Hello fellow No-Till growers! This summer will be my first to-crop grow, and it's going to be a no-till garden. A local breeder supplied me with seeds and 4 already vegged plants ranging from 2 feet to 3 feet tall when I put them in the ground. The holes I dug are about 50-70 gallons roughly, perhaps a little more. I lined them with weedcloth on all sides and the bottom, then slashed a line down the middle of each home made pot. I did this in hopes that once my root system has completely filled my 'pots', that perhaps it will continue into the ground beneath, at no point causing a bottle neck to their growth. My soil mix was haphazard and rushed because the plants arrived within days of needing to be transplanted, rootbound and crying to be released. As such, I have no exact measurements. It is as follows:
Earths Best from my local soil distributor, it has horse manure and a bunch of other goodies in it. This was recommended by the local breeder specifically.
Pumice stone for aeration and to help house my microbe life.
Bat Guano 0-7-0 from Down to Earth, a cup or so per hole, very well mixed prior to filling. I have only whats left of a 5 LB box.
Neem Seed Meal from Down To Earth. I mixed it lightly throughout the soil, giving it a very pungent aroma and a slight red tint. The start to my Integrated Pest Management.
Bio-Live from Down to Earth. I mixed two or more cups per hole very thoroughly prior to filling, then top dressed and also dusted the roots of each plant with this as I transplanted them into the ground.
I've top dressed with the Neem Seed meal once since transplant, as well as the Bio Live, some Earth Worm Castings off Amazon, and Bat guano. I watered them all in and covered them with locally harvested mint to keep the topsoil moist. I did this after I sprinkled red clover, crimson clover, white clover, yarrow, comfrey, stinging nettle and fenugreek seeds all over for a cover crop. So far as I can see, only the clover of different varieties, and maybe the fenugreek have begun to sprout.
My plants all seem to be doing ok, but it seems like I put them out a couple weeks early and they flipped from flower back to veg. One is still flowering most definitely, but is the shortest of the bunch, getting the least light as it's a greenhouse against a fence. What can you do?
Anyway, in a week or so they should flip back, and the two that get the most sunlight are turning into real monsters. My little 6x8 greenhouse is getting hard to walk around in! I've only fed them one tea, and I'm afraid my pump's a bit lacking in the way of heft. I thought a 40 gallon pump for 5 gallons would be more than enough!