So who here is growing in true organic living soil?

NickNasty

NickNasty

Well-Known Member
gladstoned said:
I just went to order a bag of this. I couldn't find an address to see where in Michigan they are. A bag is $25. I figured, cool. Fucking shipping is $20. Doesn't sound right. Maybe it's a truckload and $20 delivery is cheap. lol. j/k
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Didnt realize the shipping would be so much sorry about that.
 
st0wandgrow

st0wandgrow

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
Any grow is improved with EWC. This shouldn't be an either / or. Diversity is always a benefit so use whatever EWC you have as well as the amendments. That's what is generally done. There is MUCH less NPK calculation when building a soil that will use microbes to do the work. Look at it this way. Let's say your soil is a warehouse. Let's say the NPK in the warehouse is locked away. The microbes are the warehouse workers and they regulate the flow of NPK out of the warehouse (to the plant). Let's say you ordered up too much P into your warehouse. Doesn't matter since it's locked up and the workers will still remove material from the warehouse at the rate they want to remove it. To continue with this analogy, the plant itself creates the purchase order to tell the microbes what to remove from the warehouse. The Compost, EWC and clay all lock up cations for us. They cations are not available for the plant when locked up. If we had medium just filled with free-flowing raw nutrients then you would have to carefully balance the NPK. But that's not what we're doing. The soil and microbes gives us huge margin here.
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That's a really good explanation Rrog!
 
gladstoned

gladstoned

Well-Known Member
NickNasty said:
Didnt realize the shipping would be so much sorry about that.
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That isn't your fault Nick. I appreciate the links. I've been going at this crazy, while doing my AC and constructing a room. Not too smart. I am taking a few days and kicking ass downstairs. Then researching this a little better with you guys.
 
B

BiggEMAZINN

Member
Rrog said:
ThatGuy, have a look at these vids if you're interested in what Bokashi is. Very simple, requires a bucket and extremely good compost results. http://www.prokashi.com/videos/

Bowlfull, It's not a brain thing, it's just a new thought is all. I'd be happy to help you or anyone else that wanted to try this. I can spoonfeed all day long if anyone wants to just try it.
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i would love to be able to learn how to grow with living soil, but where do i start? do you have any links?

i am a fairly new grower but have never liked the idea of chems in my plant, with that being said i wouldn't know how to maintain a healthy plant using true organics. any help to change this would be greatly appreciated
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
Any grow is improved with EWC. This shouldn't be an either / or. Diversity is always a benefit so use whatever EWC you have as well as the amendments. That's what is generally done. There is MUCH less NPK calculation when building a soil that will use microbes to do the work.

Look at it this way. Let's say your soil is a warehouse. Let's say the NPK in the warehouse is locked away. The microbes are the warehouse workers and they regulate the flow of NPK out of the warehouse (to the plant). Let's say you ordered up too much P into your warehouse. Doesn't matter since it's locked up and the workers will still remove material from the warehouse at the rate they want to remove it.

To continue with this analogy, the plant itself creates the purchase order to tell the microbes what to remove from the warehouse. The Compost, EWC and clay all lock up cations for us. They cations are not available for the plant when locked up.

If we had medium just filled with free-flowing raw nutrients then you would have to carefully balance the NPK. But that's not what we're doing. The soil and microbes gives us huge margin here.
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This explanation certainly gives credence to some of the soil mix suggestions I've seen on this thread, which are basically like "1 cup of each and every organic nutrient I could get my hands on" instead of recipes with varying amounts of different picked-and-chosen organic nutrients i.e. "1/2 cup lime, 2 cups blood meal, 1 cup bone meal, ... ". Put another way, the worst that could happen is you could "waste" (i.e. put in more than can be used) of a particular ingredient.
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
Can anyone set me up with a copy of that .pdf? I have tried downloading it twice, both times it said the file was damaged and wouldn't open.
 
ArcticGranite

ArcticGranite

Well-Known Member
I grew my plant in compost I make for the garden. It was very healthy and thrived. Truthfully I have made compost a long time for my vegetable gardens and it is an easy process. Just takes time and some grunt work to keep it turned and watered. Equal parts green and brown, layered and airy. What collects over the growing season, goes through the frozen winter, turns over the following spring and "cooks" again the next season and is ready in the fall. 15 months.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
BiggEMAZINN said:
i would love to be able to learn how to grow with living soil, but where do i start? do you have any links?

i am a fairly new grower but have never liked the idea of chems in my plant, with that being said i wouldn't know how to maintain a healthy plant using true organics. any help to change this would be greatly appreciated
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Can you accommodate 5 gallon pails of soil? Other than that, it's just a matter of getting the raw ingredients. You can buy everything on line. You don't have to have your own compost pile and worm bin.

We can set you up with a soil recipe
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
It would be very cool to have any open conversations about this book. Any random thoughts at all would be welcome.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
When reading Teaming With Microbes, one thought will surely be burned into your mind. The fact is, the plant is in control of the whole system. The plant controls which bacteria and fungus dominate, and turns them on or off depending on what the plant needs. The plant rewards the microbes (a trade) by feeding them root exudates. This is one of the means the plant has to control the microherd. This allows nutrients to be fed to the plant in the relative ratios it needs and at the rate it needs.
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
Recipe largely courtesy of Gascanistan and Clackamas Coot. Tried and true. With amendments, they don't even till the soil. Chop one plant, plop a seed or clone right next to it and keep going. 12-13 generations like that and the fungal colony just gets more and more efficient by not disturbing the soil. Add a few worms. They're free. Red wigglers, not nightcrawlers.
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How do you amend the soil without tilling? Don't you gotta work in the amendments, and let it cook again?
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
The amendments are top-dressed into the top couple of inches then watered in over the next few weeks. The soil doesn't need to cook, as the amendments like fully-composted compost and EWC are ready to go. You'd have to be really careful with young plants and hi N sources like Alfalfa.
 
st0wandgrow

st0wandgrow

Well-Known Member
Rrog, I read a comment earlier (can't remember who posted it) saying that since this person switched to organics from synthetics he could notice a great improvement in taste, but the yield was cut in half. Was this your experience with taste and yield as well?
 
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