Hey Organics people

What's up people?


I'd like to read about your organic styles!


I have been doing cover / green manure crops! Soil building!


Randy

 

WELLLLLLLLLLLLL aquaponics is organics.....raw organics. And my plants are lovin it! Nature at it's finest Thanks fishies, you make my life easier.

 

What do you suggest?


I usually use oatgrass, mostly because it grows everywhere here, but I've been looking for something to give me more nitrogen. I tried fava beans and was looking for something a little less high maintenance. Is clover or something easier to start?

 

i USE redworms a lot...a really lot I suppose.


keep horseshit (because it's available) bagged up with redworms in the backyard. like to let it sit a year or more, makes up about 20% of my soilmix.


do everything myself, only purchase perlite.


use a lot of teas as well, gooseshit...same reason, it's available.

 

My soil mix


Bag of organic potting soil made from peat moss and other good stuff


Bat Guano


Worm castings


Dolomite Lime


Alfalfa meal


Perlite


I give weekly foliar sprays with a mix of blackstrap molasses and liquid kelp.

 

What @ cover crops?


Well, my main ingredient is actually mushroom compost, and I dig little trenches in the fall and fill them with kitchen waste compost and turn it in the spring. But I let the oatgrass grow in it for a cover crop, and was actually wondering about clover or maybe a different kind of vetch.... What are you using for cover crops?

 

i know a little about this..please explain your set up...peace az

 

I've been growing alfalfa for a cover crop.


I installed twin 250 MH lights to get a good grow,


here is a link to a thread I'm doing on alfalfa cover / green manure


http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=66420&page=1


The benefits of microbial life are amazing... Those green plants along with some raw materials will become a feeding zone for microbes and in a short time will provide plant ready nutrients.


Well it's time for the morning grind... Gotta go.


c-ya .. read-ya later.


Randy aka (JTG)

 

My g-ma showed me a trick....she would cut nettles (yes, the stinging type), fill up a garbage can with them then fill the entire thing with water. Not sure how long she let it sit there in the sun to ferment but it was a while I remember. Once it was all good and 'stewed' she'd use the water on her garden. Told me it was loaded with nitrogen and the plants seemed to really love it. I later found out that they actually brought the nettles in for just that purpose...it didn't grow naturally around her place. After a while it began to take over....I know because I was the one cutting the shit with my weed eater all the time.

 

I read that adding an air pump and an air stone to the mix plus some molasses makes a difference to making an active tea but Stinging N's are supposed to be great!


I'd try them.

 

Grandma's always know!


Stinging Nettle - gift from the cosmos!


Lots of ways to use it. Very nutritious. The only ingredient in bio-dynamic prep 504. Recommended to be picked before it goes to seed and buried for one full year, then dig up and add to compost. According to Steiner, it prevents the evaporation of Nitrogen. Reported to provide sulfur, potassium, calcium and iron. After it's year under ground the humus is said to contain about 100x molybdenum and vanadium, the trace elements necessary for the activity of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.


Liquid manure is recommended as a vegetative aid, especially during dry weather.


The above info was taken from the appendix of "Secrets of the Soil" Tompkins & Bird.


Bio-Dynamics is a pretty big commitment if you are really going to do it. I don't personally have access to Stag bladders or Cow horns or cow manure for that matter. The book covers lots more than just Bio-dynamics but a good portion is dedicated to it. Any body familiar w/ Bio-dynamics or Rudolf Steiner?


Ok, I'm referencing another book "The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide" purely organic. Recommendations are divided up by months and for October....


Legumes for fixing nitrogen.


Crimson Clover (Trifolium incarnatum) is listed but is said not to fix very much nitrogen in fertile soil.


The two most effective listed are... (Fava Beans were 3rd)


1. Lana Vetch (Vicia dasycarpa) #of Nitrogen per acre 200 - 275 Hardy to 10 degrees F


2. Common Vetch (Vicia sativa) #of Nitrogen per acre 175 - 225 Hardy to 0 degrees F


Both are recommended to be planted with small grains to support vining growth. Mix seed 85/15. Suggestions, Cereal Rye, Winter Wheat, Spelt and Barley.


Hope this was/is useful to some one.


Allsmilez - Don't know if you can use this info @ 6500 feet but it could at least be a place to start.


Peace all.

 

oh,yes! Very helpful!


It was! I am very interested in the Nettles....I need to google that, but I am already afraid I may be in the wrong zone...I have never heard of it before...but I am going to keep looking...It's a very good possibility that we have some backhills country ....um name for it. it sounds like fun; I assume they sting...lol!:qleapfrog:


Oh! I found it! That, around these parts, we call weeds!...It's all over the place and I assumed it was some kind of poison ivy or oak....I just might have to try transplanting some...thanks!

 

Oh man it's super easy. I just have my DWC 18 gallon rubbermaid and I have a whisper fish filter hanging over the side. I have 3 goldfish living right in the res. I feed them, they feed the plants. The fish poop contributes nitrogen and phosphate and for potassium I have been using Comfrey (another plant high in potassium). I made a comfrey tea and pour it right in. I feed my fish all kinds of stuff so their poop is more varied.


There are other ways of doing aquaponics, I choose the simplest. I could have had a regular fish tank and hook it up to the res in some way, I found having the goldfish right in the res was just easier. At first I had the fish and roots separated by a net. I removed it because there are 5 plants and 3 small goldfish. It's been a week since the separation and there is so much roots the loss from the fish eating them isn't really enough to make a big difference.


According to other aquaponic growers who have grown in hydro, soil, and aqua, they say the buds from the aqua grows was always the best no question. This is my first entirely aquaponics grow so I don't know if thats true, but I will find out soon enough.

 

Didn't paris hilton fall off a horse into stinging nettles in one of the seasons of "The Simple Life". LOL. Maybe it wasn't nettles, it was some kind of stinging plant tho.

 

just


doing my thing, doing my thang.


red cars in brazil, dont miss it.

 

Paris who?

I don't EVEN wanna know how one goes about making 'liquid manure'. :icon_confused:

 

Manure, manuring etc...


Wikipidia says...


Etymology


The word manure came from Middle English "manuren" meaning "to cultivate land," and initially from French "main-oeuvre" = "hand work" alluding to the work which involved manuring land.


Types


There are two main classes of manures in soil management: green manures and animal manures. Compost is distinguished from manure in that it is the decomposed remnants of organic materials (which may, nevertheless, include manure).


Most animal manure is feces — excrement (variously called "droppings" or "crap" etc) of plant-eating mammals (herbivores) and poultry — or plant material (often straw) which has been used as bedding for animals and thus is heavily contaminated with their feces and urine.


Green manures are crops grown for the express purpose of plowing them under. In so doing, fertility is increased through the nutrients and organic matter that are returned to the soil. Leguminous crops, such as clover, also "fix" nitrogen through rhizobia bacteria in specialized nodes in the root structure.


Other types of plant matter used as manure or fertilizer include: the contents of the rumens of slaughtered ruminants; spent hops left over from making beer.


end c/p


It is funny HS.


Steiner lived from 1861 to 1925 so it seems it was probably clearer back then.


As far as I can gather the "Liquid Manure" refers to what we would call a Tea.


Which is funny too if you think of Tea as something to drink:5headache:


The more I type the worse it gets!


P.S. I figured you were making a joke but a little clarification seemed in order.

 

Whew! :glasses10:


I think? :icon_scratch:

 

Seed catalogs are good sources of info about cover crops. Growing outdoors means having a winter cc, so it depends on your climate. I've found that in coastal areas the legumes can cause mold problems later, when fall starts & temps cool down. Alfalfa, red clover are good choices.


It's important not to over-till your soil, no matter what you're adding to it. Wood ashes, oak leaves, peat moss & horse manure is what we use, then into each hole is guano, perlite, bone meal, organic potting soil. For our location this combo works well.


Check out some info on composting, it might give you some ideas also.