Wanted: organic source of K (home made)

[muddy waters]

hey nice to be back ey?

are you sure that the phosphorus available in oats would leach into water? i may have to experiment with this. a good water soluble organic phosphorus source is hard for us the non-guano-gifted to find...

also, about composting wood into humus: since KCO3 is highly soluble, if you take wood ash and steep it, or even douse the fire, then all of it ends up in that water on first contact. so theoretically you could leach your ashes of potash, guard or boil down that water to collect the pure precipitate, and then take the rest of the ash, the charcoal and the other minerals, and add that to your compost pile, so as not to waste the other valuable content. i think that would be a quicker way to break down the nutrients locked up in cellulose (especially large pieces of wood), plus you get the heat energy out of it. is that charbroiled tilapia i smell?

be well bro

 

[Desiderata]

Rattrap, hey bro! This last grow I used wood ash from my home fireplace~hardwoods~ in my mix at 1/2 TBL spoon/gal,.... and once a month using 1 teaspoon/per gal in guano tea instead of using Kelp this time. I put Kelp in the mix tho. My PH stayed 6.9 the whole grow, so I'm very pleased with the K factor and micros availability from using wood ash.

 

[Rattrap]

OK, now we're cooking!
We got kelp packed with K but also growth hormones that might increase stretch.
We got wood ash. The potash is the most soluble part so just add to water, stir well then drain off the liquid.
We got bannana skins & russian comphrey when composted down both packed with K
We got molassis high in K
We got oats being high in both P & K.
The oats sound like the way to go to me, wouldn't have to buy any more bat guano either!
I wonder how u could release the P & K in the oats? I suppose the same way i make the chook poo tea. In a barrell of water with an air stone. I add some bio-bugs to speed the process & some mollassis to feed the bugs & get a good culture going. That should also release the K in the mollassis too i'm thinking. I usually let it 'cook' away for about a week before using.
How do u go about finding out the NPK ratios of a nute mix? i'm guessing that there must be labs somewhere that u could take u your mix to.

 

[Rattrap]

1 thing on the oats just came to mind. I wonder if that would be raw oats or processed oats? Uncle Tobies Oats could suddenly get a boost in sales. lol

 

[irie-i]

i use heaps of kelp, and my buds are hard and tight, no streching problems.

i'm skeptical about oats honestly, seems too good to be true, but id sure like to see some sources to know more.

this thread kicks ass!

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

I use kelp and molasses for K now. But I used to use wood ash primarily to get the K but also to pH up my fish emulsion/ej bloom fert solutions. After adjustment, I would drain of the liquid and feed.

Now, I use wood ash water for K and as a pH up.

Works for me.

Do watch your pH and do not get the insolubles in yoru soil as they will make you pH skyrocket.

minds_I

 

[Rattrap]

Just did a quick google search on the subject of oats. Didn't find much yet but i did find this page that i thought had some interesting info.
http://muextension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/hort/g06220.htm

 

[minds_I]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20Po.html

 

[Guest]

http://www.elook.org/nutrition/grains/6656.html
and here's soy: http://www.elook.org/nutrition/legumes/4771.html
oats is an ingredient in Earth Juice.

you'll have to do the math to find out how much you're paying for the actual nutrients. i think the processed oat products will be more concentrated, but the labour cost is passed down to the consumer so it should work out more expensive.

if anyone's interested in free nutes, here's something from an aussie book "the permaculture home garden":

herbs and nutrients accumulated.
borage: silica, phosphorus.
chamomile: calcium, potassium, phosphorus.
comfrey: silica, nitrogen, magnesium, calcium, potassium, iron.
fennel: sodium, sulphur, potassium.
horsetail: silica, magnesium, calcium, iron, cobolt.
nasturtiums: sodium, flourine, sulphur, magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, iron.
nettles: sodium, sulphur, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, iron, copper.
primrose: magnesium
spurges: boron
vetches: nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, copper, cobolt.
yarrow: nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, copper.

MW, yeah it's great to be back brother.
you know what i'm thinking...with all this talk about wood ash: what if you use the ash from the weed you smoke? theoretically it should be a perfect balance of p, k and micro's, provided the weed had no deficiencies to begin with. it would be interesting to know how much is lost through smoke and vapours during combustion.
i would think the ash from plants of the same strain would be best, or better still, the same individual. hmmm, cannabis auto-cannibalism?

 

[Rattrap]

"chamomile: calcium, potassium, phosphorus" that stuff grows like weeds here. exellent!
The local nursery sells a kit for measuring NPK in soils, should work for liquid nutreints too i think. Its $35 AU. Good investment i think.

Looks like soyabean is going to be much better than the oats. I can get soyabeans raw from the local health shop, i wonder how best to 'process' the beans into a nutrient?

Satghost i think u'd need to be the biggest cone hog on the planet to get enough ash to make nutes. ROFL.

 

[kanebosem]

my favorie p supplement is comfrey tea any comfrey is good for potash but if you can get your hands on the bucking 14-comfrey variety then you will get a double dose of p. feel a bucket up with comfrey and fill with water,let it steep for a week or even more then water diluted 1/10 and it gives exelent fast rezults+ loads of other goddies you get from comfrey like having more resistant plants.
i also love rock potash even though it is not organic but its a natural mineral and i see no probloms using it,i think its more organic then battery reared animal manure which is organic but in many cases very far from natural becouse they are injected with all kinds of nasty stuff and get given some very unnatural foods.
when i make my compost i put about 1 kilo of rock potash in my pile and get very nice rezults you can also mix starit to tea

 

[Guest]

yeah ok, but let's say the ash from 10 plants gives the nessesary nute concentration for the roots of one plant to work properly (osmotic pressure etc.), but the p/k/micro nutes that the plant actually puts into bio-mass can only be equal to that provided by the ash of one plant. so it's just a question of a "buffer stock" of enough weed ash to make a nute solution of the required ppm. c'mon mate, half a teaspoon per liter is what MW is using, any light-weight can collect that much weed ash in no time.

edit: don't be fooled be the high p/k content of the soy beans, you need to do the maths with cost per dry weight and p/k concentration.

 

[Guest]

kanebosem: comfrey just can't be beat, props to all the comfrey users.

i think you'll have a hard time finding a variety other than the Bocking 14, if a nursery has only one unspecified variety, it will be Boking 14 so don't worry too much about it.

 

[muddy waters]

honestly rattrap i collect all my weed ash, smoking a couple of bowls a day at the most, and by the end of the month it's more than i could possibly use. i use what i need and spread give the rest to the trees on our street.

soybeans contain growth inhibiting enyzmes if i'm not mistaken. i will do some research into this but i know i have read that somewhere. i believe aquaponics cultivators caution against using fish feeds with soybean protein for this reason. it could be a minor issue, depending on the application, but i would look into it before trying a soybean tea DWC or something like that. in soil at lower concentrations it may be a moot point.

comfrey and alfalfa are both excellent for teas. i have used chamomile as well and can attest to its positive effects, especially in warding off pithium and damping off fungi in seedlings. the steiner people (bio-dynamic) consider chamomile pretty important to their agricultural scheme.

while we're talking about these things, i feel obliged to mention that diluted urine is an excellent addition to any nute regime. you'll have plants that are that dark green-almost-blue in no time from all the ammonia, and there are solid amounts of magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and the micronutes--dependent of course on having a decent diet. that's what i asked satghost if i could eat a lot of oats and then use the pee from the next day--your body will absorb what it needs and your kidneys filter the rest out. there is of course a huge adolescent contingent on these boards that will hear urine and be all "gggrrrrooooosssssssss! you pee on your plants!?"... so i share the information cautiously. but organic ferts don't get much better and cheaper than that one. don't forget to dilute 10:1 in water. that way you won't have any smell issues or nitrogen burn.

 

[Rattrap]

Comfrey is actually classed as a noctious weed & is illegal to grow where i am. Wouldn't to go breaking any laws by growing illegal plants now. LOL. I often use my own pee on my plants & i agree with u completly, its an exellent free nutrient source. Because its so high in N i only use it during veg, indoors as weel as outdoors. When watered down it has hardly any smell to it at all, same as the chook poo tea which really stinks before being watered down.
"soybeans contain growth inhibiting enyzmes if i'm not mistaken", thats an interesting point & defenately worth looking into MW.

 

[minds_I]

I use way more wood ash per gallon then a teaspoon. Most of the wood ash is insoluble calcium carbonate and silica.

But thats just me.

minds_I

 

[Rattrap]

Do u ever measure the TDS or EC strength of the wood ash/ water mix? This is 1 thing that has me stuffed with 100% organic nutes - how strong do u make them? I always stick with the 10:1 ratio regardless what home made mix i'm using but i'd love to know just how strong my nutes are. I've yet to see nute burn with organic nutes but i have seen a total stall in growth when the nutes are too strong (i think?????)

 

[minds_I]

When I maek up a batch of fert solution using Alsaka fish and ej bloom and molasses in varying combination, I use the wood ash to bring the pH up to 6.5. I let it settle and pour of the liquid and feed.

So, to answeryour question- No I have measured TDS or EC. Just pH.

As far as overferting-yes, I have also seen a stall when overdone.

I am getting better myself at reading what the plants want.

minds_I

 

[irie-i]

comfrey is indeed a noxious weed! a realtive got one plant from a "friend" and soon it took over his property. its nice when it grows, but its a 1/2 acre of slimy mess when it rots.
but comfrey is an important garden plant. plant it with your fruit trees and it will mine nutrients from below and shares them with the tree. when it dies it will mulch and then feed the tree. in you garden comfrey will attract bees butterflies and birds...and while they are there the birds will help keep your garden free of predator insects!
i noticed that comfrey can grow from a piece of root the size of a kernal of corn. so if you move or break the root you will get a plant from every piece!
i like to pee on my comfrey

 

[muddy waters]

if i were using wood ash as my only potassium source i'd use a little bit more, too. but at my rate i put about 8 teaspoons into a 16 liter tub and also involve some kelp tea, comfrey and castings tea, and dilute urine.

...

i'm having trouble finding more info about soybeans. i may be completely off base with that, in fact i think i am. some good info here in ATTRA's greenhouse section: http://www.attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/ghveg.html