Organic Fanatics - Australia

[Leeroy&Co:]

What I would give to have a couple of acres to work on, what a life

Worms rule man, I never thought i would have any passion for fecal matter, but worm shit is just the best.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Thanks man.

Took me a few years of hard and stressful work to earn the $

Down here that dream is still a reality.

Especially if you willing to go down the mines etc

Real nice parcels of land going for under $100,000

 

[b00m]

Love your work surfer
you definitely are living a dream of mine to own a block of land with bush on it
one day I have to jump over the fence and come and have a walkabout down tassie way plenty of sites I haven't seen yet

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Come on down man its a great place!

Love to share some sacred erb

Cheers mate

 

[High Country]

Nice worms.

 

[wilbur]

thanks for yr advice, Silver. forgot to say thanks last time. have put the urine on but didn't think of M. will do.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Cool as bru.

Its not a golden bullet but it will help.

Up in the sub-tropics i would be looking for fruit pulp/skins as these compost real fast and contain good amounts of nutrients and sugars.

 

[wilbur]

Silver, I have bananas and chook thistles. they'll rot down quick for sure.

 

[wilbur]

CHANGING POTTING MIX pH

CHANGING POTTING MIX pH

Bought myself a new pH kit the other day and noticed the unusually complete, concise AND simple information that came with it. So thought I 'd copy the relevant bits for fellow growers and post them here. Hope Manutec Pty Ltd doesn't mind.

“WHAT IS pH?

Most soils are either slightly acidic or slightly alkaline. A few are neutral (in between acid and alkaline).
Neutral soils are said to have a pH of 7. Acidic soils have values LESS than 7; alkaline have pH values of MORE than 7

CHANGING POTTING MIX pH

BULK MIX:

The mix must be moist enough to use for potting.

RAISE pH with dolomite. Add 1 to 1.5 grams per litre of mix to raise pH by about one unit.

LOWER pH with sulphur. Add 0.3 grams per litre to lower pH by about one unit.

Check the pH again after two weeks STORAGE and add more as needed.

MIX IN POTS:

The pH of mix in pots should be checked every few months, because most fertilisers produce acidity.

RAISE pH with a suspension of hydrated lime (builders' lime). Suspend 5g (a heaped teaspoon) in a litre of water. Pour the suspension onto the mix in the pot. Use 200 ml for each litre of the mix. Plants should be repotted if the mix is below 4.5.

LOWER pH with a solution containing 2 grams of iron sulphate per litre of water. Apply 200ml per litre of mix and within two minutes heavily water the pot to remove excess salt. Wait for one week, check mix pH and add more iron sulphate as needed.”

Manutec Pty Ltd say the above information is based on CSIRO research.

Not sure whether this should be in yr thread, Silver, altho there are queries relevant to it here. This info seems so fundamental to most regularly asked questions about pH I wonder if it's worth a Sticky? What do you think forum Contributors and Mods?

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

O yeah a sticky would be nice but

Those ph testers are great. Not sure what iron sulphate is but it sounds a bit drastic as does builders lime. I am happy to use dolomite or sulphur.

I think i will have to retract my advice about fruit pulp. According to one of my books fruit pulp should only be used in small amounts in compost. Better fed to the worms or chooks. At least according to Linda Woodrow.

 

[wilbur]

I needed to lower pH one time and used iron sulphate as per manutec's advice. no ill efects whatsoever that I could see.

similarly when I was feeding pots with thrive (too much thrive, I realise now) at flowering I would use hydrated lime about half the strength manutec suggests and flush it thru regularly to get my pH somewhere near what I wanted. no troubles.

but much better to get the potting mix right in the first place which is what I see the above information is most useful for.

as to fruit above ... I meant banana PLANTS. I can fossick around in the banana patch and get something rotten from there to put in the compost.

cheers!

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Cool as mate.

Yup banana plants would be awesome i reckon! Especially if still nice and green.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Found myself a fresh piece of roadkill driving home the other night. Wrapped the poor bugger up and chucked it in the back.

Dug myself a hole and gave Wally a decent burial. Lots of clay in the soil so i backfilled with some recycled LCs#1 based on coco. I also took the oppurtunity to mix through some dolomite lime.

He will grow a monster plant i reckon. 100% organic.

 

[luvaduck]

Poor ol bugger. I found me a fresh sow that had become entangled in barbed wire today. I think she'll need a big hole eh!
Does anybody use eggshells in their garden? I have been saving them, drying them and putting through the coffee grinder to make a powder. I don't kkow if this is a good thing or not, but I cant throw egg shells away, they've gotta be good for all sorts of things.
Also I'd like to add that this season was the first that I have used Neutrog's Go Go juice. I must say the results were impressive. My bro has done a side by side grow comparison with 2 stands of white rhino and said the benefits are very noticeable. It also seems to reduce the amount of fertiliser needed.
Hope you're all up to you're elbows in compost.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Gogo juice aye? Forgot about that one. I think i might havta grab a bottle for this seasons outdoor.

Yeah it was a real shame to find the wombat. But i have put it to good use. That sow will be excellent organic fertiliser for sure!

Eggshells are great in compost or worm bin. Follow the recipe for calcium phosphate and your eggshells become an excellent organic source of calcium and phosphorous. Will do amazing things in early/mid flower

 

[Craven_au]

You will get some nice roots and leaves from him SilverSurfer

 

[bonsai]

Does anybody use eggshells in their garden?

I grind them up in a pestle and mortar and put them through my worm bins. Worms use calcium and grit as part of their digestion process, both of which can be provided by ground eggshells. I harvested (screened) a bin of finished EWC last weekend and it's full of eggshell dust.

I figure being in the worm bins gives them a head start releasing their calcium for the plants to use.

Here comes spring gents, hope you're all looking forward to it as much as I am

 

[wilbur]

the wombat should grow a good plant. there's plenty of wallabies here for the same purpose. unfortunately I 'd have to use a crowbar to make a hole that big here ... and I can't do that any more.

it occurs to me that even if you had shot the wombat (well, perhaps not a wombat but a wallaby) for fertiliser that would be 'softer' than buying chem ferts or even destroying habitat to get phosphorous as must be happening to indonesian bats!

 

[wilbur]

sativa season so far ... it's still early!

sativa season so far ... it's still early!

This is an example of my sativa this season. The seeds germinated in my garden on an inch of rain on xxx. The seeds came from a very nice sex-altered I allowed to grow on. These plants seem unusually large which I take to be a good omen for a successful dryland grow.

When to plant is the big question. Will rainfall be consistent thru spring … or should I plant later to use the more certain summer rain? The question is rhetorical of course. Every dryland farmer/grower has to work this out for himself.

I 'm wondering what you all think of the unusual seedling in the pic?
Looks like kale or kohl rabi doesn't it? The odd appearance has grown out now and other seedlings are now larger than it.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Nice one Wilbur. Those babies going in the ground at some point?

Not sure about that seedling. Looks to me like a squash or melon but could be anything.