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Mixing old dry cutted stem pieces into coco?
- Thread starter doams
- Start date
on the face of it there might be one benefit. fibers in the stems would move water just as the fibers in the coco husk do which is a stated benefit of coco. coco is so great though why fuck with it.
doams
Member
Cant just throw those stems away easy thats bad right was thinking about getting rid of em by mixing em into coco which I could throw away together with processed stems in it.. best would be mixing those stems into dust and throw that away.. but how?
there is the mistake- you should reuse the coco. i add some more coco to mine once in awhile but been using mostly the same coco for 5 years
doams
Member
how small are those pieces/do they decompose/broke down after some time completely to dust?
what about mold and those pieces are you using some bleach on top?
Thx.
They are mostly under i cm thick and 5 cm long (i don't bother with the bigger ones that i can't cut with my bone cutting shears, those go in the compoat bin.) It usually takes about half a year till they are visibly reduced and u need to add another layer, but they are brittle after a month or two. I only use this on organic beds, so microorganisms are doing their thing at a good rate. Another thing to keep in mind when using any "dead" mulch is that it will sequester N abruptly at first, then give it back slowly with the addition of new N from the mulch matter. If you add N they will break down faster. I usually just add new matter after middle of flowering cycle so it absorbs some N from the late flowering cycle, and them it starts to slowly give it back during next cycle. If you add them straight to the coco and not on top, along with this N sequestring problem you might have problems anaerobic fermentation if oxigen doesn't reach them well.
At first when I started doing this I saw some mold, probably because i was putting too much matter at a time and watering all over it. Now i can't even see mold if I dig for it in the mulch. And I would never use bleach cause that would kill exactly the microorganisms that I am looking to keep happy and in big numbers with this mulch.
there is the mistake- you should reuse the coco. i add some more coco to mine once in awhile but been using mostly the same coco for 5 years
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=7768259&postcount=28
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