Changing my game to NoTill, advice much appreciated

Warning Long Post (Wall of text)

As a long veteran of indoor hydro and as of late I am doing SOG coco bed grows with magnificent results using Bio-Diesel (Australian nutrient). I have decided that I would like to research more into being able to incorporate (or change) the coco bed to a NoTill bed.

I have been doing tons of research on it both via the internet (semi-reliable) and local organic growers (most reliable) and also plan to implement this NoTill into my daily fruit and veg gardens, so the effort to create my own mix is not a burden for an unsure thing. Oh yeah, and I have already started the steps to creating my soil mix, which I will include below.

Whats started already:

1. 3x Vermiculture bins, aka worm farms.....each farm is 3 bins high for rotation and cultivating the casings. Feeding each farm includes non-acidic kitchen scraps and defoliated cannabis leaves as needed and once a week a worm fattener recipe of: 50% chicken layer pellets, 20% wheat bran, 10% corn meal, 10% garden lime, 10% full cream milk powder. I sprinkle about a 1/4 cup of this over the remaining kitchen scraps every Sunday.
2. 3x Bokashi bins - which gets the kitchen scraps acidic and non-acidic that doesn't make it to the worm farms, our used (non chemical) paper towels, lint from the dryer, pet fur after they are brushed, and daily sprinkle of Bokashi grains. Bins get emptied onto the compost heap outside.
3. Home inoculated Bokashi grains with bran, molasses and EM-1. I do this for money saving as I use it on the compost heap as well as the Bokashi bins.
4. Re-culturing/fermenting EM-1 mixed with molasses and water and set aside for a month to ferment. doing this for both money saving as well as insurance that my cultures should die or go dormant.
5. Compost heap that I am targeting a C:N ratio as close to 40:1 without actually doing math and calculations. I just have a chart printed up with what items have what C:N ratio....so along with dumping my Bokashi bins in the pile, I have a mix of mulched up twigs, cardboard, shredded newspapers and dried leaves for the carbon component and a mix of horse, cow and pig manure (which ever is available at the time), alf alfa and worm casings for the Nitrogen. This kept moist and turned and occasionally sprayed with EM-1.

So that's where I am at with this venture. I have sourced all the base ingredients and amendments locally and will acquire closer to the time of needing them, and they include for the base; a 1:1:1 mix of Canadian Peat Moss, 7mm scoria, and my compost from the heap that I just mentioned. The amendments will be based on per cubic foot of base. 1 cup Neem cake, 1 cup Kelp meal, 1 cup Crustacean meal, 1/2 cup Gypsum, about 6 cups basalt, and 6 cups biochar.

I plan to IPM with top dressing of Neem cake and Aloe Vera as well as top dressings of Malted Barley Powder

Before I go into my questions and concerns, I will explain my current SOG coco bed set up and hopefully someone can advise for or against my plans as I intend to just replace the Coco with the NoTill soil on next grow or the grow after (pending when my NoTill compost is ready)

Currently I have 2 beds, growing perpetually. Each bed is in a 100L (26.4 gallon) thick black plastic tub with 6x 8mm holes drilled into the bottom and placed on same type of tub with matching holes in lid for drainage collection....see picture to help get idea, sorry the beds are currently blocking the view of the tubs.



In each tub is 15 clones planted in a coco/perlite mix (70/30) that sits on top of a 1 inch bed of clay balls to help drainage and have 0 veg time and straight into 12/12 lighting. So I would guess total media volume per tub to be about 75-80L (19.8 - 21.1 gallons)

I plan to fill to this 75L (19.8 gallon) level with NoTill soil mix. My concern or question to those that know or have experience at this stage is, do I use a living mulch for such a short grow time or just use a straw mulch and top dress? Also is this soil volume adequate to retain moisture as I am hoping to be watering every 2 days, as well as malted barley powder every 10 days watered in with Aloe Vera or Fulvic.

So main focus is on the question about living mulch, but I will definitely be grateful for any other advise, tips or instructions as seen necessary

Thanks in advance, but I will probably thank you again in later post

Seemz like you have got thingz sorted.

You could plant a cover crop to get started then straw it. It seemz like you have already started to change your thinking to 'organic'. What i mean by this is what you do now to the grow eg top dressing, mulching, companion cropping etc the benefits will not be seen to subsequent growz. So all about getting that soil up to speed for the next generation of 'microbes n goodies'... continuously.

On the watering front. Dependz how many plantz you are gonna put in your beds and see how much they suck up everyday. Personally... I would take watering out of the equation and purchase a 'tropf blumat' system. That system continues to provide me with 'lazy daze'

As far as number of plants, I plan to keep it the same as the Coco SOG, 15 plants all spaced 6 inches apart. Still attempting the 0 veg and going straight to 12/12 from the cloner as the plants in that photo in the first post demonstates,

Or a second option is, I have a small spare tent that I was also thinking that I could go straight from cloner into some peat jiffy pots filled with the NoTill soil and under 1-2 weeks of veg in this smaller tent, then pop the Jiffy pots with the new plants into the NoTill soil tub under the 12/12.

The last and final option that I can see, is to plant clone straight into the NoTill soill tub with the cover crop, put that in the small veg tent for 1-2 weeks then move the whole thing out into the bloom room.

Guess I should better explain my room set up, I have a 3m x 3m spare room that I have lined all the walls with reflective material and have 3000K QB LED lights, the room as a whole is exhausted with an 8 inch extraction fan (with carbon filter). Then inside this room I have a 90 x 90 Gorilla tent with 300w of Citizen CLU48 COBs at 4000K that I keep my mothers and TurboKloner (24), in this tent I have a 6 inch exhaust fan with an old carbon filter that I is basically just for dust filter to keep the fan blades clean. All exhaust ducting is ducted to blow up into the ceiling/attic. Then I have a smaller tent again that is being unused, I was originally planning on just using the el cheapo tent as a drying chamber for the harvested buds.

I would like to think I have things sorted....but something in the back of my mind is telling me that I am wasting my time with the perpetual SOG beds and just to put 2 plants out and let them grow with a 4-6 week veg while training with some LST, fimming, supercropping etc

I have also just been informed to maybe not use animal manure in my compost heap as it takes rather long to break down and that it might not get to the temps that it needs to cook the manure and kill nasty pathogens. So now I am back to the drawing boards for my compost as even though I was aware of this, I didn't take it into consideration.