Something People Ought to Know

My journey into "organic gardening" started producing dependable amazing results as soon as I started to understand that good soil is a living thing. Teaming with life. No life... no plants. If you take care of the soil the plants tend to take care of themselves. Health wise at least. About 95% of peoples early failures in using "organic" soil is because they use dirt that isn't alive yet.

One thing that has really paid off for me is adding my soil amendments like blood, bone, kelp, cotton seed, greensand and rock dust directly to my compost. This tends to make a pretty hot mix though. I run three composts at my home. One pile is composting manure (chicken, horse, goat, sheep, cow & rabbit) that I gather from my animals. One pile is chopped yard trimmings (grass clippings, screened 1/8" minus whole tree mulch, fall leaves, immature weeds, wood ash and green garden trimmings). The last is a compost tumbler used for 100% kitchen waste. I bulk up the kitchen waste with cottonseed hulls and add the amendments to this compost. This is also the compost I make all of my compost teas with as it's the most rich. When I whip up a batch of garden soil I use a 5gal bucket of each type of compost, a 5gal bucket of peat and a 5gal bucket of perlite. This soil is basically ready to use when I mix it because over half of it is already biologically active. If you make your own soil from scratch from bag material you need to hit that stuff with a dose of good tea, cover it with wetted down straw, burlap or a breathable tarp and let that stuff come alive.

Originally Posted by latestsaint

was available on btjunkie

its ok, were not grammar nazis here, its not politics or t&t here.

great thread!!!! I feel enlightened.

Originally Posted by PeyoteReligion

So I run earth juice (not a tea, just mixed into water) in a soiless medium (sunshine#4). My plants absolutely love it. But I've been curious, does a soiless medium still support all the life needed to complete the organic process? The answer clearly has to be yes, because the plants do extremely well.

Any info on this process when using a soiless peat based medium would be much appreciated. Because from what I understand my sunshine mix is a quasi hydro medium, but reacts a lot like soil.

As far as I can tell, Soil/Hydro is a continuum, from pure laboratory enforced sterile chemicals on a totally inert medium, to outdo guerilla growing.
Most hydro mixes seem to be a hydro base, with some usefull needed organic soil type amendments mixed in; humus, dolomite lime, beneficial microbes etc.
The defining characteristic of soil would seem to be manure, whether of green or animal type, composted or not.
This type of material is commonly very fine, with the water holding and air excluding properties that implies.

I really think you are on to something in your observation, that a basic hydro peat mix is very nearly soil, sack of steer mixed in and you would be all the way there.

This thread is sweet. Its good to read that others respect their soil microbes and think micro and macro when gardening! Keep on fostering the 'crobes everybody!

WyoGrow

One thing that has really paid off for me is adding my soil amendments like blood, bone, kelp, cotton seed, greensand and rock dust directly to my compost. This tends to make a pretty hot mix though. I run three composts at my home. One pile is composting manure (chicken, horse, goat, sheep, cow & rabbit) that I gather from my animals. One pile is chopped yard trimmings (grass clippings, screened 1/8" minus whole tree mulch, fall leaves, immature weeds, wood ash and green garden trimmings). The last is a compost tumbler used for 100% kitchen waste. I bulk up the kitchen waste with cottonseed hulls and add the amendments to this compost. This is also the compost I make all of my compost teas with as it's the most rich

Sounds like a great system. I sure wish I had space and those types of 'free' inputs close at hand. Cotton is the one thing I'd worry about. The great majority of that crop in the US is uber not organic and heavily sprayed in pesticides. How long does your kitchen waste pile cure before use? I am still hesitant to use the contents of my tumbler indoors due to large #s of unknown larvae doing their thing in there.

That was indeed a very enlightening topic and truly informative, I highly recognize the magnitude of your point of view.

Originally Posted by glassblower3000

great thread!!!! I feel enlightened.

Then it was a good thread!!!! OK, a great one!!

Thanks for sharing this, I learnt a great deal reading that. One thing I'm sloppy with is nutes so It has increased my understanding of whats going on down there!