Help re- amending organic soil

firehound · May 15, 2014

I am looking to build a large batch of organic soil to compost, cook, render out. what i have is a large 3.8 c.f bale of sunshine #4 that was amended with product from' Eureka Springs Organics'. I used up that whole batch of soil that was amended. The store went out of business, shut down. So the actual recipe is unavailable. All the inputs in the B.Y.O.S F.M (Build Your Own Soil-Flower Mix) were organic throughout.

I could do a version of Coots Mix ,
but creating a blend of what i have accumulated over months of reading the ROLS and MHG threads would be ideal.

My plan is to add a 3.o c.f premier sphagnum peat to the Used and depleted 3.8 c.f of sunshine #4 mix and then add the ingredients i have listed below.

Just in is the last needed aeration product 50 lbs Rice Hulls.
These are the Amendments and Amounts .

These measurements are for 14gal or 2c.f. batch's that i can mix up at a time. Feel Free to suggest or correct me at any time, any one.

Here they are: n-p-k
2 cups Kelp meal 1-.1-2
1/2 cup feather meal 12-0-0
1/2 cup fish bone meal 3-16-0
1/2 cup alfalfa meal 3-1-2
1/2 crab meal 4-3-0
_________________________________________________
1/2 cup Langbeinite aka (sul-po-mag)0-0-22
1/2cup Azomite
1 cup Gypsum ag
2 cup Glacial rock dust
1/2 cup Oyster shell flour
_________________________________________________
and of course:
2 gal EWC
2 gal bagged and my compost mixed (all per 2c.f soil)
2 lbs. Buffalo Loam compost

and the guanos:
Peruvian seabird 10-10-2
Jamaican bat 1-10-.2 these may be Tea Products
mexican bat 10-1-1

Tera-vita humic powder 90
Bio-ag Ful-power
ag-aid powdered Yucca .063 grams per gallon h20
(math by Dank-Frank) thanks.

I dont know if all this is correct or usable in a soil mix at once?
May be too much?

bigshrimp · May 15, 2014

Looks great

StayFoolish22 · May 17, 2014

Where can one get a 50lb bag of rice hulls >_> Seems odd to ask, I can't find them locally.

xmobotx · May 17, 2014

How did your 1st grow do? that seems like a good recipe & reasonable amounts for level of amendments.

I'm thinking no-till here:

~think about something like using alfalfa meal and/or comfrey as a top-dress {some dynamic accumulators} & cover/mulch those in w/ a generous layer of EWC

a total of your choice of some or all of the dynamic accumulators @ something like 1 tsp per gallon container. {total combined}

a sprinkling of neem seed meal would be a nice component of that dynamic accumulator top-dress {i like ahimsa}

* for the approach i embrace, the general idea is to build something of a balanced/mineral focused mix & make a fake "duff" layer using fresh plant material and EWC {or well-finished compost/a combination} a living mulch meshes well w/ this idea since things like clovers help fix N & sprouting seeds of grass grains makes for some good hormonal additions {like SST}

oh, buildasoil.com makes for a nice alternative to ESO now that it's gone defunct....

firehound · May 17, 2014

StayFoolish22 said:
Where can one get a 50lb bag of rice hulls >_> Seems odd to ask, I can't find them locally.

www.groworganic.com $29.00 50lbs. shipping was like 30 bucks. this place is called peaceful valley farm supply. hope that helps. delivery was delayed due to the fires in California.

firehound · May 17, 2014

@ xmo I had early nitrogen loss at about wk 5 with the byos mix. Not the be confused with senescence that we want slightly.
Your info is right on with what i was thinking about the mix. my comfrey was just planted so that is not on the list i can use. Now Dandelion is in abundance around my area.
Should i dry the dandelion or use fresh under the ewc/mulch?
Do i separate the flower part of the dandelion and just use the greens? or whole plant?
Somewhere i read that when using oyster shell flour that it should be reamended every 3rd or 4th run before i add it back in to the mix?
After i get my soil mixed , 2 months cook time should be long enough.

Where did Gas,Coot, etc and a few from the ROLS thread go?
www.buildasoil.com has coots mix for any amount of soil....how cool is that.

dank.frank · May 17, 2014

Only thing that is really sticking out to me that I'd adjust...

1 1/3c rock dust
2 cups oyster shell flower
2 cups of Fish Bone Meal

Otherwise - things are looking great.

dank.Frank

intotheunknown · May 18, 2014

how much of the guanos are you adding?

dank.frank · May 18, 2014

I think he said he was only going to use the guanos as teas / supplemental feedings...

dank.Frank

intotheunknown · May 18, 2014

ah, well...
I agree with Frank in that case then. bump up the fish bone meal and oystershell.
I would toss in a little more crab shell as well.

xxxstr8edgexxx · May 18, 2014

when i lived up in sohum area we would pay truckers to go to this place
https://www.facebook.com/NorthAmericanOrganics?rf=135702369812145
you could order all kinds of good soil building stuff by the yard or id imagine less if you drove ther yourself. i seem to recall lots of rice hulls in their bedding compost. they are a goldmine of earthworm castings chickem manure mulch etc. its been about 7-8 years since ive been buti bet they are still sourcing tons of great materials from the agricultural superhighway of california. i once bought a transfer truck of earthworm castings there. it wasnt cheap but it was available.

StayFoolish22 · May 18, 2014

Thanks a lot, great info and links everyone. Will be placing many orders in the next few weeks. Really want to kick my game up right now and get things working right.

xmobotx · May 18, 2014

firehound said:
~Should i dry the dandelion or use fresh under the ewc/mulch?
Do i separate the flower part of the dandelion and just use the greens? or whole plant?
Somewhere i read that when using oyster shell flour that it should be reamended every 3rd or 4th run before i add it back in to the mix?~

fresh is better but dry is fine
whole plant is better but some would do nicely also

you like fresh because micro-flora are abundant, you like whole because you do get some diversity from flower to greens/stalk as to roots ~but, FTMP the plants are made of what the plants are made of & ratios aren't critical

i don;t re-amend Ca amendments @ that high of a rate {if @ all} & i don;t worry so much about running out of N {or anything} when mulching {top-dressing} w/ accumulators & plant based amendments {neem has plenty of goodies for instance}

firehound · May 19, 2014

Thanks on the dandelion tips, until that comfrey gets going dandelion is my go to right now. picked 2 grocery sacks full today.
1 1/2 sacks went to the compost pile for the greener side.
I got worms flowing freely through and running from the light as i turn it.
All of the down to earth boxes i accumulated got recycled into the pile.
Even that exhale co2 mycelial product i threw in there...minus the plastic bag.
that was a joke i fell for haha.
Bio-char? Good for storing nitrogen? Carbon.
MHG(Mile High Guy) i see is using a "Cowboy Charcoal",brand of, i'm guessing is a barbeque type of briquette we use for grilling.
Another project to figure out in the future.
Does biochar add any benefits i dont understand yet? If so i could use my left over replacement carbon pellets from my carbon filterthen?
maybe i wonder too much . :dunno:

firehound · May 19, 2014

I may not use the guano's at all. I upped my final pot size in flower to 5gal and i will be using a top dress of dandelion(chopped, not puree'd).
Never done that before with a weed i picked outta the yard.....leap of faith for me.

Should be fine as long as i keep the population up with Tea's.

Nabbed a bale of straw to day also(mulch)

xmobotx · May 19, 2014

dandelion is an awesome bio-accumulator ~another little-understood, demonized plant much like cannabis. I cringe @ how weed-kill product advertising relies on the evil dandelion to sell stuff that's "poisoning our grandchildren" ~this is your only concern when sourcing dandelion wild; it's frequently a target of herbicides & still a resilient plant. you want to get it from known organic places.

that cowboy charcoal is a "lump-type" meaning it's basically chunks of pyrolized wood & not briquettes. I used a bag of that. Today, I'm liking to use the char from my smoker box. It's necessary to "charge" it by soaking w/ something like alfalfa or whatever N source. Being high carbon, it will rob N if not "charged."

I think of bio-char as another buffer {like Ca} in the soil mix. Yet another factor which makes it less important to balance nutrients or concern one's self w/ pH

firehound · May 27, 2014

On the "cowboy charcoal" , this is a product that "can" be used in place of biochar?

After a paycheck or 2 i could do this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttr_8nJ_E6w. Which seems VERY easy for a do it yourself kind of mentality that this organic road leads us

XMO- nice call here>>>http://buildasoil.com/collections/all-visible-products

I ordered the barley seed sprout.
Sprout kit also.\come with corn seed and barley

They have a lot of great information for anyone to read.

When measuring out soil, i take its not a exact science kind of thing.?
Guess i shouldn't ask so many questions, but never enough time to hunt down all the answers here.
Just busy making sure my kids are not another statistic ya know. :huggg:

In the video on how to make biochar
Could the same process work to RECLAIM carbon pellets used in "odor control" filters???
I replace the pellets every 6-9 mo.
At least 2 separate batch's of carbon pellets found they're way to garden and was tilled in.....no negative side effects ever noticed.
carbon is carbon eh?

xmobotx · May 28, 2014

'cowboy' yeah, you need to "charge" it. I do my own so don;t know but; i think the bio-char products are ready to go {kinda makes sense right?}

i been sprouting corn too. i pre-sprouted a package for the garden & then the next batch, i sprouted some organic popcorn for SST. it seems to make a difference {totally subjective right?}

close is good enough w/ things like proportions of peat to EWC to drainage ~like 3:2:1, 2:1:1, 3:2:2 & 1:1:1 all work. something like 10% bio-char doesn;t have to be exactly 10% just like {obviously} drainage can range from 15% to 30% {though less drainage makes watering more critical} It is a good idea to be a little more accurate w/ amendments or, at least estimate low {if you use a long list of amendments, estimate real low}

IDK about odor control pellets/never worried about odor control or used them & would probably just use charcoal anyway {unless pulling off some sophisticated commercial scheme}

carbon is carbon ~i just dont know what they do for the odor control version of it ~like if anything is added?

bigshrimp · May 28, 2014

Just to be clear - You need to add lime for the fresh peat that you mix in. Other than that you have feather meal, fish bone, crab meal, azomite, Ewc, composts, dandelion ... plenty of calcium.

Dandelions can accumulate heavy metals so make sure that you are collecting from a healthy area.

Coba · May 29, 2014

yeah, you can re-claim those carbon pellets.

Help re- amending organic soil

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