You could put it in the basement with a big box over the top of it and the wife would never know! Lol … Iv seen pics in books that people have incorporated bins as in- living room coffee tables
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So when you say charge the charcoal, do you mean crush it up and mix it with fish emulsion before adding it to the soil and letting it sit for 4mo. in order for the beneficials to start inhabiting it?
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Yes, plus 20 …
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I put a five gallon fabric pot into a five gallon bucket. Soaked it in fish emulsion for a week then pulled the fabric pot and added it to the mix.
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Alrighty, got everything in a pinch (besides the paramagnetic rock, basalt, and glacial rock dust)! I grabbed a bag of “100% organic wood charcoal”, crushed the hell out of it with a metal bag, felt like I was going all office space on its ass… Threw the charcoal in a 2 gal bucket with 45mL of Fish&Kelp Emulsion diluted in 500mL of DI along with some great white, root magic, pond zyme, and a few other beneficial microbial’s to speed up inhabiting the charcoal. Game plan is to stir the hell out of it, then dump it all into my soil mix and let her sit for a good 3+ mo.! My plan is this, when I am back and ready to use it, I was going to “re-mix” the soil again with the intent to add my lava rock, pumice stone, and left over hydroton I have laying around as well as the mineral amendments then plant and go! Thankfully a friend of mine is letting me barrow her cement mixer so im not having to mix the 8.5 cu. ft of horse manure I got by hand. Im not sure how accurate it is, but I was reading that horse manure is pretty good compost when it dries as it has a NPK of 0.5 / 0.3 / 0.4 which is a pretty solid foundation of soil I think (a little high on N for my hydro preference, but I dont know shit about soil so hey!). Should I add any other beneficial organisms to the mix to help with breakdown, like nematodes or something? And can I also add trimmings / used buds (like from bubble runs) to my compost or should I wait and let it set up first? Thank you to everyone who is helping out with the project, as soon as I get a break in the weather I am going to take some pics and post up the progress so in 3 months I can have a before and after to see how the composting has worked!
- BD
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Well whats a good thread with out some pictures?!
This is the start of the base, its 100% composted horse shit (smells really earthy and nice surprisingly). It looks moist cause I added some water being that it was pretty dry…
Next I added some Sphagnum Peat Moss (~4 cu. ft or a 1:2 ratio to my horse shit) and 2 full bags of Ancient Forest (~ 1 cu. ft.) I had laying around. I figure the Humus soil will have some additional goodies in it that the compost (aka horse shit) didnt. After mixing for a bit I found that I had 2 bags of “top soil”, which was just some sandy loam, redwood and mushroom composts, (~ 2 cu. ft.) to the mix because it didnt “feel right”. Keep in mind, this is coming from the dude who hasnt grown in soil in YEARS let alone has an inkling of what theyre doing. But, it looks better and has a lot better feel to it now.
Heres an action shot of it mixing!
And heres what it looks like half mixed.
Game plan is keep mixing it to attempt to homogenize it, then tomorrow add all of the amendments (besides the malted barley powder cause I cant find it locally). After all that is added, I have 300 worms to add per bin then I am going to let them sit for a good 3+ mo and just let em cook and let the worms do their thing… Ill have some more pictures tomorrow!
- BD
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Yes builds to toxic levels in recycled soil. What the plant does with this extra I don’t know, but marijuana is efficient at cleansing soil. Wouldnt want to smoke it or risk smoking it.
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I mix by feel and fertilize by smell lol. You just know when it’s right!
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Make sure it’s organic malted barley, otherwise it may have a herbicide, fungicide or pesticide on it.
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If you go to a brew shop they should always carry organic malted barley. In this day you should have a micro homebrew store near by. If look online for Rice Hulls you can have them delivered direct to your local brew store for free.
Those should be all over the west coast…no?
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I struggled in NS to get organic, I ran out for about 6 months, then found some that had past their sell bye date, as no one wants to spend an extra 30 cents a pound, so got 40 lbs for 25$ the guy said he would not be getting organic again. It should last me about 3 years lol so I have plenty of time to find another supplier.
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Thats literally where I am headed. I found one that has over 50 types of malted barley and will mill it as well; plus they have rice hulls for .50 cents a lb…
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That’s good, the milling is basically quartering the grains, you will still need to put them through a blender to get powder. Get ready to upset the misses with malted barley powder everywhere lol.
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HA! Just means she gets to go out and spend more money on a new blender; shes a good sport about it though 
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Get a coffee grinder at a thrift store. Almost every thrift store has one. Always grind your own. It loses some “zing” if you grind it an let it sit around. I top dressed MBP today.
Get a 50 lb bag of rice hulls. It comes in handy.
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I read somewhere that I can throw some rice husks into the the compost and the worms will break it down leaving good amount of available silica in the soil; is that true?
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Crushing lump charcoal is just plain nasty, haven’t found a good way yet.
Which does NOT apply to briquettes.
Talk about needing N95 masks!
Briquettes are already crushed, all you have to do is soak them, rainwater, compost tea, liquid fish or a combo of all or some.
Most companies use corn starch as a binder, they’ll just fall apart.
The Cowboy brand used to sell wood only charcoal briq’s, most other brands put coal in theirs.
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The cowboy bag I got was just hardwood. I put mine in a large fabric grow bag, tie up the end and beat it with a sledgehammer.
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I found some “Royal Oak”; it was just hardwood which was burned into coal. I literally beat the living hell out of the bag for a good 10 - 15min with a baseball bat. Currently, im soaking it in a fish emulsion / bennie tea. Its small and broken up, but not a powder. Im not too concerned as I figure the microbial life will continue to break it down over the next 4 months along with inhabit the pores of the wood.