Spikes and Layers?

[Microbeman]

I want to understand what's happening and why, not just that it is happening

Bingo! This is exactly what started the whole trend for hemp/cannabis to be treated as if it grows differently than tomatoes, etc. People did not want to understand this so just followed the misguided information about socking in the N and then later the P for bloom. People still believe to this very day that you can flush harsh chemicals or toxins from a plant's tissues by running water through the growing media...really...even dispensaries request this of their growers.

Constructive discussion. I just believe the claim was made that this is based on living soil...right? I'm just looking/questioning to see if that is based on anything or is it just another 'bennies man' or 'microherd' 'don't forget the rare, magic archaea jump on the band wagon thing.

Of course there is nothing wrong with writing a book.

I believe the one straw book did not benefit Fukuoka financially but he is dead anyway. Is Holzer, the person who wrote about permaculture? Did he claim certain things without foundation? [I'm not saying this guy does. Perhaps it is all perfectly logically explained]

 

[SeaMaiden]

Yes, Holzer writes about permaculture and techniques, for example water conservation and creating micro-climates. There are several permie people to look to, such as the folks who wrote Gaia's Garden (recommended to me by jaykush).

Jeavons' thing is getting the most out of your area/space, and from what I've seen of it, if it's set up right it can be a great method IF a few conditions are met. I especially like the notion of in-place composting.

I absolutely agree with you about discussion, we must have it. We need to agree on what terminology means (semantics? Who's quibbling?) and discuss from there.

In any event, I can't speak to Holzer's foundation(s) in permaculture, nor can I really speak to Jeavons' without going back and doing some Googling. I do believe theirs is practical experience; i.e. where the rubber meets the road.

 

[Gascanastan]

its been done.

Pix?...and if so for how many years and back to back cycles..what's the particular method to actually make this happen...pix?

 

[ClackamasCootz]

nor can I really speak to Jeavons' without going back and doing some Googling. I do believe theirs is practical experience; i.e. where the rubber meets the road

SeaMaiden

Jeavons calls his technique Biointensive which is based on Alan Chadwick's French Biointensive which the French based on the original method of rooting cuttings, planting them closely together from China where it was it was perfected over 4,000 years ago.

From China it spread to Iran (Persia), Egypt and Turkey.

So yeah - there is 4,000 years of 'practical experience' on Jeavons basic tenet.

You'll remember that it was the stoners who came up with the terms 'cloning' and 'Sea of Green' as if they actually contributed a single thing to the science of Botany - a specious claim if there ever was one.

And to call The One Straw Revolution a 'gardening book' is yet another example of intellectual dishonesty which could only come from someone who has never even opened this book, i.e. they're taking an interpretation from a stoner blog about his work and book.

CC

 

[Amber Trich]

one straw is a gardening book... garden theory?

on holzer- just saying we are arguing no till as the ideal but he says go ahead and open the earth it heals quickly.. and put a bunch of organic matter down low and cover it. then he re tills with a tractor every few years

but by no means am i trying to equate the rev with those gardeners.. just saying book writing is imo a good contribution.


im curious..
for no till how often do you amend the soil and with what? and then does that sit and compost or immediately get replanted

for no till or remix soil what additions are made through the flowering cycle? (topdressings, nutrient teas, fpes?)


is it possible to make a soil that will keep the plant happy straight through?

..i feel like by the time the plant is well rooted in the container the soil volume is too small to support the plant, but if i use more soil then the soil is staying wet for too long?


thanks guys

 

[hades]

TBH this thread was a waste of time to read. Call it whatever you want, the guy is adding organic matter to a soil that is breaking it down as fertilizer for plants.........

And straight up, it doesn't matter all that much where in the pot the matter is breaking down. If it is so thick that is is thermophilically composting then you'll have problems, but other than that plant roots can PULL fertilizers from far away in the soil, (I've read as far as 10 feet)

The fact that this thread even has this much discussion is a testament to the fact of how fucked up the Canna growing community really is.

'Spikes and Layers' or just call it natural gardening...... The Canna growing game is sooooooo fucked up that a guy telling you to put organic amendments into soil is touted as revolutionary......... Man has been doing this for thousands of years......

Just my opinion and sorry for the rant, but it's early and I just read through most of this thread and came out of it with nothing =)

 

[SeaMaiden]

SeaMaiden

Jeavons calls his technique Biointensive which is based on Alan Chadwick's French Biointensive which the French based on the original method of rooting cuttings, planting them closely together from China where it was it was perfected over 4,000 years ago.

From China it spread to Iran (Persia), Egypt and Turkey.

So yeah - there is 4,000 years of 'practical experience' on Jeavons basic tenet.

Hasn't he taken out a copyright on the term "biointensive" or some such? Kinda reminds me of the Dervaes Institute's copyrighting the term urban homesteading, as though they invented it.

You'll remember that it was the stoners who came up with the terms 'cloning' and 'Sea of Green' as if they actually contributed a single thing to the science of Botany - a specious claim if there ever was one.

I thought that orchid growers use the term cloning, and thought that's where it was borrowed from. I know a few orchid enthusiasts and they use some of the very same terminology, so I extrapolated from there.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

Check out how orchids are propagated, i.e. the specific steps

 

[ClackamasCootz]

Hasn't he taken out a copyright on the term "biointensive" or some such?

You're probably thinking of his term "Grow Biointensive" usually in all caps

CC

 

[SeaMaiden]

Check out how orchids are propagated, i.e. the specific steps

I have a friend who keeps rare orchids in his vivarium with his green tree python (he's a paleoclimatologist). And then there are my mother and cousin, they do things their own way, too. But this other kid (can I even call him a kid anymore?), man oh man is he into the rare orchids! Lemme see if I can find a link for him...

Ooops, apparently there has been some upset in the online orchid world. The site that he used to moderate has had some major member changes. Oh well! In any event, he's used the term cloning many times, thus my assumption.

I call them cuttings, m'self.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

OrchidWeb.com - interesting web sites for roots, plants and equipment. Not quite as nutty as the Lavender crowd but these people definitely can hold their own on nuttiness.

Then there's the rose growers - wee! One of Portland's nicknames is "Rose City" which has one of the largest collection of roses up at the Portland Rose Garden located in the West Hills. 500 varieties with 10,000 actual plants.

Free to the public

CC

 

[Microbeman]

I was just trying to look up info on the Fox farms 555 and cannot find the ingredients. Their site says ingredients like.... and 20 species of beneficial microbes but that is all I can find. Anybody?

 

[ClackamasCootz]

I was just trying to look up info on the Fox farms 555 and cannot find the ingredients. Their site says ingredients like.... and 20 species of beneficial microbes but that is all I can find. Anybody?

Up until 2 years ago, Dr. Mike A's web site was not retail oriented and there was a link to which soil companies, fertilizer products, etc. that used his 'all purpose' myco mix.

I'll try to explain it as I understand it:

Long before Dr. Mike started to peddle his 'all purpose' mix, the nursery industry was already using Trichoderma spores for whatever reason that they did - I'm not defending or promoting this but that's how it worked.

When he came up with the 'all purpose' mix, he included both endo and ecto strains AND he added in the Trichoderma spores because the nursery industry know about that one. I'm not here, again, to defend or promote this at all - just explaining how this product came about.

What the grow store kids did was jump on this because it had lots and lots of spore names to put on their re-packaged products - White Shark, Piranha, et al.

The reason that he included both classes of spores is that nurseries don't have the time to stop a soil mix process and add the endo or ecto depending on which type of plants are being cultivated. That was the advertising drivel.

It was a complete and total disaster because of the wide-spread use of Phosphoric acid that you understand better than most. And they ain't using judicial amounts - it's the life-blood of commercial nurseries.

So the product was rejected out of hand which led to his straight endo and ecto products. But nurseries felt burned by his 'science' which it wasn't - it was 'science in progress' and he really blew it. Oregon's nursery industry > $1.2 billion per year and California is around $4 billion - quite an opportunity I would think.

Meh.......

CC

 

[ClackamasCootz]

 

[Microbeman]

one straw is a gardening book... garden theory?

on holzer- just saying we are arguing no till as the ideal but he says go ahead and open the earth it heals quickly.. and put a bunch of organic matter down low and cover it. then he re tills with a tractor every few years

but by no means am i trying to equate the rev with those gardeners.. just saying book writing is imo a good contribution.


im curious..
for no till how often do you amend the soil and with what? and then does that sit and compost or immediately get replanted

for no till or remix soil what additions are made through the flowering cycle? (topdressings, nutrient teas, fpes?)


is it possible to make a soil that will keep the plant happy straight through?

..i feel like by the time the plant is well rooted in the container the soil volume is too small to support the plant, but if i use more soil then the soil is staying wet for too long?


thanks guys

In terms of our indoor 'sort of permanent' beds/bins we mixed up a basic soil once, including an assortment of rock and clay powders which were available at the time. We utilized outside topsoil, sand, sphagnum peat moss, vermicompost and occasionally perlite, pumice or more coarse sand. I feel that the depth of the soil is significant. Ours was around 16 inches but I think 18> is better (36 X 14 X 16). There was a very small amount of kelpmeal (feedstore) mixed in. I think that's about it.

We topdressed with vermicompost with alfalfa & kelp meal at each planting but also periodically used fish hydrolysate, ACT and vermicompost slurry if something looked like it needed a kick up. The slurries are very fast acting.

In between harvests/plantings we often dumped some composting red wrigglers into the soil to aerate, degrade and poop, then we trapped them back out...mostly; some staying around as my good friend Gascan has stated in the other thread is just fine. Also at this time we often applied EM or IM fermentations to the soil.

We then coated the planting holes and roots of the (rooted) cuttings with Glomus Intraradices and popped them in. The inbetween time was up to 2 weeks.

The longest which I had any of these systems going was 7 years for the first experimental ones and 5 years after we decided to like the idea. Unfortunately someone came along and said we were not allowed to do that so we never got to see how far it could go.

Were I to do it again, I would put a layer of small weather/water worn rocks/stones on the bottom first of as many different colors as I could find. The thought behind this is for the gradual microbial or plant acid processing of these for minerals. I have no specific science to support this thought.

I would also try zero down time between planting and harvest on the basis that the continuum of live roots is implicit for the activity of certain microbial populations. This was demonstrated and written about here somewhere by Mr Fista.

Similarly I've written about this method here previously.

 

[jerry111165]

Excellent post MM. 7 years tells me that with simple top dressings of this and that, that te no till raised beds could last virtually forever. I'm at almost 2 years with no sign of any decreased growth whatsoever.

I also have worms in my no till pots (they're like 12 or 15 gallons). I'm pretty sure that they were introduced in the form of vermicompost top dressing - cocoons hatched and there they were. I often find castings pouring out of the bottom drainage holes - a few teaspoons at a time. It reminds me of the way a worm reactor works - food/bedding in the top, castings out the bottom.

I think it's so excellent having worms in my pots - ideal, actually. They "worm" hehe thier way thru the soil, making air passages and water tunnels, eat up and break down organic matter and amendments, pooping it out as usable plant food, all the while leaving thier beautiful slime trail everywhere. It also tells me that the soil is healthy - what could possibly be better than having these helpful creatures do what they do directly in our pots? Constantly producing more castings which must generate more soil life and plant food? Wow!

J

 

[ClackamasCootz]

I was just trying to look up info on the Fox farms 555 and cannot find the ingredients. Their site says ingredients like.... and 20 species of beneficial microbes but that is all I can find. Anybody?

MM

Happy Frog is the name of a product line from Fox Farms (United Fertilizer & Compost) which includes a potting soil and a line of dry fertilizer mixes.

In each and every fertilizer mix with the main title of Happy Frog they include the following 'beneficial microbes' as noted on the label shown below.

The specific product package doesn't matter - each and every one has these strains listed.

Have fun!!!

 

[Microbeman]

Thanks CC.
If you took the photo is it possible to get all the ingredients list a little higher on the label?
Suprisingly no trichoderma listed.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

Sure - I'll run it through Photoshop. I'll crop out the other unnecessary parts of the photo.

I did want to tell you that I went to a grow store that probably would like it better if I shopped at a competitor's but I think asking me to leave and then bringing my mother into it was a bit over the top!

LOL

 

[Microbeman]

Our man in the field, enduring the hardships as bullets fly...