Thrive

@PsyCLown these are great insights regarding wood vinegar. Perhaps we should put up a separate post on wood vinegar so as not to go too off-topic here... Meanwhile, it is very important that one: - only uses bamboo / reed or oak when making wood vinegar - distills the wood vinegar properly Raw wood vinegar will separate out into 3 layers. The bottom layer generally has most of the wood tar, which we use as a wood preservative and to seal wood. The Vikings sealed their boats with pine tar made in the same way. The top layer contains any terpenes which may be carried in the wood. This is why bamboo and/or oak are preferred. Pine contains pinene, which is not great for other plants, even though pinene is also a cannabis terpene. We only collect and sell the pure, distilled middle layer. We have had quite good success with using wood vinegar on a range of plants, including cannabis. However, I am grateful that someone as dedicated as @The_StonedTrooper is also testing it thoroughly now.

Personally, I'm always going to want to feed the soil, and not the plant, whether outdoors in the ground or potted indoors. Let the plant establish its own symbiotic relationship with the soil. Synthetic fertilisers have tended to focus on solving one particular aspect, so growers end up with insane cocktails of stuff, over correcting here and under nourishing there. It's kind of why no-one has yet produced one medicine to solve all human health problems. It's too profitable to push multiple different drugs onto us. In the same vein, I don't know of any good all round synthetic fertiliser that can do everything that awesome soil can. But of course we are biased, being soil producers ourselves. The ultimate test is to examine the tissue structure of the plant, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or the smoking. When it comes to food, we can easily taste the difference between naturally grown food in awesome soil, and food grown with chemicals. Good soil is so complex that no-one has yet to completely understand all its aspects. We are learning everyday. "We know more about the movement of celestial bodies, than about our soil underfoot" - Leonardo da Vinci

The reason our prices are good is because we keep our costs down and we believe in offering old-school value. No point ripping people off when you're trying to build a long-term business. Of course soil is not exactly the easiest thing to transport around the country. Ideally we would like to have agents around the country who can stock around R5 - R10k of product per delivery on consignment, and then make some extra cash marking it up for individual retail sales. But I don't want to hijack this thread further, so will place a classified advert for this.

As a late comer to this poll, am I allowed to suggest our own soil, Thrive Living Soil from www.thrivecentre.co.za ? We tend to find that a lot of soil producers try to throw the kitchen sink into a soil, without really understanding what elements do what. The whole "bullshit baffles brains" approach. So, for instance rock dust can stall your plants if you haven't also included indigenous microbes collected during the winter months. That is because indigenous soil microbes move deeper down in the soil layers during winter, in order to decompose the tougher mineral matter, versus more usual organic matter in summer months. Some of the key components to get right are obviously your base NPK ratio. We aim for around 6:3:2 with a strong and sustained Nitrogen boost for initial growth, and then a slower and more sustained release of Phosphorous and Potassium for fruiting and flowering. Getting the timing right is important and that's where the inoculated biochar comes into play. It's also important that the composting process introduces living, microbial matter into the soil food web, and that it finds a home in the biochar, establishing a symbiotic relationship with the plant roots. A good living soil should give you at least 2 full strong growths without refeeding with compost and/or organic fertilisers. Although you really want to be feeding and fertilising your soil, and not the plant i.e. the plant needs to talk to the soil for what it needs, and not let the human try and force feed the plant. We are exceptionally lucky in that our soils have excellent natural mycelium and perfect pH for cannabis, developed over thousands of years in Hogsback. That is something that no soil producer can ever reproduce on their own. We also produce most of our own amendments, such as our oak and bamboo biochar (Japanese style) which also gives us superb wood vinegar. This is not that well known in South Africa but wood vinegar is probably your number one all-round Natural insecticide and fungicide. As far as I know we are the only ones producing it in SA, as not that many have sustainable oak and bamboo resources. It is Nature's own plant immune booster, root growth stimulant and flavour enhancer. You can read more about it at www.woodvinegar.org

Small holding in Hogsback. Will message you John to find out where to send the wood vinegar.

500ml spray bottle of Wood Vinegar (Nature's own pesticide and fungicide) for first person to guess the village.....

Thanks all for the warm welcome. Good thing cause we expecting snow tonight.... In terms of fauna, we have rabbits, ducks, chickens, goats, and some wandering local cows and horses. Stated in order of ease of looking after them. Kept mainly for manure for our compost, but also for fun and sometimes to eat. Just in case you wondering, we don't kill the local cows and horses. We just send someone running after them picking up their poop. Here's an arbitrary manure fact.... Rabbit poop gives you the highest NPK of all the manures. Like goat manure, it is also a cold manure, meaning that you can add it straight to your garden, without burning your plants. Most pellet type manures are cold manures. Chickens, cow and horse tend to be hot manures, meaning they need to be composted first and not put straight onto your plants. And here's a carbon / green manure fact.... Try to avoid both pine and eucalyptus woodchip / sawdust in your compost or living soil. Pine has microscopic oil particles which can coat beneficial soil microbes and render them inactive. Eucalyptus is a nasty beast all around and puts out allelopathic chemicals into the soil, to suppress the growth of other plants.

Hi folks, We are based off-grid in the Eastern Cape, amongst the mycelium rich forests of the Amathole mist belt. We run a regenerative, organic, biodynamic, permaculture (yadda, yadda) centre, growing awesome food (although cannabis growers seem to love our living soils) and offering practical, customised lessons in self-sufficiency. Looking forward to interacting here. Soil is our passion, because without decent soils Homo Sapiens as a species are done for.