A qualified yes and yes.
Best bet is to have a worm farm and yes, they are well in smart pots (just a few)
Cheers
G
Ya you should reamend your soils plants take nutrients out and they need replaced ,EWC can take you a long way combined with a nice dry amendment and your good ! Compost is always a winner homemade done correctly!
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MENDO states āroots have nutesā leave them be they breakdown and replenish the soil ( no-no-till)
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How long does it take for the roots to break down?
Cheers
G
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Not long imo the ones in my outdoor boxes are gone worms probably had a smorgasbord with them late fall or early spring! Lol what I have left is a small Ball the size of my first ! Lol
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Most of my soil is in use, but I have to transplant 30+ plants in the near futureā¦I have unused soil premixed in a garbage can in the garageā¦super scared to use it because of potential bugs. How would I go about ācleaningā it so I can rest easy when I use it indoors?
Heard people say bake or microwave itā¦do I need to moisten it first?..and what temp would I set my oven?
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Can you spread it out on a tarp in the sun to ābakeā?
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Where is the worry coming from w bugs and what kind of bugs? Just bc its been sitting around awhile doesnt mean its automatically gonna have bugs. Or do you know there are certain bugs that you had when you used that soil last?
When i was in college and worked in the schoolās greenhouse, weād pasturize large amounts of pro mix w steam. Wasnāt āsterileā but was mostly done for pathogens rather than bugs Iād assume.
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Not really. Backyard is pretty well shaded and not too hot out these days. ā¦fall is kind of our rainy season.
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Iām just scared of mites or aphids or othersā¦but now that you say it, the garage heats up to +50 in the middle of summer, so could be bug free. It scares me because we have creeping ivyās that hang/climbs the fence all around the houseā¦it gets crazy mite infestations and savage powdery mildew every yearā¦but it grows so fast neither can keep up.
I would be so incredibly angry with myself if I brought something into the grow room.
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Gotcha, definitely understand the concern. Iād do some research- do mites or aphids lay eggs or live in the soil? or somehow persist dormant there where theyād become active once you add water/plants back into the equation? Also, has the lid been on your garbage can? And when doing research, see if theres info on how long aphid and mite eggs remain viable. If they only persist for 90 days or whatever for example, maybe theres a length of time, once covered, that youād be in the clear. Thats how Iād think about it.
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Effin, ehā¦good answers! Will follow up with my findingsā¦
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āSpider mites generally donāt live in potting soilā¦ā
Source: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tiny-white-spiders-potting-soil-48782.html
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āOne female can lay up to 20 eggs per day and can live for 2 to 4 weeks, laying hundreds of eggs.ā
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_mite
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Not totally relevant, but it isā¦
Source: https://www.michiganmedicalmarijuana.org/topic/41898-do-spider-mites-need-plant-mater-to-live/
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This next one makes me think the +50c. in the garage doesnāt really matterā¦
āThey are most active between 48 Ā°F and 111 Ā°F; however, they prefer temperatures between 55 Ā°F and 98 Ā°F.ā
Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/biological-control-of-two-spotted-spider-mites-on-homegrown-strawberries/%23:~:text%3DEffects%20of%20Temperature%20on%20Spider%20Mites%26text%3DThey%20are%20most%20active%20between,F%20and%2098%20%C2%B0F.&ved=2ahUKEwiS5Ku874LsAhXhTN8KHdRpDuYQFjABegQIEBAG&usg=AOvVaw2MB3j1-0IgudbprXdOB2z5
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āA female can live for 25 days, during which time she can produce up to 80 new aphids. Spring and summer reproduction occurs asexually ā without males. In these cases, the resulting aphids are basically clones of the mother. In addition, the young are born live rather than as eggs.ā
Source: https://www.canna.ca/aphids_in_detail
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āRemember, weather can be on your side when dealing with aphids. Heat and high humidity can really knock them back as they are fairly fragile and die off in droves when temperatures are over 90Ā°F.ā
Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://underwoodgardens.com/controlling-aphids-naturally/&ved=2ahUKEwiK-4jg8ILsAhXlY98KHSLXCKYQFjAHegQIDBAf&usg=AOvVaw1RDiyac4w0uPQNRJJs6rZV
And another quick questionā¦my vegetable garden outside is probably almost depleted of nutesā¦we tave tons of canadian geese outside my workā¦should I grab a bunch, bust it up and work it into my veggie garden soil?
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Idk specifically about goose poop but id imagine if it weathers or composts either by itself or mixed in with the soil before planting you should be ok.
Main concern maybe just that they eat mainly lawns fertilized w chemical ferts, so maybe an issue w accumulated heavy metals or something but thatās likely a stretchā¦
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So my worm bin was a flopā¦weāre about to hit full blown winter here, so gardening centers are finished until April/may 2021. EWC are great, but not accessible at this time. I have used that Alaskan fish fert many, many moons agoā¦would it help the soil like EWC?
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To a point, it will not have the micro botanicals (all the nice bits the worms add from their gut flora) that EWC provides, soā¦ for sake of argumentā¦ 60%?
Cheers
G
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