Covetsculitvars
Well-Known Member
Trial and error, along with what works for thousands of happy farmers year in and out is where my medium has found its roots! Lmao!
Alternatives to build a soil
- Thread starter MR.NICE.GUY.1990
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Trial and error, along with what works for thousands of happy farmers year in and out is where my medium has found its roots! Lmao!
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@Wetdog
The price for the kelp isn't bad, but the shipping is crazy!!!
I hate when the shipping costs more than the item.
The calcium nitrate I use is like that, the shipping is almost 1.5 times as much as the calcium nitrate, but it lasts a while and it is consistent.
I'd love to do the organic thing, but it's just not possible at the moment.
I used to and I loved it.
Where I live it's difficult to maintain a compost bin, there's just not enough humidity so everything desiccates and nothing breaks down.
Covetsculitvars
Well-Known Member
That must be frustrating! I hope op finds his solution.
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@Serverchris
That's not a bad upfront price, but the shipping is another $49, so in total it comes out to like $104.
Ouch!!!
ShLUbY
Well-Known Member
do you cover it with a piece of plastic or a tarp or something to help prevent desiccation? it should sweat under the tarp and help hold the moisture longer.
MR.NICE.GUY.1990
Well-Known Member
For sure. I'd like to seeI've been reading alot about making your own compost and fertilizer and im starting to realize all that perfectly good kitchen waste should have been utilized
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MR.NICE.GUY.1990
Well-Known Member
Through a combination aof Amazon, build a soil itself waving the shipping fee, and shopping around a few of the above website that you friendly people have suggested, I have almost attained all of the required components for my living soil. Thanks for all the suggestions and help guys. I have the kelp meal on it's way, and Buildasoil accidentally threw it the box with my mineral mix. Called them and they told me it was an accident and that I got a free bag of 3.0 nutrient mix. I'm getting good vibes from this transition and I know organic soils the best option.
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ShLUbY
Well-Known Member
companies always reward honesty. I had a package from NugSmasher delayed for 2 weeks from the post office (for who knows what reason), even though delivery said it arrived. I told them about it and they replaced my rosin bags for free. Two weeks later they showed up, I told them what happened and they were like well thanks for telling us, keep the extra bags! It was a nice surprise.
Good luck with organic growing man. If you need anything, we're here!
meangreengrowinmachine
Well-Known Member
honestly a lot of the components are not cheap up front I dont know about 700 bucks but I guess it depends on how much you want to make... here is my mix...
here is my soil mix... approx... it has been used once or twice and re amended
pete moss 7.5 gal
worm castings 3.75 gal (make a worm farm!!!)
compost 3.75 gal
perlite 7.5 gal
lime 3 cups
glacial rock dust 12 cups
thats my base
then i mix my amendments together as below
kelp meal 6 cups
epsoma tomato tone 3 cups
alfalfa meal 3 cups
neem meal 3 cups
crab meal 3 cups
finely ground egg shells about 3 cups
azomite about a cup
Gypsum... I need to recall how much but it is good stuff
I then take a total of 7.5 cups of the amendment mix and add it to the base and let it sit for at least 4 weeks...
here is my soil mix... approx... it has been used once or twice and re amended
pete moss 7.5 gal
worm castings 3.75 gal (make a worm farm!!!)
compost 3.75 gal
perlite 7.5 gal
lime 3 cups
glacial rock dust 12 cups
thats my base
then i mix my amendments together as below
kelp meal 6 cups
epsoma tomato tone 3 cups
alfalfa meal 3 cups
neem meal 3 cups
crab meal 3 cups
finely ground egg shells about 3 cups
azomite about a cup
Gypsum... I need to recall how much but it is good stuff
I then take a total of 7.5 cups of the amendment mix and add it to the base and let it sit for at least 4 weeks...
Serverchris
Well-Known Member
Yeah if that's all you were gonna get then I would try to find something local but when I ordered I got a whole pallet of stuff shipped for $100 which I thought was very reasonable.
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@ShLUbY
That's a good idea, but even under a tarp the compost still dries out.
I tried composting in a "bin" made of cinder blocks with a tarp on top, but the wind either rips the tarp off or just dries everything out anyway.
It's great for drying foods, especially in the summer, because things dry so fast they don't have a chance to wilt or go brown.
Off topic,
Even in winter I don't have to use a dryer to dry my clothes, I just hang them up and (during the summer) in about the same time it would take in the dryer the clothes are dry. In the winter it takes about half a day.
High humidity here is 30% and that's typically in winter, when it's raining or snowing.
Back on topic,
I was thinking about using one of those tumbler type composters, they seem like they would keep the moisture in and it is something I could keep in the garage.
Either that or I am going to have to make an anaerobic digestor, but then I am going to want to over design it so I can trap the methane and use it to power a small generator to charge some batteries, or something and I just don't need the extra projects right now.
Or I could get into cob building and use the discarded leaves and stems in place of the straw, but again, no more new projects for a bit.
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Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@MR.NICE.GUY.1990For sure. I'd like to seeI've been reading alot about making your own compost and fertilizer and im starting to realize all that perfectly good kitchen waste should have been utilized
Exactly!!!
We quickly go from seeing our left over food as "edible" to "gross trash" and with some simple sorting and a little casual regular maintenance that "trash" can be worth a lot.
Especially if you incorporate worms, insect frass, green manures that fix nitrogen (like white clover), and use the ash from fires (potassium), you can go from spending a lot of money on fertilizer to almost nothing.
This is because you will need to buy phosphorus, either as chemical fertilizer, bone meal, or rock phosphate.
Unless you keep bats, then you can use their poop, which has a lot of phosphorus in it (but that's because they require foods with a lot of phosphorus, cyclic problem...).
If you are adventurous, check out your local geology and look for the rock phosphate yourself. Look for apatite or calcium phosphate.
It's all over the world.
Rock phosphate and bone meal take a while to break down in soil especially if the pH is above 5.5, but you can help it out a bit...
As I said, you can also use bone meal (calcium phosphate, similar to hydroxyapatite minerals).
To make the rock phosphate/bone meal readily available to your plants, you need to mix it with sulfuric acid, which produces phosphoric acid as the first step and this can be used in a diluted form as pH down.
****USE CAUTION****
Let me stop here and suggest that you shouldn't do this unless you are comfortable with the process and until you have done it a few times, take excessive precautions because all it takes is one mess up with strong acids and you will have permanent battle scars...
******************
The reaction is exothermic, meaning it produces heat.
Always, ALWAYS add the acid to the phosphorus/bone meal, not the other way around, or you will end up with a volcano of hot acid spitting at you.
Remember a little goes a long way.
It is a good idea to add some water to the phosphorus/bone meal prior to adding the acid, otherwise it could spit as well.
Always do things like this outside (or under a fume hood), with you upwind from the reaction. Just to be extra careful, I would set it up so you have a water source and an escape route just in case the SHTF...
You can do this 1000 times with no issues, but all it takes is one screw up and you will be paying for it the rest of your life.
So don't give me this "I don't need to wear goggles because I am a real man bullshit."
I have seen people lose fingers (and noses) with that attitude and it happens so fast you can't react fast enough.
Add the acid slowly and let it do it's thing, then add more, otherwise it will boil over.
Use a borosilicate container (preferably wide mouth like a beaker) 2-3 times bigger than you think you will need.
It also doesn't hurt to put the beaker in a spill over pan just in case...
Once all the acid has been added and the mixture is done reacting and it has cooled to the point where you can touch the beaker, then little by little add in your buffering agent to neutralize the pH.
Choose something like potassium silicate, which will produce a usable end product and not baking soda which has a lot of sodium in it and will just kill your plants.
Once the acid is neutralized, you will have a very strong mixture of phosphorus and I would suggest either letting it evaporate (which could take a very long time), or use a Buchner funnel to do the same work in a matter of moments.
****WORD OF CAUTION****
Whatever you do, do not evaporate the mixture without first neutralizing the phosphoric acid.
As the water evaporates, it will just concentrate the acid and the mixture will burn the shit out of you if you get it on our skin.
Then you will have a very basic (very impure) phosphate fertilizer.
You can recrystallize it, but I won't go into that because I have already probably said too much...
Look on YouTube...
Just remember the point of all this is to make yourself and others happy...
If your goal is profit, you are no better than Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, or Big Ag...
We have enough greedy bastards in this world as it is...
The organic route just takes a bit more time for everything to break down and become available to the plants.
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Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@MR.NICE.GUY.1990
Organic soil is "the best" because it is renewable.
Which makes it awesome!
I wish I could do the organic route but it's not in the cards for me at the moment.
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@shuluby
That's cool!
The company probably wrote off the product and shipping as a loss on their taxes, plus it would have cut into their profit for them to pay to have the items shipped back and nothing pisses a customer off more than having to pay for the post offices mistakes.
So, in the end you win!!!
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@Serverchris
Pallets are the way to go!
Freight is still reasonable even with lift-gate fees, which they will sometimes wave if your order is big enough.
I wish growers could/would form co-ops and take advantage of things like this...
But everyone is rightfully paranoid.
They could get so many great products much cheaper if they formed a 501(C)(5) or 501(C)(7)'s with the express purpose of buying things in bulk.
They could even turn around and sell some of their excess as fundraisers to help offset membership costs.
There are so many options and benefits to communal buying.
For example, a club could buy X product for $25 wholesale and then turn around and sell it to their members for $26 (with $1 going to offset their membership dues) and they could then sell the remaining product to the public at discounted pricing and still make "profit."
Non-profits can make profit, they just have to use the money for organization purposes.
Most 501(C)(3)'s just hire pricey board members to eat up donations as "administration costs."
Clubs can't take in tax deductable donations, but nothing says they can't sell a product that retails for $50 to the public for $40, when it cost them $30 wholesale...
As long as the "profit" is zero and allocated properly at the end of the year, and the group pays their taxes, it's all good.
There I go again, turning a simple response into a fucking novel!!!
Chris Edward
Well-Known Member
@meangreengrowinmachine
All you're missing in there is some some banana peel ash...
To this I would seed the soil with some white clover for about a month or so (depending on the temperature) prior to planting the clones and then just before planting the clones I would till the green manure under, so your clones have a nitrogen boost.
Then I would seed again with white clover, so by the time the clover was coming up, the clones would be about 12" or so and then the clover could chill out in the shade and make a little extra nitrogen for your plants.
It works outside, I am not sure about indoors.
I have always used hydro indoors.
meangreengrowinmachine
Well-Known Member
hmm banana peel ash eh... well I do go through about 1.5 - 2 lbs of organic bananas a week... so to do this I assume you would need to dehydrate the peel since I doubt all that moisture would burn well.... to get a decent amount of that I would think that would take a LOT of bananas... or maybe you are just trolling me with this and saying my mix is too complicated lol... which you may be correct! hahaha
I have thought of doing a cover drop of nitrogen fixers on my SIPs and will be making some more spoil soon so i will try this! thanks for the tip!
ShLUbY
Well-Known Member
peel ash? i just dehydrate the peels and crush or chop them up once dry. keep the carbon, don't burn it off
meangreengrowinmachine
Well-Known Member
normally i just feed them to my worms and use the castings but I have plenty and will try this also.peel ash? i just dehydrate the peels and crush or chop them up once dry. keep the carbon, don't burn it off
ShLUbY
Well-Known Member
that works too! I use them as a topdress for flower when I have them on hand. 1/4 cup per plant mixed with compost