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To be technically organic something must relate to or contain carbon or its compounds, so minerals are pretty much out along with most elements. Organically compatible are those naturally occuring things that aren't organic but play well with stuff that is organic like said silica or the...

OPfarmer "Go slow, observe ...", has been my mantra for decades and I'm with you 110% on that one, especially in organics where the only things that happen fast are usually really, REALLY bad. Sadly, for the 'instant gratification' crowd it seems a hard concept to grasp and even harder to...

Your top dress should do you just fine. No experience with fish bone meal, but I do do a top dress of bone meal and EWC just before or right at the flip and have noticed that the small amount of N in the bone meal provides enough N to keep the early fading to a minimum. After that, it's...

This is after being a member here for over 6 years? Yeah, I wouldn't listen to anyones advice either! Good luck!

Whatever Dude. Good luck!

Once cracked, it's a pretty short shelf life. What most do, is buy uncracked and run what you are going to use right then through a $12 coffee/spice grinder. The uncracked malted barley has a fairly long shelf life of a year or 2. Cracked, it's down to a couple of days or so. Wet

I know your iron is good, but look on the back of a Ironite bag at the ingredient list. It is really a nice blended mineral mix over and above the iron in the name. Not expensive either. For my minerals and trace beyond my "must have" kelp meal, all I use now in my mixes is greensand and...

In a word, what you're missing is "Patience". Organics in general and microbes in particular work at their own rate and time. You can nudge them a little, but generally you have to adjust to their schedule since they really aren't going to adjust to yours and their's is really on the slow...

Indoors is the way to go and all you need is a 18 gallon tote and 2'x3' of floor space. There is no smell unless you are doing something really wrong. I have 6 bins going in the basement and my wife has never commented, even once, about any smells. Forget that CY and "per the recipe". That...

Did you notice much of a difference between the Ironite and the Fertiloam? I googled the FL, but info was really skimpy beyond the iron & micronutrients. A word of caution. With homegrown VC I would really slack off any BioAg products. VC provides so much and with BioAg being so...

With vermicompost it's never about the NPK, but all the stuff a worms gut adds to the castings. No experience with any bagged castings, but there is no way they even begin to compare to what homegrown VC can provide. Wet

Should be no problem. I make my own peat based bedding and it includes perlite. Mainly, it's the beginnings of a soil mix and everything is what would be going into the mix anyway. Old soil should work just as well if not better. But the perlite has never been an issue when harvesting. My...

redwormcomposting.com has all the info you need, tons of information there from first starting out to well advanced. All my bins are totes and I have no experience with smart pots as bins, so no help there. IDK if I would really recc them for someone just starting with worms, but that's just...

Vermiculite just isn't all that good for soil mixes. It does mess with the pH, but it's biggest sin is, it just flat retains too much water. Not a good trait for a aeration amendment. No experience with pumice for the very reason you posted, $32 for 5 gallons vs $20 for 30 gallons made it a...

Just where do you feel the perlite is going to dissapear to? It's totally inert and doesn't decompose in any way. You really should start searching for a local source of the 4cf bags of perlite. Those little bags will eat you alive in cost. Around here the 4cf bag is right at $20 and that's...

Add some Azomite to those 2 and you've hit my personal trifecta of minerals. Those3 are all I use in my mix. AFA the worms go, I've added both kelp meal and greensand to the worm bins. The kelp meal pretty regulary, every 2-3 weeks The greensand perhaps once/month, 6 weeks. The azomite will...

No, apparently I don't, not a clue. I've been told. One thing I HAVE learned over time is the difference between my soil garden and the container mixes I make and treat each accordingly. Much like having both a fresh water fish and a salt water fish tank. Both are similar with entirely...

LOL, I haven't a clue as to the "why" of pine bark fines, only what happens when tey aren't included. I was taught by rote and sweat labor on how to build a mix back in 1972 when I first got into exotic plants by other growers. They let me tag along to a greenhouse supply and told me what to...

Went back and reread that link and still stand by what I suggested. Make a nice simple mix from scratch and go from there. My all time fav is LC's #1, a simple blood, bone, kelp mix that is still very close to what I'm doing still. Why would I want to "ignore" you? Or you me? Because I...

This is why I've gone back to using only azomite and greensand for my minerals. As "slow" as they are they are still way faster than any rock dust. Azomite is a clay ish and greensand is a sedimentary rock and very soft, like sandstone. They weather much faster than basalt or granite that are...