FRESH being the key here. Gotta jump start the life. Your mix sounds fine, adding in the mycos and bacteria should get you going.
what is your new water source? and what was your old one?
the problem with transplanting into a larger container is it won't matter. you still need roots to get to the new soil, and then you have to deal with moisture issues of keeping a little tiny plant in a big ol pot. if I were to try and transfer these to another mix, i'd maybe try and remove as much of your CC mix as possible from the roots and then plant in the new soil. maybe see how it goes with one of them? this all just seems strange to me...
I'm sure you know how i feel about rice hulls for drainage... they work well for a little bit... but over time, meh. they just seem to get soft and flimsy, and then start to lack as a drainage material. I would never run a mix with rice hulls as the sole material for drainage. they're also small, which allows for soil compaction. love them as a mulch though!
. this is just my preference from my experience with them. I'm sure others have had plenty of success with them.
^ other questions answered above^I'm sorry you're having troubles friend. I'll try and help as best I can!
Thanks for helping ShLUbY.
what is your new water source? and what was your old one?
Bottled spring water with unknown ph, previously use RO water with a ph of 7
you can rule out using cal mag altogether.... there's plenty of Ca and Mg in your recipe.
not watering enough will definitely inhibit any nutrient cycling. you know how it is, water is required for microbial life. So were you only watering around the seedling and not the whole container? and fwiw, I would start in a solo cup and not a 1 gal... but that's a minor thing. you can def make a one gal work. i doubt that had anything to do with this.
Yeah, just watering around the seedling, as I felt the roots were still only at that area still, I think this was the first time I went straight to 1 gallons instead of solos.
soil mix is definitely not weak if you followed the CC mix (which i know you did)
I do the math several times before mixing the batch, and I stay straight when mixing to make sure I don't make a stoner move and put like quadruple the amount of ammendments or whatever.
the problem with transplanting into a larger container is it won't matter. you still need roots to get to the new soil, and then you have to deal with moisture issues of keeping a little tiny plant in a big ol pot. if I were to try and transfer these to another mix, i'd maybe try and remove as much of your CC mix as possible from the roots and then plant in the new soil. maybe see how it goes with one of them? this all just seems strange to me...
I'd think I could much of the CC mix off fairly easily, since I doubt there is much root development happened.
I'll check the PH of the water I was using, I have a feeling it's way out of range, would it still seem strange?
I'm sure you know how i feel about rice hulls for drainage... they work well for a little bit... but over time, meh. they just seem to get soft and flimsy, and then start to lack as a drainage material. I would never run a mix with rice hulls as the sole material for drainage. they're also small, which allows for soil compaction. love them as a mulch though!
Duly noted.
other than that... this recipe should be bangin.
so let me ask you these couple of things...
1) did you thoroughly hydrate your peat moss before mixing up this recipe?
2) how much did you make, and if you had a guess, how much water did you add to the soil once it was mixed?
3) what did you compost this soil in?? (that means cook, but i hate the word cook cause it makes zero sense and i wish it would go away!!!)
ok so it all seems fine to me methodically. one thing i would be considering is not turning the pile and introducing fresh oxygen to the mix. did you notice any smells of ammonia or anything when you dug into it?
Good advice, curious to see if ph is a factor or if it's a soil food web/moisture
Thank you go explaining the importance of keeping the moisture level constant. However are you not overwatering your pants though? Or why aren’t they showing signs?
a simple way to combat this problem is increasing the drainage amount. i run about 40-45% drainage material in my mixes so i can have plenty of air, and plenty of water at the same time.
Wow that makes so much sense! Thank you for explaining that. I don’t do well with rules I don’t understand, but you made it simple. Got it.
Shluby nailed it, with the last post. I stuck with Coots mix though. You start to get a good feeling of what your plants need when it comes to moister levels. About a month and a half ago I took the judging out of the equation and bought some Blumat’s and there moister sensor. Now my soil is almost always a constant 80-120mbar as recommended. Only time it really fluctuates is when I top feed.
i think substrate density was more what we were talking about with the rice hulls rather than compaction, but you are right, we were misusing the term
Thank you for the correction!
Well its same shit with different smell. Problem is the same so solution is the same. Get the most dense rocky clay-like soil you can find, mulch it with 4-8 inches of wood chips and see what happens to that soil in matter of months. After few months you gonna be able to dig trough that soil with your pinky. This is what fungi does and wood chips are fungus food on top of being a cover for your soil. Dead soil is just bacteria dominated soil (most of the time, sometimes they are both dead). Just because there is bacteria that doesn't mean your soil is good to go. You need that fungi desperately to keep your soil at its best condition.i think substrate density was more what we were talking about with the rice hulls rather than compaction, but you are right, we were misusing the term
cool thanks for the vids. and yeah, been advocating mulching for a long time! Started realizing that my use of stones for mulch (pumice) was not helping my situation any with the fungal components. went back to straw. been thinking about moving to wood chips, just getting them a little smaller than they come in the bag. I use last years leaves on my outdoor garden beds. they work amazing!
I just go and pick up right from the forest, if you have healthy plants nothing is gonna eat them. Nature never kills the healthy one, it just cleans the duts so only strong ones breed and specie survives.
looks good man. ok let's leave this thread to the original poster
look forward to conversing with you around the forum!You say that wood chips are fungus food.. Do you know if they feed with straw too... Have straw right now so if is the same thing will use straw
Fungi love straw! We use straw to grow oyster mushrooms at the mushroom farm I work at.You say that wood chips are fungus food.. Do you know if they feed with straw too... Have straw right now so if is the same thing will use straw
