Organic fertiliser for Guerilla growing

[micmac]

That's what I did

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

[itchybromusic]

mic, wouldn't you want a carbon based mulch like leaf litter and/or straw for fungal developement? As I have stated, I am new to the organics world and basing that on a post that itchy recommended straw for fungal growth. But that statement if I remember correctly was based on a plant in a pot and in our back yard.

hey monk 

we all don't think or do the same , if it works for you & your happy , do you need to do any diff than what you do already 

ignorance is bliss , now i'm not having a go at micmac or anyone else for using lucerne mulch i use it too , but if that's 

what you know then that's what you know , hard to comment on what you've never tried , again this is not picking on peoples 

methods , mulching almost anything is going to be better than not mulching at all 

 

lucerne/alfalfa in fact adds a naturally occurring plant growth regulator call triacontanol

it's in it's highest concentrations at seed sprout , so by making a seed sprout tea from alfalfa or as we & the UK

call it lucerne , you can feed this pgr to your plant , however because of higher concentrations too much ss tea will fuck your plant up 

 

just a little more info , straw vs hay rule of thumb , straw is not used as feed for animals but used as bedding , this is because 

barley was grown to seed harvest , meaning the plant drags up all the nutrients it needs & stores it in it's leaves ect , as the barley 

producers it's seed it uses all the stored nutrients to do so leaving nothing left in the plant mater left behind , straw 

hay like lucerne is used to feed animals & not used as bedding , it does the same as barley , it grows & stores nutrients just like

barley except in most cases the lucerne is harvested B4 the seed is produced , stopping the plant from using up all the nutrients 

it stored , trapping it within the plant & making it a feed for animals when harvested

 

depending on where the lucerne came from , was it grown for feed or seed , if feed it'll have a higher nutrient content if grown for 

seed it'll have a lower nutrient content & be higher in lignin , the nutrients in lucerne will feed both bacteria & fungi but mostly bacteria 

while the lignin in barley will feed mostly fungi , it's possible that some of the lucerne mulch available is a mix of both hay & straw = part

of a crop harvested as feed & another part as seed , some if not most mulches are a by product of doing something else like barley straw

which is always grown for seed production leaving allot of plant matter most farmers don't want so it gets sold as bedding 

 

the other part to mulching is also wrapped up in composting , carbon to nitrogen ratio , straw is your carbon , lucerne would be your nitrogen 

the ratio is 30:1 , 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen , which is another reason i suggest straw , the lignin feeds fungi & is the larger requirement

in composting 

 

the good thing is top dressing or mulching is allot more forgiving than bottle feeding nutrients , like i said b4 almost mulching anything is better than no

mulch at all but to much of the one thing isn't necessarily a good thing , just like us , we wouldn't want to eat the same thing constantly , so a divers set

of food sources would be much more beneficial to the soil & it's community & there for the plant 

 

again please don't take this as criticism of anybodies method , they are only talking from what they know as am i 

it doesn't mean anybody is wrong , we're all just doing what we know in our own world   

Edited September 30, 2019 by itchybromusic

[micmac]

As itchy said ,what works for you

I tried to use as much of the available natural resources as possible

I also had the advantage of using the same out door plots for more than 20 yrs

Making compost heaps around the plots using whatever leaf etc matter

All I really had to do was top dress with castings each season

1 of the reasons I liked hay was that it stayed put ,and a little went a long way

Was easy to just cover with leaf compost to hide from air

I think I out up some pics of my old plots some time ago

If you can find them you'll see that the land had been cleared with chainsaws for 30 m square plots

Originally like you they were dug out and filled with a good organic soil

Over time it was easier to carry in gypsum etc to treat soil ,gradually the whole area could be used

I was young and fit,it was only time really digging amending

I never read books,trial and lots of error in the beginning,

The problem was that I was adding to much, fertiliser etc that's when I learnt less is more

A top dress and mulch over winter and they were ready to go 1 way I sort of gauged it was by the number of worms left the following season when I returned

Sorry I'm not like itchy,I don't know all the terms or the mechanics of it and can't explain how it works I just know from 40 odd yrs that it works for me

My veggies certainly don't complain

Rule of thumb

No worms ,no good

 

 

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

[TheDreamer101]

Cheers I’ll be sure to buy worm castings was looking at chicken manure as well but struggle to find a precise method of using it like you see on bottle nutrients and worried about under/over feeding

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using OZ Stoners

[Carbcon]

Back in the day in Europe. The price of land was set by the amount of worms per square metre.

[itchybromusic]

Cheers I’ll be sure to buy worm castings was looking at chicken manure as well but struggle to find a precise method of using it like you see on bottle nutrients and worried about under/over feeding

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using OZ Stoners

worm castings are great especially if you make them yourself  , well , via your own worm farm

that way you control what's being fed to the worms , quality feed in = quality castings out , but generally

whatever worms eat comes out better than when it went in & also in a plant available form

not just the nutrients they add either  , it's the beneficial organisms that inoculate the soil 

 

not a fan of using poo's myself & think they get over used too often , imo much better to use green manure cover crops

cos once chopped they add nutrients above the ground as mulch & below the ground with decaying roots , a large selection of plants inoculate 

the soil with things like nitrogen fixing bacteria (legumes) but not just that every plant will attract a preferred set of organisms , so they will be in place when you 

plant a canna plant , not that poo doesn't attract organisms cos it does , but all the different poo's added together couldn't add the soil life a bunch of plants can

the poo organisms will be mostly composter's , some of those being worms btw , the same applies though , put only poo in a raised bed & put a 

green manure in another raised bed , i bet there be more worms find there way to the green manure bed than the poo bed 

[pedro de pacas]

If ya going to gorilla grow, ya need to get it all sorted in Autumn, let it settle for a few months

 

use whatever you like, the more organic matter the better, poo, dead shit, green leafy stuff, weeds, whatever is laying around the bush, more poo ? 

just make sure its a good even mix of stuff and anything will grow, need water tho 

 

I'm big fan of hay meself, not lucerne tho

 

 

 

Ruth Stout 

[MongyMan]

Need to be careful what you use as mulch though as a lot of things will use up all the available nitrogen in the soil as they decompose, fresh lawn clippings is a prime example. Lucerne hay is very high in nitrogen and great to mix in with other mulch to avoid any nitrogen deficiency happening down the track.

[itchybromusic]

Need to be careful what you use as mulch though as a lot of things will use up all the available nitrogen in the soil as they decompose, fresh lawn clippings is a prime example. Lucerne hay is very high in nitrogen and great to mix in with other mulch to avoid any nitrogen deficiency happening down the track.

yeah , i think what your talking bout mongy is Nitrogen Drawdown 

 

it's an issue using more woody materials but i think it's more prevalent 

when that woody material is mixed into the soil not just top dressing 

although i think i read somewhere N drawdown effects around the top

5mm of surface soil when a woody material is used as a mulch

 

what you mention mongy is talked about here , if you look at gardening australia

from 2009 they mention mulching with woodchips will cause N drawdown & what to do to combat it

https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/combating-nitrogen-drawdown/9429488

 

if you use a living mulch / green manure crop you'll be fixing nitrogen

in the soil via nitrogen fixing bacteria & not loosing it to the energy required 

to breakdown wood 

 

if not using a living mulch then use a divers set of materials to top dress not just one thing like wood / sawdust ect   

[itchybromusic]

Back in the day in Europe. The price of land was set by the amount of worms per square metre.

that be a good idea 

pricing land based on how fertile it is 

 

these days some of the land used for farming you'd be lucky to find a worm i reckon