Bottles nutes to organic living soil mid grow?

keepsake

Well-Known Member
I have 4 plant that I will be transplanting into its final pot soon. I'll give it 10 days and then flip the lights for bloom. They are currently being grown with bottled nutes. I have some organic living soil I've prepared and is ready to use. I'm going to flush them out before transplant.

Can I use the organic living soil to finish out their life and stop using bottled nutes?
 

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Yeah you can but you may be better off finishing your current plants with nutes before diving into organics. It takes awhile for your mix to become active; use fertilizer, compost, & have patience. Usually a few recycles are needed before you get the results you are used to seeing with nutrients. You can make up the difference with liquid fish and AACTs but these work much slower than nutes do. It's like you gotta give them what they need before they need it.​
 

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
I didn't say that. Your no til mix could easily outperform the nutes but you give no details. What did you do to you prepare the soil? I assume you have amended it and allowed it to set awhile.
If you added compost, NPK inputs, mineral inputs, and aeration to a fresh soil it will take awhile before it all breaks down and become available to your plants. Some amendments like soft rock phosphate take a year or more to break down. The more active or the more populated with microbes your mix is the faster this process occurs. In my exp it took about 3 full cycles (veg through harvest) with the same mix before my plants became super naturally healthy. It has a lot to do with how active your no till mix is. Like I said you can increase microbial activity through teas, compost and fertilizer but gaining a high level of activity is not as instant as nutes are; it takes time for them to work. If your plants get pale in mid bloom there not a lot you can do to quickly reverse it.
 

keepsake

Well-Known Member
I see.

I did a 1/3 mix of peat moss, compost/ewc, and pumice.

added neem cake, kelp meal, crustacean meal, basalt, gypsum, oyster shell flour, ground malted barley, bokashi, and em1 spray.

it's been sitting for 2 weeks now

when do you think i can use it?
 

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Ok it's a new mix you just built up and amended. Needs at least another 2 weeks cook time. A month is usually long enough to cook in whatever amendments you add each time you recycle the mix. I would add in some cow and/or chicken manure too but that's me. Your mix will get better every time you amend it and let it sit for 30 daze.
Don't be skimpy on the compost. The best thing you can do right now to up your no till game is to start a worm bin. Fresh EWC is much more active than bagged and will get your mix up to supernatural status with the quickness.
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
I have 4 plant that I will be transplanting into its final pot soon. I'll give it 10 days and then flip the lights for bloom. They are currently being grown with bottled nutes. I have some organic living soil I've prepared and is ready to use. I'm going to flush them out before transplant.

Can I use the organic living soil to finish out their life and stop using bottled nutes?

When you transplant top dress some gro kashi or em1 bokashi. Then water. Then a layer of pseudomycelium will develop.
14976361_10207973190591782_647399625872470509_o.jpg

That will bioremediate the soil. Then next watering top dress some quality worm castings and / or quality compost. That will also help to bioremediate the soil and balance the carbon with the gro / bo kashi imo ( indigenous microorganisms).

Top dress some gro kashi or em1 bokashi on your soil mix that's cooking too.
 
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keepsake

Well-Known Member
When you transplant top dress some gro kashi or em1 bokashi. Then water. Then a layer of pseudomycelium will develop.
View attachment 4028505

That will bioremediate the soil. Then next watering top dress some quality worm castings and / or quality compost. That will also help to bioremediate the soil and balance the carbon with the gro / bo kashi imo ( indigenous microorganisms).

Top dress some gro kashi or em1 bokashi on your soil mix that's cooking too.
How much do I top dress with grokashi / bokashi?

1" thick?
 

keepsake

Well-Known Member
Sprinkle a thin layer. It doesn't have to cover the soil like compost or castings does.


Those are the plants I want to transplant and go organic with. They are in 4gal hard pots. Will 7gal fabric pots be pointless to transplant into?

Also, should I mulch with shredded fir chips on top of the gro and bokashi?
 

keepsake

Well-Known Member
Alright so after some reading it seems like 7gal pots will be no good for no-till. I will have to recycle the soil and re-ammend in any pots smaller than 20gals.

So recycling the soil after harvest is what I'll do and get into no-till later in the future.

My question now is... what do I do to the soil after I harvest?
This is my recipe:
1/3 mix of peat moss, compost/ewc, and pumice.
added neem cake, kelp meal, crustacean meal, basalt, gypsum, oyster shell flour, ground malted barley, bokashi, and em1 spray.

Do I just add all those same things again and let sit for 4 weeks again?

That means I'll have to prepare another batch to use immediately after harvesting while that cooks again?
 

Wetdog

Well-Known Member
I would strongly suggest you adding bone meal to the mix that is cooking or risk a P shortage come flower time.

*I* use it @1cup/cf of mix. And no, you won't need to add to the 'cook' time.

Yes, I see there is crustacean meal in there and it's good stuff, but really doesn't replace bone meal as a P source. You could learn this from experience, but a lot of time gets wasted till it becomes obvious.

Your call.
 

hyroot

Well-Known Member
Alright so after some reading it seems like 7gal pots will be no good for no-till. I will have to recycle the soil and re-ammend in any pots smaller than 20gals.

So recycling the soil after harvest is what I'll do and get into no-till later in the future.

My question now is... what do I do to the soil after I harvest?
This is my recipe:
1/3 mix of peat moss, compost/ewc, and pumice.
added neem cake, kelp meal, crustacean meal, basalt, gypsum, oyster shell flour, ground malted barley, bokashi, and em1 spray.

Do I just add all those same things again and let sit for 4 weeks again?

That means I'll have to prepare another batch to use immediately after harvesting while that cooks again?
You could dump soil into totes. Reamend with half as much amendments as you originally did. Bokashi will speed up cook time. Probably a few weeks to cook.

Typically with the large pots. You chop tge stalk. Then just replant in the same pot ofd to the side of the stalk stump. The stalk will break down eventually. Top dress amendments and castings.

Don't add bone meal. The crustacean meal , neem cake and malted barley have plenty of phos. Bone meal takes twice as long to break down. The phos from bone meal still won't be readily available.

Em1 bokashi is a brand of bokashi made with rice bran thats treated with em1 from Teraganix.

Gro kashi is another brand thats a different recipe.

Make sure to plant cover / companion crops in your pots and add red wigglers to your pots.
 
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Lightgreen2k

Well-Known Member
Alright so after some reading it seems like 7gal pots will be no good for no-till. I will have to recycle the soil and re-ammend in any pots smaller than 20gals.

So recycling the soil after harvest is what I'll do and get into no-till later in the future.

My question now is... what do I do to the soil after I harvest?
This is my recipe:
1/3 mix of peat moss, compost/ewc, and pumice.
added neem cake, kelp meal, crustacean meal, basalt, gypsum, oyster shell flour, ground malted barley, bokashi, and em1 spray.

Do I just add all those same things again and let sit for 4 weeks again?

That means I'll have to prepare another batch to use immediately after harvesting while that cooks again?
have you ever used any of these ammendments on their own too see how your plants respond to each? Supersoil is good but there is a Curve and it easy to burn your plants or get deficiences.
 
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