So who here is growing in true organic living soil?

Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
bloodytrichomes said:
whats a good soil to start out with not wanting all the aditives as of yet .looking to learn to grow in soil
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I'm in the same boat bro. Agree with what Rrog said, but if you're like me and can't get your hands on a decent organic soil to start off with, you could just build it from scratch with peat and/or coir, lime, and a much lighter cocktail of what's been discussed in this thread already.
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
Rrog said:
I use fish bone meal, but have used steamed bone meal in the past.

3/4 Cup Alfalfa per bag to start them is what I'd recommend. Alfalfa is very hot and I'd use instead of Blood Meal
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Wow, the alfalfa is that hot!

Rrog, what about both (if possible), if for no other reason than to add some diversity to the N sources?
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
Blood and bone comes from cows and there's the debate about possible contamination / whatever. I like the sustainability of the alfalfa. Use it if you have it. I just ran out of blood meal and stuck with Alfalfa.
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
I have gallons of pickle juice, from a ton of veggies I lacto-fermented this fall. Should be pretty loaded with LactoB. Anything I could use it for? Keep in mind, lacto-fermentation is an anaerobic process, and also there's other microbes in there in particular there will be some yeasts. Should I use is to the water that will be used in the initial soil mix? Can I use it to make ACT? Just wondering.
 
gladstoned

gladstoned

Well-Known Member
QuentinQuark said:
Got a .pdf?

No. Don't know how to get that. I just ordered it off Amazon.

Umm... what?
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The Rev is the author of the book. There is more info in this book than anything that I have read regarding soil.
No. I haven't read teaming with microbes, that is next.

QuentinQuark said:
Uh oh... that's news to me. This is what I bought, got it on sale. Anyone see any concerns?
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I didn't see what you got, but I will look up steamed and unsteamed bone meal and see what it says exactly.

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.

(All copied word-for-word, from TLO book.)
 
fattiemcnuggins

fattiemcnuggins

Well-Known Member
I think I messed up my lacto mix. *Have been on the last step for 48 hrs or so and we are still mostly liquid. Should I just start over or does this take a couple extra days sonetimes?
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
gladstoned said:
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.

(All copied word-for-word, from TLO book.)
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Alrighty, I've got a call in to the makers to confirm whether it is steamed or unsteamed. Thanks very much!
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
fattiemcnuggins said:
I think I messed up my lacto mix. I am on the last step and we are still mostly liquid. Should I just start over or does this take a couple extra days sonetimes?
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Fattie, so you did the rice water, and let it sit around for a couple days down close to the floor.

Then covered it loosely for a couple more days until a stinky film develops?

Then a couple Tablespoons of this stinky stuff is added to 2 cups of room-temp milk? Again with a loose lid.

After 2-3 days the bacteria will separate the milk protein from the whey. You want the whey
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
Niiice. Just found alfalfa at a local feed store. $13 for 50lb bag. So Rrog am I ok with that and no blood meal? The ICMag recycling thread specifies fish meal or N bat guano, will alfalfa be ok as a sub for those as well?
 
skunkd0c

skunkd0c

Well-Known Member
ThatGuy113 said:




You want to know whats funny ? The bottle nutes and charts always confused the hell out of me so I went organic then started picking things up and then learning the specifics over time.
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lol, equal quantities of A+B throughout the grow schedule is hard ?, they even attach a measuring cup to the top of the bottle lid for your convenience
i admire you soil and organic growers, you make something that is so simple seem so difficult

i once see a dirty bastard soil grower with maggots on his plants, i guess that is just a reflection on him and not organics itself, i guess i am just not ready to get my hands dirty with organics
how do you folk get over this aspect of organics being blood piss shit etc etc, were you all raised on farms or something , maybe i am just too squeamish lol

peace :)
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
QuentinQuark said:
Niiice. Just found alfalfa at a local feed store. $13 for 50lb bag. So Rrog am I ok with that and no blood meal? The ICMag recycling thread specifies fish meal or N bat guano, will alfalfa be ok as a sub for those as well?
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The fish has other goodies so I'd use it. I just used up the last of my guano and will be sticking with Alfalfa and fish for N sources both for soil building and amending.
 
Rrog

Rrog

Well-Known Member
skunkd0c said:
lol, equal quantities of A+B throughout the grow schedule is hard ?, they even attach a measuring cup to the top of the bottle lid for your convenience
i admire you soil and organic growers, you make something that is so simple seem so difficult

i once see a dirty bastard soil grower with maggots on his plants, i guess that is just a reflection on him and not organics itself, i guess i am just not ready to get my hands dirty with organics
how do you folk get over this aspect of organics being blood piss shit etc etc, were you all raised on farms or something , maybe i am just too squeamish lol

peace :)
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It's not that difficult, but it is more than adding Bottle A to Bottle B, I agree. If you saw proper organic soil you would not be squeemish. Do you find a corn farm equally distasteful?
 
Q

QuentinQuark

Well-Known Member
skunkd0c said:
lol, equal quantities of A+B throughout the grow schedule is hard ?, they even attach a measuring cup to the top of the bottle lid for your convenience
i admire you soil and organic growers, you make something that is so simple seem so difficult

i once see a dirty bastard soil grower with maggots on his plants, i guess that is just a reflection on him and not organics itself, i guess i am just not ready to get my hands dirty with organics
how do you folk get over this aspect of organics being blood piss shit etc etc, were you all raised on farms or something , maybe i am just too squeamish lol

peace :)
Click to expand...
Have a read of this ebook, I hope it resonates with you.
 
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