So who here is growing in true organic living soil?

Someacdude

Active Member
Chicken dome also known as a chicken tractor. We Use one to let chickens roam the backyard and and fertilize at the same time. Nothing better than making use of everything ya got already.
Great, i can get a permit to have chicken here in my neighborhood.
Guess this is next, along with free eggs.
 

mrbungle79

Well-Known Member
For lawn fertilizer you can't beat chicken shit. The greenest softest grass you've ever seen is produced from chicken shit. Can only imagine what it would do for mj
 

Rrog

Well-Known Member
Yes, the eggs... I eat a lot of eggs. Egg whites, mostly. Raw. In a shake with fruit and homemade yogurt. Is this relevant to anything? Sorry
 

mrbungle79

Well-Known Member
Great, i can get a permit to have chicken here in my neighborhood.
Guess this is next, along with free eggs.
can't beat the free eggs. get a couple auracanas(americana) they call'em the easter egg chicken. eggs all taste the same but the shells are different colors. sky blue to olive green to pink. makes for a colorful breakfast. oh and its against city ord where i'm at but state law say i can have them if i sell eggs :lol: right to farm act
ameracuna-chicken-eggs.jpg
 

mrbungle79

Well-Known Member
used to live in attica between lapeer and imlay city along I69. had 15 hens and a rooster there. dz eggs or better a day. made a killing selling them but when we move back down to the shores the wife missed having her chickens so i built an outdoor coop on the side of the garage by the window so the can walk up a ladder through the window to the inside coop where they roost and lay. wife has grapevines growing along the top of the outdoor part for shade and cammo from the nosey neighbors. they arent any louder or smellier than my neighbors stupid ankle biter. post a pic later on
 

Mad Hamish

Well-Known Member
Gandalf: You definitely heard right. Chicken poop is pretty damn hardcore. Trick is to mix it up with about 50 percent or even more fine straw and allow all of that to compost for about 12 months. What you are left with then is bit of a miracle-fert it really is. Works fine as a top dressing, also no hassles mixing it in, but still it IS potent, you only need as much as you would of a chemical fert (by weight)... We have a product here in South Africa called Rapid Raiser and I can tell you it does just that. It is the chicken and straw compost pressed into pellets. I guess in pellet form it is a bit slower-acting. I have grown some BADASS bud using ONLY RR as a fert. I stopped using it after learning that the chickens in the area it is produced are often fed bone and blood meal made from chicken scraps, the idea of cannibal poop was a bit weird to me.

Check out the data sheet, using this stuff I honestly had ZERO deficiencies all the way through:

http://www.neutrog.co.za/rapid-raiser-3

Anyhow, I reckoned I'd show you guys my new soil cook step-by-step, this is not a supersoil but trust me I won't need to add much once the cook is finished, only some bio-food for the microbes :)

So first in is a bag of mushroom compost. Then on top I added my indigenous 'fungal' inoculant:



Indigenous fungi came from this patch here under a pile of horse poop:



You can SEE all the life in there. A close up of a little dung nug reveals a lovely coating of fungi, sorry I only noticed now the actual fungus was not all that in focus LOL I will get a better pic later:



Next up, a fat layer of dark black soil



Plenty of dolomite lime, the mix at this point is close on 60 litres so it was about 20 tablespoons of it:



Then we have our bacterial inoculant. This is a single coco-brick, but expanded using a fermented compost extract, it got 2 days worth of fresh bubbles to kick the nuts of any anaerobic bacteria right in:



Then comes the volcanic rock dust, also a bit of a shitty pic but hey I was STONED:



And finally, the only inert ingredient in this mix, Leca and Perlite:



So we end up with something looking kinda like this:



Over the next 4 weeks, it will go much darker. The smell right now is almost fruity sweet thanks to the bacterial inoculation. The soil will be ready when this smell has gone, and that trademark mushroomy musk takes over. It really is a very pleasant aroma when done ;)

Anyhow my bacterial compost extract, it was done in the same way as you guys do your teas, except zero bubbles during the fermentation process which got a kick-start using a fruit-rot 'tea'. It was made using composted horse poop like I showed before, and rough alfalfa in a bucket, about 2 weeks fermenting outside. Just like humans, fermented foods are better and more easily eaten for the plant's purposes. It is like comparing a soy bean, hard and chewy, to ToFu, soft and instantly digested.

Some people know these fermented compost extracts as 'bio-food' as they are very easily eaten by your microbial life-forms. They friggin LOVE this stuff ;)

As I mentioned I give it a two-day bubble before use, and add a sock-full of all sorts of rotting stuff to really boost the microbe-count a fuktonne:



Whatever I don't use will get some sugar water mixed in, not white sugar treacle sugar only, and be put away in a cool place to calm down far as multiplication of microbes go a bit. As I need it, it will go back to the bubbling just to be safe.

This is my gramps' method for growing monstrous tomatoes. I added the steps of bubbling the compost extract myself as a tweak, I was just using some logic there after what I have learned of late, and it is simply to allow my aerobic bacteria to out-compete my anaerobic bacteria, just giving them an edge before they hit the soil. I guess a cook will sort it out anyhow, but a little head-start will do no harm :)

I really do LOVE this stuff.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I water the mix down using a fermented kelp extract, not much is needed. Saves the soil the energy of having to break the kelp down ;) I will top-dress with EWC at the planting stage, this soil really needs nothing more at the moment!
 

Rrog

Well-Known Member
What a fun ride!!! Thanks for sharing all that! You've got a great gig going down there brother.
 

Mad Hamish

Well-Known Member
Hehehehe, this is the beginning guys... Between me and Myco we will be hatching some plots and scheming some schemes, the goal is to get all these benefits into a bottle we can send to anybody in the world, without them having to ever stick their hands elbow-deep into the dung pile LOL... We have already established that it is possible. Watch this space fellas ;)

Grandpa's tech in bottled form, oh yeah...

I've always known these steps, but more as a recipe to make a huge tomato plant. After ingesting every nug of info on this thread, only then did understanding of what is happening in ever part of the process dawn. It sure is making me giggle. All those years working with pure salts thinking it was 'better' or 'more advanced'... Silly, silly me.

Myco, Gandalf and most recently Rrog, my reefer muses, thank you for taking me on this wild wild ride!
 

Rrog

Well-Known Member
I'm learning every day. Keep us posted Hamish!

I am still noodling on your sandy soil reclamation comments. Was great to read that again.
 

Someacdude

Active Member
Added some water to my mix, i havent added humic acid yet, but ive got about 20 more apples to cut up and add.
 

GandalfdaGreen

Well-Known Member
Hehehehe, this is the beginning guys... Between me and Myco we will be hatching some plots and scheming some schemes, the goal is to get all these benefits into a bottle we can send to anybody in the world, without them having to ever stick their hands elbow-deep into the dung pile LOL... We have already established that it is possible. Watch this space fellas ;)

Grandpa's tech in bottled form, oh yeah...

I've always known these steps, but more as a recipe to make a huge tomato plant. After ingesting every nug of info on this thread, only then did understanding of what is happening in ever part of the process dawn. It sure is making me giggle. All those years working with pure salts thinking it was 'better' or 'more advanced'... Silly, silly me.

Myco, Gandalf and most recently Rrog, my reefer muses, thank you for taking me on this wild wild ride!

I better get some free bottles bro. Excellent idea.
 

Mad Hamish

Well-Known Member
That goes without saying mate, you will be the first to get some and that is a promise, you and Rrog can be test pilots :)
 
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