So who here is growing in true organic living soil?

Way too good of a thread to be buried on page 4. Thanks Rrog and everyone else that contributes. Soil is mixed and cooking for a week now!

Keep us posted!

After a rocky start with some still-hot soil, my buddy is almost three weeks from sprouts emerging from soil. No signs of burn. Temps are cool and as you can see from the lack of stretch, they are loving the light. I'd estimate about 800FC, light panel is maybe 14" from canopy.

I reread this thread recently and saw you are supposed to let the reused soil sit for 2-3 weeks not days like I had been doing. Explains the probs I started running into. staying up on all my preventatives but Murphys law has been in action over here big time.

Fattie- Are you meaning for no-till? Or are you dumping and re-amending? That would be hot for a while.

Well I was working it like a no till but am trying the dumping and reamending now w a few plants
..so w the no till 3 days is ok then?
It sseems like a veg thing. Flower ladies are great.

Rrog said:

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After a rocky start with some still-hot soil, my buddy is almost three weeks from sprouts emerging from soil. No signs of burn. Temps are cool and as you can see from the lack of stretch, they are loving the light. I'd estimate about 800FC, light panel is maybe 14" from canopy.

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beautiful!!!!! any chance you can post up what light, wattage, ect you did for your seedlings, or pm me if you would rather not post them publicly? i had a hell of a time with my seedlings. now they are actially going strong (18 days after sprout) and looking healthy. but alot of stretching.

Wow, I have read about 50 pages of this thread and what a great discussion. I have been growing for a couple years, starting with just FFOF and botnicare bottle nutes (didnt lilke this combo) then moving on to roots and GH flora nova (didn't like this combo either). It seemed that both grows just fell short. I have seen friends amateur grows and both of mine were far better but they just weren't up to the standards that i have been getting from norther and southern California dispensaries. So after doing some reading on mycos and talking some folks at a hydro store in NorCal, they recommended Teaming With Microbes and suggested I go organic. I thought - why not, so I created a soil using the following (proportions not shown due to lazyness):

Genetics: All cloned clones from Harborside
Kens GDP (1)
QBs Gods Gift (3) - not all three plants are the same, they have the same traits as their parent plant
Key Lime Pie (1) - Best plant out of all of them
SFV OG - Nice, but not as nice as the KLP
Girl Scout Cookies (1) - I didnt count this as this plant looks like a gimp, small, scrawny, gimpy

Black Gold All Purpose Soil
Buckaroo Earth Worm Casting
Brick of Coco
Chappys Organic Myco
General Organic Ancient Forest
Dr. Eearth Fish Bone Meal: 3-18-0
Down to Earth: Seabird Guano: 1-10-0
Down to Earth: Kelp Mean: 1-.1-2
Down to Earth: Blood Meal: 12-0-0
Down to Earth: Azomite
Insect Frass: 2-2-2
Dolamite Lime
Epsom Salt
Azomite

I was only able to cook this for about a month before I transplanted my ladies from a 1 gal to 4 and 5 gals.

I am currently growing 6 plants - 3 in the SS and 3 in a mix of Happy Frog and SS (wanted to have some backup plan just in case the SS burned the ladies). The grow has been going pretty well. This recipe was modeled after SubCools SS recipe (yeah I read some of the drama that went on earlier in this thread) and the word is that all you need is water. Not nutes, no teas, just plain ol water throughout the grow. Of couse I didnt listen and have been watering with a little Botonicare Cal/Mag, Grandmas Molasses, Vermi-Tea compost tea, and Insect Frass. I have to say that I have no complaints. I am growing 3 different genetics from 3 clones I took from my last crop and I can tell exactly what they were lacking prior. It seems that the plants are much happier now. I just have to stop myself from "loving" them too much with thinking that they need more than they really do.

So - Currently I am midway through my fourth week and have a couple of questions that you fellas may be able to answer. I have heard that if you add teas after week 4 then you are wasting your time. Even thought I think that the plants are doing really well, I dont want them to fall short during the final weeks of flower. I was thinking to start adding the Insect Frass as a top dressing and maybe foliar feeding with a tea but I am pretty much lost so far with week 5-9 organic finishing.

I have been looking over some tea brewing setups and recipes from the page (barley, coconut, ect) but I dont know if these apply in week 5-9.

Any thoughts?

BTW - Im on page 52 of the thread and will probably read the last 30 pages tomorrow.

-Punker

punker,

Looks like you have a good setup going. Rrog will probably chime in here and give you some good info, but here's my 2 cents....

IMO, the ACT's are relatively useless to you at this point. I use compost teas to wet down my soil mix while it's inoculating and then again in veg and maybe once more in the first week of flower. If you haven't established a thriving colony of beneficial microbes by this point you're kinda screwed.

I would continue using an unsulphered molases throughout flower. This is simply a source of food for your soil microbes. I also use a product called Pro-tekt throughout flower. It provides silica, and also gives the plants a shot of K.

You could certainly continue using a sprouted barley enzyme tea. There is an easier way to accomplish this by picking up a bag of malted barley flour aka Diastatic Malt Powder (thanks headtreep) and apply that at 1tsp per 1 gallon of water and use as a soil drench.

At this stage of flower you could look in to using fermented plant extracts too .... but I will defer to the experts on this as I have only just begun messing around with these.

The last point I will make is that for your next soil batch that you make I would consider cutting out the blood meal. There are too many other good sources of N to be messing around with blood that has been collected from slaughter house floors. Take a look at alfalfa meal (you get the added bonus of triacontanol which is a growth stimulant for plants) and/or soybean meal as a replacement.

Recently killed off a couple of seedlings that popped up out of my compost heap, little bit of leaf tip burn but overall an extremely vigorous and stinky little thing. Keeping in mind this is not a grow, just a heap of about 2 years worth of kitchen and yard waste (no meat) that a couple of beans must have made it into. Just read the TLO book once really quick, now time read it again and maybe take a few notes. I have to admit I'm a little let down how many time he has you buying some fertilizers, I sorta thought the idea was to get away from packaged stuff. And I know my "organic" bottles were lying to me a little but according to him I've only smoked slightly organic weed. Hmmm the one of those little seedlings totally reeked!

st0wandgrow said:

punker,

Looks like you have a good setup going. Rrog will probably chime in here and give you some good info, but here's my 2 cents....

IMO, the ACT's are relatively useless to you at this point. I use compost teas to wet down my soil mix while it's inoculating and then again in veg and maybe once more in the first week of flower. If you haven't established a thriving colony of beneficial microbes by this point you're kinda screwed.

I would continue using an unsulphered molases throughout flower. This is simply a source of food for your soil microbes. I also use a product called Pro-tekt throughout flower. It provides silica, and also gives the plants a shot of K.

You could certainly continue using a sprouted barley enzyme tea. There is an easier way to accomplish this by picking up a bag of malted barley flour aka Diastatic Malt Powder (thanks headtreep) and apply that at 1tsp per 1 gallon of water and use as a soil drench.

At this stage of flower you could look in to using fermented plant extracts too .... but I will defer to the experts on this as I have only just begun messing around with these.

The last point I will make is that for your next soil batch that you make I would consider cutting out the blood meal. There are too many other good sources of N to be messing around with blood that has been collected from slaughter house floors. Take a look at alfalfa meal (you get the added bonus of triacontanol which is a growth stimulant for plants) and/or soybean meal as a replacement.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info bro, Yeah I think from here on out its going to only be molasses and cal mag if needed. I added a lot of EWC but I thought I saw some cal/mag def earlier on in the grow so now I just add a pinch of the botnoicare cal mag. I really want to add some Purple Maxx as a foliar but it kind of defeats the purpose of an organic grow. I think Ill try the insect frass instead.

Hey everybody,

Thought I would give you all an update on the Golf Course I'm trying to get to go green.

This Friday me and a couple buddies are going to build them a compost bin/pile. After a few weeks of putting Mex bat shit on some of the greens the
superintendent has decided to start putting out tea on a reg basis. We will start using a 500 gallon water tank this week.

Cancelled the wall to wall time release fertilization this year (Right ON). Which has been driving our pond water PH UP.

A question I hope you organic gurus can help with:

I had my batch of Lacto Bacillus in a fridge in my garage. I went out today to get it and found the fridge had stopped working. It was probably out for a few days. The Lacto B was warm and frothy and smelled like alcohol. I was gonna toss it and start a new batch but thought I'd ask first. Thanks for the help and would someone please sticky this thread already, there is so much good information here and it shouldn't be buried on page 9.

longroot said:

A question I hope you organic gurus can help with:

I had my batch of Lacto Bacillus in a fridge in my garage. I went out today to get it and found the fridge had stopped working. It was probably out for a few days. The Lacto B was warm and frothy and smelled like alcohol. I was gonna toss it and start a new batch but thought I'd ask first. Thanks for the help and would someone please sticky this thread already, there is so much good information here and it shouldn't be buried on page 9.

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Guess I really never asked a question so here it is. Based on the info above, does anyone think it would be wise to use fermented Lacto B solution as a soil drench or foliar spray?

I would bet it's fine. I'd also speculate (opinion-time) what your smelling is Lactic Acid not alcohol.

Rrog said:

I would bet it's fine. I'd also speculate (opinion-time) what your smelling is Lactic Acid not alcohol.

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Thanks Rrog. Man I really appreciate this thread too. Your passion for keeping things natural is fantastic and has really woken me up to the wonderful world of microbiology. (Insert ass kissing smiley here lol)


You may be right on the lactic acid, ive never smelled it I dont think, but the solution has an pretty strong alcohol-like odor. Either way, Im a little concerned about upsetting my pH using it as a soil drench. Maybe im overreacting since I would only use a couple Tsp per gallon.

Ya. The pH won't affect that soil pH at all. It would have had to have a lot of yeast to ferment to alcohol, not likely since you isolated the Lacto- bacteria with the milk. I'm pretty darned sure you're super OK.

Thanks for the kind words. You'll find that this same natural benefit extends from plants to pets and people. My dog eats only raw meat and bone. He never smells, never gets fleas or ticks, etc. Surprising.

Rrog said:

Ya. The pH won't affect that soil pH at all. It would have had to have a lot of yeast to ferment to alcohol, not likely since you isolated the Lacto- bacteria with the milk. I'm pretty darned sure you're super OK.

Thanks for the kind words. You'll find that this same natural benefit extends from plants to pets and people. My dog eats only raw meat and bone. He never smells, never gets fleas or ticks, etc. Surprising.

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For sure brother. Around christmas last year I "woke up" and realized the crap I had been putting in my body. Make a long story short, I stopped eating processed crap food and started buying meat from local farmers that use no antibiotics, steroids and are grass fed. I plan to hunt this year also.

Ive also lost 30 pounds and weigh what i did at age 20. (38 now) I feel better than anytime i can remember. I know firsthand what the proper fuel can do for the body. I have tried to incorporate it into everything I do like my garden.

I must admit I buy my dog food with meat as the first ingredient but those organic steaks are expensive!

Look at feeding the dog chicken leg quarters. You can buy in 10 pound bags for $0.69 a pound. They eat the bones and all. They are soft and flexible when raw. They become hazardous and brittle when cooked or dried. Eggs are great. All raw.

You'll see a big immune response, too. Fur will transform. I've converted many people over the years and they all are shocked at the improvement in the dog or cat.

A pile of poop will turn white in the sun and be gone in days.

That is awesome! I will try it. Thanks and happy 4th to you. Have you got anything new as far as cannabis or have you pretty much got everything dialed in now?