Don't Panic, it's Organic!

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

It was time to get better soil for my ladies, gathered a few ingredients, made a 180L batch that's "cooking" for my next batch. Thinking of going no till as I am basically creating a living garden bed here and I don't like worms in small pots. they need space. I don't really wana take from these pots after this, but I'll have to empty them out into smaller pots for my indoor grows and I don't wana disturb what I have created now.

got a bunch of red wrigglers, started a worm tower to collect some castings for teas and top dressing in future. added 150g of worms to the tower and devided another 150g up between a 100L pot and a 80L pot. 

roughly went for a ratio of 30% spent soil (ff premium classic) 30% medical grade peat moss and 30% leca hydrorocks. the last 10% as amendments. garden math, I love it.

the peat - also using this 50/50 with perlite for clones, works nice.

Here is a photo of the soil underneath the layer of mulch - I used hay as I have a ton for the mushroom stuff, but it's only for the time being. I have 12 different cover crop sown, will discuss that, but I'll thin out the mulch after a couple days for cover crop to come through. in future I'll be using alfalfa as mulch. I moved the hay a little for the pgohoto and the very first spot I open you can see a worm bro working the soil.

added a bag of elemental blend to each pot along with kelp flakes, insect frass and diatomaceous earth. the first batch of SST and LABS I made was way too much, whole garden got treated as I didn't wana keep the stuff so both these pots got soaked with it. The way I made the treatment was 18L tap water, aerated for 12hrs to get rid of the chlorine just so it doesn't hurt the microbes (I know cannabis plants need minute amount if chlorine, but just cause I am adding microbes to this batch, I want the worst of it out), I added about 5grams of biocult - which is almost overkill, it's surely more than enough - I add about 1L of the SST juice and 300ml LABS. as soon as I add the stuff to the aerating water it foams up over the top of the bucket. just walked around the garden soaking everything with it. made about 6 batches of it, which came out to be about 120L  

already busy with the next batch. who's making these? 

SST day 1 - soak. I use dechlorinated water all the way when working with microbes, and I know I am after enzymes here, but just keep reading.... I used red speckled beans, corn, pearl barley and malted barley

Day 2 - pour off water, let it stand in the jars. (I start the barley a day later, because they usually sprout quicker)

Day 3 - Sprouts on the beans and corn, barley will have sprouts by tomorrow then they get blended up with 50/50 sprouts/dechlorinated tap water. - don't want sprouts to get too long, I am after the enzymes which are at their most prolific right when the seed pops and first sign of root shows. 

will update process

LABS - I don't know if my first batch came out right, but since it's cheap as shit I'm gona keep trying so I can better understand it all. If anyone knows how to make the mozarella from the curd, let's talk?

I had tastic, so I used tastic, rice wash for 15min with dechlorinated tap water.

Pour the water off, feed the rice to the worms. Let the rice wash water stand untill it smells sweet... this is where I am at right now. will update process

12 cover crops, come to think of it, it's 14 now. as we all know when it comes to cover crops, diversity is key. here is my list (everything the grow shop had) Sweet Basil, Chamomile, Coriander, Dill, Sunflower, Marigold, White Clover, Red Clover, Nasturtium, Chrysanthemum, Borage, Lucerne then I also added a little bit of Barley and some Sorghum I had laying around. 

Worm tower - bedding - spent soil + hay. top bin got grass clippings, green grass and wild foliage from our local area. topped with dried bush twigs and leaves and more hay. the dried leaves have quite a bit of IMO on it, other than that, kitchen scraps, dried garden clippings, green garden clippings. 

I also feed mycelium grain cultures than I don't used and I have dumped a few liquid cultures in there aswell that I was unsure of  

mycelium landscape

liquid cultures

mycelium clouds

mycelium metabolics

here is an interesting one, I was told that there is some contamination present and the mycelium is trying to get away from it by reproducing. so what I have here is a tiny mushroom fruiting inside of a agar "petri dish", and yes, that's a cubensis hahah. last photo shows outer edge of the mycelial growth on the agar turning blue, not trichoderma, that is blue from bruising. mycelium from most psilocybin species, just like the mushroom fruit body itself, turn blue when stressed or bruised. so I think maybe some kinda environmental issue as I obviously haven't touched these. a day or two after I saw the tiny mushroom cobweb mold took over and now it's fucked. I am about to toss it into the worm bin, hope the worms enjoy it

anyway, I probably left out a lot, but already feel like I am saying too much I am new to all this so if there's any do's or don'ts you guys know of, any secrets, I would love to hear some!  

have a lekker slow and steady sunday all!

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

SST - everything sprouted, straight into the blender

strain out the juice from the pulp

the red speckled beans made a cream

collect the pulp, super food for th worms

add about 500ml to about 10L of tap water that's been aerated to get the chlorine out, because with the SST I also add about 2 to 3g of BioCult.

5minutes after adding this to the bubbling water

I'll be using most of this tonight when I get home, won't let this brew for more than 24hrs and by then I'll want to have used it all. never let it sit without aeration. I'll start by using it for what it was made for, inoculating the "cooking" soil or basically just keeping it alive. then 300 to 500ml to each of my bigger plants depending on how wet the soil already is. If the plant needs nutes I'll add half to a third dose to this. I'll add another 10L of rain water if I have, which I don't right now, so I'll use 3phase filter water to fill the brew back up, give it a few good stirs so the brew is even more diluted then I just go crazy with it all over the rest of the garden.

LABS - rice wash water, day 3, started smelling sweet, looked like a very very thin layer of some sort of colony forming on top so I am assuming the thing started happening... if left too long here and it starts smelling sour, just pour it straight onto some garden soil and start over. get it while it's still sweet.

this is about 500ml, pour the RWW into a glass jar big enough to fill 6 to 10x the amount of the RWW, I just had a 3L jar laying around. to this you wana the least processed milk you can find, straight from the cow tit is the best you can use store bought milk, the higher the fat the better and the more "long life" it is the more it's been processed so a rule of thumb - the quicker it goes bad from fresh the healthier and more alive it is. so do with that informarion what you will.... best I could get on a Sunday afternoon was high fat fresh milk from the shop. added 2L of the milk to the 500ml of RWW. keep at room temperature in a dark dry place with good ventilation.

Day 1 - 

[SkunkPharm]

Looks like hard work this. I just buy malted barley from the beer shop. Grind it up into basically flower, put it in a teabag and brew it for an hour. Sometimes I add some molasses and feed to my plants. Sprouting my own seed is time consuming thus the malted barley.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

it's not that much work hahah I am planning to do way more! I want to introduce as wide a variety of different kinds of enzymes, bacteria and fungi as I can without doing something crazy. starting with the more simple stuff.

I will be using the malted barley in my teas aswell, never grinded them up though. gona do that next time! 

[ORGANinc.]

Either way, all this hard work is going to pay off nicely. @Naughty.Psychonaut Just be careful with all that SST. Its usually an over supply of many nutrients and enzymes in a system. 

I made a number of SST and every fresh application burnt the tips and they were small applications. Then I made a variety of Seed spouts and then I dried them to use as a top dress slow release source of enzyme, soil food nutrients. however, I think the variety was not the most effective. I started noticing some Gnats and other undesirable. I may have used too much. Especially when I worked it into the soil. Ended up discarding much of it in the compost pile. 

One of my first grow with totes bubble berry glue. I exclusively used malted barley teas. and I would put like a tsp of alfa alfa and kelp meal. Before the tea days when completely haywire. And honestly, those plants were thanking me in a big way come to think about it, all the spent malted barley also went into the top layer of the soil. That didn't turn out terribly. However, if there is too much of anything in a system, the balance of the good and bad bacteria/fungi might go out of wack. 

I think one of the biggest realizations in organic growing for me ever was that growing in 20l /40l or even 100l pots, planters or beds, is that all of the listed have the highest chance of running out of over all nutrients depending on the size of the plant. So in the right ratio, there's a massive need to put back what has been taken out. To think your soil in a 20l or 40l pot still has some gas and the plant is almost the same size of the pot about to get bigger, is just plain ignorant, which I was. 

These are all finite metrics, why wouldn't it apply to the nutrients available. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Thanks man, I definitly needed to hear that hahah this stuff is so cheap and easy I can really see myself getting carried away with it  I have heard quite a bunch of people say I can over do it with the SST and just to be carefull with any of the teas and ferments.

I made this batch to inoculate the cooking soil, but I know it's gona be way too much, so I'll be giving some to the whole garden. this will be the second time I ever made SST, with the first time being 2 weeks ago. I'll let a couple months go by before making it again and hope to gain more knowledge on it in this time. I put the pulp in my worm tower, so they can turn it into casting before I am gona use it. after this I'll be collecting IMO and leaf mold to make some FPJ from the new growth on the local flora. it's spring so loads of auxin hormones around. wana make some FFJ for my ladies going into flower. 

going down the korean natural farming rabbit hole, but some of those things can be quite complicated and if not done right can cause more harm than good, but getting to know it and understanding it better will bring a more sustainable way of gardening. so I feel it's quite a good rabbit hole to go down. 

I heard I guy say enzymes are like millions of different kinds of keys to millions of different kinds of locks and the locks are the trace minerals and micronutrients. it's always easy to guess the macro nutrients and say "I need N or P or K" but how do you know when and what of any of the other elements it is, or could be? So when adding enzymes, it's pointless to add a whole bunch of one specific kind of enzyme that only does one thing, you need to add the whole group of enzymes, the more diverse the better. which makes the most sense to me. Instead of adding a lot of one thing, rather add smaller amounts of a wider variety of things. This is what I'll be going for. 

[ORGANinc.]

1 hour ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Thanks man, I definitly needed to hear that hahah this stuff is so cheap and easy I can really see myself getting carried away with it  I have heard quite a bunch of people say I can over do it with the SST and just to be carefull with any of the teas and ferments.

I made this batch to inoculate the cooking soil, but I know it's gona be way too much, so I'll be giving some to the whole garden. this will be the second time I ever made SST, with the first time being 2 weeks ago. I'll let a couple months go by before making it again and hope to gain more knowledge on it in this time. I put the pulp in my worm tower, so they can turn it into casting before I am gona use it. after this I'll be collecting IMO and leaf mold to make some FPJ from the new growth on the local flora. it's spring so loads of auxin hormones around. wana make some FFJ for my ladies going into flower. 

going down the korean natural farming rabbit hole, but some of those things can be quite complicated and if not done right can cause more harm than good, but getting to know it and understanding it better will bring a more sustainable way of gardening. so I feel it's quite a good rabbit hole to go down. 

I heard I guy say enzymes are like millions of different kinds of keys to millions of different kinds of locks and the locks are the trace minerals and micronutrients. it's always easy to guess the macro nutrients and say "I need N or P or K" but how do you know when and what of any of the other elements it is, or could be? So when adding enzymes, it's pointless to add a whole bunch of one specific kind of enzyme that only does one thing, you need to add the whole group of enzymes, the more diverse the better. which makes the most sense to me. Instead of adding a lot of one thing, rather add smaller amounts of a wider variety of things. This is what I'll be going for. 

I’m very much enjoying this full on approach. Love it bro. Look forward to seeing these plants rocket.

the enzyme can be seen like that, you could also see them as organisms or bodies that carry out the life functions or processes, so they are another piece of the puzzles. they start the movement of simple compounds into more complex ones like amino and then into proteins, very important stuff. However most of this sst are energy free types of nutrient replacements so they are full amino and protein compound already, getting that dosage right is honestly the key. But I’m still yet to get that right lol
 

The amount that comes from the initial process of seed starting is immense as you can imagine. So basically what you have are different types of more complete nitrogen compounds in action. This is the inception of life. Very many complex process taking place, so many locks become open etc. and micro nutrients just make those processes that much more efficient if they are there. 
 

Ya KNF is cool but like you said, it can go south easily. But you’ll learn how to use your nose. And if it’s even slightly offish. Chuck it. 
 

Just for me begs the question of anaerobic decomposition, I don’t know if it’s a long term solution, because of the type of microbial colonies that develope , but still don’t know enough to comment properly.  

[Bos]

Organic amendments or inputs are the way to go imo. SST's and FPJ's are awesome diy/grower additions for any plants, but balance and a light hand is key.

My comfrey based FPJ's usually tend to be on the acidic side and will cause problems if applied undiluted. I prefer not to adjust the ph and just dilute it.

My first SST's(corn,red adzuki beans) did cause problems. Initially the plants responded well, but the eff up came later. (Had to cull and burn)

I suspect that the amount of available starches caused an imbalance in the soil microbiology and instead of doing good, stimulated a pathogenic Fusarium fungus outbreak due to it being prevalent in our area.

The rootzone microbiology is complex, consisting of numerous organisms, some are beneficial to plants, others not so much. They keep themselves in equilibrium, but an excessive "outside" input can tip the scales in the wrong direction.

Still using SST's, but much more diluted than before. Less is more.

[ORGANinc.]

8 hours ago, Bos said:

Organic amendments or inputs are the way to go imo. SST's and FPJ's are awesome diy/grower additions for any plants, but balance and a light hand is key.

My comfrey based FPJ's usually tend to be on the acidic side and will cause problems if applied undiluted. I prefer not to adjust the ph and just dilute it.

My first SST's(corn,red adzuki beans) did cause problems. Initially the plants responded well, but the eff up came later. (Had to cull and burn)

I suspect that the amount of available starches caused an imbalance in the soil microbiology and instead of doing good, stimulated a pathogenic Fusarium fungus outbreak due to it being prevalent in our area.

The rootzone microbiology is complex, consisting of numerous organisms, some are beneficial to plants, others not so much. They keep themselves in equilibrium, but an excessive "outside" input can tip the scales in the wrong direction.

Still using SST's, but much more diluted than before. Less is more.

Thanks for this @Bos Sounds very much like my suspicions. Obviously too much of anything is bad. I had similar outcome with red adzuki, mung and barley, but like you say, just a bit too much. 

I wanted to find out, did you inspect the roots and find an unhappy scenario there that looked to be Fusarium? 

At the end of the day, the most important carbohydrate going into the soil should be the root exudates. They are the most effective at releasing whatever the plant needs, via the microbiology, not only that, but it is also important for keeping microbiological colonies in check.  

and you only get that when plants are photosynthesizing at their peak.

[Bos]

I suspect my encounter was with F. Oxysporum judging by the symptoms, but I can't be 100% sure as there are more than 100 variations of this SOB, but its THE most widely spread. 

The first visible signs are typically "Fusarium wilt" where you notice one branch or node or bud suddenly wilting (too late allready) but the rest of the plant looks fine, then another branch and another untill eventually the whole plant wilts and dies. In some cases you may also notice a dried out or discoloured patch on the cannabis stem/cambium/bark that looks strange....it eventually spreads. This soilbourne fungal pathogen usually enters through the roots, moves through the plant cells into the xylem where it sporulates and blocks fluid and nutrient flow, hence the wilt. It eventually spreads to the whole plant hence burning required.

On my plants I did notice a red or pinkish discolourization on the roots and stems below soil level which is apparently a telltale sign. I did find this on some, but not all my plants. The cambium/bark at soil level also seperates from the stem and starts rotting.

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

the trick with micro organisms in most cases is that they're most effective when there are colonies "fighting" it out between eachother. instead of having a dominant bacteria or enzyme.

you don't want anything to dominate. that's where things go wrong. 

when researching microbes in a lab you don't just grow the microbes, you give them challenges almost like "torture test" them by having them grow amongst other microbes and see what it does. everytime the micro organism interacts with another one that's new information to be studied. 100% of the time when a dominant culture comes in contact with another culture it starts to produce some sort of metabolites. as humans we owe a ton of research to this, but what we know so far is that if left alone to dominate the culture will geographically define itself by consuming everything in its path untill it has to fruit or create a reproductive body. this is a problem. but if presented with challenges or other micro organisms it creates secondary metabolites in forms of exudates - not a challenge as in let it dry out and see if it lives, I mean challenges in forms of other micro organisms.

the exudates from competing colonies of organisms, be it bacteria, fungi or even pathogens is what builds a healthy immune system in the soil. same way a vaccine works. this might seem counterintuitive, but the concept of "good" and "bad" exists as one in nature. we just kind a labled things how we see them to make it easier for us to understand certain other aspects of our own lives, but ask yourself, how is it possible to have 100% healthy mycelium in nature thriving where Trichoderma is ever present? It's because of balanced diversity. there are wars going on under the soil between the micro organisms competing for dominance and the dead soldiers are the exudates. they're also the reason for the health in the soil. there can be no life without death.

the concept of micro organism in soil, in many ways, act a lot like food in a humans gut. in the sense that if you eat a bunch of the same thing over a long period of time, even if it's healthy and good for you, rather than it helping you it will begin to become a problem for you. your immune system goes to shit if you don't keep the stuff in your gut diverse. you don't need to really understand the science behind it to understand that part. in the same sense that soil does not benefit from having a butt load of the same stuff or any of the beneficial stuff just because it's beneficial... you kinda have to get the balance right and understand the way these colonies function and what they're actually doing. they don't know what you expect of them, so you kinda have to know the only thing they trying to do is thrive. and even if it's a beneficial fungi/bacteria you don't want it to thrive, so you have to keep adding other bacteria and enzymes that all wana thrive aswell and give the "dominant" culture a run for it's money. they "fight it out" by trying to cover as much area space possible and where they cross paths or come to a stand off they battle it out and this creates the secondary metabolites, exudates and all the trace minerals. 

people tend to think all micro organisms act like fungal networks, where with fungal networks you want a dominant culture. but with enzymes and bacteria you want diverse cultures.

and then the most important part will be moderation. seeing as this is my second SST I ever made I will hold off on the SST for about 6 months and when I do it again I'll be sure to use all different seeds than I used this time. that's the key. In the meantime I'll be doing different ferments and going for different things each time. not gona keep making the same FPJ or FFJ's have to use different stuff each time and as it's much higher in minerals I'll be using it intermittently at rates of 1 to 5ml / L of water.

I am still new to all this so I hope I won't be eating my words any time soon though I got a better understanding of mycology than soil science, I am trying to tie two ends together which can cause more confusion cause not everything translates directly, but the two things can also be looked at as one whole and it's not like I am trying to do something new here. this way of gardening has been on going for the longest time. thousands of years. we're more advanced now in 2022, I hope to understand it all one day, but the learning never stops. never wana reach a point where I try to claim I know it all because that's when we stop learning anything new. 

[ORGANinc.]

Yes I agree with you that it will be beneficial in creating diversity and competition, but those sometimes and people have observed many instances of microbial collapse and that’s what I’m basically talking about, that stagnant  time nothing happens in terms of plant growth because either the system is dead, or over loaded or both. 
 

also those times are usually when pathogens get the chance to take hold, you can have a massive diversity, many organism serving many purposes, but not all like the ones feeding your plants, some want to kill your plant

but those are perfect dosages you got planned, and I really don’t think anything bad can happen that way.

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

seperation happening, curd forming  

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Day 3. a whole lot of activity. there was a bit of a spilt milk smell yesterday, nothing terrible, but what you would imagine it smells like where they milk the cows. a fresh dairy almost able to smell the bacteria in the air -kinda odour, but today it smells kinda nice.  

 

[Ill_Evan]

Ew!

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Day 4 almost done 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Well, stick a fork in her, she's done

By the looks in the photo you can't really see the difference from day 4 to 5. Usually the seperation leaves less curd in the bottom of the jar and it all comes together at the top. I used high fat milk so I am sure that's the reason for the extra high amount of curd forming. The white on the bottom of the jar is just a film on the sides, the whole bottom half of the jar is LABserum. ready to use. popped her in the fridge this morning, will seperate it tonight and add about 300ml of the LABS to 10L AACT for aplication tomorrow. 

For the indoor ladies no nutrients so I have tap water bubbling to get the chlorine out so I can add BioCult with LABserum in it just for inoculation. no feed. 

The big 100L pots outside, soil is ALIVE  

not gona disturb the worms for a photo had the bin open for the fisrt time over this weekend after starting it about 3 weeks ago, everythings pumping 100% in the worm bin  

if no one knows how to make mozzarella from curd I'll be giving the curd to the worms aswell, for this round only. I love mozzarella and I am not passing up the opportunity again I'll get it right.