Making your own High Grade Organic soil thread.

I have more to add so keep an eye on this thread.


It's just that we are in real time.


Randy

 

May 26, 2007


I'm looking at the moisture and the warmth of the mix.


I'm really happy.. It's a Low heat but prolific community.


I figure that the wood shavings I was worried about are getting worked on.


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As I have explained in part, the microbial world lives on.


The Goal? To provide for a healthy starter soil for plants that in time becomes humus filled and even more healthy for plants.


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The low level of heat suggests to me that a prolific but manageable microbe population is living and eating the materials I feed it.


I'm thinking of Honey and Molasses.. What do you think?

 

May 26, 2007 update


This morning I like what I see.


A dependable and "STABLE" microbe effect.


Here is the temperature at 7 AM this morning.





Here is a picture of the base soil in the morning light.





I'm still debating a liquid feeding of fish emulsion, Natural Raw Organic honey and some blackstrap molasses.


I'm curious to see what effect on temperatures it would cause. I *might* skip the fish tho.

 

THANK YOU! Once again you've made me feel SO much better about my own compost and the way it is developing! Keep it coming!

 

If all things go well there is a lot more info to share.


I have more plans.


So how is that compost going? Feel free to share if you like.. It's all good here.


And thanks for the reply.

 

I wish I had more than just this first compost worth of experience to share!


Mine started out as a kitchen compost basically, and then turned into more....I would like to tell everyone: It isn't as hard as some people think (but it is some work and knowledge, which Randy is gratefully giving us all), and it's great for your grow...Hell...mine is in a rubbermaid trashcan right now....it doesn't have to be expensive to work....I will hopefully be able to show the progress of growing with my compost from my vegetable garden, once I am a camera owner again....if nothing else, and you don't like the idea of compost in your house, it can make some great tea...

 

Hey lots of folks have comnposting worms under their kitchen sinks.


They put veggie scraps in and those worms go to town on it.


No odor and if we use a proper unit then it becomes really easy to manage. Not that a simple rubber maid tub won't work just fine it's that some units I have seen have a nice design for harvesting ready worm castings and even castings tea.


I was over on another site checking on the Organic soil folks and the concept of Hot and Cold composting is still unclear for many gardeners.


Lion I guess I'm ready to rant..


Hot Composting Vrs Cold Composting... It's all about time.


If we gather organic materials such as grass clippings, coffee grounds, plant bits, old fruit or whatever we have available and we pile these materals into a compact pile.


We then have a pile that is a place microorganisms can live and reproduce as a giant community.


Sort of like a High Rise building we house way more people in the square feet ( or CM2 ) of space that the building takes up to stand on the ground.


Because our building or pile goes up and not across.


Now in that pile we add microbes. We can get them from common soil or from a previous compost pile.


They live and they want water, air, carbon and nitrogen.


The more these elements are in ratio for a positive environment the more the materials support.


Their living, eating and effect on the pile is to break the materials down and this provides nutrients that plants can use.


So what about Hot or Cold composting What is the difference?


Cold composting is as Mother Nature does most of the time.


The populations do break materials down but at a slower pace because the ratios of Nitrogen and Carbon, water and or air may not be ideal to support more of a population.


Now Cold isn't bad. It just takes longer and as one Organic Gardener I know said the trick to a Cold compost style is to have pleanty of it going on so there is always some ready.


That gardener was an older woman who saw the value of the easy no turn Cold style and for her a year wasn't a long time to wait.


Not a long time because with five cold piles she had ready compost when she needed it.


With Cold style it's important to cover and keep from the rain. It's important to avoid flushing of nutrients out of the piles.


So cold is just the materials left to decompose in their own time much like Mother Nature does with all the materials on the ground around us.


No special effort is made to turn that pile.


Hot composting.


Think of the same sized building or pile but the conditions are optimum for a much larger population of microbes.


These little fellas populate every space possible since the carbon, nitrogen, water and oxygen are all ideal.


To them "it's on"


So a hot pile is a constructed pile with layers of materials that are carbon rich and layers that are nitrogen rich.


The materials are kept moist by the gardener and the gardener turns the materials to allow fresh air to get in.


In return for this work the populations munch their way through more material faster and release heat from their very life energy.


In time the amounts of nitrogen and carbon are used up and the material moves on down to a "cold" or "natural" state.


Still the microbes live on. They will continue at a lower level of activity but they are as much a part of an organic soil as the soil we see.


So the important message is that the living world is all around us. Hot or cold Nature has it dialed in already.


I'll collect my thoughts but do you see where I'm going with this Lionloves420?

 

May 28, 2007


Looks like it's on the road to a natural state.


The temps look 10 degree F less this morning.


I will water but not yet. I'm letting the last pockets of activity work it out.


I'm turning the tumbler and keeping an eye on it but the next thing to add is more prelite and make this a proper soil mix.





It's just a mater of time and Hot is fast and I say great!

 

FAntastic RANDY!!!

MY mannn RANDYHIGH, your the man in this thread for starters, and its coming along REALLY REALLY good , and as i said before, this is one of thee MOST interesting threads ive came across, as i never had ANY clue as to how to do this what so ever at all, to be totally honest..


Keep it UP, This is a great learning thread ti say the least!!!


Brilliant RANDY bro....


Peace Out n RESPECT to you my friend.


UrBigBuddie............:sign13:


P.S, COMPOST away brotha.... Exellent WORK and EFFORT for al of us to see and experience along wikth you RANDY....MUCHO appreciated!!!


PEACE!

 

In support of RandyHere is another compost in the works (much more "ghetto" however), done mostly on Randy's good words....I am not sure why there is so much green left on the scraps from the garden uprooting, but the rest is nice and dark, earthy, giving off heat, though it is balling up alot...the pictures of the garden show the usage of the compost the first time round...Hope this helps someone...







/monthly_2007_05/compost.jpg.8a2b27a40d7757056dcc9541c6b2c1f6.jpg

/monthly_2007_05/mixed.jpg.84f0c37bb1d259c7da7daac77e42307f.jpg

/monthly_2007_05/garden.jpg.def869afeaa202f6ab20db513cca6547.jpg

 

Today is like yesterday because the temps are around 90F In the core zone of the base soil volume.


The outer zone is cooler or even ambient temp.


This batch is getting to the end of the STABLE range.


I choose not to add water so that the last pockets of high activity can exhaust the carbon and nitrogen.


What that means is it's using up the easy fuel.


Once the easy fuel is gone the temps drop and the microorganisms will balance out with the available nitrogen and carbon.


It drops to a Natural state for the materials.


Then I will consider watering some.


Moist is what I want because we still have microorganisms in there and they need some water, carbon and nitrogen(*).


(*) Feeding the soil


I'll add a small bag of perlite to help get air in and to create roots space in the soil mix.


It's all but done.


More on the soil volume I maintain, that I made as a batch of base soil and have fed and rejuvenated year after year.


More later that is.


Randy

 

May 30, 2007


The look of things is as perfect as I could have hoped for with a demonstration of organic methods of soil making/building for GrowKind.com's members.


Today's temperature.





That is lower and on it's way to all done.


Truthfully, it's ready at anytime now.


This is what it looks like:





I see large shavings of pine left so I suggest we all pick our shavings careful.


Sure in time it is all good but, I was aiming at smaller left over pieces right now.


So.. The time has come. It's time to use this mix to grow something.


As I do that I will also show you a rejuvenating of a soil in an indoor "planter bed."





Randy

 

Catnip


I have decided to grow catnip.


Does anyone have experience in growing catnip?


I assume a humidity dome is the thing but I don't know.


Randy

 

I actually did grow catnip for about four years while I was in highschool....I don't know how you want to grow it, but that shit just survived on its own basically, can't imagine what will happen if its grown with care...I grew it outside, just watered, and it came back year after year....I had one happy pussy at home....

 

Here is to a Happy Pussy!!!


I'm wondering since it says on the package 40% germination rate would the safe thing be to have some plastic over a round plastic pot to assist germination?


Randy

 

I got mine as a present from my aunts garden...The only thing I can tell you is that it is an herb, and grows like a mother fucker.....I am pretty sure you will get good results anyway you do it....Wish I could help more, anyone else?

 

Thank You LionLoves420.

 

June 1, 2007


Well I missed a day and it was for a good cause.


Today however, I have a cornucopia of data to share.


( Never think I'm off the job... )


So.. Where we left off is at the end of the "easy fuel" and the decrease of temperatures.


Today this is our temperature:





This is almost ambient temperature but not quite. It shows microbial activity but it's less than our previous examples.


So to use the stuff..


Here is a picture of the base soil ( composted materials ) Rich in microorganisms!








This is the entry level of a managed organic soil.


Raw materials broken down to some degree. Rich with microbial life.


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I have a nice plastic pot on hand so I thought to use it, I did look into a fancy pot but why spend for the new when the old will do?


Here is the pot shown empty with the drain holes.


( very important to drain your pots well! )





Now to this I am adding a layer of gravel. This will allow air to exchange with the soil.


Over that I am placing some fabric screen so that the fine materials stay with the soil and don't ( for the most part ) migrate into the air exchange zone.








This fabric screen will cover the gravel and our new soil with new perlite will be added on top of the fabric screen.





When all is done we have a large pot filled with rich organic base soil.





Adding water but, not so much as to drown the life in it nor to flush nutrients.


The goal here is to hydrate the material and promote the microorganism's adjustment to their new Universe


I suggest that we should allow new soil to adjust chemically before use.


Let it sit a while after mixing new materials and adding water; maybe a day or three.


This gives things time to come to terms with the new.


I have to leave that there.


Soon I will sow the Catnip seeds and hope for the best.


But, now on to the next phase of this thread.


An actual mature organic soil that needs to be rejuvenated.


Rejuvenating ( aka hot composting ) simulates the seasonal processing of materials that in a natural situation would be any organic materials that happen to pile up wherever.


With my soil.. It's five years old and going strong.


The materials are as some will say exotic yet, for my "pet soil" I provide.


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What can I say? I got busy and left all the debris from my last grow.


What a mess then again it doesn't matter.








The job at hand is to make all the materials small enough that it will break down quickly enough so it will be useful.


You can see coffee grounds and coffee filter paper and whatnot.. Plus plant remains.


All this debris needs is to be cut up as small as reasonably possible and turned into the soil.


However, I am at the end of this days information.


As always your feedback is important to me.


I would love to know what you think.


So until tomorrow. Happy "Organic" Growing!


Randy

 

Looks like some great stuff Randy. I'm looking forward to putting my new gained knowledge to work. :thumbsup:

 

I should think so RANDY!!!

IL explain the best i can on this...


Well the Thing your asking , was about whether the "GERM" rate will be benificial iff you were to add some plastic covering over the POT/Container???


Well i do , do that sometimes, as it HELP'S hold in the moisture to the SOIL/MEDIUM, and seems to keep it wet/moist enough all the way up, untill they are germinated alltogether!!


IMO, And from experience , i have done this quite alot before and NOT just with MJ, with many a Different type of flowers or even lil tiny flowers that i grow for my niece or nefew;s, as they Like a lil too much to stare into my MJ room now n then...


So i then decided to get them a lil space of their own to Germinate and Produce their "own" too,(JUst "normal" flowers...lmao) and i usually do this, by placing a plastic covered coating over the TOP of the BUCKET/CONTAINER (I.e, LIke Cling-Film) and it keeps all the moisture it needs to HELP assist the germination of any lil seeds whether Bigger ones or smaller ones, they all go the same, and have always worked too, i MUST add RANDY!!!


HOPE this CAN help in some way, NOT even sure iff thats what you were EXACTLY on about, but thaught id add it for some more information anyway, and to the FACT i thaught this is what yous were talking about...


Peace n Much RESPECT,


UrBigBuddie...........:sign13: