[DuskrayTroubador]

Howdy everyone

I want to discuss in this thread essential soil amendments for guerrillas. Obviously each person's needs will be different depending on their native soil and environment, but what most guerrillas have in common is that they can't logistically haul large amounts of heavy soil into where they'll be growing, and so they've got to haul in amendments to make their native soil as suitable as they can.

Like many others, the native soil I'm working with has lots of clay -- a mattock makes digging through this and breaking it up much easier than using a shovel. Because of my environment, I also can't use any animal-based amendments (no blood, bone, or fish) because critters and large animals alike will come and dig the soil & plants up.

Here are my main amendments that I'm planning on rolling with this year:

-Pulverized lime (raise calcium and quickly adjust ph)

-Local compost (nothing blood, bone, or fish, but manure is cool. Can't make my own this time around, any particular recommendations on what specifically I should use? I'm curious about mushroom compost, but I'll probably go with good old cow or chicken shit. I may also topdress with bat guano before flowering)

-Insect frass 2-2-2 (great source of all sorts of micronutrients as well as chitin, which is perhaps even more important because it gets the plant's SAR going to help fend off insects and disease)

-Rice hulls/lava rock/sand (whichever I can get cheaper) for aeration.

-Gypsum ( *if necessary* to increase calcium and break up the clay).

I'm probably going to go a little light on the compost for logistical reasons, and heavier on the insect frass because it's very light in comparison. Aside from compost, all of these amendments are pretty light.

Am I missing anything essential?

[NemanHarpoon]

Hey Duskray,

Now I'm confused,I thought that blood and bone meal also would work as the deer/rabbit repellent. In some deer repellent products that I came across ,blood is listed as the main ingredient.

['Boogieman']

Your mix sounds good DuskrayTroubador. Personally I won't go without kelp meal in my soil and I avoid adding sand too clay. I like to mix compost and sphagnum peat moss together and add gypsum and oyster shell powder and your other ammendments when I'm working with clay. The sphagnum peat moss helps lighten the load of the soil and conditions clay soil well.

[Bud Green Sr.]

My native soil is a sandy red clay and lots of rocks. (mostly sandstone)
Once my holes have been dug, rocks removed and clay broken up in very small pieces, I add compost, old cow manure and other material to keep the soil from compacting again...
The first year is always the hardest, but once your holes are established, it's easy to maintain them to use year after year..(security permitting)

After that, each year I amend a month before transplanting by adding NPK and micros by using cottonseed meal, bone meal and wood ashes.. (NPK)
I use pulverized crab shell and eggshell for calcium and chitin and Epson salt for magnesium...
I mix the proper ratios of these at home, and carry it in all mixed up, with a measuring can for getting the right amount in each of my large holes...

I also mulch with oak leaves and dry green grass and weeds, and other organic material all year round, while the plants are growing and over the winter on the empty holes...
This mulch slowly breaks down and is mixed into the holes each Spring to keep the good soil loose and full of organic material...

[Joint Lock]

Kelp and manures anything else is asking to be dug up . Bone meal and blood meal is asking for it . Blood meal is a deer deterent but a raccoon or possum will dig through it bloodmeal is used is nylons hung in trees for deer repellent


Myself I use Kelp and rabbit manure works wonders maybe a lil Epsom salt and perlite

[Easy7]

Coir can be brought in when it's the compacted type.

Oyster shell
Compost
Guano
Kelp
Rock dust
Inoculants
Humic acid
A little garden lime
Clover seed for companion
Perlite
Goat poo

[NemanHarpoon]

Originally Posted by Joint Lock

...bloodmeal is used is nylons hung in trees for deer repellent


Myself I use Kelp and rabbit manure works wonders maybe a lil Epsom salt and perlite

Thank you for an idea!

[DuskrayTroubador]

Originally Posted by NemanHarpoon

Hey Duskray,

Now I'm confused,I thought that blood and bone meal also would work as the deer/rabbit repellent. In some deer repellent products that I came across ,blood is listed as the main ingredient.

Joint lock it the nail on the head. Deer won't dig it up, but other critters will go straight for it.

Originally Posted by 'Boogieman'

Your mix sounds good DuskrayTroubador. Personally I won't go without kelp meal in my soil and I avoid adding sand too clay. I like to mix compost and sphagnum peat moss together and add gypsum and oyster shell powder and your other ammendments when I'm working with clay. The sphagnum peat moss helps lighten the load of the soil and conditions clay soil well.

Peat moss sounds like a good idea. What is the benefit of kelp meal? I've heard some people sing its praise, others have said it's snake oil.

Originally Posted by Bud Green Sr.

My native soil is a sandy red clay and lots of rocks. (mostly sandstone)
Once my holes have been dug, rocks removed and clay broken up in very small pieces, I add compost, old cow manure and other material to keep the soil from compacting again...
The first year is always the hardest, but once your holes are established, it's easy to maintain them to use year after year..(security permitting)

After that, each year I amend a month before transplanting by adding NPK and micros by using cottonseed meal, bone meal and wood ashes.. (NPK)
I use pulverized crab shell and eggshell for calcium and chitin and Epson salt for magnesium...
I mix the proper ratios of these at home, and carry it in all mixed up, with a measuring can for getting the right amount in each of my large holes...

I also mulch with oak leaves and dry green grass and weeds, and other organic material all year round, while the plants are growing and over the winter on the empty holes...
This mulch slowly breaks down and is mixed into the holes each Spring to keep the good soil loose and full of organic material...

I might also have to look into epsom salt. Do you think a covercrop (and trimming it and letting it lay like mulch) would accomplish the same thing as the mulching that you do?

Originally Posted by Joint Lock

Kelp and manures anything else is asking to be dug up . Bone meal and blood meal is asking for it . Blood meal is a deer deterent but a raccoon or possum will dig through it bloodmeal is used is nylons hung in trees for deer repellent


Myself I use Kelp and rabbit manure works wonders maybe a lil Epsom salt and perlite

I try not to hang anything from trees -- could serve as an indicator (or something worth getting a closer look at) to someone passing by in the near distance.

[Robrites]

As far as blood and bone meal goes, put it in a month before planting. Coyotes will visit and dig a bit but once they realize there is nothing to eat there, they leave it alone.

[VonBudí]

alfalfa instead of blood bone. See if theres any dynamic accumulator plants nearby that can be chopped/dropped. thinking of grabbing some soya hulls/beet pulp for water retention.
sulphate of potash,superphosphate,calcifie d seaweed, rock dusts,vitax?