Soil, water, and tea questions

[moose eater]

Well, in an update, and a statement of the resilience of the GTH#1, she's more well developed, probably more productive this time around, and filling out very nicely, despite the elongation between bud sites. Larger blooms, beginning to get sticky, still showing some newer, fresh white pistils, and, like the other two, is now reduced to nothing but H2O with 2 ml humic acid and 3 ml fulvic acid, as well as <1/16 tsp citric acid, to a ph of about 6.2-6.4, with run-off at about that, or a little bit higher.

GTH#1 is proving to be morer adaptive than I'd figured, in light of the earlier darker green response to the elevated amounts of N in the bloom soil.

SLH is bulking up a fair bit, and delveloping the nice mild green color, with slowly and properly darkening pistils of correct reds, etc. Trichs up the wazoo... extending down bud leaves nearly to the tips, and just about as thick as otter's fur! As is typical of her, there'll be less weight (which has gotten many an otherwise high-quality mother killed, like the old Strawberry Sour Diesel), and the smoke is nearly always stellar from her.

The WB is giving more resistance to the last phase of bloom in the experimental soil. More evidence of prematurely darkened pistils, still sending out fresh pistils in the tug-of-war in finding her preferred nute up-take, and slightly smaller blooms than normal, albeit otherwise nice buds, despite the premature pistil darkening, and the bit smaller stature in blooms.

All of them are nicely odiferous and improving in that regard by the day, becoming sticky (esp. the GTH#1), and reaching the more mild green color of a nice mature flower.

I strongly suspect the GTH#1 will out-produce the other 2 by a fair bit, and she's one of the nicest, overall, in re. to the total attributes.

A person in my -very- small circle of social contacts smoked a small joint from a moderately stressed test mother of the GTH#1 the other night, and stated he'd never smoked anything that tasted that good. She tastes good, she has a thorough and all-encompassing buzz that isn't too narcotic, but covers all the bases, and she has a smell to her in late bloom that carries a wonderful tho' distant hint of the old Juicy Fruit.

For now, she's a keeper, for sure.

 

[moose eater]

I cheated.....

I went in and pruned a moderate-size bud at mid-height from the SLH and a slightly larger one from the GTH#1, from about the same height on the plant. Both are nicely resinous, with glistening trichs, fairly dense, and filled out..

Neither one was truly ripe, but in that state of near-ripeness, a bit ahead of other flowers on each of the plants, such as many have seen when the flower in question is not as well lit as other areas of the plant.

The two buds are drying in a small closed box, to restrict air flow enough to not have them rapidly dry, and will be ready for a test in less than a week, if all goes as planned.

I'm holding off on stealing a similar bloom from the WB.

No, I'm no where near out of smoke. Just like a kid on Christmas morning.. I wanna' see what's under the tree!!! Or, in this case, see/taste/smell/experience the tree!!!

Not the first time... ;^>)

 

[h.h.]

Just toss it in the microwave...

 

[moose eater]

Just toss it in the microwave...

35 years ago, working at a restaurant, a fellow who lived and grew weed upstairs, used to come down and do just that....

While it sorta' kinda' served our impatience, I suspect it was the horticulturalist's version of peeking into Christmas packages.

If we'd known then what we (think) we know now....

I admittedly opened up the box briefly to give them a whiff this evening, between other chores.

Hope all's well in your neck of the world, h.h.

 

[h.h.]

A little fast melting snow.
Went on a small binge sourcing amendments. Trying to make some ferments. A bit cold. Putting the buckets straight over the heater vents. Added a touch of Epsoma for nitrogen along with a few drops of sesame oil.

The oil provides unsaturated fatty acids for the cell walls of the yeast plus it serves as a vapor lock of sorts. Belgium Breweries uses olive oil which has more lanolic acid, but I had sesame seed oil that I wasn't using.

So far I've done coconut flour, chia, horsetail, kelp, neem, oats,and soy bean meal. I added in yucca extract..
I saved the water and I'm doing a second fermentation with malted barley and a bit of rice.

The drained ferments (about 6 gallons) went in the mixer with 5 gallons of leaf litter, 5 lbs. of crab meal, 5 of oyster flour and five of fish bone meal, thirty pounds of gypsum, a bit of zeolite, along with about 20 gallons of mixed aged manure. Wet it up into a slurry so it mixed well, then dried it up with about 5 gallons of used soil.
I left it all in the mixer, wheelbarrow's flat. I'll turn it for a couple of days before it goes to the worms.

Ordered some Pitt Moss as mentioned in a different thread. The claims are impressive. Good buffering, doesn't need lime, and good aeration. We'll see. Also ordered some pumice. I have a lot of DE in the old soil. That should cover my bases. I'll add sul-po-mag and some old soil before I use it.

Impatience. You're picking early bud and I'm waiting for the worms to eat dinner.

 

[moose eater]

A little fast melting snow.
Went on a small binge sourcing amendments. Trying to make some ferments. A bit cold. Putting the buckets straight over the heater vents. Added a touch of Epsoma for nitrogen along with a few drops of sesame oil.

The oil provides unsaturated fatty acids for the cell walls of the yeast plus it serves as a vapor lock of sorts. Belgium Breweries uses olive oil which has more lanolic acid, but I had sesame seed oil that I wasn't using.

So far I've done coconut flour, chia, horsetail, kelp, neem, oats,and soy bean meal. I added in yucca extract..
I saved the water and I'm doing a second fermentation with malted barley and a bit of rice.

The drained ferments (about 6 gallons) went in the mixer with 5 gallons of leaf litter, 5 lbs. of crab meal, 5 of oyster flour and five of fish bone meal, thirty pounds of gypsum, a bit of zeolite, along with about 20 gallons of mixed aged manure. Wet it up into a slurry so it mixed well, then dried it up with about 5 gallons of used soil.
I left it all in the mixer, wheelbarrow's flat. I'll turn it for a couple of days before it goes to the worms.

Ordered some Pitt Moss as mentioned in a different thread. The claims are impressive. Good buffering, doesn't need lime, and good aeration. We'll see. Also ordered some pumice. I have a lot of DE in the old soil. That should cover my bases. I'll add sul-po-mag and some old soil before I use it.

Impatience. You're picking early bud and I'm waiting for the worms to eat dinner.

Looks like a complex and very rich nutrient amendment in concentrate form. Interesting. I'll likely come back to this post a time or three. Any additions to the amounts, including once added to pots/garden, would be excellent. Thanks.

Your mix is like our cooking from scratch, i.e., when my wife used to make mayonnaise, etc.

As a younger person, stuck in the middle of no where, I could muster the patience to stand in a general area of the Alcan for up to 3 days with no ride, and typically not feel a lot of angst over being there, unless I had limbs slowly freezing up in the winter..

But there were and are other aspects of life where that degree of patience is not a commutative property, and I sometimes feel like I'm watching paint dry.

Last night, again during chores, I took a partially dried bud of SLH (the smaller of the two buds that died early), snipped it up, let it dry a bit more on a plate while I worked, and rolled a fatty, letting it dry yet a bit more.

Not as green in taste as early harvest might be, for such a brief dry with no real cure time, but also lacking some of the sweetness in both flavor and smell as has been produced in different media.

I'll have to let the rest (or most of it ) go through a more proper cure time, and give an assessment as to whether or not this method will fly or not. (*I didn't end up doing the old-style tea I once used; need to get the stuff cleaned up before doing that in the next effort, including some fresh stainless steel 3/8" nuts to hang on the air lines to keep the air stones submerged at the bottom of the tea buckets.

Doesn't take much to derail my plans and cause a detour these days..

 

[h.h.]

You know that feeling when you put up a box of worms and forget about them, then one day you're going through your old soil and find about 15 gallons of finished castings.
I had one of them days yesterday.

Box of char on my porch this morning. Brought to me by that mysterious brown truck that comes in the night. Strangers dropping gifts from the Gods. Not at all what I expected. Small flakes of char, where I was expecting a bit more chunky. I think I like this better.

Think I'll start making adobe. A little yucca extract and it all whips up nicely in the mixer. Lots of entrapped air. Go from anaerobic to aerobic. A bit hard on the fungi, but it'll spring back

 

[moose eater]

You know that feeling when you put up a box of worms and forget about them, then one day you're going through your old soil and find about 15 gallons of finished castings.
I had one of them days yesterday.

Box of char on my porch this morning. Brought to me by that mysterious brown truck that comes in the night. Strangers dropping gifts from the Gods. Not at all what I expected. Small flakes of char, where I was expecting a bit more chunky. I think I like this better.

Think I'll start making adobe. A little yucca extract and it all whips up nicely in the mixer. Lots of entrapped air. Go from anaerobic to aerobic. A bit hard on the fungi, but it'll spring back

I received my package of Bokashi Bran the other day. It had clearly been fermenting while in transit.

There was a sealed vac bag inside with the bran in it, surrounded by the soft packing outside. The bag was so pressurized I had to push it out one end of the package from the opposite end, using a fair bit of effort. When I got the vac bag out, it was pressurized to the point of being more firm than someone would blow up a beach ball with excess air in it.

I was surprised at the condition, and wondered how often the stuff bursts in transit?

When I pricked the bag with a knife for a controlled pressure release, the smell was definitely of a sweet fermentation. Unusual, but not offensive, really. It states it has bio-char in it. Another new concept and amendment in my world.

So most of what I was waiting on is here now. I seem to have run out of excuses.... .

 

[moose eater]

Slowly bringing the WB out of her lock-out, and her scent is way strong.. Very nice. Buds moving toward completion slowly. Her maturation has been delayed by the earlier imbalance in nutes, but not catastrophic by any means.

GTH#1 continues to put out snow-white pistils, despite being crystalline and resinous. A bit worried she may decide to be one of those that dangles ripeness in front of me.. but takes forever to actually get finished. May have to rely on the old "75% of completion in bracts is good enough" rule after a while.

Sampled a joint from the GTH#1 last night that had dried a bit fast due to it not having enough green around it to slow the process. Unlike the test joint the other night of the SLH, her scent is quite strong, her trichs are nearing maturity and are both PLENTIFUL and sizable. Her flavor was far sweeter than the SLH. And her buzz was stated by another to be "a bit too much." Several other adjectives were used to describe her; all of them implying or stating something that was over the top in effect. She's a keeper, but may need a warning label.

The SLH has clearly been affected in minor to moderate ways by the current soil (all varieties received identical soil mixes, and identical feeds or supplements). Her blooms are fairly tight for the 315cmh as sole source of lighting. Her high is 'up' like a sativa, but not as intense as it would typically be, and her smoke is not as sweet, nor scent as strong, as it has been in the past with other soil mixes and feeding schedules.

At this point, I'd say the GTH#1 is by far more resilient to the experimental soil and feeding than the other two. With WB and SLH both having different reactions to the same stimuli.

I'll adapt the next batch a bit, and give the 2 different Goji OG moms a shot at seeing how they do with a 'new game.'

 

[moose eater]

Re-tested the early test bud from the SLH that was first toked a couple days back. A couple extra days helped. Still not the full-blast flavor it usually carries, but far better in all regards, including the stone.

A former friend used to commonly utter the adage, "What a difference a day makes." In this case, I'd say, what a difference a couple or three days makes...

Anyway, in reaction to the SLH buzz, the freshly fallen 8" of snow, my mothers still looking at me cross-eyed and quietly 'screaming' at me when I visit them, I've picked a soil to put them into, and, in avoidance of going out into the +6 degree f. snow storm and blowing the driveway and parking areas, responding to my now-stressed and root-inhibited moms may be the best use of the remainder of the day..

I'll grow the moms out in a larger area, harvest the next go-'round's clones from the Goji OG and the GTH#1, as well as a minimal # of the others just to keep them going with fresh replacements, then throw the moms into bloom so as not to waste them, despite it tossing a couple wrenches into my usual methods/time tables/practices.

Nothing, including me, is going any place fast at the moment. So tying up space with a menagerie of unmatched mothers won't impact the future one way or another all that much.

The modified soil about to be thrown together (based on Dank Frank's recipe) is as follows:

1-1/2 gal. Fishy Peat
1-1/2 gal. coir
4-1/2 gal BX Pro-Mix
3-1/2 gal coarse perlite
1-1/4 gal. earth worm castings
1 gal. Ocean Forest
1/2-cup alfalfa meal
1/2-cup dry molasses
1 cup kelp meal
1 cup blood meal
1 cup steamed bone meal
1/4-cup Peruvian seabird guano
1/4-cup high P Indonesian bat guano
2 TBSP langbeinite
1/4-cup Azomite
1/4-cup Sea90
1/3-cup dolomite
1/3-cup+ (i.e., 6 TBSP) gypsum
2/3-cup oyster shell flour
1/2-tsp Great White (myco +)
1 tsp DTE H2O soluble mycorrhizae
1-1/2 cups Bokashi Bran
------------------------------------------------
Moisten with H2O treated with:

2 tsp Maxi-Crop seaweed extract
2 drops Super-Thrive Vitamin B

**Being a no-bake/no compost app, treat first watering after transplant with 1/4 tsp Dyna-Gro Grow if there's any evidence of them wanting more chow, then subsequent waterings with 3 ml Golden Goddess fulvic acid, 2 ml Aunt Engy's H-2 humic acid, ph'ed to 6.2-ish with pure citric acid crystals, and 5 ml of Hygrozyme every third watering until the time comes to boost with Frank's recommended supplements per his schedule.

Annnnnnnndddddd ...... THEY'RE OFFFFFFF!!!!!!

(*I guess it lacks the immediate stimulation of a horse race beginning with the pistol shot... but it worked in my head for a second or two.. Must've been the SLH? )

 

[h.h.]

Sounds like some active Bokashi. The added char sounds like a good idea.

Made a bit of money off of horse racing. Worked on a house for a guy named Hubbard, who owned Hollywood Park. And yes, he had an old mother. Next I'll tell you about working for Al Capone, but I'll let that one ride in your head. Nice guy.

Looks like a nice diverse mix. Trouble I had is that nothing is sold in 1/2 cups. When i went to put in a cup of kelp and I had a 5 pound box threatening to fill up my shelf space...Guess what?
The worms are gonna save my ass again. As long as it's all composted somehow. Admittedly, I work in a haphazard way.

Follow me, don't follow me I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush...I killed a plant in Reno, just to watch it die...

It's the road. I like the road. I get bored when I reach my destination.

 

[moose eater]

Sounds like some active Bokashi. The added char sounds like a good idea.

Made a bit of money off of horse racing. Worked on a house for a guy named Hubbard, who owned Hollywood Park. And yes, he had an old mother. Next I'll tell you about working for Al Capone, but I'll let that one ride in your head. Nice guy.

Looks like a nice diverse mix. Trouble I had is that nothing is sold in 1/2 cups. When i went to put in a cup of kelp and I had a 5 pound box threatening to fill up my shelf space...Guess what?
The worms are gonna save my ass again. As long as it's all composted somehow. Admittedly, I work in a haphazard way.

Follow me, don't follow me I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush...I killed a plant in Reno, just to watch it die...

It's the road. I like the road. I get bored when I reach my destination.

Sounds like you're in rare form, h.h. Holiday cheer, good fortune, or just a plain old positive day?

Had no idea you were a poet or previously nomadic; reads like maybe both.

I enjoy reaching the destination, but have some entertainment at times getting there, too.

Worms as a method of buffering amendments through digestion is an interesting perspective I'd noted earlier. Haven't played there..

In the worm castings thread last night, someone commented on one of their favorite feed amendments for their worms being brown paper. I recalled reading years ago that there's heightened levels of boron in brown paper grocery bags from the store (maybe cardboard, too, and I assume other forms of similar brown paper). Another foggy memory...

I've wondered about the wisdom of using a cup or so of hydrogen peroxide occasionally in the pots, for similar reason as your comment re. "a bit hard on the fungi," and the different needs of bacteria versus fungi. Ed Rosenthal seems to support the use of hydrogen peroxide, at least in part as a delivery system for additional oxygen to root systems, or even just prophylactic healthfulness.

Your thoughts?

I'm 'bout to sample some early oyster stuffing that exceeded the turkey's capacity for the amount made.

Then I need to put a new battery in my wife's automobile, and think about blowing the driveway clear of this last snow storm's nonsense.

Happy Thanksgiving, h.h.

 

[h.h.]

I hesitate to think of the worms as a buffer. To much of a pH swing and they'll die off or desert you.
Rather everything will be well digested and homogenized.

I can't say about boron in brown paper.
I use torn up cardboard, newspaper. I didn't at first, but it works pretty good and it's basically cellulose.

I liked Rosenthal when it came to grow guides. I question all of them overall. I've heard of using H2O2. Even tried it. I personally didn't see any benefit. That's not to say anything.
I'm not sure how you took my comment. I want good fungal activity. The mixer, I imagine, chops it up into bits. A necessary evil that should correct itself.

Enjoy your turkey. Mine are still running free. They don't know how lucky they are.

 

[moose eater]

I hesitate to think of the worms as a buffer. To much of a pH swing and they'll die off or desert you.
Rather everything will be well digested and homogenized.

I can't say about boron in brown paper.
I use torn up cardboard, newspaper. I didn't at first, but it works pretty good and it's basically cellulose.

I liked Rosenthal when it came to grow guides. I question all of them overall. I've heard of using H2O2. Even tried it. I personally didn't see any benefit. That's not to say anything.
I'm not sure how you took my comment. I want good fungal activity. The mixer, I imagine, chops it up into bits. A necessary evil that should correct itself.

Enjoy your turkey. Mine are still running free. They don't know how lucky they are.

Yeah, Rosenthal goes way back, enough that his grow guides have been revised enough times to show we all have an experiential learning curve, no matter who we are..

I've seen plants that were suffering from excess watering/feed, and droopy as a result, become more lively with better turgor after slightly increased H2O2 being added as a matter of 'emergency treatment (like close to 2 cups/gallon of H2O). Clearly an issue of more oxygen being delivered to an oxygen-deprived root system.

But like I said earlier, I'm not sure about the impact to the bacterial and fungal population.

You could always practice some authoritarian benevolence for the holiday with your Turkeys, wagging an index finger at them, and lecturing them about how good you are to them, reminding them of what day it is, just to instill an increased sense of humility in them.

More and more, I let the roughed grouse and spruce grouse live when I encounter them in the yard. I don't need the meat at the moment. Time to quell the reflexive "kill it and eat it" mantra.

I had a younger bull moose in the front yard yesterday, right by my bon fire pit. Called a distant neighbor to let him know, as he has a bow permit for later season, and I dislike having moose in the yard; they pose a higher risk for my family and dogs. Usually it's the cows with calves that cause more havoc, but any of them can be unpredictable. His wife seemed to think his bow permit was for cows only... Young feller had palmated smaller antlers, older and bigger than a spike fork, though not by much.

Enjoy your day, h.h.

I'm headed back to chores...

 

[h.h.]

I have a 10 pointer that stops in on occasion. A few quail that I turned loose. The usual cottontails carrying rabbit fever, prairie dogs trying to take over the NE pasture and of course, skunks.
I could take the deer, claiming financial damage, but I have food in the fridge.

I look at stuff like H2O2 as tools. Different folks use different tools to achieve the same goal. I remember now using it on a couple of plants that I purposely allowed to get root rot. H2O2 along with prodding the soil with DE did some good. I tossed the plants anyway. It was just an exercise.
If a plant starts off bad, I toss it. I don't try to fix it other than for the academics of experimentation. The answer to root rot is just don't fall. Simple discipline.

Looking over the internet, thinking of how small a worm bin could be while still being efficient. The bucket towers stood out. Buckets can be had a most doughnut shops. I've dumped out clay pots and found them full of castings. Good castings is the one hurdle everybody has. Good castings will turn you into a master gardener without even knowing anything.
I think CC mentions doing castings in 100 gallon smart pots, using a non flow through system. You put them in and when they're done, they're done. As I've mentioned above, I've done this on a smaller scale, mostly by accident.
I'm gonna use 20 gallon smart pots. They'll fit in my heater room.
I think someone could do it in 5 gallon ones, or maybe a large clay pot with a smaller pot in the middle holding a house plant. It doesn't have to look like a worm bin.

 

[moose eater]

Yep, rabbit fever has spiked up here this last year, as well. From what I've heard, there's been a number domesticated (but either scavenger or predator-oriented) critters contracting it from the local snowshoe hares. (*Lots of people think hares are rabbits; not really so. Related, yes, but apples and oranges, otherwise).

My mothers are the ones (ironic, I know, considering their importance) that typically suffer from nutrient disorders and such, often as a result of spending too much time in constricted pots, or feed imbalances., etc.

They seem to bounce back just fine once revived. Oxygenated H2O adds to the resilience some times.. but like this last go when I was going to revert to guano teas, I didn't get the new two-line air manifold hooked up, nor the newer stainless steel nuts to help submerge the lines/stones, nor did I get the buckets cleaned out properly. Made some progress on that the other day, as a side issue, when I was doing other stuff.

Two of the biggest hurdles in general include my level of energy these days, and that issue is compounded by the nerves, and doing this way too long. I made reference earlier to Doc as to why I don't do ongoing overlapping crops ('perpetual harvest'), and there needing to be a beginning and an end to each effort.

There are times the nerve issues get neatly tucked away, as though they're not even present, but they definitely are. And they don't let it be known how pervasive they are until the cause of them subsides (post harvest), after which going in and doing responsible gardener stuff brings about what I referenced earlier as the 'kryptonite doorway phenomenon.' Years of doing various political gigs, making some enemies (folks that needed metaphorically thumped), all the while doing crops, led to a lot of strained nerves; for me -and- my family.

I always figured that hiding in plain view, regulating the smallness of any inner circle (leaving those who would simply speculate, to do so), and hoping my karma was untainted enough to help me survive, knowing any outcome to a serious & abrupt derailment would be monumental. (*No comment beyond that generality).

There's a lot of history there I'll leave out of my already-excess use of bandwidth here. Just say that the resulting vibe deprived life of excursions that might've otherwise taken place. The Yin & Yang; there's always a trade-off.

As far as worm castings go, I'd need between 6 & 8 cu. ft. per year, minimum. Maybe even 10 cu. ft., or so would put me in a comfortable place...

Can't say I miss living in the realm of skunks. We have porcupines here and there, and they provide plenty of risk to domestic critters. Skunks, while less painful than the porkies for the pups that cross their paths, leave more of a lasting immediate presence.. Though porkies tend to bring out the self-defeating personality disorder in many pups; they get into them once, and can't leave them alone thereafter. I suspect the trauma leaves them so filled with aggression toward the little spikey buggers they can't -NOT- chase them after that... I think one episode of that would be sufficient for me to conclude, "I don't need any more of that."

We do, on occasion, chase down the porkies (they're not all that quick, waddling more than running), and toss a towel or jacket over them as they scurry away, with them depositing more than sufficient #s of quills in what ever garment to provide for jewelry-making or crafts.

Edit: Upon further mental review, I suspect I could make an annual supply of 5-6 cu. ft. of castings work well, providing I held back on bedding plants for the main veggie garden, and just used them for canna issues.

 

[h.h.]

I have 15 gallons of mix in 20 gallon smart pots layered with leaves, cardboard and soil. Mounded at the top, just under 25 gallons in each pot...
I think I can. I've only done this by accident in the past. A product of forgetfulness and neglect on my part. Never with this range of amendments. Hence the many disclaimers. How often we confuse play with expertise. It's the worms that deserve all the credit. They live and die at my whim. I'm simply a conductor with no sonata. Morty. No Rick.

An annual supply of 3 cubic feet of premium castings added to 7 cubic feet of commercial castings?
This is a hobby for me. I tend to forget the work involved. It would be like a mason making his own cement or a carpenter casting his own nails. An undertaker producing his own cadavers. Sometimes it's not practical.

Yin and yang. There's always a balance. Walking is a controlled fall forward.

 

[moose eater]

I have 15 gallons of mix in 20 gallon smart pots layered with leaves, cardboard and soil. Mounded at the top, just under 25 gallons in each pot...
I think I can. I've only done this by accident in the past. A product of forgetfulness and neglect on my part. Never with this range of amendments. Hence the many disclaimers. How often we confuse play with expertise. It's the worms that deserve all the credit. They live and die at my whim. I'm simply a conductor with no sonata. Morty. No Rick.

An annual supply of 3 cubic feet of premium castings added to 7 cubic feet of commercial castings?
This is a hobby for me. I tend to forget the work involved. It would be like a mason making his own cement or a carpenter casting his own nails. An undertaker producing his own cadavers. Sometimes it's not practical.

Yin and yang. There's always a balance. Walking is a controlled fall forward.

Thanks h.h.

Sometimes the stumbling part becomes unavoidable, with some learning in the process, too.

Sometimes I struggle to interpret your meaning, knowing it's in there, and likely intended. The meaning in this was pretty clear and appreciated, even when briefly philosophical in nature..

I'd considered mingling quality castings with high-grade store-bought castings. I've done similar with varying qualities of store-bought castings in the past.

The primary hesitation I've had involves the levels of minerals in each (per past discussions in another thread of some castings running disabling levels of iron, etc.).

It seems the best, more common grade of commercial store-sourced castings I know of up here are more or less unknown to many folks down in the Lower 48 ('Wonder Worm' for example). Maybe made by the same company that slaps a different label on their castings elsewhere. I haven't ever sent them off for a test, and maybe I should, now.

There -are- 'choice' castings available in Anchorage from an organic outlet there, for $60/cu. ft., though that initially widened my eye-balls a bit. And there's a worm farm of unknown quality about 160 miles south of Anchorage.

If I were to split the known organic castings 50:50 with -good- home-grown castings, spend $180 or $240 on those, and co-mingle with my own, thus needing to only produce 3-4 cu. ft. at home in buckets, that'd potentially work.

Folks in the bush here have forever used birch & willow leaves with local loam/top soil to compost/mulch into soil, and while I've viewed this as more of a matter of necessity, in the end, some mineral wealth and such added to their mixes, may well provide more suitable soil than what I concoct from the ag stores. Merely thoughts at this time.

My 'trap' in all of this, is that this is/was once a thing I loved to do. Not only because of familiarity, due to being engaged in markets since I was young, but because I believed in the cause, and taking part in this was a statement of non-compliance with arbitrary laws enforced by tyrants.

When my former career came to an abrupt halt, this became the path of continuing to be, in spite of what those who had helped to derail me had wished to see happen in my life. I survived. And determined I would live as well as I could, doing as much for my family as I could. There were initially years I focused on being worth more dead than alive, and contemplated what I might do to better stabilize my family's existence. That was many years ago now.

But as stated in other ways, the thing that had literally provided hope and light in times of many losses, being a literal reciprocation with living things, surrounded in light, slowly transitioned into becoming its own cage -some times-. Truly Yin & Yang.

No free rides, all things have a cost, trade-offs are inherent, and yes, walking is controlled falling.

Peace to you, friend. And thank you for all of your contributions!!

 

[h.h.]

While thoughts of taking these endeavors to a professional level did enter my head, when the time came, everybody seemed to have the same idea. Everybody decided they were going to be rich and the prices dropped accordingly. It became a struggle for those simply trying to make a living. The money changers took over and it became a circus act. Those who had joined the effort for legalization were simply thanked and expected to support this commercial monstrosity. My dabbling, as small as it is, is my contribution.

My measured amendments worked out to roughly 80 gallons of mix. Ended up with 60 gallons after consolidation. Working backwards and comparing to recommended rates, most everything is within range, except my calcium is way up there and I could have used another 5 pounds of neem. I think I'd also throw in some fish meal as well.
I'll see how the worms are reacting, then I think I'll mix up a second batch when funds are available.

Willow has a lot of historical use in agriculture. Willow water has a lot of hormones. I'd use a lot of it, if I had it. Make a simple tea from the leaves. Use the growing tips off the branches for auxins. Even if you don't see the desired effects, it's free.

Birch is a hardwood. Good for cellulose. I can see it.

Do you have sting nettle? Go into the bush and take inventory. Look at the soil around individual plants. If it's good soil, it should be a good amendment. If nothing else is growing around it, it may be less than idea.
Moose antler flour?

I've accidentally left out bags of power greens, just to later discover the bag full of thick green liquid. I think bagged kale would be an avenue of exploration. What's good for us is generally good for the plant.

I bought a bunch of stuff this go round. I just don't know any better. I'm starting off fresh. I've tried kelp in the past and found no real advantage over local compost.
If someone was adding all these exotic amendments into their castings, $60 a square' would be cheap. It's a shot in the dark unless they have documentation, then it's still a shot in the dark.

 

[moose eater]

I supported legalization BIG TIME. Ran a number of efforts in that regard, and found -some- of the national entities in that circus ring to be at least as shallow and manipulative as those in the opposition.

Even back 37 years ago, when the red-neck coke heads in the Alaska legislature were trying to subvert Ravin, we were already organized in small groups of growers, sometimes merely doing popular opinion petitions that had no real legal weight, other than to tell the bastages, "This is the number of constituents you'll be pissing off, and when it's all said and done, Ravin will likely STILL be the law."

Those actions followed me into professional life. as did some of the political consequences.

I knew much of that time that there was a good chance we were harming our own economic futures, and the states saying it's legal while the heavy hammer of the feds saying it's not, left me thinking, "Nope, I'm NOT standing up and raising my hand to make myself a greater target by joining in this thing yet."

But legalization, regardless of harms to previous incomes, is a moral issue that I cannot vote against. it was long past due to stop allowing the tyrants to destroy so many folks' lives over such arbitrary nonsense. In my opinion, it was an issue that was and is bigger than you and I.

My past politics left some/many folks to speculate (and many did). Raising one's hand to join what I continue to view as a high risk endeavor, takes away the questions. I've grown a hesitation to willfully increasing levels of uncertainty..

Alaska has been fairly effective at keeping the huge corporate interests out of the game, but the once-local-neighbor growers may well eventually establish enough economic clout that they become at least distantly similar in perspective and actions.

One legal, registered, and licensed local grower told me he sold his first (legal) harvest outright, to one buyer for (initially) $6,000/lb. for the first bits, and the rest of it to the same folks for either $5,000 or $5,500. (*Granted, at that time, there was still a shortage in the retail outlets' supply).

But those are prices approaching some of the more-nearby off-road rural/semi-remote communities, and what they were paying on the black market. Not quite as stark as the seriously remote communities where #s in the realm of $8k to $10k per lb. could be found, but getting there. And greater $ often leads to greater greed, and more conflict.

Former black marketeers, now licensed, wanted to basically make the same profit margins post legalization, and after taxes, as they'd made with less overhead but substantially greater risks in the 'old days.'

Humanity's foibles in a nut-shell.. "Can't eat 'em, can't live with 'em." Soon enough, our own short-sightedness and greed will be our demise.

Yes, the willow is cool stuff. Many varieties of willow up here (no weeping willow, though). We used to harvest creek willow limbs for the bark, which contains salicylic acid, as in aspirin. We'd shave the bark, dry it on the cooler surfaces of wood stoves, sometimes with drying racks, or hung near the heat source, and bag it, later making tea with honey for headaches, flu, etc. If not using honey, it tastes like aspirin tea.. YUCK!!!

The moose go after the limb tips, bark and leaf of the willow. I've wondered if they ever get headaches, other than from 'lead poisoning.'

I haven't ever used neem meal, and some are currently giving it a bad review.. Uncertainty often causes a state of caution for me.

I believe I've seen nettle in the wild plant books relative to our area, but haven't messed with it. I could go and try to find a specimen for the observations you suggest.

In places we get what's called 'cotton grass' that can take up larger areas, and in bloom looks like a cotton field. Hence its name.

Most of the cleared area around my home has brome hay gone crazy in production. (*We had a holding tank back then, rather than a well, and I didn't want ground cover that had to be pampered). Some of the cut brome goes into our larger compost bin.

Going all the way back to youthful days of agriculture, I have never liked kale. When we grew it, I rarely ate it, other than for when someone snuck it into a salad and I found myself chewing it in some sort of dietary ambush. If there's a reason to have it, I suspect improving the gardens would be the best one.

Warmed up from below -20, to -10 or so, with the late sunrise and some breezes bringing in some fresh cover.

Supposed to be near +20 by mid-week. As long as the air stays cold enough to not have the snow in the trees get heavy enough to bring down trees and electrical wires, I'm good.

While thoughts of taking these endeavors to a professional level did enter my head, when the time came, everybody seemed to have the same idea. Everybody decided they were going to be rich and the prices dropped accordingly. It became a struggle for those simply trying to make a living. The money changers took over and it became a circus act. Those who had joined the effort for legalization were simply thanked and expected to support this commercial monstrosity. My dabbling, as small as it is, is my contribution.

My measured amendments worked out to roughly 80 gallons of mix. Ended up with 60 gallons after consolidation. Working backwards and comparing to recommended rates, most everything is within range, except my calcium is way up there and I could have used another 5 pounds of neem. I think I'd also throw in some fish meal as well.
I'll see how the worms are reacting, then I think I'll mix up a second batch when funds are available.

Willow has a lot of historical use in agriculture. Willow water has a lot of hormones. I'd use a lot of it, if I had it. Make a simple tea from the leaves. Use the growing tips off the branches for auxins. Even if you don't see the desired effects, it's free.

Birch is a hardwood. Good for cellulose. I can see it.

Do you have sting nettle? Go into the bush and take inventory. Look at the soil around individual plants. If it's good soil, it should be a good amendment. If nothing else is growing around it, it may be less than idea.
Moose antler flour?

I've accidentally left out bags of power greens, just to later discover the bag full of thick green liquid. I think bagged kale would be an avenue of exploration. What's good for us is generally good for the plant.

I bought a bunch of stuff this go round. I just don't know any better. I'm starting off fresh. I've tried kelp in the past and found no real advantage over local compost.
If someone was adding all these exotic amendments into their castings, $60 a square' would be cheap. It's a shot in the dark unless they have documentation, then it's still a shot in the dark.