Rev. Green Genes
Time is an Illusion. Lunchtime doubly So.
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Howdy AFN.
I'm experimenting with some soil techniques.
round 1
4-5 gallon red clay soil, 6+ gallon recycled last years potting mix, recycled peat plugs, partially decomposed roots.
large bag of "garden soil" with a tiny amount of NPK
2 5 gallon pots stuffed with overwintered whole oak and maple leaves
1 pound roasted buckwheat and 1 pound spelt grain
2 cups jobes compost starter (Archaea inoculant)
cardboard strips, chainsaw curls, sawdust, hardwood ash
2 cups gypsum, 1 cup lime, 2 cups Azomite, 1 cup Epsom
water with hydroguard (bacillus inoculant) solution
turned in till the clay clumps 1/2 inch or less
turn a couple times a week, water sparingly
it should maintain it's own moisture in most environments.
Turn in the sprouts as they come up, let them yellow and struggle in there.
Turn in more leafy biomass whenever you want.
round 2 (one month or more later, most cardboard and whatever but sprouts should me broken down pretty good or gone)
1/2 bag builders sand, 1 brick fine COIR (pre-soaked in water)
2 cups Langbeinite, 2 cups azomite, 2 cups black hen, 2 cups cottonseed meal, 2 cups bone meal, 1 gallon vermiculite
2 cups jobes compost starter (Archaea inoculant)
turn in dry ingredients,
water with hydroguard (bacillus inoculant) solution
1 cup Jobes Bio-Zome fungal/bacteria innoculant
turn it over again, cover and/or leave out in sun, maintain light moisture.
in two weeks or a month, uncover the mix, turn it over again, and it is now a useful starter potting soil mix.
At potting that is my base mix, and I adjust the final mix with one of several other mediums to get the effect I am after.
1. acid loving plants: add sulfur or aluminum to reduce pH to 5 and mix soil 1/3 perlite/coir/potting soil
2. House Plants: same as acid loving without the sulfur and aluminum
3. Vegetables and Berries: Same as House plants, add fish emulsion or Bio-Fish, eggshells or shell meal, Epsom, and either black hen/guano/blood meal, and a generous heap of pine bark.
4. Succulents, 1/3 sand/gravel/soil
This was designed to have organic forms of nutrients in the soil in multiple forms to fully mineralize the contents and create a base that has a high enough CEC to maintain fertility through several rounds of recycling. The more stages of decay happening at once the better.
I had those mycos laying around from planting trees, but for cannabis I would not use those. I always get the two kinds confused, but I am pretty sure it is the ENDO mycos that we want for cannabis, and not the ECTO's. Studies show the ones that burrow into the roots out compete the ones that surround the root and the positive benefits are reduced substantially.
here are several of those mixes, although not with the same batch of soil, this is an older batch. The new stuff from above will go in the grow room, I'm not wasting the super soil on ferns.
I hadn't repotted these in years, they were badly root bound, and the fern on the left was almost dead. I cut out 90% of its foliage. That and the Aloe may not survive, I chopped out some crazy root bound roots.
cant really see in the pics, the aloe has a layer of coarse gravel at bottom, It is 1/3 sand/fine gravel/soil, exactly.. The pics look heavier on perlite than they are.
....copied from previous journal....
______________________________________________________________________________
That was over the winter .....
______________________________________________________________________________
Now that I'm ready to start from scratch in my new tested grow room, I'm going to try to run two 3 gallon fabric pots as well as a single hydro monster.
That soil I mixed up is ready, and is the perfect base for anything.
For the Cannabis, I mixed that super soil with perlite, half a brick of coir each, some lime, and poured the dregs of the watery coir into a "bathtub" in the middle of each pot for the initial planting spot..
I have dropped two Mephisto BlueToof and a Mephisto Double Grape for the hydro tank.
My goals:
prove my soil building chops.
use as little farther inputs as necessary
only adding root booster or a pk boost mid flower.
remember how do do cannabis in soil, been a while....
demonstrate using super soil as a base for other plants as well.
explain some of the science involved with organics.
Here are some more pics, not necessarily in order of what was done.
The mix here is langbeinite, cottonseed meal, bio-fish, azomite, sulfur, and bone meal.. It's for blueberries. I mix it with a couple gallons of super soil and use it as a top dressing for acid loving plants.
Double Grape
Some of the nutes I use.
Blue Toof
The finished mix is for cannabis, this gets mixed with half a brick of coir per 3 gallons of soil. If I had it I would also add some small pine bark.
The cooked up soil from this winter. Allow me to drop a science bomb here.
I used clay and vermiculite to raise the CEC (cation exchange capacity) I added lots of organic matter and minerals in conjunction with various microbes. As the organic matter was broken down by well fed microbes there was a "pre-charge" of the Cation exchange sites in the soil. I added perlite and coarse sand for drainage and increased porosity. The sand and clay can bind well, and the organic matter forms all sorts of chemical bonds to store nutrition in plant available forms. So this soil will store nutes, be very pH stable, drain quickly of water yet store massive amounts of thin films of water by action of the increased surface area of the clay. What I have created here is sandy clay loam with a %10 or so organic content. It should provide for an entire grow cycle with limited applications of bio-fish.
Ready for a couple of Phisto's It will be top dressed as needed in the grow room.
In here is a whole tray of comfrey, a tray of pumkins and mellons, and finally a tray that is half wood betony and half rosemary.
A gratuitous Red Trillum....
@Mossy @FullDuplex @Waira @Ash-a-Ton @Jraven @Frankthetank @mohawk warrior @Free Flow @Eclectic Elle @trailanimal @hairyman @9bear @bushmasterar15 @hecno @Raoul Duke @islandgrower @Maria Sanchez @Son of Hobbes @Padawan1972 @namvet25 @blue @archie gemmill @Savage Garden
I hope Ya'll enjoy the ride. I'm gone OldSkooL Organic for a minute.
I'm experimenting with some soil techniques.
round 1
4-5 gallon red clay soil, 6+ gallon recycled last years potting mix, recycled peat plugs, partially decomposed roots.
large bag of "garden soil" with a tiny amount of NPK
2 5 gallon pots stuffed with overwintered whole oak and maple leaves
1 pound roasted buckwheat and 1 pound spelt grain
2 cups jobes compost starter (Archaea inoculant)
cardboard strips, chainsaw curls, sawdust, hardwood ash
2 cups gypsum, 1 cup lime, 2 cups Azomite, 1 cup Epsom
water with hydroguard (bacillus inoculant) solution
turned in till the clay clumps 1/2 inch or less
turn a couple times a week, water sparingly
it should maintain it's own moisture in most environments.
Turn in the sprouts as they come up, let them yellow and struggle in there.
Turn in more leafy biomass whenever you want.
round 2 (one month or more later, most cardboard and whatever but sprouts should me broken down pretty good or gone)
1/2 bag builders sand, 1 brick fine COIR (pre-soaked in water)
2 cups Langbeinite, 2 cups azomite, 2 cups black hen, 2 cups cottonseed meal, 2 cups bone meal, 1 gallon vermiculite
2 cups jobes compost starter (Archaea inoculant)
turn in dry ingredients,
water with hydroguard (bacillus inoculant) solution
1 cup Jobes Bio-Zome fungal/bacteria innoculant
turn it over again, cover and/or leave out in sun, maintain light moisture.
in two weeks or a month, uncover the mix, turn it over again, and it is now a useful starter potting soil mix.
At potting that is my base mix, and I adjust the final mix with one of several other mediums to get the effect I am after.
1. acid loving plants: add sulfur or aluminum to reduce pH to 5 and mix soil 1/3 perlite/coir/potting soil
2. House Plants: same as acid loving without the sulfur and aluminum
3. Vegetables and Berries: Same as House plants, add fish emulsion or Bio-Fish, eggshells or shell meal, Epsom, and either black hen/guano/blood meal, and a generous heap of pine bark.
4. Succulents, 1/3 sand/gravel/soil
This was designed to have organic forms of nutrients in the soil in multiple forms to fully mineralize the contents and create a base that has a high enough CEC to maintain fertility through several rounds of recycling. The more stages of decay happening at once the better.
I had those mycos laying around from planting trees, but for cannabis I would not use those. I always get the two kinds confused, but I am pretty sure it is the ENDO mycos that we want for cannabis, and not the ECTO's. Studies show the ones that burrow into the roots out compete the ones that surround the root and the positive benefits are reduced substantially.
here are several of those mixes, although not with the same batch of soil, this is an older batch. The new stuff from above will go in the grow room, I'm not wasting the super soil on ferns.
I hadn't repotted these in years, they were badly root bound, and the fern on the left was almost dead. I cut out 90% of its foliage. That and the Aloe may not survive, I chopped out some crazy root bound roots.
cant really see in the pics, the aloe has a layer of coarse gravel at bottom, It is 1/3 sand/fine gravel/soil, exactly.. The pics look heavier on perlite than they are.
....copied from previous journal....
______________________________________________________________________________
That was over the winter .....
______________________________________________________________________________
Now that I'm ready to start from scratch in my new tested grow room, I'm going to try to run two 3 gallon fabric pots as well as a single hydro monster.
That soil I mixed up is ready, and is the perfect base for anything.
For the Cannabis, I mixed that super soil with perlite, half a brick of coir each, some lime, and poured the dregs of the watery coir into a "bathtub" in the middle of each pot for the initial planting spot..
I have dropped two Mephisto BlueToof and a Mephisto Double Grape for the hydro tank.
My goals:
prove my soil building chops.
use as little farther inputs as necessary
only adding root booster or a pk boost mid flower.
remember how do do cannabis in soil, been a while....
demonstrate using super soil as a base for other plants as well.
explain some of the science involved with organics.
Here are some more pics, not necessarily in order of what was done.
The mix here is langbeinite, cottonseed meal, bio-fish, azomite, sulfur, and bone meal.. It's for blueberries. I mix it with a couple gallons of super soil and use it as a top dressing for acid loving plants.
Double Grape
Some of the nutes I use.
Blue Toof
The finished mix is for cannabis, this gets mixed with half a brick of coir per 3 gallons of soil. If I had it I would also add some small pine bark.
The cooked up soil from this winter. Allow me to drop a science bomb here.
I used clay and vermiculite to raise the CEC (cation exchange capacity) I added lots of organic matter and minerals in conjunction with various microbes. As the organic matter was broken down by well fed microbes there was a "pre-charge" of the Cation exchange sites in the soil. I added perlite and coarse sand for drainage and increased porosity. The sand and clay can bind well, and the organic matter forms all sorts of chemical bonds to store nutrition in plant available forms. So this soil will store nutes, be very pH stable, drain quickly of water yet store massive amounts of thin films of water by action of the increased surface area of the clay. What I have created here is sandy clay loam with a %10 or so organic content. It should provide for an entire grow cycle with limited applications of bio-fish.
Ready for a couple of Phisto's It will be top dressed as needed in the grow room.
In here is a whole tray of comfrey, a tray of pumkins and mellons, and finally a tray that is half wood betony and half rosemary.
A gratuitous Red Trillum....
@Mossy @FullDuplex @Waira @Ash-a-Ton @Jraven @Frankthetank @mohawk warrior @Free Flow @Eclectic Elle @trailanimal @hairyman @9bear @bushmasterar15 @hecno @Raoul Duke @islandgrower @Maria Sanchez @Son of Hobbes @Padawan1972 @namvet25 @blue @archie gemmill @Savage Garden
I hope Ya'll enjoy the ride. I'm gone OldSkooL Organic for a minute.
Last edited:
.......(repeats slowly) "Cation.... Exchange .....Capacity"
