The transition to Organic gardening....

DonTesla said:

do you know happen to know the ph beforehand.

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Yeah, I used my tap water, we have really clean water in my area, the PPM is 180 or less, loaded with minerals, but there's no treatments(chlorine) of any sort....The PH is usually spot on 7....
I also expected the PH to be acidic from the molasses, that's why I was curious about the reading of 8...
I made another batch too, with a couple spoons of Espoma Garden Tone in it, also phd out at 8, so I poured just enough Fish hydrolosate in it to get it to below 7, the ppm was 850......I put that on a test plant which is a weirdo runt from my current small scale pheno hunt....Its been yellow since it popped up, WAY behind the others, so I figured why not find out what kind of beating it can handle....
Last spring I popped some unknown beans, and I got one plant eventually I discovered has resistance to just about every sort of foolishness an inexperienced grower can cause! It was on life support on more than one occasion, but she survived, and was well worth the learning process...

I realize in the future, I wont rely so much on these meters, the soils will balance themselves, but for now I just like testing whatever I concoct...

Learning always trumps a so called failure, and the ripple effect can last for ages.. so well worth it for sure..

What about as it brewed longer t.. he ph didnt drop?

And yes, soil is amazing.. get lots of humus and lots of life in there, and it can do more than you think!!

So spring has finally set in, the snow has melted away from my lawn. I have a question regarding starting a compost heap....

I'm planning on raking up all of the dead grass, from my HUGE lawn for a starter pile, and with the hefty population of Whitetail Deer in my region, my lawn has maybe hundreds of little piles of deer excrement, and rabbit excrement....
Any reason not to do this?

Chip Green said:

So spring has finally set in, the snow has melted away from my lawn. I have a question regarding starting a compost heap....

I'm planning on raking up all of the dead grass, from my HUGE lawn for a starter pile, and with the hefty population of Whitetail Deer in my region, my lawn has maybe hundreds of little piles of deer excrement, and rabbit excrement....
Any reason not to do this?

Click to expand...

Go for it! Measure the core temp of the pile every now and then and start turning when it heats up. Done when temps drop and it smells earthy good.

Chip Green said:

So spring has finally set in, the snow has melted away from my lawn. I have a question regarding starting a compost heap....

I'm planning on raking up all of the dead grass, from my HUGE lawn for a starter pile, and with the hefty population of Whitetail Deer in my region, my lawn has maybe hundreds of little piles of deer excrement, and rabbit excrement....
Any reason not to do this?

Click to expand...

Droppings less than a year old are greens, consider this when building the pile. Reason not to do it, potential pathogen propogation, mitigation, as bugeye said monitor temps.

So I got a little behind schedule on this transition here (over 1year)... but some developments have forced some big-time momentum here.
A local old timer, put his massive 30'x80' garden enclosure up for grabs. I bought it, took it apart (hundreds of boards, solid posts,hundreds of feet of garden wire)
and am bringing it home. Turns out, he's got a lumber mill hiding in a large building on his compound. A dozen of these 2'x4'x18" deep, raised bed boxes he built also ended up in the deal, a 10'x20' Shelterlogic frame, and the 100+ gallon irrigation system, all hoses and drippers, sprinklers, clamps, hardware ect...

So what I'm getting at is, now I'm basically fucked and HAVE to get shit going... I'm out of excuses. The whole dag- gum kit, fell into my lap.

I peeled a nice 4" layer from a matted leaf pile, and laid it in one of those boxes. I could see baby worms galore.
Native worm box, underway.