Team Microbe's Living Soil Laboratory - Round 2!

[Former Guest]

How can we change or add anything when the ammendments are described as a nutrient kit?

Also don't add worms until the soil is done cookin or you'll get a worm mud pie.

Here's the recipe.

So i Plan on using the following recipe to mix 9 cu ft of soil for my next grow it will cook for 8 weeks.

#1 The Cootz Mix:

Equal parts of Sphagnum peat moss, some aeration deal (pumice, rice hulls, lava rock - whatever is sitting in the garage) and finally some mix of humus - my compost, worm castings some black leaf mold I bought from the local 'worm guy'

To each 1 c.f. of this mix I add the following:

1/2 cup organic Neem meal
1/2 cup organic Kelp meal
1/2 cup Crab meal (or Crustacean meal when available - it has Shrimp meal with the Crab meal. It's a local product from the fisheries on the Oregon & Washington Coasts)

4 cups of some minerals - rock dust (See Below)

The Rock Dust Recipe
4x - Glacial Rock Dust - Canadian Glacial (Gaia Green label)
1x - Bentonite - from the pottery supply store
1x - Oyster Shell Powder - the standard product from San Francisco Bay
1x - Basalt - from Redmond, Oregon (new product at Concentrates - about $18.00)

No Dolomite Lime, Greensand or SRP was used. Or Azomite.

After the plant is in the final container I top-dress with my worm castings at 2" or so and then I hit it with Aloe vera juice and Comfrey extract. Or Borage. Or Stinging Nettle. Or Horsetail ferns. Whatever is ready.

That's it.

To recycle I've just been letting the root ball breakdown and I remove it. I dump the potting soil into an extra large SmartPot container (50 gallons) and add some new potting soil mix as above. I water it down with Kelp meal and Comfrey tea and let it sit until I need it.

Credited to Some Old Coot.

However BAS has his mineral mix as 1 part glacial, one part gypsum, one part oyster shell, one part basalt. Then the rest is the same. I'm assuming an updated version to include gypsum which helps condition soil due to clay like the bentonite in the older version but gypsum adds sulphur and calcium. Sulphur helps with terpenes.

 

[CannaBossFarms]

Looking great I love it!

 

[Microbeman]

TM: 18 inches - 49 day flower cultivar - vertical garden
Barley straw is a little better for promoting bacterial colonies. It is used dropped into ponds to clear up 'murky' water.
I cannot find any locally.

 

[Seaf0ur]

IN...

 

[Former Guest]

I was reading it has a higher C:N ratio than hay that promotes fungal colonies.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/sag-fact/pdf/0016.pdf

 

[Team Microbe]

How can we change or add anything when the ammendments are described as a nutrient kit?

Also don't add worms until the soil is done cookin or you'll get a worm mud pie.

However BAS has his mineral mix as 1 part glacial, one part gypsum, one part oyster shell, one part basalt. Then the rest is the same. I'm assuming an updated version to include gypsum which helps condition soil due to clay like the bentonite in the older version but gypsum adds sulphur and calcium. Sulphur helps with terpenes.

Ooooo good thing you said that! I would've added the worms right off the bat I bet...

TM: 18 inches - 49 day flower cultivar - vertical garden
Barley straw is a little better for promoting bacterial colonies. It is used dropped into ponds to clear up 'murky' water.
I cannot find any locally.

Oh no, I meant how tall did the plants grow to at the end of flowering? (with the 14 day veg) I'm just trying to get a visual of how I would run a regimen like that in my room, whether it would be a sea of green or if they would still reach like 4'-5' in height

But yeah, I may have to order the barley online as well... 1 bale goes a long way though so hopefully I won't have to order another for a long time. Do you get yours from Buildasoil?

 

[Former Guest]

I would've done the same except someone warned on a thread. Gotta pay it forward. Just mixed 6/27 cuft in a mixer and I'm pooped.

If you don't have access to straw or hay, then you can use leaf litter, coco coir chunks, thicker living mulch, forest duff, comfrey leaves, nettles, expanded shale. Just that you need a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio. If you put lots of greens on top instead of carbon, an unbalanced C:N ratio (10:1), the microbes will steal nitrogen from your soil to decompose the excess carbon. When there is too much nitrogen, the excess nitrogen is released as ammonia. Getting the right ratio helps the microbes process proteins which aid in photosynthesis and I could pull out the fancy triangle photosynthesis chart.

 

[Polygon]

I have a few questions for anyone with no-till experience.

1. I have a few plants from seed that are just getting on their 5th true leaf set, but showing signs of being root-bound as they are in solo cups of soil that aren't super full. When can I transfer into the 7-gal no-tills I have rocking? I know you aren't supposed to veg for super long in the no-till containers, but the plants are far too small to consider flowering at the moment and transferring to a bigger container in the meantime will mean I have to remove a huge chunk of soil to transplant into the 7-gals.

2. I used timothy hay and straw mix as it's all that was available to me locally, should that work out fine as a mulch w/the 40% clover cover seed? It looks like it's doing great, the EWC/kelp/neem top dressing and it are forming great mycelial connections, just wondering if anyone has used hay and found problems. I know I will have a stray weed seed or two in there and am not super worries.

3. What size air-pump would one need for a 2.5 gallon batch of ACT? 5 gallons is overkill for my run at the moment and don't want to over or under oxygenate the tea.

4. I saw a worm in there today, but it was white and pretty small. Keep in mind, being a long-time fungus cultivator, I know what a fungus gnat larvae looks like and it was not that, nor a root aphid of any sort. Are these a different worm than RW earthworms? I would post up pics, but ICMAG doesn't let one do that until they post like 50 posts. Not super worried, more excited, just figured I'd ask if anyone has seen a lil white worm or two in their soil?

thanks in advance and thanks for the knowledge TM and crew, these threads are becoming my favorite threads on canna and gardening forums. No-till is the shit!

 

[3rdEye]

What's up TM? I caught up and found this new thread of yours. Looking good. I'm following along.

Polygon

2 that mulch sounds fine.
4 i have several different worms and many different other insects in my soil and mulch. The more diverse the better.
Welcome to no-till land. I don't have any hard rules about transplants.
Good luck

 

[Team Microbe]

I would've done the same except someone warned on a thread. Gotta pay it forward. Just mixed 6/27 cuft in a mixer and I'm pooped.

If you don't have access to straw or hay, then you can use leaf litter, coco coir chunks, thicker living mulch, forest duff, comfrey leaves, nettles, expanded shale. Just that you need a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio. If you put lots of greens on top instead of carbon, an unbalanced C:N ratio (10:1), the microbes will steal nitrogen from your soil to decompose the excess carbon. When there is too much nitrogen, the excess nitrogen is released as ammonia. Getting the right ratio helps the microbes process proteins which aid in photosynthesis and I could pull out the fancy triangle photosynthesis chart.

Sounds good, I'll keep that in mind when mulching. Thanks LLB

I have a few questions for anyone with no-till experience.

1. I have a few plants from seed that are just getting on their 5th true leaf set, but showing signs of being root-bound as they are in solo cups of soil that aren't super full. When can I transfer into the 7-gal no-tills I have rocking? I know you aren't supposed to veg for super long in the no-till containers, but the plants are far too small to consider flowering at the moment and transferring to a bigger container in the meantime will mean I have to remove a huge chunk of soil to transplant into the 7-gals.

3. What size air-pump would one need for a 2.5 gallon batch of ACT? 5 gallons is overkill for my run at the moment and don't want to over or under oxygenate the tea.

4. I saw a worm in there today, but it was white and pretty small. Keep in mind, being a long-time fungus cultivator, I know what a fungus gnat larvae looks like and it was not that, nor a root aphid of any sort. Are these a different worm than RW earthworms? I would post up pics, but ICMAG doesn't let one do that until they post like 50 posts. Not super worried, more excited, just figured I'd ask if anyone has seen a lil white worm or two in their soil?

thanks in advance and thanks for the knowledge TM and crew, these threads are becoming my favorite threads on canna and gardening forums. No-till is the shit!

1) It's best to transplant sooner than later to prevent any stunting/stress from the plant becoming root bound I've learned. I like to transplant when there are 3-4 leaf sets tops, if possible it's best to germinate in the final container even. You can go into your bigger pots now, by all means! You can veg as long as you want in a no-till container, but you may have to apply an alfalfa tea or a top dress down the line, that's all.

3) You can get a double outlet aquarium pump for the 2.5 gal to bubble with, the more air the merrier though (to an extent). It's very hard to over oxygenate your tea unless you spend a lot on a powerful pump. You don't want incredibly aggressive agitation, but then again you don't want want things to go anaerobic so trust your gut on this one. Also, try to avoid any "dead zones" in your brewer.

4) It could be a thrip larvae, or a baby worm maybe? Pictures will help diagnose it, start commenting on some random threads

What's up TM? I caught up and found this new thread of yours. Looking good. I'm following along.

Polygon

2 that mulch sounds fine.
4 i have several different worms and many different other insects in my soil and mulch. The more diverse the better.
Welcome to no-till land. I don't have any hard rules about transplants.
Good luck

Hey man, pleasure to have ya

 

[Team Microbe]

I've been smokin on this OG all day, and the sun finally showed it's face along with temps upwards of 50F! It's been in the negatives around here lately, so when I stepped outside today it felt like summer. I rolled up a few jays, and went and checked out a location I found on google earth that I'll potentially be building soil at this outdoor season. What a perfect day. What's everyone smokin on this week?

Anyways, I was at my local nursery today because I planned on picking up some of this Lobster Compost, but they left the pallet outside all winter and it's frozen solid with snow on top of it lol. Not sure if I wanna buy it even after it thaws now... what does everyone think? Can compost go "bad" from remaining too wet for a long period of time? They said they probably wouldn't order a pallet (40 1 cu. ft. bags for $238) until this one was sold... I'm gonna see if I can get them to change their mind though.

I picked up some aloe vera while I was there, they had some nice plants in their green house this month. I feel like a consumer walking into Wal-Mart when I go to a nursery... it's like a black hole that sucks you in to buying at least one thing before you leave

I made an aloe puree to go with an EWC slurry for tonight's watering, shit was so fun!

For those that are wondering on how to make this:


Aloe Puree

1. Chop aloe into small pieces to prepare for blending

2. For every gallon of water, drop 2 tbsp of chopped up aloe into the blender. Mix in equal parts h20 for blending purposes. This means a 5 gallon recipe would require 10 tbsp of water and 10 tbsp aloe. Blend until you see the foam from the saponins collect on top of the mixture.

3. Pour puree into a cheese cloth to strain the skin out. You should be able to squeeze 90% of the puree through the cloth, leaving just the aloe skin behind. (Don't forget to stack functions before washing your hands by rubbing the aloe to any dry/rashed/cut areas on your skin, since it's a great antiseptic)

4. Apply this puree at 4 tbsp per gallon of water. Use for both drenching and foliars. Aloe contains salycilic acid and saponins, which contain SAR, anti bacterial, antiseptic, and cleansing properties - making it great for all around plant health and especially cloning

 

[Former Guest]

Polygon, it could be anything so pics help. I think you can post pics even with a low post count. Create an album and upload into it. I bet you just have pot worms but you can treat with a neem oil drench. I just brought in a comfrey plant that was outdoors, and found a million little worms and no comfrey plant left they come in fresh EWC from i can gather but I think they can get into anything probably. Pot worms like a specific soil environment of overwatered low ph soil. My comfrey plant was fertilized with chicken shit which is very high in urea which can effect ph by driving it down. I am going to try raising the ph and see if that kills them.

TM, I would guess that yes it would go bad if it was soggy wet constantly and I'm curious if freezing would make it less biologically active. How irritating they would leave a great compost like that to spoil.

 

[nothernblue]

TM, coast of maine is great stuff!! cool to see you may be using it. its crazy how many places around just leave there soil outside. I got a bag that smelled funky once that was left out, so i'm pretty sure they can go bad.

 

[Croptober]

I've read about the aloe vera cloning but I've never tried it. Is that how you clone?

 

[Seaf0ur]

I have a few questions for anyone with no-till experience.

1. I have a few plants from seed that are just getting on their 5th true leaf set, but showing signs of being root-bound as they are in solo cups of soil that aren't super full. When can I transfer into the 7-gal no-tills I have rocking? I know you aren't supposed to veg for super long in the no-till containers, but the plants are far too small to consider flowering at the moment and transferring to a bigger container in the meantime will mean I have to remove a huge chunk of soil to transplant into the 7-gals.

2. I used timothy hay and straw mix as it's all that was available to me locally, should that work out fine as a mulch w/the 40% clover cover seed? It looks like it's doing great, the EWC/kelp/neem top dressing and it are forming great mycelial connections, just wondering if anyone has used hay and found problems. I know I will have a stray weed seed or two in there and am not super worries.

3. What size air-pump would one need for a 2.5 gallon batch of ACT? 5 gallons is overkill for my run at the moment and don't want to over or under oxygenate the tea.

4. I saw a worm in there today, but it was white and pretty small. Keep in mind, being a long-time fungus cultivator, I know what a fungus gnat larvae looks like and it was not that, nor a root aphid of any sort. Are these a different worm than RW earthworms? I would post up pics, but ICMAG doesn't let one do that until they post like 50 posts. Not super worried, more excited, just figured I'd ask if anyone has seen a lil white worm or two in their soil?

thanks in advance and thanks for the knowledge TM and crew, these threads are becoming my favorite threads on canna and gardening forums. No-till is the shit!

1. Now.

2. Its good.

3.A 40-60 gal aquarium pump will give enough DO2. Air lines open ended... no airstones.

4."potworms" or enchytraeids... they are harmless...

 

[Seaf0ur]

View Image
I've been smokin on this OG all day, and the sun finally showed it's face along with temps upwards of 50F! It's been in the negatives around here lately, so when I stepped outside today it felt like summer. I rolled up a few jays, and went and checked out a location I found on google earth that I'll potentially be building soil at this outdoor season. What a perfect day. What's everyone smokin on this week?



View Image
I was at my local nursery today because I planned on picking up some of this Lobster Compost, but they left the pallet outside all winter and it's frozen solid with snow on top of it lol. Not sure if I wanna buy it even after it thaws now... what does everyone think? Can compost go "bad" from remaining too wet for a long period of time? They said they probably wouldn't order a pallet (40 1 cu. ft. bags for $238) until this one was sold... I'm gonna see if I can get them to change their mind though.



View Image
I picked up some aloe vera while I was there, they had some nice plants in their green house this month. I feel like a consumer walking into Wal-Mart when I go to a nursery... it's like a black hole that sucks you in to buying at least one thing before you leave



View Image
I made an aloe puree to go with an EWC slurry for tonight's watering, shit was so fun!

For those that are wondering on how to make this:


Aloe Puree

1. Chop aloe into small pieces to prepare for blending

2. For every gallon of water, drop 2 tbsp of chopped up aloe into the blender. Mix in equal parts h20 for blending purposes. This means a 5 gallon recipe would require 10 tbsp of water and 10 tbsp aloe. Blend until you see the foam from the saponins collect on top of the mixture.

3. Pour puree into a cheese cloth to strain the skin out. You should be able to squeeze 90% of the puree through the cloth, leaving just the aloe skin behind. (Don't forget to stack functions before washing your hands by rubbing the aloe to any dry/rashed/cut areas on your skin, since it's a great antiseptic)

4. Apply this puree at 4 tbsp per gallon of water. Use for both drenching and foliars. Aloe contains salycilic acid and saponins, which contain SAR, anti bacterial, antiseptic, and cleansing properties - making it great for all around plant health and especially cloning

I imagine that if it stays anaerobic for too long, the anaerobes could overrun the aerobic microbes... but even though anaerobic microbes breed faster, aerobic microbes are stronger... I honestly dont believe it can go "bad" once you air it out... but it may not have the level of life you'd like in it initially.

Also, I don't understand how you can store a preservative free aloe puree... the gel must be freshly prepared because of its sensitivity to enzyme, oxidized, and microbial degradation...
perhaps you could add lemon juice during blending to act somewhat as a preservative... you'd still need to use it pretty rapidly...

Three Thousand Five Hundred Years - Nature's First Medicine Chest (pdf)

I know... 135 pages on Aloe?!? LOL.

 

[Polygon]

Also, here's a pic of some hay/straw mulching and making fungal love with my cover crop and top dressing

Thanks for all the quick replies. And Sea's brevity was pretty funny. I'm pretty sure it's not thrips, I've seen them in my outdoor garden a few years ago. I'm actually really happy to see beneficial life in my soil. I don't know why I spent so long treating my outdoor vegetable gardens so well and treated my cannabis like a science experiment. This makes more sense.

 

[masshole61]

Team, love me some coast of Maine! Your knowledge base is way above my pay grade but I did discover coast of Maine and have focused my growing around their quality products. Have you tried their Bumper Crop, or EWC? After trying several soil mixes have settled on bumper crop and their EWC is better than any other bagged casting I have tried.
I top dress with quoddy blend and make a compost tea as well. The last bag I bought was LOADED with baby worms. Right in the soil it went! They also make a seaweed mulch I want to try as well. Do you use any of their other products?

 

[Seaf0ur]

Coast of Maine is good stuff, but if you're further from the east coast, you might look into Malibu Biodynamic Compost...

 

[Team Microbe]

TM, I would guess that yes it would go bad if it was soggy wet constantly and I'm curious if freezing would make it less biologically active. How irritating they would leave a great compost like that to spoil.

TM, coast of maine is great stuff!! cool to see you may be using it. its crazy how many places around just leave there soil outside. I got a bag that smelled funky once that was left out, so i'm pretty sure they can go bad.

That's what I'm saying! It's crazy to leave that outside - I contacted Coast of Maine directly today and they said that any pallets they would ship to my local store would be frozen as well at this time of year. I wonder if they at least wrap their pallets in plastic... you would think so right? I'm trying to get them to ship one out - I would get (40) 1 cubic ft bags for 15% off making it only like $238. It's more than I need but it's a good investment at that kind of a deal... it's like the Oly Fish Compost LLB - that stuff is local in Oregon and such high quality that you can't help but use it lol

I've read about the aloe vera cloning but I've never tried it. Is that how you clone?

Yeah, I've had the 200x powder up until this point and that's worked well for me but now I'll simply break a leaf open, break up the gel with a canna stem, and dunk the fresh cutting in the gel before placing it in the root riot cube

I imagine that if it stays anaerobic for too long, the anaerobes could overrun the aerobic microbes... but even though anaerobic microbes breed faster, aerobic microbes are stronger... I honestly dont believe it can go "bad" once you air it out... but it may not have the level of life you'd like in it initially.

Also, I don't understand how you can store a preservative free aloe puree... the gel must be freshly prepared because of its sensitivity to enzyme, oxidized, and microbial degradation...
perhaps you could add lemon juice during blending to act somewhat as a preservative... you'd still need to use it pretty rapidly...

Three Thousand Five Hundred Years - Nature's First Medicine Chest (pdf)

I know... 135 pages on Aloe?!? LOL.

View Image

That's what I was thinking man... biologically speaking I'm not getting what I'm paying for in a way. I said that and the owner didn't really know what the hell I was talking about so I just let it go... they treat it like it has preservatives or something

You have to use the aloe within 20 minutes of cutting it since it's raw aloe, I'm not sure how you would store it so I only cut small, one-time use pieces.

Team, love me some coast of Maine! Your knowledge base is way above my pay grade but I did discover coast of Maine and have focused my growing around their quality products. Have you tried their Bumper Crop, or EWC? After trying several soil mixes have settled on bumper crop and their EWC is better than any other bagged casting I have tried.
I top dress with quoddy blend and make a compost tea as well. The last bag I bought was LOADED with baby worms. Right in the soil it went! They also make a seaweed mulch I want to try as well. Do you use any of their other products?

Yeah their Lobster Compost was very rich and I actually found a bunch of little lobster elbows and joints throughout the humus so that was a good sign I thought. I've only bought the lobster compost and felt it with my hands, I have yet to use it in a soil mix. The only thing I've done so far is add it with some EWC and Oly fish compost in an AACT last night... so I can't say much yet but by the sound of it their other products don't fall very short of the lobster compost. They sound like they know what they're doing in the YouTube vids so I trust anything they do (for the most part)