Organic soil set up with Pest Control?

[itisme]

Ok so I am going to use LC#2 but I need to know how to kill any insects and also start building up the beneficial bacteria. Spray with Azamax and wait a few days? Spray with Neem oil and wait or start ewc and things a few days later? What? I have read a lot of this thread but I don't recall this information yet. I wanted to say THANKS SO MUCH TO EVERYBODY THAT HAS CONTRIUBUTED........especially B1, and others that put so much work in.....It is appreciated more than you know!!!

I got root aphids last run so I want to make sure they are all gone.
LC's Soiless Mix #2:

6 parts Pro Mix BX or HP / Sunshine Mix (any flavor from #1 up) / Fox Farm Ocean Forest or Light Warrior
2 parts perlite
2 parts earthworm castings
Powdered (NOT PELLETED) dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix.

 

[MileHighGuy]

I wouldn't use Azamax as there are much better materials available.

For the soil, you can amend with with Organic Neem Meal or Karanja Meal.

This will provide additional food for the soil and prevent bug infestations from starting in the soil and moving on up.... Plus the Neem meal is also helpful against Powdery Mildew.

You can source the Neem Meal several places.

If you are going to foliar spray with Neem Oil as a preventative I would recommend the Organic Neem oil at neem resource dot com

Emulsify with some Pro-Tekt Silica and BAM! You're ready for them Sucka's

 

[MileHighGuy]

and just for fun....

6 parts Pro Mix BX or HP / Sunshine Mix (any flavor from #1 up) / Fox Farm Ocean Forest or Light Warrior
2 parts perlite
2 parts earthworm castings
Powdered (NOT PELLETED) dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix.

You can easily improve this mix and save lot's of money.... let me know if you haven't purchase these ingredients yet and I'll keep talking.

Peace

 

[itisme]

I have the promix and EWC. I'm listening though. Thanks for the input.

 

[MileHighGuy]

I have the promix and EWC. I'm listening though. Thanks for the input.

6 parts Pro Mix
2 parts perlite
2 parts earthworm castings
dolomite lime

Pro-Mix:

This will work just fine.

Next time, make your own and the quality will be better for much less cost. If you can still sell your bail or return it (Don't go to to much trouble it's fine to use it) I would.

The sphagnum peat moss bails that you can purchase locally are much cheaper and are also a few steps up on the quality scale. These bails are packaged at the source and are full of microbial life.

The perlite they use is fine, and it is cheap to ship. If you can get some pumice or lava rock at a local nursery it is really really cheap and will last longer in the soil and not all move around so much in the soil.

2 Parts Perlite:

The exta perlite is good for aeration. If you can diversify, it wouldn't be a bad thing... but the main reason that I would go with something else is the price! Since you haven't purchased the perlite yet, try going with lava rock. The have it at home depot, but I much prefer the stuff you can find at a bulk nursery landscaping place.

The overall ratio you are going is somewhere around equal parts of Sphagnum, Compost and Aeration amendment.

2 parts earthworm castings:

This stuff is the SHIT! I love earth worm castings. Quality is a big issue here. What kind you using?

Also, I would increase the amount! Or you could add some really good bagged compost or local compost... but preferably homemade compost. The more humus the better your soil. If you could get the compost and mix this instead of the earthworm castings that would be awesome... then leave some room on top and top dress 2" of earth worm castings on top. Either way, I mix mine in the soil with compost... and I put them on top. But they aren't cheap!

dolomite lime

The main straight liming agents, Limestone, Calcite (aka Agricultural Lime), Oyster shell powder and Crab meal are sources for Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). All are pure Calcium Carbonate with the exception of Limestone which can have a Mg level between 2 - 3% depending on the specific mine, country of origin, etc.

The dolomite can take a very very long time to break down and also add Mg that you do not need if you have the earthwormcastings.

Here is a better breakdown than I could ever give:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=241964&page=4

If you haven't purchased the Dolomite lime yet, you can get some Glacial rock dust, gypsum and many other rock dusts that could work very well for you and be very inexpensive like the dolomite.


Nutrients:

What are you going to feed these ladies?

I hope you're not going to say bottled nutrients... lol but if so that's okay... what are your plans?

While mixing the soil you could add a few cheap ingredients and have a KICK ass soil.

 

[itisme]

I put some dolomite lime, blood meal, and bone meal in the promix and sprayed it with liquid karma. I plan on getting some kelp meal to add also.

I probably used to many Wiggle Worm EWC but the castings don't take up so much as promix does per weight. I actually used a 60lb bag of promix and a 90lbs of EWC but from everything I have read that should be fine. I can just use less in my tea and bump it with a some Peruvian Seabird Guano and Indonesian Bat Guano and a cup less EWC in the teas. I mixed it in at a 5 cubic feet ratio per the "BEG. ORGANIC" page since the promix alone was 3.8 cu ft. That should make it a little light on feed from the soil so I don't nuke them with my tea or should I use a tea at all? I want to use a the formula posted on with the EWC, Peru Sea. Guano, Ind. Bat Guano.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

You can add neem cake, and crab meal to help with the little nastys.

 

[itisme]

THanks.....At what ratio per cubic foot?

 

[MileHighGuy]

1/2 Cup per Cubic Foot for the Neem Meal and another 1/2 cup per cubic foot for the Crab Meal.

I don't think you will need ANY guano at all with the nutrients in that soil.

Maybe one tea at the transition into flower.... but I'm sure you'll do more.

Nice call on the extra wormcastings.... as long as it's not mud you're fine.

 

[itisme]

Thx man. I really appreciate it. I will make sure it got enough perlite in there and it isn't looking bad at all. I have more promix but I don't think it is need. I hope to just water these mostly but I will try to boost a few of them You have to test things....right.

Is the CRAB MEAL similar to KELP MEAL?

 

[intotheunknown]

i would say equal parts of perlite to EWC. a rule of thumb i use...
if you do end up adding more promix make sure you also compensate the added peat in the promix with a little extra powdered dolomite lime.

i agree with milehighguy...depending on how much blood bone and kelp you added, you shouldnt need to add any guanos to that mix. and perhaps only a mid flower tea/topdress if you start to see some yellowing.

crab shell meal is another great amendment to add to this mix youve got going, will help to increase microbial productivity as well as a source of nitrogen, phosphate, and calcium.

all good answers from above on pest control. neem oil and pro tekt silica especially.
also use neem/silica as a foliar once or twice every two weeks as a preventative in veg up to two weeks into flower. ( prevention is key) 1/4 tsp of each mixed together to one quart water.
i also recommend using the silica every watering @ 1/4-1/2 tsp per gallon which will build stronger and healthier plant cells. also reducing stresses from environment changes, waterings, etc.

but honestly i use similar soil mixes and hardly have any issues at all with pests. this also all depends on your cleanliness and im sure your location.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Don't forget to mix in some Diatomaceous Earth...

Great passive pest barrier for a lot of things.

Stay Safe!

 

[thcGHOST]

2 Tablespoons of powdered Diatomaceous Earth per gallon of Medium will give your plants all the silica they need. Spinosad Is the only thing you need for pests, it kills em all, and not chemically.

 

[Greenheart]

Is the CRAB MEAL similar to KELP MEAL?

Crab Meal is closer to Seafood Meal. It is a form of chitin.

I have not looked further into it because I'm trusting the vets here and there is plenty to soak up at the moment but I got this blurb out of the Worming101.

Forgot to mention. you can add chitin (crab shell, locust, cicada, preying mantis shells) to your worms and they will select for fungi and microbes that break it down.

The end result is you have castings containing fungi that kill larval stages of insects in the soil. This is patented, but doesn't stop the home gardener from doing it themselves.

If you use crab or lobster shell make sure you get all the meat out first, then crush up fine, and add.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Thx man. I really appreciate it. I will make sure it got enough perlite in there and it isn't looking bad at all. I have more promix but I don't think it is need. I hope to just water these mostly but I will try to boost a few of them You have to test things....right.

Is the CRAB MEAL similar to KELP MEAL?

No. Crabs are animals, kelp is (kind of) a plant--algae more specifically, and macroalgae even more specifically. What compound are you curious about here? One creates skeleton with chitin and calcium carbonate, the other creates cell walls with cellulose and other compounds. I would expect things like aminos to be different between them as well, forms at least. Kelp provides a lot of micronutrients that I'm not so sure you'll get with crab meal, as well.

I'm going to put bells on the neem meal thing of MileHighGuy's. Last year I did a long row of straw bales, huglekulture-stylee, for planting pole beans. I started some beans in the GH, and planted them in the bales. Half of them had their little heads lopped off within a few days, so I planted more. Emergence, heads lopped off. I realized, Oh, yeah! I have neem meal! (can't remember what it says, exactly, downstairs in garage) I poured a line of meal onto the seedlings, and that stopped whatever was decapitating them COLD. It remained well into the season, and so I think retained its pest-defensive properties well into the season. It's a must for next year's crops, that's for sure.

 

[MileHighGuy]

No. Crabs are animals, kelp is (kind of) a plant--algae more specifically, and macroalgae even more specifically. What compound are you curious about here? One creates skeleton with chitin and calcium carbonate, the other creates cell walls with cellulose and other compounds. I would expect things like aminos to be different between them as well, forms at least. Kelp provides a lot of micronutrients that I'm not so sure you'll get with crab meal, as well.

I'm going to put bells on the neem meal thing of MileHighGuy's. Last year I did a long row of straw bales, huglekulture-stylee, for planting pole beans. I started some beans in the GH, and planted them in the bales. Half of them had their little heads lopped off within a few days, so I planted more. Emergence, heads lopped off. I realized, Oh, yeah! I have neem meal! (can't remember what it says, exactly, downstairs in garage) I poured a line of meal onto the seedlings, and that stopped whatever was decapitating them COLD. It remained well into the season, and so I think retained its pest-defensive properties well into the season. It's a must for next year's crops, that's for sure.

Good to hear! I plan on using it this year on my outdoor crops as well.

I'm planning the whole season right now on these cold winter nights... it's always fun to sit by the fire and dream of warm dirt and fresh produce from the backyard.

 

[The Hummus Monk]

If it's of any interest I have just harvested some very tasty buds with the following:

My Soil Mix:

2 parts top qualty compost
2 parts Canna Pro Plus (basically peat, coir and bark...no nutes)
1 Part EWC
1 Part Perlite

I then added the following...all measurements per litre of soil mix:

2 tsp Dolomite Lime
1 tsp Neem Seed Powder (3.5-1-1)
1 tsp Maxicrop Seaweed Meal (1-0-2)
1 tsp Maxicrop Cal-Sea-Feed (1-0-2)
2 tsp Blood, Fish and Bone (5-5-6)
1 tsp Bonemeal (3.5-5.5-0.5)
0.5 tsp Guano (2-15-1)

I then mixed it all together and added some rain water and left it for 3 weeks to 'cook' in the shed!

Water only with rainwater and there's enough food to take the plants to roughly 80ish days.