Surf's multiroom living organic fabric pot soil beds

[Seaf0ur]

Lookin good in there these days.

 

[surfguitar]

abyss99

 

[gram101]

solid work. should i churn the soil mix and water it for the next few months? also should I include the diatomite rock in the 'soil base'?

 

[gram101]

and what kind of straw do you use for mulch? sorry for all the questions but i'm on my way

 

[surfguitar]

Yes include it in the base, I don't churn mine but maybe it might be beneficial? I use straw hay I buy from the animal feed store

 

[gram101]

Thank you i appreciate it. Im up at 2 am cruising the forum learning and brainstorming. Im about to read thru this thread again because your shit is dope, contesting with some others on here that are praised. How long have you been at this craft?

 

[surfguitar]

I've been reading and trying to grow for about 13 years now, starting out back in the OG days. Never really had anything too succesful till about 6-7 years ago haha and that was pretty crappy compared to what I've stumbled onto with living organic soil

Panoramic of the new room, getting flipped tomorrow

 

[gram101]

looks sick..
what kind of setup do you have for a/c, temps?

 

[surfguitar]

Air cooled lights with 8in fan, 6in fan for room extraction and the pond fogger lowers temps a bit too

 

[whythefnot]

What size are those beds? They look a little smaller than mine, but it might just be the photo.

 

[surfguitar]

4x4 and 4x8 it's prob just the weird panoramic iPhone pic

 

[gram101]

i got worm castings and not worm compost.
is this not a proper substitute?

 

[gram101]

i have some other quality compost to mix in the soil.

 

[gram101]

sorry man, i looked over your first post and i see you how you did it.
did you like your ratio of ewc to compost?

 

[gram101]

i'm about to make my first mix today.

to get my ph in the correct range, do i ph the water that i use to soak the peat with?

or should i not worry about ph until it's all mixed up and i add some lime or something?

 

[surfguitar]

sorry man, i looked over your first post and i see you how you did it.
did you like your ratio of ewc to compost?

Preferably all worm castings but a mixture is fine worm castings and compost are the same thing!

 

[gram101]

highstandards

You are the very first poster that has access to their professional lines. It's packed about 25 miles from here and it's a PITA to get this stuff.

Here's where the bitch comes in from gardeners working with raw Sphagnum peat moss vs. one of the 'blank potting soil bases' like Sunshine Mix, Pro-Mix, etc.

As you'll notice, the pack of the straight peat is very dense and requires that you break chunks away and then you have to bust it up as much as possible. These packs are for soil mixing operations where they have machines that accomplishes that - 'bale busters'

Since I doubt that you have $50,000.00 throw at soil mixing you have to do it the old fashioned way. Once you get the peat to the point you want it then you want to hydrate it. Ready to use mixes are pre-hydrated and they use a wetting agent (i.e. surfactant) to accomplish that. The main compound is the Saponins in these wetting agents. Saponins are the ingredients in toothpaste, shampoo, bath soap, laundry soap, industrial soaps, soft drinks because they make things 'foamy' and it's this foam that will allow you to fully hydrate the peat before adding the final ingredients.

Saponins are available from many plants and at the Sun Gro plant they use Yucca root powder which is available at a number of sources online. It may not be the best - there are two plant materials that have uber levels of Saponins - Horse Chestnut powder and Soap Nut Powder

Any of these materials are available from these guys and they have very fair pricing.

As far as Saponin levels in these here are some numbers for you:

Yucca extract contains approximately 40,000 ppm
Soap Nut Powder comes in at 150,000 ppm
Horse Chestnut Powder comes in at 250,000 ppm

Since you have a fair amount of peat to hydrate then I would suggest one of the last two. Regardless they will all work for you.

After you hydrate the peat you want to let it sit for a couple of days then check to see if you need to do some more spraying.

Dat's it.....

CC

this is a quote from CC.
did you find you needed to use Saponins to moisture your Premier peat?

sorry for all the posts, if i could edit them i would!

------

here's my last post that you overlooked.

i'm about to make my first mix today.

to get my ph in the correct range, do i ph the water that i use to soak the peat with?

or should i not worry about ph until it's all mixed up and i add some lime or something?

thank you for your sound advice, when i get my shit up and running your getting all of my props.

 

[surfguitar]

I would never worry about ph, I just soaked my peat in water and mixed my soil a couple minutes later. Prob more ideal to do something similiar to what cc recommends but I didn't find a need necessarily.

 

[surfguitar]

Wifi

 

[gram101]

I got it all mixed up. The pile is heating up like crazy and the worms from the compost is climbing up the sides, lookslike they're trying to run away the trash bin is condensating for god sake. Im excited. Thank you surfer for your advice with this living soil