new to organic, some questions

Brief update, I stand corrected. There IS a hydro shop around here that sells biochar, but it's $10/kg!! Alternative #1 is Royal Oak, a hammer, and some elbow grease, but the Royal Oak is $15 for an 8kg bag so not really saving money because I don't need more than 1kg. Alternative #2 is this stuff, a hammer, and some elbow grease, does anyone know if this stuff will be ok? Any questions I should ask them first? I know that the company (PlantBest) is good about answering their emails.

Also, I happened to come across these fertilizers while I was at Rona today, and they all seem to have feather meal as their first (and I assume their main) ingredient. I may shoot them an email and see just how much feather meal each one contains, maybe I'll toss in some of that too while I'm at it. Or maybe I'll just track down some feather meal, I've sent these guys and these guys an email asking where I can purchase their products. But I certainly don't like the thought of supporting Maple Leaf Foods in any way whatsoever, so I hope the Quebec company pans out.

NickNasty said:

Sounds like you got a good set of amendments when you go to the nurseries ask them if they know a good place to get local compost. Around here a lot of them make/sell there own but they should know where to get some either way.

Click to expand...

Not around here unfortunately... sigh there are times when I really miss living on the West Coast. At least people knew what the word "organic" meant.

From "True Living Organics":

"Bone Meal: is the source of one of the most common problems when using a living soil mix. You should always assume that all bone meal is steamed bone meal, unless it is very granular; unsteamed bone meal is granular compared to the steamed version. Whitney Farms brand offers a great unsteamed bone meal that I use all the time. Let me explain why this matters so much, because it is a major issue. Much like high-phosphorus bat or bird guanos, steamed bone meal simply puts in too much phosphorus into the soil mix for many of the good fungi, like the Mycorrhizal fungus, to handle. They just can't deal with it and usually you will end up locking out phosphorous, or having the iron or calcium from the "extra" phosphorous bonding with calcium and/or iron, making them all unavailable to the plant. Never mix anything with a lot of available phosporous into a living soil mix such as the soil in a TLO grow, because it is counter-productive.
Unsteamed bone meal, however, does not piss off the fungi, and is a slow- and long- release phosphorous amendment. That's exactly how the plants need phosphorous: slow and steady. Plants can't take up a lot of phosphorous at any one time, so use the unsteamed bone meal globally as a buffer for pH and as a source for slow phosphorous, calcium, and mitrogen release. Use steamed versions of bone meal for spikes and layers only! Even though both of these types of bone meal (steamed and unsteamed) have N-P-K ratings of 3-15-0, it is important to understand the difference in the release rates as this is what makes all the difference in TLO growings."


Well I talked to the maker of my bone meal and they said it's steamed, so it's going back.

Sigh, not having a lot of luck sourcing ingredients I'm afraid.

Almost everything is either pricey or impossible:
crab shell meal - not available locally, very expensive to ship ($55 for 20lb)
kelp meal - very expensive locally ($25 for 3lb, $55 for 50lbs)
fish meal - very expensive locally ($50 for 50lb, no smaller quantities)

Here's what I can find for a reasonable price:
Meeker's Magic Fish Compost for $15 (2-1-1)
Milorganite for $15 (5-2-0)
And of course alfalfa meal, $13 for 50lbs.

So, can I put something together based on this stuff, plus EWC which is no problem to get my hands on?

The fish compost should work good, I have never tried milorganite. And 55$ for a 50 lb bag of kelp meal is not that bad considering it will probably last you years.

Ya it's not a horrible price, but man why do the smaller containers have to be such a rip off?!?

Check these out:
Shrimp Compost Mix
Seaweed Compost Mix

With those plus the Meeker's Magic, I think I could put a base together. Would be peat based (that's what in the two mixes) but I could add some coco, some char, lime...

What amendments do you think I would need to toss into that base?

I am using both of those composts right now. It is great compost but you will need something else for the base cause those are straight compost. I would get a bale of peat or promix and add 25% of a bag of both those composts to 25-30 gallons of promix/peat You can also add coco to it. Here is a list of what I have been using for the past 4 years with very little issues.
Per 25-30 gallons of soil
1 cup each of
Soft Rock Phosphate
Green Sand - You said you could find glacial rock dust you can substitute with that
Diatomaceous Earth
Alfalfa Meal
Kelp Meal- the seaweed compost already has kelp in it so you don't have to add anymore if you don't want to
Blood Meal - I use both alfalfa and blood meal but you can choose which you prefer and just double it
Bone Meal - you can sub fish bone meal or add another cup of soft rock phosphate
Azomite - I know you can't get it so use glacial rock dust
Dolomite Lime
Mexican Bat Guano for veg soil
Indonesian Bat Guano for flower soil
Couple handfuls of EWC
Couple handfuls of Humus
Half a bag of good compost
I personally like to keep a diverse soil. A lot of people use a lot less ingredients and just more of them I like a lot of ingredients and less of them. I know you have done a lot of reading lately and you know what you can and can't find around your area so pick out the stuff you want to use and leave what you don't want as long as your soil has good levels on npk you should do fine. Oh and remember if you are going to use char to mix it 50/50 compost/char before you add it and let it sit for a few weeks or dunk it in a rich compost tea overnight otherwise it will leach your soil.

Totally on board with the nutrient-diverse soil idea NN, I couldn't agree more. I will have to balance that with economics I guess.

The shrimp mix and the seaweed mix both claim they are mixed with peat and manure, check out the links and read the bag. This is different than the bag showing on the manufacturer's website, I assume this is a difference between the US and CDN formulations, I'm in Canada. I have an email in to the manufacturer to tell me the percentage of peat/compost/manure. Also called them and left a message asking the same question. I will post when I hear back.

So for N I think I will go with blood meal (12-0-0), milorganite (5-2-0), and alfalfa, those are all pretty affordable.
For P, some possibly good news, I found another source of bone meal (2-14-0) here, I have a call in to them to ask whether it's steamed or unsteamed. Here's hoping Also, from that same store I found affordable fish bone meal (6-12-0), yay! So that's another P source. And there's always soft rock phosphate like you said.

So three sources for N and P.

Then glacial rock dust, green sand for K. I could stretch and get some kelp meal, but it's pricey especially for the smaller amounts.

And the lime. And DE. And can't forget EWCs.

Whew, what a process. Analysis paralysis.

Ok, heard back from the Premier folks, basically the stuff is 80% good quality compost, and 20% peat. Read from the bottom up:

======================================================

[email protected]

3:20 PM (5 hours ago)

to Jane
Thanks, I really appreciate the great service in responding to my questions quickly and thoroughly!


From: Jane L Davis - davj <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:31:19 -0500
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: xxxxxx has filled out the contact form on the Premier Tech Home & Garden web site.


Good afternoon xxx,


We only have the formulas that I have already listed, where neither one contains manure. I would suspect that Rona's website has mis-information. I will pass it on to their sales representative to inform them of the error.


If you should have any further questions or concerns regarding this or any of our products please feel free to contact me.


Regards,


Jane Davis
Consumer Services
Ph: 1-800-268-2806


Premier Tech Home & Garden
Unit 125, 1900 Minnesota Court
Mississauga, ON
L5N 3C9
[email protected]
www.pthomeandgarden.com


C-I-L® Akzo Nobel Canada Inc. / Lic. Premier Tech Home & Garden Inc.


Xxx Xxx <[email protected]>


11/27/2012 01:38 PM

To
Jane L Davis - davj <[email protected]>
cc

Subject
Re: xxx xxx has filled out the contact form on the Premier Tech Home & Garden web site.


Thanks very much for the timely response! A follow up question if you don't mind. The bag pictured on Rona's website says "peat/compost/manure" but the bag on your website says "peat/compost". Are there different formulations of this product, perhaps for the US vs. Canada? Or is it just a difference in the packaging?


Thank you,
xxx.




On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Jane L Davis - davj <[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you for your inquiry,


Premier Bio-Max Shrimp Compost or Premier Bio-Max Seaweed Compost contain
80% compost from either shrimp or seaweed. The remainder would be peat
moss. Regrettably we do not sell a 100% compost product.


I hope this helps. If you should have any further questions or concerns
regarding this or any of our products please feel free to contact me.


Regards,


Jane Davis
Consumer Services
Ph: 1-800-268-2806


Premier Tech Home & Garden
Unit 125, 1900 Minnesota Court
Mississauga, ON
L5N 3C9
[email protected]
www.pthomeandgarden.com


C-I-L® Akzo Nobel Canada Inc. / Lic. Premier Tech Home & Garden Inc.


[email protected]


11/26/2012 07:25 To
PM [email protected],
Premier Tech Home & Garden
<[email protected]>
cc


Subject
xxx xxx has filled out the
contact form on the Premier Tech
Home & Garden web site.






















Brand Name: Premier


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Question/Comments: Hello, just wondering if you sell just pure shrimp
compost, or if not what percentage of your shrimp compost+peat mix is
shrimp compost? Same question for the seaweed compost. Thank you.

Alright, definitely getting somewhere. This is going to be locally-sourced (by that I mean I don't have to order online and ship), and very affordable.

Meeker's Magic
Shrimp Compost (80% compost, 20% peat)
Seaweed Compost (80% compost, 20% peat)
Triple-Mix + Kelp (got an email enquiry in to these guys to ask about what exactly the triple mix consists of)
Wiggle Worm EWCs
Small amount coco coir
Small amount charcoal, will innoculate somehow before adding
Top up with peat to make 30%

Perlite or whatever for aeration.

N sources Milorganite and alfalfa meal. Going to skip the blood meal, don't want to provide financial support to "big food" CAFO factories
P source Fish Bone Meal. Going to skip bone meal for the same reason as the blood meal. Going to skip the soft rock phosphate, those assholes are dumping HFSA into our water.
K sources green sand and glacial rock dust. Both of these are also good for micro elements.

Lime. Gypsum. DE. Humics.

I think I'm golden. Wow, I remember looking at Sub's Super Soil recipe for the first time going "is this guy NUTS?"

Thoughts?

My current organic regimen

TGA base soil amended with Ewc and Alaska humisoil- adding oyster shell

AACT- 2 x/month till week 6 of flower
1/2 c ewc
1c Alaska humisoil
1tsp hi brix molasses

all per gal; in veg I add alfalfa meal and in bloom kelp to my brew

GO nutes, down to earth inoculants, thrive alive, ful power, and hygrozyme

jah bless