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The New & Improved [ROLS MEGATHREAD].

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M

MrSterling

Here is the link for the old thread for referencing.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=241964


One goes out, one comes in. Welcome to the 2nd installment of the Recycled Organic Living Soil MEGATHREAD - a catch-all thread comprising information and talk across the spectrum of organics. Our previous thread had gotten very large, so we're making a few changes.

• New members and those new to organics, this thread is definitely the deep end of the pool, sometimes it's like an Olympic high dive. Definitely read the stickies that are non existent as I make this thread - I'll edit this later. While the nature of the talk in here requires a good understanding of the basics of organics please feel free to join in. Everyone has something to bring to the table. "Who knows through what door wisdom will walk" as the saying goes.

Here's the rules:

•The ROLS Megathread will be locked upon reaching 200 pages and replaced with a new one. This is to keep the threads accessible to new members who want to join in and it keeps the information up to date. Old threads will be locked but and tucked away in a bin. Traditionally with megathreads another regular member calls next thread creation close to lock. Do whatever title and intro post you want, have fun with it, but make sure these rules are at the top and [ROLS MEGATHREAD] is in the title.

• No fucking turf wars. No drama. You have beef with someone? Either cordially take it to pm - NOT their profile page, or use the ignore option or the report button. It takes two to tango. Don't let someone's attack on your e-ego get the better of you.

•This is not a chat thread, but it is incredibly off topic frequently. I don't want this thread to turn into something from the toker's den, but we haven't had that problem. Off topic happens here, and it's the inherent nature of the ROLS thread. We've discovered a lot of stuff by not walking the straight and narrow.

----------

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's bring the ruckus.
 
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M

MrSterling

Damnit surfbiter! I hit the wrong button on this tiny screen with my big thumbs! I wonder if I have a power to undo that...
 
B

BlueJayWay

Yeehaw! I started this ROLS shit a year ago, my soil is two years old and getting better each run - 90% of my garden is now no-till and soon to be 100% in a bigger better fashion.

Why do I work my soil and treat it like a living breathing mass? And why do I put up with these guys shenanigans?



That's why!
 

Cann

Member
The contrast on those purple plants gets me every time BJW...fantastic job.

As far as ROLS goes, I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Just ditched the bottled nutes, "supersoil", and pH pen a few months ago and stepped out of the stoner science paradigm. With the help of these folks I started applying my knowledge of vegetable gardening/permaculture indoors - and the results so far have been amazing.

I just potted up my first no-till pots tonight with soil made from scratch, as well as a few with reamended/"recycled" Roots 707. A 30gal smartpot, a few 10gal smartpots, and a bunch of 5gal airpots/smartpots. Very excited to see how these perform..especially after looking at pics from folks like BJW. I do have a 45gal smartpot or two I might fill up if I feel like lugging them around the room :)

Thanks again everyone, glad to be a part of this. Any guesses for how fast we'll reach page 200? LOL. Let's not make it a contest. Keeping up last time was hard enough!
 

shmalphy

Member
Veteran
I have been doing no-till for about a year. Keeps getting better and better, as they say. It started when I got some high quality compost from some people with horses, goats, chickens, and rabbits. I filled a few one gallons with some handfuls of used soil and compost, (worms and all) and went for it, and the plants took off like a bat out of hell.
 
B

BlueJayWay

I'm going to repeat this part:

the plants took off like a bat out of hell

Cann - those Peyote Purples are somethin else huh?! I started to wonder, you know how English is backwards from Spanish in certain respects, well I wonder if as an English speaker we should be calling it Purple Peyote - rolls off the tongue better that way too lol....


Shmalphy - high quality compost is what really got my garden going - two years ago I was growing in pure CocoNOT and then FFOF/HF and then I mixed it all together and started amending it with all sorts of goodies - you would never be able to tell now that maybe half my soil base started out as bagged potting mix.....

...it's the long hard road LOL so if you're able to start from scratch then skip the premixed overpriced shit and make your own soil!
 

Seandawg

Member
Ok
So lets all act like everyone's here already and we all said our Hi's, Greetings, welcomes, salutations, aloha, wingapo, you know whatever.

Who's ganna be the first "guru" to kick out their magical soil recipe / tea combo (or FPE if thats your deal).
 
D

dogfishheadie

yea. wanted to get an idea as to some of the staples you guys wouldn't go without on a weekly basis. i'm looking to do maybe 1-2 brews a week whether botanical or AACT (only growing 6 plants at a time, nothing crazy). need to make it easy to give my pal a few gallons of whatever and make sure he can't mess it up heh.

-coconut water? (for germ, cloning etc)
-seed sprouts? (barley, wheat)
-foilars?
-fulvic acid?
-aloe vera?
-silica?

here's what i'm thinking for my germ / veg watering mix
mix per (5) gallons of ro water

(1) cup aloe vera
(1) tsp. kelp meal
(2) tsp. alfala meal

bubble 48 hours then add

(2) tsp. BioAg Fulvic Avid
(2) tsp. aloe vera
(2) tsp. AgSil 16
 
D

dogfishheadie

might as well throw up some notes I felt worth saving

Flowering

The common wisdom says that you need large amounts of P and K in flower, but a lot of us do not pay attention to common wisdom. And I think we all eventually develope our own strategies based on what we have to work with. I want to give you another way of looking at it, because no one ever accused me of wisdom common or not.

For me going into flower I want my plants to have momentum. My best cycles happened after the plants were growing crazy fast going into flower. 2-3 inches of vertical growth per day is ideal. Flowering is stressful on plants so if there not clicking then you might have trouble later, if it takes an extra week so be it, just listen to your plants.

So at the final transplant before flower I like to feed alfalfa meal teas and nettles, kelp meal, and dandelion, and comfrey, all in teas. All these will be great for fast growing plants. They all have fairly high levels of calcium, not in NPK but stll important. Plus the diversity of multiple teas gives me diversity of trace elements.

At the switch to 12/12 I like to feed a tea with sul po mag, and again at about three weeks in. This gives the plants a shot of sulfur, potassium and magnesium in a soluble form, or fast acting. But only if I feel they can take this shot, if their suffering in any way I won't force feed them.

In flower I like teas made with comfrey, yarrow, dandelion flowers, and kelp meal. I just rotate them in no particular order. I use these teas because they have worked well for me so far, but I'm always open to new things. I try to fit in a little humic acid once a week or so in tiny amounts.

I make my teas fairly week, the color would be like drinking tea at one hung lo's Chinese resteranut. But I feed the plants tea at almost every watering up to around 6 weeks in flower on ten week varieties.



Insects
Spider Mites
Steep, strain, cool, apply (possible 2-4x strength)

(1/4) cup cardamom pods
(1) Gallon hot water

Gnatts

So while you're at Whole Foods pick-up Cilantro (organic ONLY) and when you get home toss the entire bunch (sans the tie around the middle) into a food processor with enough water to make a slurry or puree.

Add this to 1 gallon of clear water and let it sit for 36 - 48 hours. No more than this.

Add 1 cup of strained Cilantro tea to 15 cups of water = 1 gallon. Allow for 1/4 cup of Aloe vera juice and use 1 tsp. of Pro-TeKt.

Wait until the it's almost "light's out" and spray the top of the soil, every branch, every leaf from top to bottom. You want the plant to look like you haven't watered in several days and it's drooping big time. Leave the ventilation system going and by morning you won't have anything hopping, flying, whatever in your chamber. Follow this up every 4 days until you're completed 4 applications.


Silica

I do use Potassium Silicate with each and every watering and foliar spray. I reference Pro-TeKT because among the usual products at garden stores this product is the best value. Pro-TeKt contains 3% Soluble Potash and 7.9% Silica - compare that to Advanced Nutrients at 1% Silica.

I switched to powered Potassium Silica and the brand name is AgSil 16H and the numbers are 32.5% Soluble Potash (K2O) and 52.8% Silica

A pound is $12.00 and using 0.70 grams to 1 gallon of water is equivilant to using 1 tsp. of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKT. That is 4x the recommend rate on the Pro-TeKt label and if that's a concern then you would want to adjust the AgSil 16H accordingly.


Germinating

Take soil mix and put it into #1 containers, hydrate with kelp meal tea, Aloe vera and Fulvic acid. Take seed and set it on the surface - and here comes the tricky part - I take my 'pinkie' and press lightly on the seed until it is about 1/4" deep -warning another tricky step here - I push the surrounding soil on top of it and gently tamp it down.

They go under 400w HPS CMH bulbs until they're of size to transplant.


in the beer cup they generally get per 5gal RO water: 1cup aloe, 3/4cup alfalfa, 1/4cup kelp, 25ml protekt - bubbled for a day, the leftovers go to the rest of the veg garden, or they also will get whatever the tea of the day might be.
 

Neo 420

Active member
Veteran
HOME SWEET HOME!!

I have been doing no till for about a year. Like stated before. The soil only gets better as time goes by. Remember insects and microbes are your friend!!!
 
B

BlueJayWay

I have a question or two I'd like to throw out there - curious to see what kind of responses we get. A few assumptions are made being that this is the ROLS thread.

1. In regards to 'feedings' via watering (teas) and topdress/mulches. What are you doing in veg and how does that change for flowering plants and throughout the life of flowering plants?
 

invocation

Member
I tend to do ACTs a few times through out veg and flower with many botanical teas in veg. In flower I keep using herbal teas until about week 3 and then I tend to stick with just aloe and silica waterings and sometimes an ACT if I think they need it (hasn't been needed since 2 inches of ewc topdress) I also use Aloe, Silica, and kelp drenches with along with foliars with most waterings. When I first started organic soil I didn't realize how important a top dress with ewc/compost. I used to use 1 inch but now I use 2 inch due to the advice of CC and others. Neem cake teas are also used for health and pest control along with karaja oil, peppermint, lavendar (I rotate). I also mix neem and rock dust in my top dress and this seems to be very affective. Currently using a coco/bark mulch with some sand but soon that will change to a living mulch when we move locations and run larger containers.

Since reading and listening to the advice of others I have looked at the way we live from food to the environment and it really made me think (organic terrorist in the making) but that's off subject. Recently created my own soil from scratch instead of using my reamended super soil because it all makes damn sense!!! Thanks again everyone and lets keep rockin the ROLS.

One more important point- It seems that topdressing with your typical tea ingredients seems to give same results but maybe at a slower rate. It seems that over time I will need to apply ACT less frequent but my soil is new for the time being.

Recent pics results from advice of ROLS crew:

Plushberry

img1137fm.jpg

img1179lq.jpg


Products I use:
img1114ny.jpg


PS forgot to mention the barley teas. Love those foliars!

img1158z.jpg
 
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V

vonforne

I have been working with teas for years and years now. Started out with a 44 gallon Rubbermaid trash can and was making what turned out to be nutrient teas to feed a big ass room. I was using all the ingredients from the bottled nutrients in their raw form. I was still messing with some bottles 7 years ago at different times in my grows but always had the trash can going. Around 2000 or so I started hitting articles on making compost teas and was using commercial bagged material......EWC. Each little step showed me it improved my plants life.

I was always a cheap bastard so I did not throw my soil out.......I used it for my house plants. I noticed they grew better than my cannabis in the old soil. I had a front yard of the best looking container plants in the neighborhood. All the women were asking me what I was doing. I laughed and said I didn´t even add fertilizer.........and the light started to blink up there.

Fast forward 8 years.........Uncle M showed up and while in Germany he was talking to me about living soil and what container volume is the minimum requirement for a Living Soil.

Along the way I picked up this and that from members here at IC and all of that is what brought me to using the ROLS that I use now. I have currently began a new grow and have each time sourced my materials locally........as much as I could. Even in Europe I searched around to find the equivalent of what I needed without ordering too much online.

I would like to stress that point to all the members that would like to use this method of growing in the future.

Source locally!!!!!!!

It is out there! Just get off that duff and do some research and find it. Make some phone calls etc.

V
 
O

Old_Headbanger

Every water I add;

Kelp .25 cup/4 gal bubbled for 48hrs.

This added to this ^
Protekt .5 ts./gal
Ful-power 20 ml./gal
Aloe 200x powder 1.5 g/4 gal
Barley enzyme tea 1 cup/gal

I'm an old chemi-convert and I've NEVER seen results like this when I was useing bottles. Praying leaves on every plant and the EASIEST garden I've ever had to maintain. Almost boring sometimes. Only time I topdress is if a plant looks a little light and then it gets EWC or compost lightly over the soil, maybe an inch. After almost two weeks from topdress, you can't tell there was anything 'deficient' in the plant.

Cann hit the nail on the head when saying he applied his veggie garden knowledge to his ganja garden. Sometimes all we have to do is open our eyes and look right in front of us. Good stuff!!

Can't wait to start no till!
 
U

unthing

i can't say i'm a true organic grower, soil grower is probably more accurate. i have however done stuff like recycling soil over and over again and more recently couple no-till runs, which didn't continue, not due problems in the soil itself but more like because of life situations. hope i can continue the no-till cycle this time. still have problem with wiggly worms and nasty smelling brews because of tight indoor spaces and i'm kinda looking to get around them.
 

W89

Active member
Veteran
because of tight indoor spaces and i'm kinda looking to get around them.

Try growing in a wardrobe.... LOL

My first try at the ROLS and it's proving good, very healthy plants indeed! More fragrant and resin coated...I'm really happy with my results far and cant wait to recyle my soil for the next go, this round was my first try at making a soil mix and I just have a few tiny adjustments but I think next round will be even more successful!

Hopefully I will get my Camera back today and will snap some pic for ya :)

Botanical Teas

Kelp & Alfalfa @ 1tsp each per ltr
Kelp, Alfalfa and Neem @ 1 tsp per ltr

I bubble for 24 hours and use, I then add the next days water to the same ingredients and bubble for another 24 hours.

All left overs get chucked in the worm bin.

Enzyme Teas

Organic Mung Beans, Organic Alfalfa, Organic Aduki Beans, Organic Chick Peas, Organic Green Lentils. @ 1 tbls per 2 liter (these are big seeds)

Alfalfa seeds @ 1tsp per ltr

All seeds soaked for 24 hours rinsing every so often. Once half inch taproot they get bubbled for 36 hours. I have been mashing my sprouts after they have been bubbled to extract everything from the seeds(water turns very cloudy)

ACT

Follow MM's exact recipe I have been making an ACT maybe once a month

Other

I add Potassium silicate to every watering or foliar same with Aloe powder 200X at recommended dosage by cootz

When I water the plants they get sprayed with what ever it is i'm feeding them with that day, if they are in flower the undersides of the leaves get sprayed, in veg the whole plant
 

soursmoker

East Coast, All Day!
Veteran
he was talking to me about living soil and what container volume is the minimum requirement for a Living Soil.



V


could you enlighten us with what the minimum requirement is? I have always wondered this...

I love organics but due to space and my situation, I can't grow monster plants... Am I wasting my time trying to grow organic? I can say I grew this bud in small starbucks cup, I believe it is 16-20 oz, using my organic soil mix and no chems added besides pro-tekt to the water.

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i would have to say organics works even on the small scale.

I have no doubt that it would work even better on a larger scale...

This plant as I said was in organic soil, watered and given teas, part time was grown under 110w of PL-L with CFLs supplementing and finished out under a 150w HPS with CFLs supplementing...

I can say I fucked up though and got it seeded by a male I kept in the flower chamber for too long... and it was late in flower so the seeds aren't even viable! fuck it...
 
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