This initial post looks like it go a bit so I’ll start with some background. Moved from Vegas (where I grew indoor) to Illinois so I could be near a lake that’s long been my favorite place. Was given a place to grow
and asked myself the ?, if you had unlimited time and quite a bit of effort to give how would you grow? My indoor style is living soil so doing the same outside seemed like an easy place to start.
In Illinois we call these hedge apples (elsewhere monkey balls or horse apples) and comprised most of the greens I could find in November alongside urine and a dozen or so fish. For the browns, and the bulk of the material, I went into the forest and raked the floor, it was glorious material and wish I had pictures of it.
Next step was worms, which deserves a deep dive that I’ll skim over for now. I asked my sister for an early Xmas present and she came through with a thousand reds from Uncle Jim’s. They arrived frozen. She’s a single mother of twins so I wasn’t going to bother her with this, I waited for the weather to warm up before ordering from nature’s good guys and they came in great condition.
Next step was figuring out how the fuck one makes soil. There’s a bunch of online recipes and anyone searching this topic will eventually come to Coot’s mix, which after listening to hours of Tad Hassey’s “Cannabis Cultivation and Science “ podcast, I finally decided on an augmented version of Coot. Starters, I didn’t have Coots castings, and as Jim (Coot) has said, anyone kidding themselves into thinking they can replicate his success without them can expect trouble. Sourcing ingredients wasn’t the easiest. Strangely enough Etsy became one of my go to sources. I managed to get my hands on 50 pounds of Iceland kelp, 40 pounds of Neem meal, 100 pounds of the basalt rock dust(Etsy), 50 pounds of crab meal, 40 pounds of gypsum, 50 pounds of aglime, 50 pounds of dolomite(oops?), 20 pounds of soft rock phosphate, Organic alfalfa pellets (farm&home), 100 pounds of rice hulls(Buddha brewing co)perlite😠, 25 gallons of castings
Want to mention here that these are not amounts that went in to the mix; just quantities purchased
200 gallons of peat. Bales not bags. Apparently bags of peat are sterilized and any microbial activity existing in this product is eliminated.
Lots of native soil. I’m pretty fortunate to have access to a forest and lake so the majority came from there, but I’m not gonna lie, there is some truly amazing soil in Illinois if you know where to look and are little brave/stupid.
Around the same time and I was starting my first experiments with knf. Emphasis on “experiments.” The first batch of IMO was a failure. no bloom but lots of pretty colors. It went into the worm bin.
Also put in a small wildflower patch.
I’m lucky to have nettle growing all over the place. Considered one of the best fpj plants out there I was itching to get started. Woke up before sunrise to harvest and ferment with equal weight brown sugar
Bought 8 bags of hardwood charcoal. Drove over with a car, tractor and side by side. It didn’t work and just made a mess. We eventually built a box aka future worm bin and just beat the shit out of it
Soil is in the ground, so it’s time to talk about cultivars! Space Monkey, Hashplant D, Mothers Hashplant and Sunshine Daydream are all by Bodhi. Orange Creampop HSC. Orange creampop x lime overload
I should mention that I planned on doing genetic testing on these plants, but nature got the best of a few so I’m basically hanging out with one of each cultivar +3 mothers hashplant . I have clones of them all going right now, but the only know for certain orange is a female
Sunshine daydream was gifted and it is most certainly an old seed. It can be seen in these pictures if you look very close. The one with the hose has two plants one is an absolute runt.
Great pictures, and a well detailed write up, from the ground up. Love to see this kind of thing around here. Keep up the solid work. Looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
Hi buddy! Is that substrate mix you’re making for outdoor growing? I assume you then mix it with the native soil from your farm. What’s this native soil like?
You have a wonderfully fine soil that makes me dream!
The native soil is absolutely incredible! No rocks at all. Around 100 gallons of native was sifted into the mix. 5 120 gallon holes were dug. If I remember correctly, the cubes were 3 feet 3“ x 18“ deep. The lake where I grow is only about 50 years old, so not really what I would consider old growth trees. However, there are some incredible state parks near rivers with the best soil I’ve ever seen. Of course, all of this is relative, the soil I have in my backyard now, I would die for coming from Vegas
I’m very interested in substrate mixes. I’ve experimented with super soils, with many components, but today I focus more on highly aerated soils to promote roots, with the addition of various rock dusts and a couple of other things. I still use various dry amendments, but I use them on top of the substrate, although I base my nutrition on soluble biofertilizers that I make at home with microorganisms.
I can only grow indoors, although I have grown outdoors for several years.
This is my first outdoor grow, but I have quite a bit of indoor experience. The ratios ended up being about one 5 gallon bucket of most of the amendments for 600 gallons of soil. It worked out to about one cup per cubic foot. The mix itself is about 1/3 aeration (hulls and perlite). Sourcing pumice or small enough lava rock proved too expensive
I doesn’t matter much which recipe you look at, there will be items that vary wildly in price depending on your geographic location.
I figured out I could usually find local substitutions on some of the expensive stuff if I looked at it.
On the subject of worms
Before moving to the Midwest I bought 6 Rubbermaid tubs. Very useful for packing, but the real purpose would be for future worm bins. I watched a bunch of videos and ended up drilling holes and placing copper tape around the inner tub to prevent escape. None of this was necessary. In my opinion, compaction and the clogging nature of castings makes for anaerobic conditions (swampy stank=anaerobic). Plastic is a bad choice. Coot recommends grow bags for breathability. Chris Trump has a vertical wooden worm farm for the same reason coupled with easy harvesting. I had neither on hand but did have the wood box I used to make biochar
This design was a happy accident and is extremely easy to maintain and harvest.
There’s a block under the full end and I dry downhill. I find that the worms naturally migrate uphill where the feeding happens. There are some cocoons in the final castings but I’m not too bothered as the overall population is thriving. So much so, that I’ve managed to sell some(5 gallons not trying to sell here lol) at a local grow shop and am building another box
As for the actual castings, most vermicomposters start with shredded cardboard and food scraps. I was no different. Castings are organic material (small o) that have been broken down through digestion to create humus. After listening to Coot I quickly switched gears on how I manage the bin. I learned that “crap in, crap out” is a very real thing. If remember correctly, amendments become 8 to 12 times more plant available after being processed by worms. I may be off on the # but the sentiment remains. By now I had some 6 month old compost that I sifted into some old soil bags. I filled the wood box with compost and lots of Neem,kelp,crab,basalt and aglime(add more if you notice too many pot worms). I also added a bit of molasses and alfalfa (too much and you can get hot). Every week or two I’ll feed them more of the above as well as coffee grounds, banana peels, eggshells and the occasional melon rind. When I aerate the bin, I move everything downhill and fill the front with more compost.
Additionally, when I’m feeling up to it, I sprout barely, corn and lentils (sprouted seed tea or sst) blend it up and feed to the worms and/or trough in for plants.
On the subject of KNF
Korea natural farming, as it’s known in the United States. The rest of the world just calls it natural farming. Pioneered by Master Cho, and simplified (at least for me) by Chris Trump. This seemed to be an easy way to close the loop. My ultimate goal is to make all of my own inputs and Chris Trump’s YouTube videos are a fantastic place to start; information with very little filler in an approachable manner. Can’t recommend him enough. I use his website biomei.solutions for all of my input calculators, as well as purchasing my first ohn (orientation herbal nutrition) which is a ferment that takes 2 months and a case of vodka.
FAA in the second pic is fish amino acids. This process involves weighing equal parts brown sugar and fish and letting it ferment for six months to a year. I started my first batch in March and decided to harvest it last week even though we haven’t quite gotten to the magical day yet. For now this would be considered fish hydrolysate, which is still superior to fish emulsion according to Tad Hussey’s podcast. I didn’t take a picture of the final harvest amount, but this should explain the final process
Other abbreviations are brown rice vinegar and fermented plant juice.
15 gallons is my batch amount because that’s how large the sprayer I have is. I’ll try to remember to take pictures of these things in the future.
