Nope_49595933949
Well-Known Member
Greensand helps with grubs?
I just found some really dark rich soil loaded with worms and other very small insects behind my neighbors barn
- Thread starter ClaytonNewbilFontaine
- Start date
Week4@inCharge
Well-Known Member
My bad ..was up till 3 am ... check into "wood ash". Might help.
Nope_49595933949
Well-Known Member
Got plenty of that, I'll take a gander.
ClaytonNewbilFontaine
Well-Known Member
So the grubs are bad? I thought they were good. But as I'm reading this I'm thinking yeah they're prob gonna eat my veggies
Nope_49595933949
Well-Known Member
They aren't great, but it's really about the amount you have per Sq ft. I'd want as few to none as possible but I'm not sure that's feasible. They eat roots. They should be manageable though. Being that it's being freshly put out I wouldn't bet surprised if you have crows showing up within a few deers snacking on them.
amneziaHaze
Well-Known Member
Isnt horse shit low in nitrogen compared to cow or chicken?
TaoRich
Well-Known Member
Yes.
I hate those f--kers.
If you have one confined to a planter pot, they can seriously reduce your root mass over a grow.
Don't worry about having a coop for it to live in from the get go. We just built a coop for our hen at home, and she used it for 3 weeks, then she decided she would rather brood and lay eggs in the back of an old scooter that has a pillion basket.
The hen will scratch and scrabble and root around in the soil to uncover and eat all those grubs.
But be warned ... she will decimate the useful earth worms as well ... and any other useful composting bugs.
To them, protein is protein, and if it moves, it's dinner.
So you gotta make a plan for that if you go the chicken route.
LordEnki
Well-Known Member
can you source your peat, aeration and compost locally for cheap and then ship the ammendments for cheap/free?
sounds like you'll be using your own castings eventually, so....
edit: how rural are you? gotta be somewhere to get some good peat and some pumice, right?
TaoRich
Well-Known Member
It looks like you have the space and time and ingredients.
As a suggestion for making your own amendments, you could consider making up some nutrient charged biochar.
1. Burn wood in the absence of oxygen to make activated charcoal
- a process called pyrolysis
2. Nutrient and microbe charge the activated charcoal
- by leaving it in your compost heap for a year
- or more quickly with earthworm castings
- or lawn cuttings or even urine (animal or human)
From what I have been reading, the charcoal burnt and prepared this way:
- has a massive surface area
... one hectare of surface area in a single handful
- it is a good promoter of oxygen in the soil
... a replacement for peat or coir or vermiculite or perlite
- it absorbs nitrogen from the compost and stores it 'like a battery'
... it releases the stored nitrogen 'on demand' by microbes in your soil
- it absorbs water when the soils it too wet
.. it releases water when the soil is too dry
- it also captures toxins and heavy metals
There are lots of articles on this ... mostly a lot of New ! Improved ! Commercial ! Products.
Here is a good place to start on the D.I.Y. path:
How to Make Biochar and Use It to Supercharge Your Garden Fertility
joybileefarm.com
Cannabis Production: Incorporating Biochar in and out of the Pot
www.linkedin.com
NOTE:
Plain ordinary charcoal will leech nitrogen out of your soil.
It must be charged first with nutrients and microbes.
I am trying this now myself for the first time in my current Southern Hemisphere outdoor grow.
I activated my charcoal by
- stuffing a few stocking in a 50:50 mix with black soldier fly frass
- then soaking the stocking sausages for 2 weeks in 20 litre de-chlorinated water drums
- which had been fermenting for 2 weeks prior with home made lactobacillus and a few handfuls of earthworm castings and
1. foraged thistle plants
2. foraged dandelion and curly dock plants
3. fresh green lawn cuttings and 5-10% urine
I then emptied the soggy contents of the stocking sausages into a mulch mix made from my own garden waste compost heap and fluffed and stirred that up by hand.
I will be using that for top dressing my outside plants in pots over a layer of ewc.
As a suggestion for making your own amendments, you could consider making up some nutrient charged biochar.
1. Burn wood in the absence of oxygen to make activated charcoal
- a process called pyrolysis
2. Nutrient and microbe charge the activated charcoal
- by leaving it in your compost heap for a year
- or more quickly with earthworm castings
- or lawn cuttings or even urine (animal or human)
From what I have been reading, the charcoal burnt and prepared this way:
- has a massive surface area
... one hectare of surface area in a single handful
- it is a good promoter of oxygen in the soil
... a replacement for peat or coir or vermiculite or perlite
- it absorbs nitrogen from the compost and stores it 'like a battery'
... it releases the stored nitrogen 'on demand' by microbes in your soil
- it absorbs water when the soils it too wet
.. it releases water when the soil is too dry
- it also captures toxins and heavy metals
There are lots of articles on this ... mostly a lot of New ! Improved ! Commercial ! Products.
Here is a good place to start on the D.I.Y. path:
How to Make Biochar and Use It to Supercharge Your Garden Fertility
How to Make Biochar and Use It to Supercharge Your Garden Fertility
Biochar may hold the key to reducing green house gases, improving garden yields, improving soil structure and water retention, and more.
joybileefarm.com
Cannabis Production: Incorporating Biochar in and out of the Pot
Cannabis Production: Incorporating Biochar in and out of the Pot
Biochar, the carbon-rich material left after biomass pyrolysis, can become quite useful in horticultural settings when chosen and used properly. In the cannabis industry, growers are continuously looking for products to increase productivity and quality, and we think biochar could fulfill certain ne
NOTE:
Plain ordinary charcoal will leech nitrogen out of your soil.
It must be charged first with nutrients and microbes.
I am trying this now myself for the first time in my current Southern Hemisphere outdoor grow.
I activated my charcoal by
- stuffing a few stocking in a 50:50 mix with black soldier fly frass
- then soaking the stocking sausages for 2 weeks in 20 litre de-chlorinated water drums
- which had been fermenting for 2 weeks prior with home made lactobacillus and a few handfuls of earthworm castings and
1. foraged thistle plants
2. foraged dandelion and curly dock plants
3. fresh green lawn cuttings and 5-10% urine
I then emptied the soggy contents of the stocking sausages into a mulch mix made from my own garden waste compost heap and fluffed and stirred that up by hand.
I will be using that for top dressing my outside plants in pots over a layer of ewc.
ClaytonNewbilFontaine
Well-Known Member
I'm on the East coast, closest major city would be Atlanta. There's no industry for that in the state I live but I would think I can find pumice and decent compost. Build a soil had free shipping on this one specific sized bag of malibu compost which I read was good. My original plan was to cook my own but someone with much more experience than me said that sourcing those ingredients where I live is impossible. But I think he thought I was looking for more than I am. I was thinking about a 2x4 bed. I think it's about 12 cubic ft.