be made. Mammoth P is a prime example, a few phosphorous cycling bacteria in a bottle of water at £85 for 250ml and the new 'superfood of the moment' for MJ growers. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-P-250-ML-250ml/dp/B01C69YRXS

It is interesting stuff though and now it's available here in the UK, I am tempted to buy the smallest 120ml bottle.

Here's a little excerpt from their website

"MAMMOTH P contains microbes that occur naturally in soil bacteria, making it extremely effective. The beneficial bacteria in MAMMOTH P are able to naturally cycle more phosphorus and other micro-nutrients in the plant-root system, thus enhancing release of the nutrients for plant uptake.

How we did it:
We grew hundreds of different microbial communities from natural soils collected across the USA. Using our next generation phenotyping platform, we selectively bred microbes at the community level for their ability to cycle phosphorus. After propagating thousands of successive generations, a climax community was reached which was capable of cycling phosphorus at over 30x higher levels than we observed from microbes in natural soils."

...........as for Jeff, pmsl.............maybe this is why I'm still stuck with a bit of a 'feed the plant' mentality, cos I take his trilogy of books as gospel, lol

 

[DonBrennon]

@iHearAll.....................How are your TCI strips performing?, ordered some yesterday for a new veg light and knocked up a frame for them. How hot do they run? I'm worried the aluminium extrusion is a little light weight to dissipate the heat of both the leds and drivers

 

[DonBrennon]

@DonTesla...........Manifolding of the 2 Deepdreams, 2 Loungeroom Lizards and solitary Blueberry hashplant began yesterday, it's a pretty big shock for such smallplants, but they already seem to be recovering well. I'm hoping for 1 lady each from my own pollen chucks to run in the flower tents. Can't wait to get these re-potted and under the new veg light, looks like I'll be harvesting in 2-3 weeks.

 

[calliandra]

I've found GGJ's stuff, it's all still there

oh awesome! I've been wanting to go back to his growroom thread, lots of stuff I wanted to check on with a new perspective

..............so it seems MJ may be the pioneer with regards to actually isolating, identifying and studying individual microbial roles within the soil food web, purely because there are serious profits to be made.

Oh not just MJ, the single-microbe approach is the basis of any SF nematode product and similar, and there are tons of studies coming out examining the specific abilities of this or that.

What that misses completely is that full health comes from the full functionality of a fully diversified soil ecosystem.

And that the estimated numbers of species are rocketing into the trillions at the mo. It's dramatic. DNA analysis is whats causing the realization. The numbers were postulated in a recent study (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693564 - it's pay-to-access, but discussed lightly here: https://ensia.com/notable/species/)

For a quick visual impression:


So yeah sure, let's add those - let it be a few dozen - of P sequestering bacteria into our soil.
Yay we did something. (dont get me wrong: I was pondering whether I need to add rhizobia to my alfalfa patch to get them nodulating haha so yes I'm not immune either )

Will that fix up the ecosystem for health?
Not likely, though personally I do believe in pushing the ecosystem in the right direction, and that maybe once a process gets going that way it will gain momentum.
Like when we add EM to an anaerobic setup and the EMs push the environment into the aerobic..

Will those microbes from all around the USA be good in your specific growing conditions?
Will they love it, reproduce exponentially and cause a P unbalance in your soil? lol
Who knows...

 

[Colanoscopy]

Seeing as though you're getting much more attention than my thread Don. I hope you don't mind but tryna find someone who would want to swap a 4x4 (2m height) tent for another tent no higher than 160cm. There's no way I can grow bare in the dungeon. Much too dusty and shit. And I am like 3 quid away from being destitute after moving.

You can see from the pic how hard times are haha

 

[calliandra]

Seeing as though you're getting much more attention than my thread Don. I hope you don't mind but tryna find someone who would want to swap a 4x4 (2m height) tent for another tent no higher than 160cm. There's no way I can grow bare in the dungeon. Much too dusty and shit. And I am like 3 quid away from being destitute after moving. View attachment 4023498

You can see from the pic how hard times are haha

Sorry I don't have a tent, but... you could just scrub those walls down a bit with a wire brush and throw a quick and dirty layer of white paint over (ok may need a coat of primer to stabilize any crumbliness), and cover the floor with a tarp for starts?
Just 2c thrown into your creepy space haha
which actually does look to have potential!