Alright guys so I've been thinking...
A week or two ago, I added some worms to my pots as an experiment. I read somewhere that one should put a bit of alfalfa meal in the top inch of soil or so to feed them, so I put about 1/2 a tsp or so into a hole and covered it up. I'm certain that caused nitrogen toxicity in both plants. The fastberry shows the claw and the og seems to have slowed growth and dark foliage. I'm going to go back and remove as much of the alfalfa meal as I can as soon as I finish this post.
Moral of the story: don't feed your worms extra organic matter unless your soil doesn't have much to begin with, especially not with something so high in n like alfalfa meal. Hell, don't even waste your time adding a couple worms to your pots.
In other news, I have built my screens to scrog these plants with, I just need to make some minor adjustments and they will be put in place tomorrow. Watering is going to be a bitch.
Peace
Okay bud, there is some right, and some wrong in this, and I'll explain...
First off worms can be your best friend and should be. They do so much work on the soil, and keep it nice and aerated. I'd take a guess you know about worm shit, and it being one of the best sources of microBeasts ( i just stole that phrase today, I really liked it, lol) They also aerate the soil, and simply have no ill side effects. Even a dead worm in the soil, will feed the soil.
Now this part... "Moral of the story: don't feed your worms extra organic matter unless your soil doesn't have much to begin with" Is extremely true. I do not feed my worms at all. I have a farm and they get feed, but not in the pots. You should generally have enough stuff for them to eat. They can eat used motor oil for Shiva's sake. (true shit, look up japans landfill problems in the 60's, all solved by worms)
This part "Hell, don't even waste your time adding a couple worms to your pots."
EXTREMELY false. The problem I see is that you made a pocket for the alfalfa. By doing this it concentrates in that area, and does not slowly, and evenly feed the soil. If you where to have spread/scratched in to the soil evenly, it would not have delivered as much of a punch. Alfalfa in general is potent, and does not take much, but if say a root grew right in to the pocket, it would be like an IV for the plant.
I have some 5 gallon no-till pots that area a year old, and have had living worms in there for about 8mo. Like I said, I don't directly feed them. They have survived on the soil mix, and w/e I top dress with. I recently dumped 1 to see how thing where, and the soil looked just as good as day #1. These are all on the same soil with worms, and had not got feed the last month prior to the pic, just rain water.
Something as simple as a ground cover from dead materials would do fine. The worms do not actually eat the "organic materials." They rely on bacteria to start the decomposing process, and eat off of that. Afresh piece of fruit will just sit there, but lets it get squishy, and start to turn, and holy shit it's gone. A banana only last a couple days in my farm.
If you would like to learn about ground covers some, and I think you should as an organic grower... Check out the bottom link in my signature. Section A pertains to dead mulches, and any of them would feed worms. Not to mention the other benefits already detailed there. Hope this helps some, till later, take care man.:smoking:
