Greasemonkey's Compost Pile

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Joe Blows Trees said:

Thanks for the tip on the azomite and I'll look in to growing comfrey. I'm trying to find a good substitute for the blood and bone meal in my area. I think I'll have to go to the feed store this weekend and see what they have. I don't have a worm bin yet so I was going to try adding epsoma organic potting soil mix which states it has alot of microbial life in it.

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I am trying to get off of the Espoma products. They work, but I always have some kind of burn going on.

@MustangStudFarm Really? I hope I don't have to much trouble with these products. I was planning to do a mix of ffof, ff warrior, and an espoma potting soil mix with a small amount of the amendments and see how the plants do. Considering that I'm popping 20 seeds again, I prefer to get a good soil mix that will work throughout the entire growth cycle.

I was using Espoma's Bio-tone... It was not too bad, but I really could not figure out how to keep from burning my plants... By the way, my favorite plants have been super sensitive lateley? If you have hardy stock, it probably wont matter! I am talking about some OG's and maybe a sativa that I have been burning.

Joe Blows Trees said:

@MustangStudFarm Really? I hope I don't have to much trouble with these products. I was planning to do a mix of ffof, ff warrior, and an espoma potting soil mix with a small amount of the amendments and see how the plants do. Considering that I'm popping 20 seeds again, I prefer to get a good soil mix that will work throughout the entire growth cycle.

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Greasemonkey may have mentioned that it is the blood meal that burns certain plants?

I didnt see that it was just the Espoma potting mix, sorry. I thought you were talking about their amendment kits.

@MustangStudFarm yeah, I saw that but decided against it. I think I'll use rabbit manure instead for my indoor and use the blood and bone meal outdoors.

...an oldschool roadkill skunk...

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In an older RIU thread about old roadkill skunk, Neville says, "If u take an afgS and cross it with an afgT you'll find wat you're looking for....soon or later throw backs will pop up. Meaning if u cross the devil with ASH or devil with nordle you'll find it....AfgT was bred to SK1 to make SS. The sister plant which afgS was used to make nordle which is AfgSxSK1(2) x AfgSxSK1(2)."

One of these days man, one of these days.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/who-has-the-stinkest-road-kill-skunk.605414/page-2

MustangStudFarm said:

I was using Espoma's Bio-tone... It was not too bad, but I really could not figure out how to keep from burning my plants... By the way, my favorite plants have been super sensitive lateley? If you have hardy stock, it probably wont matter! I am talking about some OG's and maybe a sativa that I have been burning.

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I've been using Epsoma Plantone in my SS mixes and have experienced both burn and nitrogen toxicity. I'm done too.

MustangStudFarm said:

Greasemonkey may have mentioned that it is the blood meal that burns certain plants?

I didnt see that it was just the Espoma potting mix, sorry. I thought you were talking about their amendment kits.

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not sure if it's the blood meal that burns it, or if because of it's solubility it creates issues.
Ironic, because I was just talking about how some nutrients go acidic when they age.
Personally I just like more meal based nutrients that aren't as soluble.
I also never really liked mixed amendments solely because of their varying denseness... meaning you could get a box that's settled.. and not really mixed.
But who knows.
A really good replacement for blood meal is fish meal.
you could also use manures too. Alfalfa meal and comfrey works too.
rabbit is def the best manure, compared to the rest of the manures it's waaay higher in phosphorus.

Smidge34 said:

In an older RIU thread about old roadkill skunk, Neville says, "If u take an afgS and cross it with an afgT you'll find wat you're looking for....soon or later throw backs will pop up. Meaning if u cross the devil with ASH or devil with nordle you'll find it....AfgT was bred to SK1 to make SS. The sister plant which afgS was used to make nordle which is AfgSxSK1(2) x AfgSxSK1(2)."

One of these days man, one of these days.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/who-has-the-stinkest-road-kill-skunk.605414/page-2

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I've been lusting after the clusterfunk from Bodhi...
91 skunk X 88 g13hp
yum...

Wow, this place just keeps getting better and better. Awesome read for sure. Thanks greasemonkeymann. Buddy down the road has all the rabbit manure I want. I'm gonna start me one of them piles as soon as Mother Nature lets me. To much snow on the ground now. On a side note about the heat in compost piles. I made an outdoor shower this summer, and heated the water with 2 large compost piles made of fresh grass clippings, thin wood chips and fresh horse manure. I did it using the Jean Pain method. Google him and you will find it quite amazing. Must say it was really cool to have a shower with my honey out in the great outdoors under a full moon and stars, with the white solar lites surrounding the shower. Gonna do it again next year for sure!!!

greasemonkeymann said:

You can use coffee grinds, grass clippings, nitrogen bat guano or seabird guano, fresh "feed" alfalfa for like horses, fresh bull kelp (if you can find it), fish carcasses, rabbit manure, rabbit bedding, etc.
All those will work FINE as your "green" input between the leaves.

After the thermophlic portion of the compost is done, you can add a handful of your worm castings from your wormbin if you have one.
I added a tiny ass palmful of castings with the baby white worms just hatched and like ten days later my whole damn pile was crawling with worms, waaaay more than my wormbin

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Can you tell me about the fish carcass? I have a buddy that goes fishing regularly, he told me that he just discards the fish remains after he cleans them...
Funny story, he is native american and they are the ones that taught the pilgrims to compost with fish!!! He said, "no shit, an OIT" Old Indian Trick.
I can only imagine how bad it would smell. I think that the native americans used a trench for fish compost, so it sounds like it was buried?

greasemonkeymann said:

If you layer it with any of those listed amendments I mentioned earlier for the thermophilic portion, the pile will heat itself, I've had 25 - 30 deg mornings and the pile is steaming like a sauna.
i'm not a fan of slaughterhouse amendments, but they'll work, the bone meal in particular.
Done correctly though the compost will be fine in cold weather. Remember leaves break down on their own, even in the snow.
Careful using azomite in a compost pile, the humic acids created by the compost procedure can/will breakdown the aluminum in the azomite.
if you can find/grow comfrey, that stuff is awesome.
and eaaaaasy as hell to grow

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Comfrey is eaaaasy to grow, whats not so eaaaaasy is preventing things from eating it, lol, we've got wild hare and rabbit round here, I can't be certain what is actually eating it, more likely rats, but I'm on the verge of giving up with it totally(I've still got 2 plants left in a raised bed in my back yard, if they get eaten........that's it, I give up with it). I believe Borage has very similar qualities and I've noticed it doesn't get eaten for some reason, it germinates real easy and produces pretty little flowers that can be frozen in ice cubes and put in cocktails BONUS.

Hey Mustang, I put the fish head and all the guts and back fin into the hole when I planted one of my girls this last summer. She grew all the way to the top of my greenhouse and I had to bend it along a post at the top for her to keep growing. Wicked smoke to.

how am i lookin my friend??? the plants i've used the compost with are doing INSANE. i've never seen veggie growth this fast indoors. my oregano and green onions are growing like mad.



this stuff is insanely fluffy, crumbles easily, smells sweet and earthy, and my transplants are loving it! should i let it go longer? what do you think? any leaves that are in the compost mix have been blown into the pile and thats why there are a few not broken down. other than that all i can see is leaf stems, and the occasional small bits of grass that haven't broken down fully. i dunno, maybe i should let it go longer. it looks lighter in color in the pictures than it actually is to the eye.

good info!

ShLUbY said:

how am i lookin my friend??? the plants i've used the compost with are doing INSANE. i've never seen veggie growth this fast indoors. my oregano and green onions are growing like mad.

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this stuff is insanely fluffy, crumbles easily, smells sweet and earthy, and my transplants are loving it! should i let it go longer? what do you think? any leaves that are in the compost mix have been blown into the pile and thats why there are a few not broken down. other than that all i can see is leaf stems, and the occasional small bits of grass that haven't broken down fully. i dunno, maybe i should let it go longer. it looks lighter in color in the pictures than it actually is to the eye.

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that looks really nice man, i'd say you are just a bit off from being done, the rule of thumb was always "if you can't identify anything left" that's when it's done.
BUT, if you need it soon, you could filter/screen it, to make pure compost.
The stems can take twice as long as the leaves though.
more lignin... or less, cant remember of hand..

DonBrennon said:

Comfrey is eaaaasy to grow, whats not so eaaaaasy is preventing things from eating it, lol, we've got wild hare and rabbit round here, I can't be certain what is actually eating it, more likely rats, but I'm on the verge of giving up with it totally(I've still got 2 plants left in a raised bed in my back yard, if they get eaten........that's it, I give up with it). I believe Borage has very similar qualities and I've noticed it doesn't get eaten for some reason, it germinates real easy and produces pretty little flowers that can be frozen in ice cubes and put in cocktails BONUS.

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dude, tell me about it, it's the RATS...
or chipmunks... something small enough to crawl upj on them, munch them down, without toppling my small containers..luckily comfrey can be pruned all the way to the roots and it'll bust out just fine later.
Mine are pissed at the temps...
it's gotten down to the 20s for us, that's cold for us central California coasters

MustangStudFarm said:

Can you tell me about the fish carcass? I have a buddy that goes fishing regularly, he told me that he just discards the fish remains after he cleans them...
Funny story, he is native american and they are the ones that taught the pilgrims to compost with fish!!! He said, "no shit, an OIT" Old Indian Trick.
I can only imagine how bad it would smell. I think that the native americans used a trench for fish compost, so it sounds like it was buried?

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it wasn't that stinky, actually the smelliest thing I've ever, EVER, composted... was kale..
my god it smelled like a rotting deer carcass.. in fact the bull kelp I composted smelled pretty funky too..
But the key for fish carcasses is to put them in a "corner" of your compost bin, and bury it about a foot down, then ignore it for a couple months, you'll run across it later and it'll be picked clean by the worms/centipedes/whatever else.
--note--- fish bone meal and fish meal is WAY easier and quicker...

greasemonkeymann said:

that looks really nice man, i'd say you are just a bit off from being done, the rule of thumb was always "if you can't identify anything left" that's when it's done.
BUT, if you need it soon, you could filter/screen it, to make pure compost.
The stems can take twice as long as the leaves though.
more lignin... or less, cant remember of hand..

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cool thanks again for all your help bud. i'm gonna bring it inside in totes now i think. it's gonna be pretty cold from here on out i believe. think i'm gonna go pick a couple up today for it. there's a lot of compost that's for sure!!! can't wait to see how it does for me, i'm about due for a soil mix to be done anyway. it's gonna sit for 2 months before i use it anyway. trying to stay ahead of the game.

considering doing an inside compost downstairs over the winter....

and it's definitely more lignin in the stems. lignin gives strength and is made of the tissue chlorenchyma if memory serves me correctly.

ShLUbY said:

cool thanks again for all your help bud. i'm gonna bring it inside in totes now i think. it's gonna be pretty cold from here on out i believe. think i'm gonna go pick a couple up today for it. there's a lot of compost that's for sure!!! can't wait to see how it does for me, i'm about due for a soil mix to be done anyway. it's gonna sit for 2 months before i use it anyway. trying to stay ahead of the game.

considering doing an inside compost downstairs over the winter....

and it's definitely more lignin in the stems. lignin gives strength and is made of the tissue chlorenchyma if memory serves me correctly.

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i can't recall off hand what you have in your compost, but adding a thin layer of alfalfa meal and covering it will break the rest of that down pretty quick. If you wanted to continue the process, that is.
I added a BUNCH of alfalfa meal on my first pile, just to keep the thermo-composting going.
you could also add grass, but that takes a speck longer to breakdown.
but if you have 2 months, i'd add a thin layer of alfalfa meal in between when you bring it inside.
just give the totes some air holes, and turn it still.
you don't need much, just a thin layer will get it steaming again

greasemonkeymann said:

i can't recall off hand what you have in your compost, but adding a thin layer of alfalfa meal and covering it will break the rest of that down pretty quick. If you wanted to continue the process, that is.
I added a BUNCH of alfalfa meal on my first pile, just to keep the thermo-composting going.
you could also add grass, but that takes a speck longer to breakdown.
but if you have 2 months, i'd add a thin layer of alfalfa meal in between when you bring it inside.
just give the totes some air holes, and turn it still.
you don't need much, just a thin layer will get it steaming again

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i'll pick some up and layer it in the totes when i'm transferring it to be taken indoors.

the pile was mainly leaves and grass clippings, i added about a cuft of practically finished compost from my tumbler, a bunch of amendments in several additions (neem, alfalfa, kelp, OSF, rock dusts, fishbone meal, gypsum, DE) pretty much everything i'm amending my soil with. i think i'm just gonna make it moist and let it keep rocking, i dont think i want to add anything to it now that it's almost there. maybe i'll split it and add some alfalfa to half and just to see the difference. i had a few seeds sprouting in it the other day so i think that it's pretty close to ready enough.