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The New & Improved [ROLS MEGATHREAD].

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John Deere

John Deere

Active member
Veteran
I started with LC's mix from the Organics for Beginners thread so yeah, I've got some greensand in my mix. I won't add any more for quite awhile but I don't mind having a bit of diversity in there. I just sort of add things one at a time as I acquire them anyway. Always building.
 
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HughMungus

New member
I have a couple questions, but first I'd like to thank all of the folks that contributed to this thread and the other no-till sticky above. What an amazing wealth of info. I feel like I should be charged to have access to all of this knowledge!

I've been doing the pre-ammended soil (Happy Frog) and bottled organic nutes (General Organics) for a while now and was turned on to this site and this thread by a friend of mine a month or so ago. I've waded through a ton of info here, and have been inspired to toss the bottles and hydro store soil by you guys, and give this no-till living organic soil thing a go. Obviously I'm shooting for a better end product, but perhaps more important to me is the environmental sustainability of this concept. I will be applying this to my veggie garden this year too.

I've begun the task of assembling my materials. I have everything together for a simple base soil. 1/3 peat, 1/3 EWC (my own), and 1/3 perilite/pumice. The amendments that I have purchased thus far are kelp meal, alfalfa meal, and neem cake. I understand that I will need to add some sort of ruck dust/mineral mix in to the equation, but aside from that are there any other items that any of you would recommend for amending my base? I should add that I would like to avoid blood meal, bone meal, feather meal, etc. I don't want to turn this in to a debate, but part of the appeal to this method for me is the environmental sustainability of this and I don't consider the meat industry (and it's by products) to conform with that.

I have also been reading the tea thread. I have never made a tea before, but I will be trying that as well. Is there any benefit to wetting down my soil mix with a tea while it's cooking (for lack of a better term) or should I just apply the teas to my plants?

Thanks again to all of the contributors here. This info is priceless!
 
FunTimesIndeed

FunTimesIndeed

Member
If your buying almost any Espoma product, you probably already have greensand. The jersey greensand mine has been their thing for a very long time and they mix it into everything. The garden state...

Hugh---- welcome to the last grow method to try. Sounds like you're ready to rock. Lots of people apply a compost tea to a fresh batch of soil and let it rest so the microbial life can build up numbers and hammer out a pecking order. Or are you talking about plant extracts?
 
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YosemiteSam

HughMungus said:
I have a couple questions, but first I'd like to thank all of the folks that contributed to this thread and the other no-till sticky above. What an amazing wealth of info. I feel like I should be charged to have access to all of this knowledge!

I've been doing the pre-ammended soil (Happy Frog) and bottled organic nutes (General Organics) for a while now and was turned on to this site and this thread by a friend of mine a month or so ago. I've waded through a ton of info here, and have been inspired to toss the bottles and hydro store soil by you guys, and give this no-till living organic soil thing a go. Obviously I'm shooting for a better end product, but perhaps more important to me is the environmental sustainability of this concept. I will be applying this to my veggie garden this year too.

I've begun the task of assembling my materials. I have everything together for a simple base soil. 1/3 peat, 1/3 EWC (my own), and 1/3 perilite/pumice. The amendments that I have purchased thus far are kelp meal, alfalfa meal, and neem cake. I understand that I will need to add some sort of ruck dust/mineral mix in to the equation, but aside from that are there any other items that any of you would recommend for amending my base? I should add that I would like to avoid blood meal, bone meal, feather meal, etc. I don't want to turn this in to a debate, but part of the appeal to this method for me is the environmental sustainability of this and I don't consider the meat industry (and it's by products) to conform with that.

I have also been reading the tea thread. I have never made a tea before, but I will be trying that as well. Is there any benefit to wetting down my soil mix with a tea while it's cooking (for lack of a better term) or should I just apply the teas to my plants?

Thanks again to all of the contributors here. This info is priceless!
Click to expand...

If your ewc is good that is all you need for healthy, happy plants.

If you are pushing for high yield a hair more P and N can help...but if pure quality is what you want leave them out. Alfalfa teas would be good for this depending on the alfalfa source...I have seen 3-2-2 alfalfa. I am not so much a fan of the high K teas (comfrey) but many here are.

Tea is excellent while your soil is cooking...I am assuming you are talking compost tea. The other thing you can do to jack up the microbes is the enzyme tea...it saves them from making their own and they use that extra energy for reproducing.
 
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HughMungus

New member
FunTimes,

Thanks for the response. I was indeed referring to an ACT. My brain has been working overtime on all of this info lately, and it seemed to make sense to me to add an ACT to my soil while it's sitting to allow the micro herd an opportunity to do their thing prior to sticking any plants in there. Good to know that my first assumption on here wasn't way out in left field. :)
 
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HughMungus

New member
YosemiteSam said:
If your ewc is good that is all you need for healthy, happy plants.

If you are pushing for high yield a hair more P and N can help...but if pure quality is what you want leave them out. Alfalfa teas would be good for this depending on the alfalfa source...I have seen 3-2-2 alfalfa. I am not so much a fan of the high K teas (comfrey) but many here are.

Tea is excellent while your soil is cooking...I am assuming you are talking compost tea. The other thing you can do to jack up the microbes is the enzyme tea...it saves them from making their own and they use that extra energy for reproducing.
Click to expand...

Thanks Yosemite. Are there any specific ingredients you'd suggest? Yield is really secondary to quality for me, but I want to make sure I'm providing a balanced source of food for all of the critters in my soil. I looked at cotton seed meal as well but I read somewhere on here that this is typically sourced from crops that are sprayed with all sorts of pesticides so I want to try my best to avoid any heavily sprayed type crops if I can.

I could really be limiting myself here though ....[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
icon9.gif
[/FONT]
 
Y

YosemiteSam

HughMungus said:
Thanks Yosemite. Are there any specific ingredients you'd suggest? Yield is really secondary to quality for me, but I want to make sure I'm providing a balanced source of food for all of the critters in my soil. I looked at cotton seed meal as well but I read somewhere on here that this is typically sourced from crops that are sprayed with all sorts of pesticides so I want to try my best to avoid any heavily sprayed type crops if I can.

I could really be limiting myself here though ....[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]View Image[/FONT]
Click to expand...

Cotton farmers typically kill any plant they see with chemicals if it ain't a cotton plant...always have for some reason. Which leads them to buy into the GMO shit easier than most. So good luck finding cotton seed meal that isn't an absolute mess. I think I saw that Peaceful Valley could no longer guarantee non gmo cottonseed meal...that tells you what you need to know about cotton farmers.

The easiest thing to do is just the occasional plant tea (alfalfa early and kelp later). The other thing is compost teas and/or barley enzyme teas...both increase the microbes and nutrient recycling. Every 10 days or so do one or the other. I got two outdoor plots this yr...one is gonna be MM type teas (his balanced formula), the other is gonna be enzymes. I wanna see for myself.

I would stick with that the first grow and then see where you are yield wise. You will love the quality
 
OLDproLg

OLDproLg

Active member
Veteran
THANK YOU SIR' im actually jellous of your SOILS THERE!!!

THANK YOU SIR' im actually jellous of your SOILS THERE!!!

xmobotx said:
hey OLDproLg!

:wave:

i have done some composting fully contained and yes; your logic keeping the pile from leaching IS sound ~esp in a high drainage soil area like you ref

but for as long as i been organic gardening i have always just had a pile {2 actually} in my garden on the ground {of course; i AM going to garden there} i sift finished compost out of last years pile and throw what doesnt sift into this years

so i actually use that leaching effect to enrich the area i intend to grow in

here's a pix i took today just for you;
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=11079&pictureid=1051582&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

thats my strategy for the vegetable garden; out in the field; i am doing soil-building via ley rotations this area is planted to carrots and sugar beets since root crops are year 3 of the rotation, last year it was oats kinda like the grassy area upper right of center is seeded to barley this year {may have to re-assess it and it may need terminated again to re-seed to barley ~havent had much rain}

the formula is: legumes/grass grain/roots/cash crop {essentially the legume cycle is a fallow crop}

this pix is for you as well!
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=11079&pictureid=1051588&thumb=1]View Image[/url]

another i would like to try is ruth stout's no work method but i guess thats down the road

IDK; i just wanted to acknowledge that YES you are correct and I wanted to share some of the different things i employ besides that in a sort of 'more than 1 way to skin a cat' venture + this is a very different region from FL {being the most distant point of the country away} but my wife has family there and my son is there so i seen it

i guess i like to share too!

:huggg:
Click to expand...

Much apreciated my good man,specially after all the words people put in my mouth
WITHOUT LETTING ME FINISH but kept rambling at me,sorry atleast you got it!!!!!
NEVER said my way was (the only way) you can go back and read but all i wanna do
is FINISH what i was pointing too in my excited language!@ ok so HERE IT WAS i tried
to get threw to folks NOT sayin MINE tasted the BEST but better! than most samples never your yours was talking in MY AREA...another word fix.

All i was getting to was....just a plain woody kinda compost made from yard stuff
can taste (better)than some amended soils not anybodies here to offend good GAWD!
to bad i got trampled on before i could FINISH?..really id like to see someone put words
in YOUR MOUTHS and NOT try and defend your selves RIGHT.

AND AGAIN FOR THE 6th time,this thread DOES ROCK and thats cool......
Excuse me i will be gone now......even if i do get BANNED and i have fixed the proof
MODS go BACK AND READ BEFORE THREATENING TO BAND ME SORRY!..if you all didnt READ i said im sorry many many times and THATS CALLED AN APOLOGY...whatever?
by.....
 
Gascanastan

Gascanastan

Gone but NOT forgotten...
Veteran
..well ya know...when you come crashing in out of the wilderness all belligerent and beat up and then go rolling into a thread to tell everyone that's been camping there for months now they are wrong about the way they prepare the one component that makes this whole living soil reality an actual reality.....if you can't get your message across to more than a handful of people.....you might have some social issues if you aren't adept at functioning in a group.

COMPOST IS KING!!...fuck Elvis.
 
xmobotx

xmobotx

ecks moe baw teeks
ICMag Donor
Veteran
OLDproLg said:
All i was getting to was....just a plain woody kinda compost made from yard stuff
can taste (better)than some amended soils
Click to expand...

and you are absolutely right Lou

:thank you:

i hear you and i m something of a crusader for organics and sustainability too

stepped on a few toes myself and there are probably still people who dont care for the candor of my posts {been told i come across like a know it all} all the while; like you ~i m excited about what i KNOW and i want to share it

:tumbleweed:
 
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TwistedPistils

TwistedPistils

Member
When I walk around my back yard, the life surrounds the wood. Turn over an old log, so much is going on right there underneath it. I like incorporating wood into the soil, I am turning my backyard into Hugelkulture hills. Hugelkulture utilizes old logs and woody debris buried in the ground, which in turn supports lots of life in the soil and creates a superior raised bed. When I set up my indoor no-till beds I plan on burying rotting log chunks into the container.
My whole gardening out look has changed since I discovered the ROLS threads. You guys truly are amazing with all your information, and ALOE VERA ROCKS!!!
 
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