Living organic soil from start through recycling CONTINUED...

[Mikell]

Good work team.

Lapides, excellent job.

WhoDat, some real top drawer investigative journalism uncovering what will come to be known as Shitjilgate.

Microbeman gets credit for piling on one of the final straws to the camel.

Weird, for putting it all together so clearly.


But really, it takes a community coming together to properly tar and feather. God Bless Us Everyone.

 

[Microbeman]

Great point dude, I completely failed upon starting my first no till cycle solely due to using rice hulls for my only aeration amendment. That sucked big time.

I then added lava rock (as mentioned above) and that fixed my problem completely. I added some bio char at about 10% of the soil body volume as well, along with a few lbs of red wigglers and those euro's you just eyed out

Exactly;

http://www.microbeorganics.com/#Living_Soil
When creating your soil mix bear in mind that you wish to create long lasting spaces or pores of various sizes so it is best to include some very slow to decompose organic matter and some rock or sand-like particles along with some of your faster degrading compost to see you through your first season as your soil matrix comes to life.

 

[h.h.]

Original Gangster
or
Old Git
or
Over Grown
or
Ocean Grown ?
or
Orangutan Ganja

Old guy

 

[heady blunts]

my sweetie's stepfather self identifies as a Gnarly Old Dude.

 

[Microbeman]

Old guy

Nailed it!

 

[h.h.]

I have to agree with Slipnot to some degree. Limited tilling and contour plowing hold some value when it comes to water and nutrient runoff.

Of course every situation and every soil is a different story. While we may not do it when growing in pots, we add worms along with an over abundance of aeration material. While a small percentage of lava rock or char will add to the soil, other amendments like perlite add nothing and basically only serve as placeholders.

There are no absolutes. Strictly practicing till or no till is purely an exercise in academics. Doing it just to do it. There is really no point other than advancing our knowledge. No reason for argument when everybody's wrong and everybody's right.

Rice hulls can be replaced. Use a 1/2" pipe to prod your soil, pulling out plugs as you do it. Fill in your holes. A compromise that does minimal damage.

Think outside the box. The answer isn't this or that, it's always something in between.

 

[Microbeman]

I have to agree with Slipnot to some degree. Limited tilling and contour plowing hold some value when it comes to water and nutrient runoff.

Of course every situation and every soil is a different story. While we may not do it when growing in pots, we add worms along with an over abundance of aeration material. While a small percentage of lava rock or char will add to the soil, other amendments like perlite add nothing and basically only serve as placeholders.

There are no absolutes. Strictly practicing till or no till is purely an exercise in academics. Doing it just to do it. There is really no point other than advancing our knowledge. No reason for argument when everybody's wrong and everybody's right.

Rice hulls can be replaced. Use a 1/2" pipe to prod your soil, pulling out plugs as you do it. Fill in your holes. A compromise that does minimal damage.

Think outside the box. The answer isn't this or that, it's always something in between.

I don't think you are agreeing with Slipnot, rather you seem to be agreeing with

"Occasionally a till is advantageous in a no-till farm setting, depending on the crop of course. Shallow tillage can help to break a crust."

which slipnot did not really take the opportunity to reply to,

Is your exercise with 1/2 pipe designed to replace rice hulls? I'm not quite understanding.

 

[h.h.]

I don't think you are agreeing with Slipnot, rather you seem to be agreeing with which slipnot did not really take the opportunity to reply to,

Is your exercise with 1/2 pipe designed to replace rice hulls? I'm not quite understanding.

Not so much an occasional till as a limited till. Not everything has to be torn up. The fungal network need not be destroyed.

The pipe method could be used to replace rice hulls. I've used it to add drainage materials to a heavy soil. More or less the same as aerating a lawn. I'd compare it to a semi-till. It loosens up the soil without destruction.

I haven't read the whole thread, so I am jumping into the middle here.

Going back a few posts to where Slipnot mentions water runoff... The property that I live on was used for grazing. I'm pretty sure it was never tilled before me. After a rain, the water would run off. When I planted my trees, using a single plow. I went down the row where the trees are planted and then again a few feet away from the planting line, leaving islands of unplowed, undisturbed soil.

When growing in pots, a large percentage of the roots will grow down the sides of the pot. That's where a large percentage of the water along with the nutrients go. Prodding will open up the soil. Stakes placed in the soil at planting time can be removed half way through the grow.

The point of no till is not to disturb the mycelium, otherwise, like I said, it's purely an academic exercise.
The point of tilling is to open up the soil allowing roots to expand easier as well as allowing water and nutes. While roots and your micro life will do the same thing, you can't beat the mechanical action of tilling, especially when reclaiming soil.
Why not both?

 

[Weird]

great point and perhaps the method of tilling the top plane of soil instead can be replaced by simply putting vertical holes in the ground leaving most of the top layer off soil undisturbed might be the manual replication of worm and other burrowing organism.

 

[h.h.]

Exactly. You don't use a hatchet to do surgery.

As I said though, I jumped in here late. Semi till is a tool for recovery. It's a beginning.

 

[Microbeman]

Yes, that makes sense but one injection is that tilling (even shallow) contributes to erosion and mixes up the surface (detritusphere) microorganisms. Indoor and raised bed no-till has a very different composition.

 

[Weird]

yes and yes

no til taught me the value of establishing a population of microbiology and maintaining it over a term

no til is also new methodology and in the application comes challenges and opportunities one of which is compaction. I think charging up some char and mixing it with some aggregate and placing it in tubes might help distressed soils recover vigor and performance metrics.

 

[Weird]

So I just created a company called soil tubes and patented all technology that creates tubes including tunnels created by worms so now everyone has to pay me for them too.

see how fast ideas come to market these days?

or maybe an idea can simply be shared and the benefit of better soil life will reflect upon us all.

thinks to self, fucking grandiose hippy pipe dreams, back in your cave. GO.

:: skulks back to a dark cave somewhere off the beaten internet path

 

[Avinash.miles]

So I just created a company called soil tubes and patented all technology that creates tubes including tunnels created by worms so now everyone has to pay me for them too.

see how fast ideas come to market these days?

or maybe an idea can simply be shared and the benefit of better soil life will reflect upon us all.

thinks to self, fucking grandiose hippy pipe dreams, back in your cave. GO.

:: skulks back to a dark cave somewhere off the beaten internet path

damnit weird im cracking up over here

 

[h.h.]

Yes, that makes sense but one injection is that tilling (even shallow) contributes to erosion and mixes up the surface (detritusphere) microorganisms. Indoor and raised bed no-till has a very different composition.

I said I checked in late...

I refer to it as surgery. Not always needed or useful. You do have scars to deal with. Kept to a minimum and done without destroying the entire surface, the scars heal quickly.

A similar idea...
http://offbeathome.com/worm-tube-composting/
( I wouldn't suggest this method of composting for cannabis, though the concept could be adapted.)

 

[Weird]

tbh i think lapides uses worm tubes in his beds

 

[Lapides]

No I don't use worm tubes but I had considered it. Because I use blumats, the dirt in my beds is not all moist. Just around the bases of the plants.

So I decided against the worm tube thinking that most of the worms wont be able to get to it because of all the dry patches in between the drippers. I just feed the worms directly now upon transplant into flower with my dried amendments.

 

[Microbeman]

I think hh's tube idea is good. His lawyers are drafting a notice to Weird.

 

[Sluicebox]

Do Blumats work on strained compost tea? Like if you slowly strained through a kitchen strainer between the tea brewer and res? Or would they plug up?

Would love to see a gravity fed drip system that would handle compost tea and be able to flush it with water. Or a fertigation setup that would work gravity fed pulling compost tea out of res to be fed out to plants.

I can access 20-25 ft of elevation for pressure. Cliff with flat area above garden. Pump strained water from rain catchment to res above garden. Then have bbl of finished strained tea at garden level. I don't think this creates enough pressure to run a fertigation system.

Also have a 2 acre pond full of Bass, Sunfish and Frogs. I haven't used that water yet as the pH is near 8.

If there is a thread on this please point me to it. I have searched, and searched.

Thanks. Sorry for being off topic.

 

[hiddenorchard]

i can't access pg's 133 and 134.... weird, it shows up on the bottom and top navigation