Elephunt man
03-22-2007, 07:35 PM
Ok, I don't deserve the credit for digging this up...fellow poster 'Vonforme' on another forum found this treasure, possibly more to come.
I am glad this was not lost...and I intend to spread it around a little to see that it never is lost again.
Enjoy:coffee:
ok here goes . . .
in the beginning God made earth also variously known as soil/dirt/sand/clay/loam etc . . . and then later Miracle-it-Grows made a mockery of the term soil and this begat hydroponics (just so no one tries to take this literally and accuse the bird’s of spreading misinformation - yes we know miracle grow soil didn’t cause the rise of hydroponics - but it makes a nice introduction story!). . . and thus began the three_little_birds efforts to bring real dirt back into indoor farming . . .
Farmer's don't throw out their topsoil after a crop, so we've always found the suggestion that folks dispose of soil after every indoor crop kind of ridiculous . . . we set out to disprove those folks who said that soil needed to be disposed of and in the process we've found our soil actually grew more fertile with time and some effort!
what will it take to use your soil over and over . . . time . . .dedication . . .a willingness (and ability) to do a lil physical labor . . . our process will involve some observation on the soil makers part . . .and you'll need to do a lil thinking . . . you will have to avoid salt and chemical ferts at all costs and build a collection of boxes or containers of different organic amendments sitting around on shelves . . .
we started with a standard soil mix pretty much like everyone else . . . when choosing a beginning organic soil we look for products like FoxFarm OceanForest or Mushroom Compost (at least the "shroom post" we find) that are often more "tree fiber" based rather than built with peat moss . . . we prefer these as our primary component over soil mixes like ProMix or SunshineMix that are mostly peat which is more acidic . . . if you plan on reusing your soil just once or twice then the peat mixes will probably work fine . . . but if you hope to use your soil endlessly like at the bird's nest then we'd say not more than 50% peat based mix to 50% tree fiber mix . . .
for the first grow prior to recycling we used a more expensive potting soil mix like the FoxFarm and then mixed in about 1/3 cheap peat based organic soil mix that was mostly peat, perlite and sand . . . we grew a couple small crops from start to finish using Earth Juice organic fertilizers and dumped all the used soil in a big 50 gallon Rubbermaid tub (w/ lid) . . . when the tub was about 4/5ths full (appx. 40 gallons of used soil) we stopped adding soil and went to work . . .
that first pass on soil remixing we added bone meal, blood meal, kelp meal and dolomite lime to the used soil . . . to be quite honest our proportions have changed a lil bit over time but it was likely something in the range of 2 cups blood meal, 4 cups kelp meal, 4 cups bone meal and 4 cups of dolomite lime . . . we mixed all those ingredients into our soil and moistened and waited a month until it was time for more soil . . .
For our next grow we would have mixed in about equal proportions of fresh and remixed amended soil . . . about ½ used soil with ½ fresh new soil and perhaps a lil added perlite to make sure the soil stayed light . . . and ran that through another grow using moderate feedings with the Earth Juice ferts . . . again we collected the used soil as it finished in the 50 gallon Rubbermaid bins . . .
at this point we started using our soil as an indoor compost bin for indoor garden waste. . . we really didn’t want to dispose of our fan leaf and stem trim in the trash . . . so we began chopping our indoor garden wastes and mixing them into our soil . . . we had quite a build up of trim trash at one time and to be honest it didn’t break down that fast this first time . . . we turned the compost in that bin several times in the next couple of months to get that trim to decompose . . . it seemed like the stems never would break down . . . finally they kind of decomposed and we mixed that “composted” soil in with our normal remixed soil and thus our composted soil methods began . . .
the plants grown in that remixed soil containing compost were very strong . . . stronger still than their sisters in fresh soil and with our 50/50 fresh and used soil remix . . . so we started including some composted soil in with every mix . . . we stopped adding any fresh soil to the mix about this time as well . . . in honesty we’d run short on soil for the moment and decided to try 100% remix . . . it worked . . . and it worked well . . .
Now let’s fast forward to a day when all of the soil remix bins had just been freshly mixed and were still stabilizing . . . we were ready to move another container to our bloom room and there was plenty of our compost on hand but no soil ready . . . now if a person reads Ed Rosenthal or Cervantes they will usually see warnings against trying to grow plants in homemade compost . . . we never quite understood this since compost is great as a top dressing in the normal garden outdoors and such . . . but we were still concerned that the “experts” knew something we didn’t . . .
we filled a 2'x3' container w/ compost and transplanted the plants in simply hoping for the best . . . turns out there was no reason to worry at all . . . they grew HUGE . . . the next time we had enough indoor compost to experiment in this way again we did . . . and the results were again beyond our normal experience . . . a third “bumper crop” from pure compost convinced us that there were secrets in the soil . . .
this post is closing in on two pages in length on the word processor now . . . so it’d be best to come back with one more post describing the current state of ongoing soil recycling project at the bird’s nest . . . in concept and practice it’s actually quite simple . . . we add organic matter as available to our soil . . . amend with nutrient goodies . . . and treat it all with great care and love . . .
we’ll be back to share the love and our current soil methods . . . the secret may very well be in the soil . . . but the bird’s won’t be keeping any secrets ourselves on how our methods work . . .
wow thats alot to read lol but all great info.
When that was posted there was some discussion that went with it. That is usually left out on all the sites posting this guide, but theres still some valuable info in the replies thats not included so here are the 3lb repliues to some questions that followed.
3LB " old roots compost like anything else. and a few moving along with
the soil have never caused any harm in our grow. the most important
thing to remember is to keep your plants healthy and pest free from
the beginning. if disease or pests strike your soil it will need to
be discarded. otherwise we're still reusing the same soils in 2004
we used in 2003. and those were used in 2002 and 2001 and 2000 etc.
our methods may not be for everyone. and we strongly encourage folk
to use a keen eye to watch and "listen" closely to their plants.
when we open a container of our remixed soil after it's
"composted". it smells like fresh earth. and as long as that's the
case we plan to keep using ours. we are proud to report that
earthworms live in our soil re-mixes now. not the big fat
night crawlers that many folks associate with the word "worm". these
are smaller red wigglers. our container gardens aren't ideal habitat
for worms. they are really too shallow. so in many ways we are
amazed that worms manage to live in our indoor garden. and we use
fish ferts and earth juice ferts in fairly high concentrations.
again we are a little amazed that worms tolerate this. but we've
had plenty of worms (red wigglers) showing up in containers that had
been through their entire bloom cycle as they were being remixed for
recycling. we figure that's a good sign that our indoor soil is
healthy . .
------------------------------------------------------
green sand is a slow release K supplement. rock phosphate is a slow
release K supplement. both increase soil health and also contain a
large number of micro nutrients - though not so commonly used by
indoor gardeners, they are very common for soil building in outdoor
gardens . . .
---------------------------------------------------
since organic ferts are available more slowly than salt
manufactured ferts. the "lead time" with composting your soil gives
the beneficial bacteria time to start their work. this composting
time also allows soil pH to normalize and nute levels to settle
down/even out. we've done it ourselves when time and circumstance
dictated. and the only thing we noticed different when using the
soil immediately was that our plants seemed to suffer a little more
transplant stress. this always disappears within a couple of days
so is not a big concern. we'd guess that the "raw" nutes are a
little harsher on the roots than they would be after composting a
few weeks. as for ratios it's really something we rely on intuition
and the eyeball for (ok there's a bit of science too - shhhhhhh).
since we continue to feed with ferts throughout our grows. a good
place to start would be at about 1/2 the rate of something like
Vic's "super soil" for additional nutrients. that's a good
"baseline" anyway. these days we're probably using something in the
range of:
6-8 cups alfalfa meal
2-4 cups bone meal
2-4 cups kelp meal
4-8 cups dolomite lime
those are the basic ingredients. then we get into things like
humates and green sand and rock phosphate that we don't add every
time . . .
----------------------------------------------------------
dolomite lime should be available at Home Depot or Lowes kind of
stores. alfalfa meal can usually be found at feed stores. even
suburban areas have these near areas with stables. just about
anything can be found through www.groworganic.com but shipping
costs can get prohibitive . . . three_little_birds
(3 birds are better than 1)"
it takes a little more space, perhaps a bit more work, but I wouldn't do it any other way.
The birds went onto post their mix and talk more bout it, but I cant seem to find it. If anyone knows what post im talkin bout, please let me know.
I wrote some of it down...this is per 100 gallons dirt
8 cups alfalfa meal
8 cups Bonemeal
8 cups Kelp meal
8 cups dolomite
8 cups green sand
8 cups Rock Phosphate
8 cups Diatomacsious earth.
I am glad this was not lost...and I intend to spread it around a little to see that it never is lost again.
Enjoy:coffee:
ok here goes . . .
in the beginning God made earth also variously known as soil/dirt/sand/clay/loam etc . . . and then later Miracle-it-Grows made a mockery of the term soil and this begat hydroponics (just so no one tries to take this literally and accuse the bird’s of spreading misinformation - yes we know miracle grow soil didn’t cause the rise of hydroponics - but it makes a nice introduction story!). . . and thus began the three_little_birds efforts to bring real dirt back into indoor farming . . .
Farmer's don't throw out their topsoil after a crop, so we've always found the suggestion that folks dispose of soil after every indoor crop kind of ridiculous . . . we set out to disprove those folks who said that soil needed to be disposed of and in the process we've found our soil actually grew more fertile with time and some effort!
what will it take to use your soil over and over . . . time . . .dedication . . .a willingness (and ability) to do a lil physical labor . . . our process will involve some observation on the soil makers part . . .and you'll need to do a lil thinking . . . you will have to avoid salt and chemical ferts at all costs and build a collection of boxes or containers of different organic amendments sitting around on shelves . . .
we started with a standard soil mix pretty much like everyone else . . . when choosing a beginning organic soil we look for products like FoxFarm OceanForest or Mushroom Compost (at least the "shroom post" we find) that are often more "tree fiber" based rather than built with peat moss . . . we prefer these as our primary component over soil mixes like ProMix or SunshineMix that are mostly peat which is more acidic . . . if you plan on reusing your soil just once or twice then the peat mixes will probably work fine . . . but if you hope to use your soil endlessly like at the bird's nest then we'd say not more than 50% peat based mix to 50% tree fiber mix . . .
for the first grow prior to recycling we used a more expensive potting soil mix like the FoxFarm and then mixed in about 1/3 cheap peat based organic soil mix that was mostly peat, perlite and sand . . . we grew a couple small crops from start to finish using Earth Juice organic fertilizers and dumped all the used soil in a big 50 gallon Rubbermaid tub (w/ lid) . . . when the tub was about 4/5ths full (appx. 40 gallons of used soil) we stopped adding soil and went to work . . .
that first pass on soil remixing we added bone meal, blood meal, kelp meal and dolomite lime to the used soil . . . to be quite honest our proportions have changed a lil bit over time but it was likely something in the range of 2 cups blood meal, 4 cups kelp meal, 4 cups bone meal and 4 cups of dolomite lime . . . we mixed all those ingredients into our soil and moistened and waited a month until it was time for more soil . . .
For our next grow we would have mixed in about equal proportions of fresh and remixed amended soil . . . about ½ used soil with ½ fresh new soil and perhaps a lil added perlite to make sure the soil stayed light . . . and ran that through another grow using moderate feedings with the Earth Juice ferts . . . again we collected the used soil as it finished in the 50 gallon Rubbermaid bins . . .
at this point we started using our soil as an indoor compost bin for indoor garden waste. . . we really didn’t want to dispose of our fan leaf and stem trim in the trash . . . so we began chopping our indoor garden wastes and mixing them into our soil . . . we had quite a build up of trim trash at one time and to be honest it didn’t break down that fast this first time . . . we turned the compost in that bin several times in the next couple of months to get that trim to decompose . . . it seemed like the stems never would break down . . . finally they kind of decomposed and we mixed that “composted” soil in with our normal remixed soil and thus our composted soil methods began . . .
the plants grown in that remixed soil containing compost were very strong . . . stronger still than their sisters in fresh soil and with our 50/50 fresh and used soil remix . . . so we started including some composted soil in with every mix . . . we stopped adding any fresh soil to the mix about this time as well . . . in honesty we’d run short on soil for the moment and decided to try 100% remix . . . it worked . . . and it worked well . . .
Now let’s fast forward to a day when all of the soil remix bins had just been freshly mixed and were still stabilizing . . . we were ready to move another container to our bloom room and there was plenty of our compost on hand but no soil ready . . . now if a person reads Ed Rosenthal or Cervantes they will usually see warnings against trying to grow plants in homemade compost . . . we never quite understood this since compost is great as a top dressing in the normal garden outdoors and such . . . but we were still concerned that the “experts” knew something we didn’t . . .
we filled a 2'x3' container w/ compost and transplanted the plants in simply hoping for the best . . . turns out there was no reason to worry at all . . . they grew HUGE . . . the next time we had enough indoor compost to experiment in this way again we did . . . and the results were again beyond our normal experience . . . a third “bumper crop” from pure compost convinced us that there were secrets in the soil . . .
this post is closing in on two pages in length on the word processor now . . . so it’d be best to come back with one more post describing the current state of ongoing soil recycling project at the bird’s nest . . . in concept and practice it’s actually quite simple . . . we add organic matter as available to our soil . . . amend with nutrient goodies . . . and treat it all with great care and love . . .
we’ll be back to share the love and our current soil methods . . . the secret may very well be in the soil . . . but the bird’s won’t be keeping any secrets ourselves on how our methods work . . .
wow thats alot to read lol but all great info.
When that was posted there was some discussion that went with it. That is usually left out on all the sites posting this guide, but theres still some valuable info in the replies thats not included so here are the 3lb repliues to some questions that followed.
3LB " old roots compost like anything else. and a few moving along with
the soil have never caused any harm in our grow. the most important
thing to remember is to keep your plants healthy and pest free from
the beginning. if disease or pests strike your soil it will need to
be discarded. otherwise we're still reusing the same soils in 2004
we used in 2003. and those were used in 2002 and 2001 and 2000 etc.
our methods may not be for everyone. and we strongly encourage folk
to use a keen eye to watch and "listen" closely to their plants.
when we open a container of our remixed soil after it's
"composted". it smells like fresh earth. and as long as that's the
case we plan to keep using ours. we are proud to report that
earthworms live in our soil re-mixes now. not the big fat
night crawlers that many folks associate with the word "worm". these
are smaller red wigglers. our container gardens aren't ideal habitat
for worms. they are really too shallow. so in many ways we are
amazed that worms manage to live in our indoor garden. and we use
fish ferts and earth juice ferts in fairly high concentrations.
again we are a little amazed that worms tolerate this. but we've
had plenty of worms (red wigglers) showing up in containers that had
been through their entire bloom cycle as they were being remixed for
recycling. we figure that's a good sign that our indoor soil is
healthy . .
------------------------------------------------------
green sand is a slow release K supplement. rock phosphate is a slow
release K supplement. both increase soil health and also contain a
large number of micro nutrients - though not so commonly used by
indoor gardeners, they are very common for soil building in outdoor
gardens . . .
---------------------------------------------------
since organic ferts are available more slowly than salt
manufactured ferts. the "lead time" with composting your soil gives
the beneficial bacteria time to start their work. this composting
time also allows soil pH to normalize and nute levels to settle
down/even out. we've done it ourselves when time and circumstance
dictated. and the only thing we noticed different when using the
soil immediately was that our plants seemed to suffer a little more
transplant stress. this always disappears within a couple of days
so is not a big concern. we'd guess that the "raw" nutes are a
little harsher on the roots than they would be after composting a
few weeks. as for ratios it's really something we rely on intuition
and the eyeball for (ok there's a bit of science too - shhhhhhh).
since we continue to feed with ferts throughout our grows. a good
place to start would be at about 1/2 the rate of something like
Vic's "super soil" for additional nutrients. that's a good
"baseline" anyway. these days we're probably using something in the
range of:
6-8 cups alfalfa meal
2-4 cups bone meal
2-4 cups kelp meal
4-8 cups dolomite lime
those are the basic ingredients. then we get into things like
humates and green sand and rock phosphate that we don't add every
time . . .
----------------------------------------------------------
dolomite lime should be available at Home Depot or Lowes kind of
stores. alfalfa meal can usually be found at feed stores. even
suburban areas have these near areas with stables. just about
anything can be found through www.groworganic.com but shipping
costs can get prohibitive . . . three_little_birds
(3 birds are better than 1)"
it takes a little more space, perhaps a bit more work, but I wouldn't do it any other way.
The birds went onto post their mix and talk more bout it, but I cant seem to find it. If anyone knows what post im talkin bout, please let me know.
I wrote some of it down...this is per 100 gallons dirt
8 cups alfalfa meal
8 cups Bonemeal
8 cups Kelp meal
8 cups dolomite
8 cups green sand
8 cups Rock Phosphate
8 cups Diatomacsious earth.