Living organic soil from start through recycling CONTINUED...

[Microbeman]

Thanks Micro - I understand the cooking = composting misnomer - however I'm looking to re-use soil in containers growing indoors... I have read some about no-till but I don't understand how it could be used when growing in 3-5gallon containers (I don't see how you could successfully re-pot into a container of this size without removing a significant part of the rootball / trunk to make room for incoming plants...

People also use the term "composting/cooking" when preparing your first batch of living soil anyway - so I'm still seeking info on best practices in this process on ventilation / climate with my limited space options (either sun-exposed balcony or inside)...

Well you mentioned temperature in your first post.
What I did 30 years ago when I recycled my soil is to dump it into a wheelbarrow, pull the rootball, break up the roots, hydrate, add vermicompost, kelpmeal, rock powders, put back in the pots, replant and topdress with stuff like alfalfa meal. That is before I switched to no-till.

For some unknown reason to me some mix 'hot' nutrients into the mix and then compost it for a term before placing in containers.
Sun exposure does not assist composting,

Living soil has nothing to do with ingredients. It is soil which is left undisturbed long enough, with plant growth to come to life.

 

[TPFTFW]

Does anyone have any pics of coots “the one” I recently obtained the cut and it’s incredibly hard to search “the one” on IC, even more so now with the site the way it is.

 

[thailer]

Does anyone have any pics of coots “the one” I recently obtained the cut and it’s incredibly hard to search “the one” on IC, even more so now with the site the way it is.

i might have The One pics in an album. i had it for a couple years before i culled it.

 

[TPFTFW]

i might have The One pics in an album. i had it for a couple years before i culled it.

I see you took it at 11 weeks

how much does she stretch

yield looks like it’s decent

hows she smoke, what’s the dominant smell/taste

why’d ya cull her

here she is

 

[thailer]

I see you took it at 11 weeks

how much does she stretch

yield looks like it’s decent

hows she smoke, what’s the dominant smell/taste

why’d ya cull her

here she is

I actually take her twelve or so weeks. I think the last pic I took of her was 11.5 wks. Coot told me to take her 12 weeks and you’ll see, she is ready then too with several ambers.

she will double in stretch but she isn’t a big stretcher.

yield is very nice as she produced more than my other plants. I don’t really recall a specific number but she makes more than others.


she smokes ok. It reminds me of pine and incense or hash spice flavor. Part of the reason I culled her is that nobody likes her and she always was the last jar to be smoked. I liked her tho.

she isn’t the easiest plant to root so you gotta keep her healthy so cuts will root for you.

 

[TPFTFW]

I actually take her twelve or so weeks. I think the last pic I took of her was 11.5 wks. Coot told me to take her 12 weeks and you’ll see, she is ready then too with several ambers.

she will double in stretch but she isn’t a big stretcher.

yield is very nice as she produced more than my other plants. I don’t really recall a specific number but she makes more than others.


she smokes ok. It reminds me of pine and incense or hash spice flavor. Part of the reason I culled her is that nobody likes her and she always was the last jar to be smoked. I liked her tho.

she isn’t the easiest plant to root so you gotta keep her healthy so cuts will root for you.

Oh damn, idk if I’m even gonna run her thus time around then, nothing in the light I was gonna put her in is gonna go near that long. A few ten weeks but that’s about it.
Hm good to know thanks dude


(and yeah she will be healthier soon I got back from
vacay a while ago and the plant sitter did a terrible job)

 

[thailer]

Oh damn, idk if I’m even gonna run her thus time around then, nothing in the light I was gonna put her in is gonna go near that long. A few ten weeks but that’s about it.
Hm good to know thanks dude


(and yeah she will be healthier soon I got back from
vacay a while ago and the plant sitter did a terrible job)

take her the ten weeks. it'll be more energetic cerebral. people like dusting her with pollen so you could do something with that. its definitely not a bad plant at all.

 

[HyDroid]

I've been recycling soil for only a little while now, some of my 3 gallon pots are on their third run.

I like to apply "biostimulants" like aloe, kelp, alfalfa, and sprouted seed teas.

I'm trying to move towards using sprouted corn instead of kelp, sprouted alfalfa instead of alfalfa meal, and perhaps sprouted barley instead of aloe but maybe keep the aloe.

My first question is, to what degree are hormones like cytokinins and compounds like triacontanol and chitin preserved in

1) Anaerobic plant matter fermentation (like EM style FPE, LABS)
2) Aerobic fermentation (aerated compost teas)
3) Vermicompost
4) Buried sprouts

I read through this thread and it was suggested that anaerobic fermentation destroys "long chain" compounds, presumably meaning the hormones I'm after would be destroyed in the case of 1).

It was also suggested that aerobic fermentation in 2) would preserve them, and later that vermicompost would as well.

Somebody even mentioned that theres no need for a sprouted seed tea; just bury the seeds low enough that they willsprout then die beneath the surface and the hormones will still be received by the plant growing in the medium as in 4).


My ultimate goal is that if 4) and 3) preserve hormones and TRIA then I'd like to sprout seeds and put them under the mulch layer for my worms to feed on and distribute to the roots. Does this sound like it will work?

I'm a little lazy and don't like using a blender...

I'm also feeding the worms the fan leaves and other cannabis waste. Part of me wonders if using biostimulants goes a little against the grain and I should just feed my plants the worm castings generated by feeding them the leaves, supplementing the worms if necessary. If the soil is fed properly then maybe I don't need to be trying to tell it what to do with hormones and TRIA.

 

[HyDroid]

I harvested my first round of vermicompost and it's pretty well processed. I bred up to a decent population in a small space before harvesting.

I have noticed as others before have noted that seeds sprout with immense vigor in the actual bin and will break the surface, deploy true leaves and turn green (and purple) in the dark. What are microbes doing to the plant to cause this? There seems to be nearly zero chance of a seed damping off in vermicompost. I think they might even be feeding the seedling.

Seeing how easy it can be for aero cloning to go awry thanks to root pathogens, I used my first batch to test Coot's cloning method (lots of other people use it to) of vermicompost + pumice (and I omitted peat) as a medium for cuttings in a dome. So far so good and if the castings treat the cuttings the way they treat the seeds I might be off of the aero.

 

[KinKrit]

Good job

 

[flylowgethigh]

As I was disassembling the leftover stub / bag / soil from a run and getting as much of the soil and worms into my used-soil bin, I wondered...???

What is in the root spaghetti that may be beneficial to keep in the soil? Should I try to cut it off and let it decompose in the soil? Fungus, root material? My plan is to amend the soil and grow worms in it a few months, then use it again.

 

[Sunshineinabag]

Let keep er gokn

 

[trichrider]

As I was disassembling the leftover stub / bag / soil from a run and getting as much of the soil and worms into my used-soil bin, I wondered...???

What is in the root spaghetti that may be beneficial to keep in the soil? Should I try to cut it off and let it decompose in the soil? Fungus, root material? My plan is to amend the soil and grow worms in it a few months, then use it again.

if you're talking about the fine roothairs in your rootball, they have biology all around them.
they decompose quickly and carry residual nutrients they had already extracted from the soil.
i wouldn't break the rootball at all, just pull the stem and replant.

 

[flylowgethigh]

Those 10 gallon bags are packed full at the end of a run, and I wouldn't just stick a new plant in. I was wondering if I should dump the roots back into the soil container along with the used soil, to be recycled with the soil. I amend the used stuff and let it compost while the next run is going. Two bins with twice as much soil as needed in a run (8 bags x 10 gals = 80 gals).

 

[exploziv]

Living soil eats roots and even chooped vegetal matter pretty fast. It usually takes just weeks for me to see them dissapear into my old soil mixes. Just stems and very big roots will remain after a month or so. I just break soil apart and mix in a in a plastic bin. Sometimes the moisture is the soil is enaugh, sometimes I add a bit to keep it going in there.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Same here... I pull the stem, then go in with my hands to break apart all the smaller roots and then let it sit in the container or even better dump it out into a garden leaf bag with the other containers, water slightly and let it sit until I need it again. Two weeks before planning to plant anything I'd then amend the mix with additional nutrients for the next run at a strength that's depending on what I'm planing to grow.
CC

 

[Bio boy]

Your not meant to disturb the soil the roots are to be left there so be the new caves and passages like nutrient spikes the plants can absorb them and follow the path
of ya dig em up ya fuck ya fungi hyphae ya fuck ya soils paths that was formed and break the living soil you also can mix salts up that are working their way down and out and tox your grow like I did

There is a video explaining how a tree stump isn’t dead even after 50 years the mycelium keep it alive and share its Tory to the next plants
there is even evidence of trees and plants selecting partners or friends and as they connect by the fungal zone removing the stump takes away its history

I just dug up a bed as I need to remake it and guess what I got ..5grows of stumps still left
now tell me it takes that stump time to digest good I know that
but explain how I can throw a stump from another grow on top bury it and it will be gone in 7weeks tops yet my stump from 15month ago is still there lol

they are connected to the mycor they will digest as they need them otherwise I did better before I started trying to pull em up

the video I’m on about is on Netflix search trees and you’ll find it

 

[Bio boy]

Being told kelp is too salty to add in half cup per cu foot
is the ewc enough to yield hard first run really ? Seems every amendment I come up with someone tells me I can’t use it

wtf do I use lol run ewc till soil test at end or wot ? add chicken shit ? Wtf

 

[St. Phatty]

I have some G&B soil mix, the 3 cubic feet bales.

It was in big pots, used to grow lettuce on the deck.

And then it was rinsed by a few months of rain.

When I tried using it to pot seedlings, I got some yellow leaf-tips.

So yesterday I bought a fresh bale of G&B for $14, though they liked the jacket I was wearing and gave me a 5% discount.

So today I will transplant one more seedling in fresh G&B, going from a 1 gal pot to a 5 gal pot.

I don't understand why the used rinsed G&B soil caused the leaf tip yellowing, at the end of veg.

 

[Bio boy]

I have some G&B soil mix, the 3 cubic feet bales.

It was in big pots, used to grow lettuce on the deck.

And then it was rinsed by a few months of rain.

When I tried using it to pot seedlings, I got some yellow leaf-tips.

So yesterday I bought a fresh bale of G&B for $14, though they liked the jacket I was wearing and gave me a 5% discount.

So today I will transplant one more seedling in fresh G&B, going from a 1 gal pot to a 5 gal pot.

I don't understand why the used rinsed G&B soil caused the leaf tip yellowing, at the end of veg.

As the n cycle begins and nutrients digest maybe the n was toomuch slightly? Not in the beginning but when microbes got active