Recycled Organic Living Soil (ROLS) and No Till Thread
- Thread starter headtreep
- Start date
DANKSWAG
Well-Known Member
Yeah Red Stick with Ginger Beard, since you are a self confessed Ginger that went Albino.
If its true what you say that your hairs not red anymore then take a copy of picture of your face or head (not revealing yourself of course), like zoom in around your nose mouth chin. Then paste it next to the post of a red flowering bud below that has your name on it. It should bring back memories for you when bud hairs did match your face.
DankSwag
Tjingles
Well-Known Member
Hey I haveel a question. With rols is it necessary to let water drain to waste when watering. Can I water directly in my tent and let them absorbe any run off since there getting watered with aact, sst, aloe and such there shouldn't be any salt build up hence no reason to waste water or move pots around as long as there isn't to much water of course. Am I wrong? Does anybody else set there's on a drain rack when watering? I do. But would love to stop if possible and as long as it won't hurt anything
hyroot
Well-Known Member
thats fine. My pots absorb all the runoff. like you said no salt build up since we do pure organics. The only reason to set them on a rack is for the bottom roots to get oxygen. Which is a good idea too. Maybe set pots a layer of garden pebbles. So it can do both
hyroot
Well-Known Member
i think Red has a big red mark across his fore head in the same shape as that bud lolYeah Red Stick with Ginger Beard, since you are a self confessed Ginger that went Albino.
If its true what you say that your hairs not red anymore then take a copy of picture of your face or head (not revealing yourself of course), like zoom in around your nose mouth chin. Then paste it next to the post of a red flowering bud below that has your name on it. It should bring back memories for you when bud hairs did match your face.
DankSwag
RedCarpetMatches
Well-Known Member
That's my red carpet against your forehead...I'm alpha.
DANKSWAG
Well-Known Member
LMAO Love ya guys!
viewer1020
Well-Known Member
Anybody else tried growing in 100% fresh vermicompost?
My grow area is small (a cube with just under 2 feet per side), so my plants can't be more than a foot high (less if the pot is tall).
I'm using small containers (ranging from small party cups to 2.5 - 3 gallons). The three larger pots contain a plant started in normal recycled soil and transplanted into 100% vermicompost. The party cup plants were grown from seed in straight vermicompost. The big pots get straight water all the way through flower, while the party cups had a drink of undiluted worm farm runoff at around week 4 of flower.
The plants are looking pretty healthy - they're a mix of bagseeds, some are very resistant to insect attack and disease, while some suffer a bit. In future grows I'll be concentrating more on cuttings and seeds from the more resistant plants. Before, when I tried mixing organic soils with a bit of vermicompost included, I had all sorts of problems. Poor growth, multiple deficiencies, spider mites, fungus gnats. Now that I just use vermicompost and old soil, the plants thrive.
Or, if they're weak to begin with, the mites in the soil eat them. The mites aren't a problem, though: they eat dead and dying plant matter (including sick seedlings), and they eat other arthropods. I haven't seen a spider mite since these mean creatures arrived. I never added them, by the way: they just made their home in my worm farm, and since they don't attack the worms, I let them be. Now there are few fungus gnats, and nothing else which seems to attack the plants.
My yields are not stellar, but that's to be expected for my low-power setup (40 watts for 2 square feet of ground). I'll be fine tuning a lot of other aspects of my grow from this point on (pot size, number of plants, harvest schedule), but my search for "perfect soil" seems to be over - the worms (with a good diet and some amendments) produce exactly what's needed, and with small pots, watering is no problem. Even if it dries and shrinks a bit, the top tends to curve inward, making a nice bowl, and water drains into the dried surface surprisingly well (assuming you don't let it dry out completely). A good layer of leaf mulch helps a lot here too.
I also want to thank all you guys for alerting me to aloe powder. I use whole leaf powder (not the inner leaf gel) when taking cuttings, and have seen much, much better results (than from using nothing - I've never used rooting hormone). Most cuttings survive, and many take off rapidly.
My grow area is small (a cube with just under 2 feet per side), so my plants can't be more than a foot high (less if the pot is tall).
I'm using small containers (ranging from small party cups to 2.5 - 3 gallons). The three larger pots contain a plant started in normal recycled soil and transplanted into 100% vermicompost. The party cup plants were grown from seed in straight vermicompost. The big pots get straight water all the way through flower, while the party cups had a drink of undiluted worm farm runoff at around week 4 of flower.
The plants are looking pretty healthy - they're a mix of bagseeds, some are very resistant to insect attack and disease, while some suffer a bit. In future grows I'll be concentrating more on cuttings and seeds from the more resistant plants. Before, when I tried mixing organic soils with a bit of vermicompost included, I had all sorts of problems. Poor growth, multiple deficiencies, spider mites, fungus gnats. Now that I just use vermicompost and old soil, the plants thrive.
Or, if they're weak to begin with, the mites in the soil eat them. The mites aren't a problem, though: they eat dead and dying plant matter (including sick seedlings), and they eat other arthropods. I haven't seen a spider mite since these mean creatures arrived. I never added them, by the way: they just made their home in my worm farm, and since they don't attack the worms, I let them be. Now there are few fungus gnats, and nothing else which seems to attack the plants.
My yields are not stellar, but that's to be expected for my low-power setup (40 watts for 2 square feet of ground). I'll be fine tuning a lot of other aspects of my grow from this point on (pot size, number of plants, harvest schedule), but my search for "perfect soil" seems to be over - the worms (with a good diet and some amendments) produce exactly what's needed, and with small pots, watering is no problem. Even if it dries and shrinks a bit, the top tends to curve inward, making a nice bowl, and water drains into the dried surface surprisingly well (assuming you don't let it dry out completely). A good layer of leaf mulch helps a lot here too.
I also want to thank all you guys for alerting me to aloe powder. I use whole leaf powder (not the inner leaf gel) when taking cuttings, and have seen much, much better results (than from using nothing - I've never used rooting hormone). Most cuttings survive, and many take off rapidly.
st0wandgrow
Well-Known Member
I would think growing in vermicompost would be fine as long as you account for the lack of aeration. I would mix *at least* 1/3 rice hulls or something similar. It might be beneficial to use coco coir as your worm bedding and then just use unscreened castings.
viewer1020
Well-Known Member
Definitely no screening - indeed, I'm not using worm castings, but whole vermicompost with lots of fibre in the worms' diet (coconut husks, corn husks and cobs, composted stable manure including straw and sawdust). The result is sticky when wet, but it can be crumbled up when added to the pot, and retains a fair crumb size with lots of air pockets, even after repeated watering (found this out when crumbling up the root ball from a finished plant, putting it all back into the worm farm).
Steelheader3430
Well-Known Member
My worm farm is full of those little opaque mites. Super slow and tiny. I let it dry out and the numbers diminished, but after I dumped a slurry of banana, avacado and cucumber in there they came back big time. They don't seem to bother anything but I am Leary of hem getting into my soil.
RedCarpetMatches
Well-Known Member
I've had these for two runs. Very cool seeing all the life in the soil.
DANKSWAG
Well-Known Member
Since I've learned that a cubic foot not yard of earthworm compost sells for 40 to 50 dollars and I've found a local shop that will sell my castings out of a bin. So hell ya I'm starting my worm farm project even now as I type I am eating a banana whose peel that will be worm poo soon.
DankSwag
DankSwag
st0wandgrow
Well-Known Member
They shouldn't be a problem, but if you start seeing an obscene amount of them you can remove a bunch by just placing a melon rind on the top of the bedding and leaving it for 24 hours. They will accumulate on the rind which you would then just remove, or rinse off and place back in the bin if you want to ditch more of them.
Steelheader3430
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys. I've done some research on them, but its best to have my homies reaffirm. I think I put too much sphagnum in there to start with, thinking about removing some to speed up casting harvest. They hated the shredded newspaper on top so I pulled it and covered it with dead leaves. They took to the bin great after that.
snowboarder396
Well-Known Member
The very small opaque white ones are good as well as most the mites you will see in your bin. Very few cases of parasitic mites have been found. Mites seem to love things in the cucurbits family, so cucumbers, melons, squash etc. They also like conditions more on the moist side of things. The little white ones you speak of as well help in getting rid of any unhealthy or dead worms in your bin by feasting on them, they will not hurt your healthy living worms! I wouldnt worry about them if they make you crawl under your skin and you'd rather not have so many of them you can do as others have mentioned with melon rinds or let the bin dry out just a little but. However i wouldnt do this unless you have a massive population explosion of mites, they will compete for food with your worms. That would be the only issue in having a very large mite population explosion.
DANKSWAG
Well-Known Member
WORM DROPPING OF THE DAY!
RED MITES SOLUTION - PREVENTION
SIMPLE EFFECTIVE BRILLIANT
KEEP PH ABOVE 7.0 (Add Calcium Carbonate)
KEEP MOISTURE AT 70 to 80%
TO PREVENT SOUR CROP KEEP PH ABOVE 7.0
DO NOT OVERUSE PROTEIN AS FOOD
ANTS COMPETE FOR FOOD DO NOT ADD SUGARS
TO LESSEN ATTRACTION
OTHER PREDATORS CAN BE FLOODED TO TOP OF SOIL
INCREASE MOISTURE TO 85 to 90 PERCENT
USE TORCH TO BURN OFF INSECTS ON TOP OF SOIL
DANKSWAG
RED MITES SOLUTION - PREVENTION
SIMPLE EFFECTIVE BRILLIANT
KEEP PH ABOVE 7.0 (Add Calcium Carbonate)
KEEP MOISTURE AT 70 to 80%
TO PREVENT SOUR CROP KEEP PH ABOVE 7.0
DO NOT OVERUSE PROTEIN AS FOOD
ANTS COMPETE FOR FOOD DO NOT ADD SUGARS
TO LESSEN ATTRACTION
OTHER PREDATORS CAN BE FLOODED TO TOP OF SOIL
INCREASE MOISTURE TO 85 to 90 PERCENT
USE TORCH TO BURN OFF INSECTS ON TOP OF SOIL
DANKSWAG