The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

[Backyard Farmer]

No I don't have money to spend on soluble nutes. I use 10,000 gallons at a time some times. Using salts would be like burning money.

I like using stuff like ferti nitro and sea shield and pht p that make my soil work for me

 

[Yes4Prop215]

dave mentioned that most of the people having issues with his soil right now were all holes in clay and some on mounds. also our soil is pretty short on perlite and lava rock, when you dig down into some of my mounds its all black. i definitely need to cut a bit more perlite/pumice in the offseason. yea i dont know how I'm gonna cut back on the K, all i can do is mine it as much as possible with cover crops, and try to find really low PK soil to cut it with. we put a ton of rock dust in there this year so I'm surprised we would be having issues with the trace elements. does alaskan humus have good biology/trace elements?

i believe it to be the angle of my terraces. i should have sloped them a bit more so that most water would run right off the bottom. that was the original plan when we talked to dave like 2 years ago about doing mounds….anyways somewhere along the way, the terrace building specifically the bobcat tread tracks, may have created holes/ruts and angles that would have allowed all the water to pool up at the bottoms.

i wish i knew more about the clay i was on, gonna have to get that tested too. i was always under the impression that red clay was really good for plants and had a ton of traces as well.

 

[theJointedOne]

We can't forget Buttes massive plants, lovin that red dirt!

 

[bamboogardner]

dave mentioned that most of the people having issues with his soil right now were all holes in clay and some on mounds.

Well it sounds to me like Dave is talking with a forked tongue and making excuses for the crap soil that went out of his yard at EWSF. My 20 yards were all in Smarties. So I guess his theory on just being in mounds and holes was incorrect. Now lets dissect the theory on the clay soil. First off everyone of any consequence preaches that the first 18" of soil is the most important. And any deeper than that the plants roots will not get much if any oxygen. With that being said, any roots that do make it down into the clay are not going to make a Super Highway pulling up massive amounts of nutrients and eliminating the work of the microbiology that is located just under the first 2 inches of soil. You have seen all those feeder roots there just under the soil. They are doing alot of the work, not any roots 24" down.

After reading many books about the topic I am more educated at this point in the game. Not an expert by any means, but my theory is backed up by the AEA field rep. I will take a quote out of Kinseys book, Hands on Agronomy"

"An old Albrecht rule of thumb says the microbes eat at the table first. This means that they take all the nutrients a plant normally might use and utilize them first or until they no longer need them. If residual decomposition needs the nutrients, then there will be none for the plant". There always has to be enough nutrients for the microbes AND the crop.

We cannot deny that the EWSF soil has alot of compost and my report has organic matter over 40%. EWSF preaches that the soil is LOADED with microorganism. I have to agree. But here is the catch, and you will see the problem.

The soil sat in piles at the EWSF yard. It was not watered and we did not have a wet year. All the biology in the soil died. When we got the soil and started to put it in and water it down, the microorganisms started to reproduce and colonize. In doing so, they sucked up all the Nitrogen the soil had available, which was very little by the way, and the plants had nothing to grow with. Hence the yellowing of the leaves that were dropping and showing a Nitrogen deficiency. After fertigating with Rejuvinate and other microbiological enhancers, the soil became active, but not until 45 days or so from watering. That is how long it takes for the colony to rebuild. Don't forget the first part of this where it states that the microbes eat at the table first.

Everyone I talked to that has the EWSF soil that was bad got their soil early in the year. See the problem? Soil sitting in the yard, unwatered, and delivered to the customer with the biology dead or nearly so.

This post is long enough. I am trashing the soil and not listening to Dave at EWSF. The soil was touted as "do nothing, just plant in it", and it was far from that. Very far.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

dave mentioned that most of the people having issues with his soil right now were all holes in clay and some on mounds. also our soil is pretty short on perlite and lava rock, when you dig down into some of my mounds its all black. i definitely need to cut a bit more perlite/pumice in the offseason. yea i dont know how I'm gonna cut back on the K, all i can do is mine it as much as possible with cover crops, and try to find really low PK soil to cut it with. we put a ton of rock dust in there this year so I'm surprised we would be having issues with the trace elements. does alaskan humus have good biology/trace elements?

i believe it to be the angle of my terraces. i should have sloped them a bit more so that most water would run right off the bottom. that was the original plan when we talked to dave like 2 years ago about doing mounds….anyways somewhere along the way, the terrace building specifically the bobcat tread tracks, may have created holes/ruts and angles that would have allowed all the water to pool up at the bottoms.

i wish i knew more about the clay i was on, gonna have to get that tested too. i was always under the impression that red clay was really good for plants and had a ton of traces as well.

It doesn't work that ya, you can put a ton of rock dust or basalt but if everything isn't balance right the plant won't get at them

 

[Bo Hasset]

i picked up about 20 yards of premium plus from ewsf to cut into various mixes in different gardens... everyone is looking healthy and vibrant for the most part. have really only foliar'd with ppd, sea crop, fulvic acid, ca-25, epsom salts, ej catalyst and micro... top dressed with some neem and used some dr. earth bud and bloom on august 1st.... and hit the girls with a couple kelp teas and several alfalfa teas as well.

no glaring deficiencies my way, fwiw....

 

[OvergrowDaWorld]

FFOF soil. That is all.....LOL
I dont know how you guys mix up your own soil every year .....
Its not easier to just buy a few pallets of pre-mixed soil?
Then re-use it and add fresh every season there-in-after?

 

[Cep]

Every batch of ffof is different in it's Ca, Mg, K percentages among other things. If you were trying to tailor a mix you'd have to dump every bag in the pallet, homogenize it, get it tested -> too much work. The mixes places sell are relatively cheaper and sometimes even have a soil analysis attached.

 

[mapinguari]

i wish i knew more about the clay i was on, gonna have to get that tested too. i was always under the impression that red clay was really good for plants and had a ton of traces as well.

You can download a Google Earth interface that will allow you to check your exact area and access soil reports: http://www.gelib.com/soilweb.htm

 

[OvergrowDaWorld]

Any of you guys know what did this and what I can treat the area with and hopefully kill the pest/worm. I think its a burrowing worm of some kind cuz it left a tunnel. I have this on 5 plants. 1 plant has 2 spots. The biggest GG#4 has 1 spot in the main stalk half way up the plant. That scares me! I dont want it killing my plant off.
That stuff is its poop.
Im sorry to post this here but I know you guys are pros and know whats what and can quickly diagnose this so I can run to the store right now.

This is the yellowing/damage its doing to a branch that has 3 or 4 weeks left till harvest ~

Found the spot on the main trunk on this big GG#4 ~

 

[Organic Grower]

"An old Albrecht rule of thumb says the microbes eat at the table first. This means that they take all the nutrients a plant normally might use and utilize them first or until they no longer need them. If residual decomposition needs the nutrients, then there will be none for the plant". There always has to be enough nutrients for the microbes AND the crop.

We cannot deny that the EWSF soil has alot of compost and my report has organic matter over 40%. EWSF preaches that the soil is LOADED with microorganism. I have to agree. But here is the catch, and you will see the problem.

The soil sat in piles at the EWSF yard. It was not watered and we did not have a wet year. All the biology in the soil died. When we got the soil and started to put it in and water it down, the microorganisms started to reproduce and colonize. In doing so, they sucked up all the Nitrogen the soil had available, which was very little by the way, and the plants had nothing to grow with. Hence the yellowing of the leaves that were dropping and showing a Nitrogen deficiency. After fertigating with Rejuvinate and other microbiological enhancers, the soil became active, but not until 45 days or so from watering. That is how long it takes for the colony to rebuild. Don't forget the first part of this where it states that the microbes eat at the table first.


Just my 2 cents worth.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[Bulldog420]

Dave is no better than the hydro store guys with this nonsense. Did he really say he is mad a pot farmers????Who the fuck do you think made your business take off Dave? You fucking chump. Doesn't matter that P and K levels are too high, "the microbes pull what they want when they want"??????Why the heck would anybody spend $200 a yard for soil if the microbes pull what they want and it doesn't matter what's in the soil? Also, is Dave saying his soil only works with smart pots? We now know he doesn't recommend anybody using his soil on clay, so that eliminates most of Northern California!!

Bamboo Gardner said it all. Dave, read and learn and take responsibility for your own mess ups. People like you are a plague, take responsibility and man up.

 

[Organic Grower]

Neem seed meal , also where we threw down the 20 yards I previously had 8 half yard containers of tom hill mix but I blended those 4 yards of potting soil and perlite in to the 20 yards. I also have Dave change some stuff on the micros and add some other stuff , specific to making the soil work with my water ...I'm sure adding more peat and perlite was helpful

I also prefer to balance the soil and the include biology as well.

Can you explain what kinds of adjustments you make to the soil to make it work with your water? Are you referring to the pH of the water? Does that mean if your pH is high you're adding extra pH down stuff like gypsum and sulfur? And lime if you gotta go the other way? Or are you making more mineral adjustments to compensate for the TDS of whats in your water?

If its a pH adjustment, how do you figure out how far down you need to bring the pH of the soil to meet the water at a happy medium? Do you actually have to go significantly more acidic in the soil mix if you have alkaline water? And how long will that acidic soil buffer the alkalinity of the water before the pH starts creeping up again?

Does anyone have any ideas why Daves soil has been testing alkaline pretty consistently? Wheres his explanation for that? It's obviously not a plant ready soil if you need to add sulfur to it to get the pH balanced..

 

[ponobegone]

I think it's a cannapillar, I saw a couple spots like that last year. I think that's their droppings but not sure.

 

[Bulldog420]

May I say I hate you guys that don't know what caterpillar damage looks like!! I know all too well, and yes, that is caterpillar poop for sure. BT sprays help a ton. Spinosad as well.

 

[OvergrowDaWorld]

THANK YOU PONO AND BULLDOG!!!!!!!
Off to get BT!

 

[mendo-local]

Love this time of year. I know the dogs do too! As soon as I start sleeping outside they take tweeker patrol very seriously, alternating shifts like our lives depend on it.

 

[mendo-local]

Glad I took clones from everything in the garden this year. This very late addition of sour mango is chunking.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

overgrow BT is not a contact killer, it only works once the caterpillars ingest it. they will still eat a small amount before dying. definitely spray some BT and do it in the evenings…but it won't actually stop them from landing on your plants. at this point with that much damage, and with a smaller plot the best way to control it is to take a giant hash hit, then go spend an afternoon out there searching each and every cola and picking off and killing the caterpillars by hand.



didn't mean to start a pissing match about norcal blend, but some of the things he was saying really raised some red flags. i know some guys who are doing very well in norcal blend and some others that aren't, but at the end of the day if his customers are having issues he should be addressing it better because clearly some people are not satisfied with his answers.

 

[Yes4Prop215]

FFOF soil. That is all.....LOL
I dont know how you guys mix up your own soil every year .....
Its not easier to just buy a few pallets of pre-mixed soil?
Then re-use it and add fresh every season there-in-after?

Every batch of ffof is different in it's Ca, Mg, K percentages among other things. If you were trying to tailor a mix you'd have to dump every bag in the pallet, homogenize it, get it tested -> too much work. The mixes places sell are relatively cheaper and sometimes even have a soil analysis attached.

Ocean forest is super inconsistent, I've been using it for 5 years and sometimes you get a good batch and others you get a bad one that burns everything. i used it my first few seasons for full term and it does the job but definitely some issues, ones that i hoped to avoid by switching to EWSF! but anyways we also did a soil test on our 2 year old FFOF and they came back pretty bad, PK through the roof as well…. i only use happy frog nowadays for transplants and veg starts, it seems a bit more consistent.

so if EWSF is no longer an option, what other places in the 530 can mix up some good blends? i wanted to add another 80 yards or so to my piles next year. I'm almost tempted to cut everything with Black Gold to cut down a bit on the PK since its so light. I did a side garden for seedlings in black gold and its very light soil almost feel like I'm growing in Coco..