[moose eater]

Thanks.

When we shock the well, we get the chlorine levels down fairly quickly, just via purging, following sufficient circulation through the well and main line to the house. Typically back to less than 1 ppm after a day or two, between the outright purge, and general flow of household water (laundry, dishes, etc.).

We run drinking/dog/plant water in advance of the shocking of the well, so we have it on hand for the limited window it'll be less than completely desirable from the tap.

Originally Posted by DocTim420

Sodium Ascorbate (vit c) neutralizes chlorine/chloramine. In my garden, 1.25ml Sodium Ascorbate will neutralize 20 gallons of tap water.

More info here https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/html/.../05231301.html

[moose eater]

Alright, in perpetuation of talking mostly to myself (it's OK, I'm more or less a hermit anymore, so it's not a new gig), I'll begin with my critique of the newer untested soil recipe;

It's 2+ times the presence of N that the original organic recipe had from ~22 years ago (written below), which was an interpretation/conversion of a recipe form a mid-90s High Times magazine re. some folks, allegedly in the Detroit area, and if I recall correctly, referenced as 'the Merry Danksters.' A take-off on/from Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters.

The untested (newest) recipe is running a tempered amount of K in contrast to the more recent recipes, with the langbeinite drawn way back from recent time, due to concerns over mag and N lock-out, and hazards of increasing sulfur too greatly.

Linked to issues in the past were feeding regimen, impatience, personal energy level, etc. Potentially ugly factors that come and go.

P is on the stout side, though I don't think too far over the top, and calcium is more than adequate.

Ph is where I like it, though one day I'll train myself to try dialing it in more regularly to a 6.5, to view outcomes. The last problematic recipe's run had run-off of 6.4, and very happy, quickly developing roots, but ran into mag and N lock-out later on, in part due to feeding, I'm sure.

The basic, non-deluxe recipe from 22 years prior, is as follows (to be multiplied as needed for volume, and with 'One Part' equal to about 6 cups or so;

1.) 2 Parts Earth Worm Castings

2.) 7 Parts BX Pro-Mix, Sunshine Mix, etc.

3.) 1-1/2 Parts vermiculite

4. ) 1/2 Part + perlite

5.) 6 level TBSP High P (3-10-1) Bat guano

6.) 4 level TBSP Kelp Meal **which, if anyone else has noticed, has suffered decreased K and increased salinity over the last couple decades. :^(

7.) 1 TBSP Blood Meal

8.) 3-4 TBSP Steamed Bone Meal

9.) 1/4 cup clean wood ash (*Again, from the locally burned spruce and aspen slash burn pile) -OR- 1-1/2 teaspoons (1/2 TBSP) of Super Sweet (which lacks the K of the wood ash, but is more stable in terms of adjusting the ph; less mobile/water soluble than the wood ash is.

10.) 4 TBSP dolomite lime

Hydrated with H2O with (per gallon)

1 TBSP Maxi-Crop Liquid Extract

1-2 drops Super-Thrive Vitamin B.

----------------------------------------------

The above recipe has morphed numerous times over the years. Many (not all) notes of changes remain intact.

[h.h.]

Chlorine will dissipate pretty easily anyway. Spraying your water, the addition of a little organic matter, lemon juice, molasses...

Sometimes talking to yourself is a good thing. Helps to write it all down. Carry on.

[moose eater]

Well... Based on appearances, and without listing a smattering of the extensive steps in the evolution of soil recipes (and techniques) that lay between the first interpretation and the most recent effort, the most immediately available nutrients in the recent effort appear to be having a positive impact on what were upset, pent-up intermediate girls, trapped too long in 3"x3" cubes.

Everyone has thrown off their funk from that brief nightmare, and though some of the N was the first to be available, the darker green that came from that is changing to a more mid-green, still darker, but showing the signs that things are balancing out in the slower-releasing nutrients. All seems well in Oz.

In the first couple weeks of new soil, only water with 1.7 ml of Pro-tekt and 3 ml of Liquid Karma are used for now, intermittently , keeping the tops of the pots moist, and nothing more, other than for occasionally a cup of Hydrogen Peroxide for added oxygen. (centers and bottoms of the depth of the pots are mostly moist still, and I try to keep uniform moisture in them during the roots' initial efforts to find the reaches of the insides of the pots, before going toward a more standard drying and wetting cycle.

All stems have firmed and fattened, though Ghost Train Haze #1 (the only short, stocky, apparently genetically -stable- female from 14 seeds(!!!!!!) ) is clearly going to depend on a number of 'crutches' later in her life. We'll see if she warrants such special treatment.

Tijuana was a Queen that defied all write-ups about her. She possessed a glorious, old-time happy and balanced high, unique aroma, half-decent producer, tons of trichomes, etc., but her stem structure (for me and most others I know of who worked with her, with the ONE exception of one person who used a mix of 1/3 Fishy Pete's, 1/3 Ocean Forest, & 1/3 Perlite, with no dolomite, <as far as I know>, and fed sparingly with Grow Big, and a bit more frequently with Big Bloom as a stand-alone) otherwise lacked anything sufficient to support her without making her look like a training-wheel version of someone's high-wire act. So, to quote a family member's rendition of all things Star-Trek, "She's DEAD, Jim!"

I'll miss her, but not that badly. Time and better genetics heal all things.. Don't they?

Goji OG, on the other hand, is built like a brick shit-house, resembling a 3 dimensional version of Liberace's candelabra, as though structure of the plant actually figured into the planned genetics when breeding.. Fathom THAT!!

If tea or supporting nutrient additions are used at all, with the hefty N listed in the most recent effort, it'll be a moderate P source, and a mild K source, with little to no N, and flushed every 3-4 weeks with Sledgehammer/yucca extract, for naturally occurring or other salt build-up. Oh, and the occasional Hygrozyme and Fulvic/Humic acids.

Quite possible the impending/eventual tea regimen will be in the range of 1-1/2 or 1-1/3 cups of .5-13-.3 bat shit into a nylon stocking, along with a couple TBSP of clean wood ash, 1/2-cup or so of EWC, perhaps a 1/4-cup humus, 2 TBSP or so of organic molasses, and at the end of brewing the above mix in 4-1/2 gallons of H2O in a 5-gallon bucket with an air pump and air stone, mix <2-cups of the above mix's tea w/ 2 teaspoons of liquefied Maxi-Crop extract into each gallon of H2O. Annnnnd, we'll see what happens with that.

If I tweak the current soil recipe, it'll probably be to reduce the N by 25%-40%, and see what happens, but that would likely be met with greater use of Maxi-Crop in the watering.

Anyway, misleadingly or not, thus far, everybody looks happy. Even the wimpy-stemmed GTH#1

In a week or so, after letting the whole of the pots dry down to reasonable watering dryness, I'll sample a run-off for ph, just to see if it's more or less stable where I pinned it.

[moose eater]

Don't all jump in at once with experiences and knowledge. Too many ideas at once becomes confusing. So for Christ's sake, take a number and write in turn... Maintain some order!!

If it's any help, I can switch my toothpaste... or something...

FREE BEER!!!!!

[h.h.]

Free whiskey on the other thread.

I mix my soil like your grandma makes a cake. Like a Grateful Dead show, it's never the same twice. You want me to critique yours?
Like horse shoes and hand grenades, you only really need to get close. Top dress and side dress.

I prefer to skip the perlite. It tends to break down and really doesn't add anything in the process except for muck. A position I like to reserve for my vermacompost. Perhaps "muck" isn't the right word.
I use a lot of oil sweep(DE). I don't worry about the fines even though they add to the muck, I believe they add to my silica value.

Not sure what you mean by clean ash. I like to collect the white ashes, soak them, then I use the water and anything that floats for char. You know, muck.

Don't get me wrong. I love muck, but I'm only allowed so much.
If I improve aggregation, I'm allowed more. I've used oatmeal in this regard. Chia may be a better alternative, though it sprouts like crazy, which is another use for it. Incorporate the sprouts back in, but for aggregation, soak it a bit or grind it slightly.

I've used a lot of yucca, but never the extract. That makes it hard for me to comment on it's cost effectiveness or it's value in the soil.
I find yucca to be an excellent soil conditioner and I personally believe from anecdotal observations along with shaky Google research that it may also have a greater effect on the various microbial populations than it's reputation may suggest.
Again, don't know about the extract but I'll spout off anyway. It should last a long time in the soil and have many of the same properties. Cost over time, it may not really be that expensive. It should have a high steroidal saponin content. In fact I would want it to be rather soapy.
Now that beer. It's a bit early. Maybe after lunch. Nothing with a twist top and defiantly no pop tops.

[moose eater]

Thanks.

By 'clean ash,' I mean ash from my on-going bon fire slash pit that receives the scrub and punky spruce, various aspen, willow, alder, etc.; woods from our property that's too deficient to be sold as firewood (delivered to us by the various wind storms, as I typically don't fell my spruce). The ash is gathered after the fire pit cools, preferably having not been rained or snowed on, (as I assume you're aware the K and micro-nutes in the ash are leeched away by water fairly easily), then processed through a 2"x4" frame with 1/4" hardware cloth fitted to the bottom of the frame, and laid atop a wheel-barrow for collecting the wood ash, then transferred to a Rubbermaid tote.

The sledgehammer (yucca extract) is purported to have a decent rep for neutralizing or washing salts that gather. Often applied in slightly greater diluted volume, than a routine watering, for purposes of the flushing +.

In all of my note-taking re. soils, I've tried to be fairly precise in repetition; some of that is whimsical, as when using mounded measurement devices there will always be some variance in volume, but the end product comes out surprisingly close when looking at where it ends up near the top of the cement mixer (*I take a piece of 6 mil visqueen and use a LONG bungee cord I'd typically not use for any other purpose due to its light-weight quality. I cover the mouth of the mixer with the 6 mil and bungee, and tumble for several minutes dry, then add the liquid, re-cover the mouth, and tumble again for several minutes).

Despite leaving behind a number of fairly functional recipes in search of the ever-increased quality and production, and to find a way to return to the oil/resin content that I had pre-well, etc., I've tried to be able to return to a given recipe if needed, though follow-up notes, post-harvest, are more lacking than contents..

The perlite I've always believed to be instrumental (in absence of coarse sand) for drainage and preventing the build-up of moisture to the point of causing rot or other issues. We've got tons of silt, & very little true sand. I use nearly zero vermiculite any more, other than for mixing up media for cuttings.

Not familiar with (DE)/'oil sweep'.

The only times I've top-dressed has either been with components to raise or lower ph, or diatomaceous earth/perlite in non-biological warfare with fungus gnats, etc.

On tap this morning, we have 'Chuli Stout' (named after the Chulitna River, and brewed by Denali Brewing in Talkeetna; a fine community that, numerous times over, (the Sunshine/Trapper creek area) voted at or in excess of 75% for all-out taxed and regulated sale of cannabis when we worked those gigs), and, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, a town near where I spent a number of years of pre-adult life, Founders Brewing Co.; both their 6.5% Porter, and their 8.5% "Dirty Bastard" Scottish Style Ale (they call it a scotch-style ale, but I think every self-respecting Scotsman knows 'scotch' is a beverage, not a place of origin).

We're not much on whiskey here, but lately I've been keeping a half-decent Canadian whiskey, Royal Crest, specifically for Irish coffee, or for our home-made maple liqueur. I'm more of a reposado tequila guy when it comes to liquor.

Give me some time to process what you wrote and to figure out the 'DE'.

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by h.h.

Free whiskey on the other thread.

I mix my soil like your grandma makes a cake. Like a Grateful Dead show, it's never the same twice. You want me to critique yours?
Like horse shoes and hand grenades, you only really need to get close. Top dress and side dress.

I prefer to skip the perlite. It tends to break down and really doesn't add anything in the process except for muck. A position I like to reserve for my vermacompost. Perhaps "muck" isn't the right word.
I use a lot of oil sweep(DE). I don't worry about the fines even though they add to the muck, I believe they add to my silica value.

Not sure what you mean by clean ash. I like to collect the white ashes, soak them, then I use the water and anything that floats for char. You know, muck.

Don't get me wrong. I love muck, but I'm only allowed so much.
If I improve aggregation, I'm allowed more. I've used oatmeal in this regard. Chia may be a better alternative, though it sprouts like crazy, which is another use for it. Incorporate the sprouts back in, but for aggregation, soak it a bit or grind it slightly.

I've used a lot of yucca, but never the extract. That makes it hard for me to comment on it's cost effectiveness or it's value in the soil.
I find yucca to be an excellent soil conditioner and I personally believe from anecdotal observations along with shaky Google research that it may also have a greater effect on the various microbial populations than it's reputation may suggest.
Again, don't know about the extract but I'll spout off anyway. It should last a long time in the soil and have many of the same properties. Cost over time, it may not really be that expensive. It should have a high steroidal saponin content. In fact I would want it to be rather soapy.
Now that beer. It's a bit early. Maybe after lunch. Nothing with a twist top and defiantly no pop tops.

[h.h.]

DE, diatomaceous earth to replace some of the perlite.
There's other replacements as well. Longer lasting if you're recycling your soil.

I hate to interfere with what you got though. . I'm just here for the beer.

Spent a few months in Big Rapids, back in my cheap beer days.
Now it's good beer and far fewer of them. Whiskey is a distant memory.

https://www.maximumyield.com/yucca-e...-desert/2/1236

[moose eater]

Thanks for clarifying the DE. That was what I suspected after I had already posted. I've frequently used medium to coarse perlite to top-dress for gnats, etc., though not sure if the consistency is as rigid/sharp as the DE for what we were using it for. Mostly used Gnatrol (baccilus thuringensis <spelling?>) for them back then, and recently, Azamax. Don't like the consistency of the Azamax, or the frequency it needs to be applied to put a lasting hurt on the lil' buggers, let alone the price, but....

Don't worry about interfering. I take it in, think it through if I'm able to, ask questions if necessary, and move forward.

In many cases, I'll try most anything once, or so.

BTW, even the wimpier stems of the GTH#1 this morning look as though they decided to try (in their own way) to get with the program. She may have a future after all. ;^>)

Originally Posted by h.h.

DE, diatomaceous earth to replace some of the perlite.
There's other replacements as well. Longer lasting if you're recycling your soil.

I hate to interfere with what you got though. . I'm just here for the beer.

Spent a few months in Big Rapids, back in my cheap beer days.
Now it's good beer and far fewer of them. Whiskey is a distant memory.

https://www.maximumyield.com/yucca-e...-desert/2/1236

[h.h.]

Good. Now that I've disqualified myself from achieving guru status, I can speak freely. My lack of knowledge has never stopped me from giving expert advice.

Looks like you have a pretty diverse soil mix. Something you've tweaked over the years and are pretty content with. For me to actually critique it, I think that I'd have to break it down to your base, figure out your percentages in it, breaking each one down to percentages, release rates, longevity, and I leave it to the experts.

There's only a couple of folks really qualified to reply to your thread with accuracy.

I'm kind of lazy. I don't put that much thought into my soil. Kind of cheap as well.
I was using yucca schidigera trunks for part of my base material. It made good bedding for the worms and that was about the only way to compost it. A little horse manure, SPMoss, DE, a few other selected items, pea gravel, San Pedro cactus. Dirt for some mineralization and some clay. Stuff I was lucky to have at the time.It all went through the worm bin. I would harvest it early with a piece of carpenter cloth.

I'd mix in some finished vermacompost to my desired texture, a little gypsum to color, oatmeal or something for aggregation, cheat with a little Epsoma for redundancy. A slight bit of ground acacia seed for fertilizer. A few ashes along with the char.
I'd fix up my pots, leaving a hole where my transplants would go. Then I sprouted chia seeds in it to get what in my mind was a start to the nutrient flow. Priming the pump. I would then smother the sprouts for a day or two and plant shortly after with a little mycorrizae.

Top dress with something for nitrogen. Manure, ground seed, meals. Mulch in layers lasagna style. Through in a little blood meal if you want. A little ash water. Plant teas from dried leaves. Every time I watered, I fed the soil through filtration. That gave me the flexibility to be somewhat sloppy in my soil mix.

I'm starting over now. In a new area with somewhat different resources. One advantage, I have a fertilizer factory in the back. My yucca is a different varity. Not the same saponin content.

The best advice I think I could give you if you haven't already would be to look over Lowenfels trilogy and to check out Tim's (Microbeman) website. KIS posted some pretty good podcasts recently that are worth a listen as well.