Only have experience in soil growing and am looking for an alternative to lugging around bags of soil. Recommendations?
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Bags of perlite are light and hempy style grows are pretty simple and effective. It’s an easy way to try a modified hydroponic system without having to buy a bunch of equipment.
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Mix perlite w/ soil?
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No, hempy is a style of growing in just 100% perlite or a perlite and vermiculite mixed with a small reservoir of water created by using a container with just one hole about 2" up from the bottom on the side of the container. You can use buckets, 2 litre soda bottles or anything that’s water proof. You water to runoff and then the base holds a couple of inches of water for the roots to seek out. I used to do it when I was first getting started because of how simple it was and being able to use make shift containers. Here’s a link I found by searching the term hempy style to get you some background.
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I have a granny cart I use to transport bales of soil. Helps a lot.
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Coco coir and ProMix come in compressed blocks, they are much easier to move and store than huge bags of soil
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Promix is semi-compressed bales. Most nursery plants are grown with a variation of this. It works well and it’s very plug-and play. It’s cheap, very cheap. Holds a lot of water due to peat content, I prefer mixes that dry faster for higher yields but if you want something that’s lower maintenance watering-wise by all means this is your best option.
Perlite is what I use because I use hempy buckets and it’s impossible to overwater and generates very decent yields easily with no problems. Or pots of perlite, sometimes but they do dry quickly which may or may not be what you want. You want the finer grade, it’s cheaper and holds more water. #1 or #2 grade ideally. Somewhat inert (sometimes, depending on source). Vermiculite is also similar and holds more water. Many do a mix of both. Both are very very light. 100L of perlite weighs like 5 kilos. Pure perlite is also guaranteed free of bugs and pathogens nor does it support their existence. Overall an exceedingly clean media since there is nothing organic about it. I love perlite.
The big bricks of coco weigh like 5kg and expand to about 80L of moist coco. A fine option as well but coco has some foibles. Weird nutrient and pH issues mostly, I think it’s really best as an active hydro media rather than a handwater large-volume media.
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You might also want to try that volcano perlite that is for bonsai trees it’s average size is 1/4”and virtually dust free also is very easy to rinse without a mess.
No need to lug bags of soil around more than once.
With this method you simply add mulch; kitchenscraps, tree leaves, dandelion leaves, nettle, thistle, etc… that provides all the essential nutrients, minerals, nitrogen, the key is diversity, and you can keep going for the rest of your life without even having to ever move the pot.
Just keep throwing seeds in the center around every harvest.
Use a big fabric pot, and a smaller plastic pot or tube to put in the center.
I use a container instead of a saucer, also sowed some companion plants, it helps keep everything in balance.
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So you can reuse it?
The problem with this is it doesn’t work that way. Not indefinitely.
In order for soil TO REMAIN HEALTHY it needs some hot composting every couple rounds because every round you will have a disease here and a critter there and eventually that all compounds to unhealthy soil that’s not conducive to bountiful harvests.
When you hot compost you are destroying pathogens and infection and you start anew.
IT WILL ADD NUTRIENTS; but that’s about it.
Haven’t tried this method, but this is what theory holds.
Aside from that peppers aren’t good companion plants for cannabis because they share diseases and pests.
Doesn’t mean you can’t grow weed with it. It’s just not conducive to bountiful harvest, neither to free of disease growing.
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So literally just bury my seeds in straight perlite? Currently using coco loco
the commercial grow op i visited for the job i didn’t get uses large blocks of coco. can’t recall the weight, but they were about 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 ft sq maybe, and they just put the clone in when it got big enough and moved them around on tables it seems pretty easy, get a block per plant and toss it when they are harvested and get another. they give all of their used blocks and the trimmings to a local farmer for compost. i can’t recall the specifics of the watering system, but it was pretty cool. i think they weighed about 5 lbs or so each.
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Could always go “no till” or hydro
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Disease will only take hold in an unhealthy and unbalanced system. I would definitely recommend not hot composting in a living soil bed but adding high quality healthy composted material/castings and make an environment that promotes healthy diverse biology. Critters are easily dealt with by diversity in predators in your system and in my experience effect soilless plants way worse than a plant In healthy living soil.
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Hot composting is done outside a living soil bed, cause it reaches way too high temps.
Disease will take hold anywhere where disbalance occurs, and disbalance is not something that only occurs on occasion or something, life is a constantly changing balance, and for one disease a certain balance will be good to thrive while for other disease another will be good to thrive.
Critters will indeed affect soilless plants more, but they are also highly attracted to KITCHEN SCRAPS which Rogue says to add to a container. I don’t see any mention of pre-composting.
Cold composting does not get rid of disease, does not produce a soil that is great for cannabis, and loses most of it’s nutrients and adds heaps of nitrogen and CO2 to the atmosphere, eating oxygen while at it. Cold composting attracts insects and slugs. It ends up with large recognizable pieces that take more time to further decompose, and puts 80% of it’s volume into the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gasses.
Hot composting gets rid of diseases, produces a very fine nutritious soil that has given off little CO2 to the environ and uses up little oxygen. It kills the harmfull insects and their eggs, as well as slug eggs, and it’s volume remains at about 80% of the starting material, giving off substantially less greenhouse gasses.
Explain to me again how cold composting is better and why disease won’t take hold in soil that receives cold compost. edit: NVM you didn’t say cold composting you said high quality healthy composted. That’s the definition of hot composting really.
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Soil provides a huge buffer that makes it pretty simple to keep a healthy balanced soil system. If the right biology is there and all the niches are filled, then there is no where for a disease to take hold, not to mention the good biology in the soil will also produce disease fighting compounds and like the gut microbiome, supports a healthy plant immune system. The critters that effect cannabis are highly attracted to cannabis and will hide anywhere they can. kitchen scraps are great food for worms fungi and bacteria. Its all at how you look at it. We are already past the “point of no return” with our CO2 levels a while ago. And excess CO2 in the environment is from fossils fuels that have captured carbon for millions of years being released. Composting material is a natural part of the carbon cycle.
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Just because it’s natural part of the carbon cycle doesn’t mean there’s a better and worse way toward it.
Of course excess CO2 is from fossil fuels. But when we look at what’s within our power, stopping oil from being pumped out of the earth is barely. But neglecting tending to your garden in a way that is conducive to a greener future doesn’t help at all. It’s one step we CAN take and one we should take, imo.
There’s good reasons why all commercial composting operations use hot composting. Because it’s better. Not just for the wallet, but for the environment, for the future, and for the soil itself.
But this is getting beyond the scope of the actual discussion at hand, I’m gonna leave it at that.
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There’s something called mapito, I think which is foam and plastic you might want to look into.
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It’s much easier to start seeds with a rockwool cube or peat plug. I use rockwool cubes.
That being said, I have started seeds in fine perlite you just have to make sure it stays wet enough. Top layer of perlite tends to sit much drier than coco, which tends to hold much more water in general.
You can mix coco and perlite at any rate. 50/50 is a good starting point.
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