2023 "Field of Dreams"

[AzSeaindooin420]

When letting ur soil cook u def wanna have ur dry amendments in there, that’s what is gonna be breaking down over the course of the month of cooking, think of it as making a soup, get all the goods in there and let time and heat do the rest. Any top dressings or adding anything after the initial soil build is still gonna take another few weeks to a month to get moving so really depends how ur planning to feed em, if ur just gonna do revs compost teas I’d just build ur soil and rely on the teas every two weeks to keep things happy. If your gonna be top dressing then half strength about a week after transplant should be fine. Rev advises against teas and seedlings but I’ve started tea feedings 5 days into life without ill affects 🤷

When it comes to microbes I say get creative and get as much diversity as possible in there and not just microbes but enzymes, aminos, vitamins. Great examples for both is I would fish at the local swamp and if I caught a largemouth or catfish I would keep it alive, bring it home and throw it in my tea brewer with just water and let it live in that tote all night, next day id release it back but I would immediately throw my tea bag in there loaded up with my typical recipes but doing so added all the aquatic microbes local to my area to my soil mix and giving them a day feeding on the molasses during the brew to really multiply and go nuts, bat guano has another set of microbes so shoot for fresh or Dr earth brand cuz they throw in more microbes. I’ve thrown on occasion guinea pig poo, rabbit poo, SMALL amounts chicken poo, donkey poo, mealworm frass, cricket frass, roach frass and even caterpillar frass finding a nest, all of it just adds to the diversity overtime and as long as it’s been aerated in a tea before soil sees any of it, it helps keep the bad microbes away keeping the o² lovers in abundance. Even in the soil build I’ve used earthworm castings that were fed fan leaves and fridge cleanouts ,steer manure and my two favs of Scotts humus and manure and mushroom compost, just more microbes diversity. This is why I’m a firm believer the soil gets better over time cuz time gives us opportunity to always improve it

When it comes to the enzymes aminos and vitamins my two fav to add are fresh aloe leaves blended into a slurry to add to my teas base at beginning of brew and bee pollen for the pretty much everything under the sun of aminos, enzymes and vitamins

Another thing I’d like to touch on us since ur using peat in your mix u may want to do some research on humic and fulvic acids, that’s what’s gonna help break down the peat and make the hydrophobic properties not such a pain to deal with

Another thing worth clarifying, molasses doesn’t feed ur plants in any shape or form, keeps ur microbes fed and happy and that’s what’s gonna feed ur plants

When u say ur mix is 1:1:1 of substrate, aeration, compost, what’s substrate? Ur peat? I personally go heavier on the compost and do a 1:1:2 coir, perlite, compost. Peat tends to swing ph down as much as 5.0 and coir is more neutral around 7 without the hydrophobic properties so be sure to keep that in mind too, fireplace ash is great for balancing peat based soil back up a lil and coffee grounds are great for coir based to keep it in the acidic side

U sound like ur running in the right path, keep it up!

[FieldEffect]

Went down and collected some nice samples of sand. Looked for mixture of sandy/silty with stuff growing out of it, down by the bank.

Here’s the loot, about 10-15 gallons give or take.

Ahh yeah @MissinBissin

It got crazy windy when I returned from the river, so mixing will have to wait until tomorrow morning. It’s like 40+ mph howling outside right now.

Appreciate you guys sharing your tricks and tips. Thanks for the time typing it out and the advice. You’re going to get to see it in action! Learning, one step at a time…

[MissinBissin]

Hey I love that you went and “did it😎”
Sand seeker !
Hats off to you and I hope you see a change in some way…
Almost like an innoculation, I think I would have sprinkled some myco on the Pile…

~mb

[FieldEffect]

Checking how much clay I have.

Soil texture “Jar Test.” Left is my cooking compost and old soil blend, the two white buckets of moist sand from around the trees, and red bucket on the right which was dry sand from around where I parked.

It’s already been settling for about 15 minutes, I’ll check back in a few hours. But there’s an obvious clay layer already showing.

[MissinBissin]

Nice stuff !!!
Amazing to see that Sand plays such a big part in all 3. ( can’t really see compost…)

[Rogue]

Could use some hardy desert trees to provide shade; like olive trees, acacia (very fast), and a ground cover like clover, singapore daisy, etc.

https://permacultureplants.com/forest-layer/ground-cover/

The more differnt species you sow the better, never cheap out on seeds, those that don’t sprout this year can sprout in the years to come as well. All that sprouts and dies prematurely is not waste but fertilizer.

Woodchips are great insulation for the soil as well.

It’s imperative to get that bare soil shaded and covered one way or another.

[MissinBissin]

Creeping Thyme is going to get some use this summer. 4” tall and it likes to be stomped-on. Sign me up.
Non-Invasive !!

[FieldEffect]

The dust has settled, the 3 actually look pretty similar to each other after settling all night. I wonder if the clay/silt has settled into the sand.

This is showing 93% sand, 1.4% silt, 5.6% clay.

Even if this was more accurate after 15 minutes yesterday, it looked like at most 12% clay and 88% sand with no silt. I’ll get it mixed in today, this sand/clay will relatively speaking be a minor ammendment. This bucket sand is less than 10% my total soil volume, so worst case my clay addition will be < 1% total volume.

The potting mix has also settled and is roughly 15% sand, 20% silt and 65% organic matter/pumice.

Any thoughts? Am I off in the weeds here?

—Ground Cover—

@Rogue thanks for bring this up!

I’ve been thinking about this some more. Last year, I used aspen swamp cooler mats cut to fit because they are inexpensive and plentiful around here, and I loosely wrapped the exterior of the bags with mylar space blanket to shield from the sun. The climate here is relatively extreme, cold at night and hot in the day (high desert NM). Here’s a pic of how I did my pots last season

This system seemed to produce great results last season, but wasn’t planning on keeping it identical. I am planning on loosely wrapping the fabric pots with space blankets again - that did a great job equalizing the soil temperature against day/night temp extremes. There were usually mushrooms and fungal colonies when I would lift the mats, so, things seemed happy in there.

I used the aspen mats thinking it’d be easy to cut them to fit the tops of the pots, but they are more difficult than I expected. I don’t want to do it again. I have a bunch of burlap and my initial plan was to layer straw underneath burlap to prevent it from blowing away. This kind of open weave stuff

Am I better off doing a cover crop mix? Whatever I put down, I’m worried about it blowing away if it’s loose. I could also do wood chips with the burlap topper to keep it contained. This general strategy was discovered almost exactly a year ago when I put wood chips down over the veggie beds only to find NO remaining wood chips a week later, they had all blown away. Hindsight, I probably needed to keep them moister, but now I avoid putting anything out that isn’t netted or bound in some way. The wind only really persists into end-of-May for the most part. I put up windbreaks for the seedlings.

We do have wild purslane here, and I can get a cover crop blend with that and clover if that’s the best way to go. I’ve still got several weeks before planting anything in this soil or my beds. That creeping thyme looks nice too @MissinBissin I think the wife would like that.

As you mention trees, last year marked the revival of a tree providing late afternoon shade to the plants. It had been “dead” for a while but I pruned it, fed it my extra kelp/aloe water as well as surplus compost teas, and kept the soil watered - and it grew very nicely last season. So there’ll be some afternoon hot-time-of-day shade if I choose to locate the pots there.

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Again, appreciate all the input! Willing to do/try pretty much anything, these posts get long because I explain my thinking (ill-founded or not) and it either gets confirmed or debunked and better ideas get suggested.

[MissinBissin]

Good Morning @FieldEffect and yeah, you really are chewing on this bone. And your Sand test is awesome.

That first reading takes the shortest time, and the clay is defined over-night… i believe its a good sign that you have great samples and high Sand content… the organic potential is still way beyond us right now, but your going to make a positive change to the grow environment with these changes.

My only issue with Clover (white) is that it can be Invasive…

No, this is a great starting point, knowing your adding THAT SAND MIX, to your existing working-substrate…

That will be the interesting final soil test
With all the pieces together

[mota]

Nice ruler! Looks like it does lots of things.

[Gpaw]

…Nice ruler…
I had one just like that… before I retired…
(I should have grabbed it)

Cheers
G

[Rogue]

My priorities would be:

Swales to catch more water and make sure you get rainwater off every hard surface into a barrel or underground reservoir.
The swales help break the wind and the woodchips (the chunkier, the better, the ones made solely from thick tree bark are best and will add more diversity as well) will stay moist longer and will not blow away so easily, laying in the swales. They can be like productive footpaths, mix with edible mushroom mycelium and spores, when you design them like a bendy river its most efficient, it maximizes surface area on which plants can grow, while still having good reach when pruning and harvesting.

Nitrogen fixing trees (acacia) and bushes (blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, rosebush) to break the wind, give shade, habitat for birds (fertilize with their poop), and mulch.

Sunflowers and buckwheat (fixes nitrogen) have big deep roots that help drainage and once dead help aerate the soil as they dry out, thistles and dandelion are also great for that and make lots of minerals bioavailable to the topsoil.

Add a couple of of dandelion leaves to your salads and soups for great healthbenefits. Nettle is amazing and a really great sign, it means the soil where it grows is very fertile. Makes a soothing tea that reduces inflammation, provides compounds that your body uses to create serotonin and helps with sleep.

Woodsorrel is very hardy and stimulates mycorrhizal fungi it seems, looks like clover but isn’t.
Clover fixes nitrogen. Crimson clover (red cone shaped flowers) has been most resilient in my experience.

DO NOT mow your grass. Just throw the seeds in the grass, they will germinate and grow through the shallow grass roots very easily. I have discovered that my best results and biggest harvests were from vegetables growing in the midst of wild grass.

Tall grass provides lots of shade, keeps the ground cool, prevents erosion, creates habitat for frogs and lizards, makes things more difficult for snails, and harvests lots of dew, that drips and slides down the blades into the soil.
Grass comes with its own mycorrhizal fungi so it keeps parasitic fungus at bay.

Marigolds look pretty, attract beneficial insects and fix nitrogen.
Calendula is also very pretty and greatly stimulates mycorrhizal fungi, you’ll see the white fungi appear on their leaves, it’s a good thing.

What I would do is not seperate the species, I’d mix all the seeds together and throw them by the handfuls, let Mother Earth figure it out, she is wiser and smarter than any of us, she created us.

[Tuned]

I think this thread is amazing!
I will be following and taking notes

[FieldEffect]

@MissinBissin

Good to know about the clover. I’ll definately be conducting some more extensive testing in a few weeks on the finished pile of soil. I have a soil testing kit that’ll be coming to the party. I’d also love to have an actual lab soil test done, I’ll see if there’s a place I can do that here in the state.

@mota @Gpaw

That ruler is one surviving of many PCB rulers I’ve had on my desk over the years. They are so cool, whenever they venture into the labs at work, they “disappear.” Really all it means is that I direct way too much money to Digikey.com

They also sell them DKS-PCB-RULER-12INCH DIGIKEY STANDARD | Tools | DigiKey

My favorite, which never leave my office for fear of disappearance PCB Ruler de SV1AFN - sv1afn.com

@Rogue

I feel like we’re talking about landscaping at this point and my entire backyard. These are all good pieces of information. The dream garden eco system. I am planning on starting a blueberry plant, and grass.

I did some parusing through your posts and indeed find pictures of cannabis living with other plants. I like the look of that red clover. I love the idea of basil and chammomile. Dredging through your Stacked Mother Lode . 2022 . The Genesis thread and finding lots of info.

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I’m back to work next week so less time obsessing about soil, luckily it’s all mixed up and I drank the LITFA cool-aid.

I’m probably going to start poppin’ beans next Friday. I’ve decided on Ace Panama x Malawi as the sativa selection, and we’ll run with Honduras x Panama fems only if I don’t get any girls from the Panama Malawi reg beans. Those’ll probably start a little later, just because they’re not in-hand yet. Thanks to @MissinBissin for helping out with that one!

@noknees he was curious what sativa I was going to pick. It was a tough call, I’ve got a bad case of Bean Acquisition Disorder (BAD)

The photoperiod roster is:
Sativa - Panama x Malawi (ACE)
Hybrid - Indiana Bubblegum BX2 (Fleur du Mal)
Indica - 907 Blue Genes (AK Bean Brains)

The auto roster is:
3x Original Bubblegum Auto (Fast Budz)
1x Mephisto’s Weedding x 4 Assed Monkey (Mephisto)
1x Mendo Skunky Garlic (Twenty20)

Going to read more about cover crops and decide if that’s the direction I go or if I’m just going to do the straw/mulch/cover fabric route. I see benefits for either direction.

Hope you all have a great Sunday, I know I will. Going to get some of the Hella Jelly from last season fired up and work on the yard

[noknees]

@FieldEffect

I’ve decided on Ace Panama x Malawi as the sativa selection

very nice. do you have any concerns about height?

man…sunshine-grown sativa…count your blessings!

[FieldEffect]

I’m planning on topping it a few times and perhaps trellising it. 8 feet is where I would run into concern. 10 feet would be a problem.

I just trained my Hawaiian Snow sideways last season and parked it in front of my shed to block view of it from the front of the property. My neighbors are supportive of my hobby but I don’t want them readily visible from the street

That’s a relatively early picture but captures the concept well. The later pics are mostly of just colas

Fond memories

[ColeLennon]

My neighbors are all cool also. They love their holiday cannabis gift bags. We have a law here that they can’t be seen by the public on the streets going past our houses. “law protecting minors” My gauntlet is blinded by my house and my shed.

[mota]

I’m really lucky in that regard too. I live in a four-plex. The other three apartments are occupied by members of the same family, and I’m the newest tenant in the building. I moved in in 1996, so we all know one another really well and they like that I grow. As with @ColeLennon, they like the freebies that come around on a regular basis.

[ColeLennon]

They have to smell my outdoor blooming. When I bring them holiday gift bags with gummies and brownies and bags of flower “There like god I’ve been waiting for this”

[FieldEffect]

I share the harvest generously. I had way more, and still have way more than I know what to do with. My sampler packs have generally been in the multiple ounce range, probably half a pound for my wife’s friend.

If I had even 2 brain cells left, I’d just wait until June to start seeds and put 'em in 10 gallon pots. But I don’t, so I’m dedicating all my energy to making giant, healthy plants. At least the neighbors will stay happy