Hey all!. Been figuring out the nutrient approach i want to take. Want to run this by y'all to get your thoughts.
Many years ago My wife and i planted a garden in the back yard of our new house. I found some Fox Farm organic fertilizer and it worked GREAT! Some time later i went to re-up but they didn't have the same stuff. Mainly, the ingredients werent the same. I looked this up and found Fox Farms had been bought. Subsequently, their fert recipes changed. The big difference: in the older formulation the organic components were composted, then dried and packaged. In the new stuff, no composting was done. The result was that there would be a lag while the fert was broken down and there would actually be less nutrients available to the plants while that happened. The composted nutes had been available immediately.
The lag isnt too bad a thing if you are growing outdoors perennially or if you get a good jump on your annuals. Indoors in a compressed 3 month grow with a change in nute needs in the middle, this doesnt seem so true - especially if some of the nutes take weeks to compost.
I looked at the dry nutes I have for an indoor grow. Not composted or docomposed at all.
So my thought was "can i do some small composts with the specific nutrient focuses used in marvelous cannabis growing?" These might be nute-focused on Grow, Flower, Cal-Mag, and P-K. That would allow for following the typical feeding schedule with immediately available, organic ferts. So I looked online and, yes, people are doing small scale composting. The main things with small containers are to insulate it to make sure it gets warm enough and to make sure it gets air.
I have 2 questions that come to mind:
1) Is this really a feasible approach?
2) Would it be just as good to just compost it all in one batch and let the plant pull what it needs out of the soil?
Dave the Grower
So I decided to give this a try. Going to aim for a compost high-ish in P & K.
Ingredients: Seabird Guano (0-12-0), Banana peels, Kelp meal, fallen Leaves (for Carbon), a bit of mature compost, some worm castings, water, and oxygen.
The container:
A cooler will hold heat in so the compost will get warm enough to kill any undesirables.
Drainage holes drilled in bottom:
Covered the holes with some cloth. Lets any excess water drain while holding the organics in.
Loaded composter:
All ingredients mixed & moistened.
Final setup with tray to catch any drainage and a heat mat underneath to give it a warm start.
Dave the Grower
@davetg01 , my honest opinion Fox Farm ocean forest isn’t that great . if you look at it under a microscope you won’t see much happening. Check into KIS organics . You will be surprised at the difference. But thats just my opinion.
@philmebowls Yeah, I definitely amend it with lots of of good organics filled with microbes. Worm castings and compost FTW!
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.
― William Blake
@davetg01 This is a great project -- I am sure you are going to get great results!
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour.
― William Blake
@im_sparky Thanks. I really hope it does work well. Gearing up for a grow, so hopefully i'll know in a few months.
Dave the Grower
@southsilly Good idea. I think I do have a probe. Have to dig it up. Would be good to know if my pile is getting warm enough.
Dave the Grower
Stuck a thermometer into the pile and let it sit for several hours. 105 F. I'd like to see that get a little higher. Gonna let it go for a few more days & see if that changes.
Dave the Grower
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