Using cover crops, dried banana peels, red wigglers, bone meal, alfalfa meal, bamboo!

[freddyyola]

i figured id share some of what i do for my plants i try to keep it organic and natural without chemicals as much as possible and i pretty much feed my soil and worms and they feed my plants..

so im crushing my crimson clover cover crop (Nitrogen and worm food) and adding in kelp meal (for micros and plant growth hormones), dried banana peels (for Potassium K and micros), bone meal (for Phosphorus) and feather meal, fish meal,fish bone meal, potash, blood meal, bat guano, alfalfa meal, gypsum and best for last red wigglers (compost worms) and vermi compost from my worm bin/farm to break down everything added in than i will put a layer crushed bamboo leaves from my bamboo forest which is full of good microbes and will also break down to feed the worms..

then i watered it in with Recharge and some worm casting tea.

im also mixing in a new batch of cover crop seeds crimson clover, vetch, turnips, austrian winter peas, sunflower, mustard, and collards mixed up when these grow out to enough i will repeat this process by smashing those down or cutting it as close to the soil as possible to become a layer of mulch and humus and whatever else i add..

ill be doing this for all my plants for now on..

[freddyyola]

im gonna order some seeds around Christmas.. but ima go ahead and get the pots they gonna be finished in started asap and have a cover crop going with red wigglers and all the amendments there ready for a plant to come in and make it home.. im gonna treat the pot like its a worm bin with a cover crop on top and itll be full of all the amendments and the worms will already be breaking everything down for the next plant..

[Canuck147]

Sounds like a good plan freddyyola - Last couple of grows I did I neglected a plan, just thought I'd top and do whatever as it came along.

But now it is best to start with a plan, get that vision going in your head as you see how it's going to look. And stick to your plan. Thanks for sharing your plan with us.

My only criticism - didn't see much of a sweetener in your extensive list. Cannabis plants really like their sweets. Grind up some raw cane sugar.

[freddyyola]

recharge is full of molasses and i feed with recharge and vermicompost teas mixed with my nutes every feeding and i add brown sugar or molasses or cane rock sugar depending on whats on hand..

[freddyyola]

ive done a shit loads of research and learned a bunch of stuff but actually growing cannabis.. this is my second grow.. im at the point i know what kind of grow i want to do and so on.. cause as a noobie grower there is so many ways to grow and until you try a few out you don't know what works best for you.. now that ive got a worm farm going and im into korean natural farming and growing fruits and veggies im mixing all that knowledge with live soil/super soil organic type of growing with no till cover crop style of growing and it all fits together almost perfectly cause worms can break it all down and make it plant available. and its full of beneficial microbes.. i make my own labs and em1 but mycorrhizae and lacto bacillus are both in recharge, my soil mix, and some of my other amendments..

ima try to post more of me making compost, feeding my worms, making biochar, and stuff like that including more stuff to do with my plants..

[Cocho]

This is awesome! I would love to try something like this some day.

- C

[freddyyola]

cover crops are super cheap if you have a feed n seed store/place nearby check them out a pack of crimson clovers are 1.50$ a pound here where im at and that was enough to cover a bunch of pots and a 4x4 area.. you can also mix it up some every seed does a specific role.. they sometimes offer a cover crop mix too but for about 5 bucks you can get a decent mix/amount to start.. you basically sprinkle them into your pot/bed let them grow and crush them down or chop them down without disturbing the soil and thatll become a humus/mulch layer also if you add worms thatll be worms they will break it down faster and turn it into worm castings full of nutrients..

[freddyyola]

my worm bins are outside and its raining today so ill add them later..

[freddyyola]

this is the plant in the milk crate above.. this is also the first time im using cover crops period.. itll take awhile for the worms to break everything down.. im using nutes so it doesnt matter but some ppl that do no till/cover crop grows get all their nutrients from the soil and only use water/compost teas.. i could get away with this if it was my second cover crop being smashed to become nutrients/food for my worms/plant and since i add dry amendments at this time.. eventually ill only need to feed with vermicompost teas/recharge.

[freddyyola]

bout that time for another tie down... LST..

[freddyyola]

i eat alot of nanners about 1 a day sometimes 2 and i split the peels after i eat the banana sometimes im lazy and dont split it as much but then i toss it next to a fan thats blowing towards the back of my pc which gives off a good bit of heat and the mixture of that dries these peels out pretty quick they turn hard in a day or two i just keep tossing them there till they pile up enough i then toss em ina coffee grinder but mines broke so i had to chop it up this time then i feed it to my worms or use it as a dry amendment for my soil which gets ate up microbes/red wigglers then becomes food for the plant.. soil food web type shit lol.

[freddyyola]

yeah im still learning as i go but im into organic growing and beneficial microbes bacteria and fungi and making your own nutrients/fertilizer through korean natural farming ways...

are you into seed sprout teas? they are basically an enzyme tea that helps break everything down to feed your plants.. super easy to and super beneficial.. its better than hygrozyme and you can make it yourself with popcorn.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlJhMN3HqHY this guy is using some other corn but you can popcorn, barley, alfalfa different seeds offer different benefits you could even use coconut water try to get the most natural no preservatives one you can find you have to water it down though a can to a five gallon bucket might be good..


if you know about biobizz they are a great bottled nutrient company and the way they make their nutrients is basically through fermenting plants and fruits. feeding plants with plants blooming buds with fruit and flower extract through a fermentation process.. which you can learn to make and do your self through korean natural farming/knf for short.. knf shows you how to make all that great stuff for pennies.. check it out on youtube.. "knf fpj jadam sst"

[GreenhouseEffect]

Thanks! Never tried the sprout tea before, but that totally makes sense, so much energy in a seed gets released when it germs! I used a Bubbler with earth worm castings and molasses this summer, it worked really good. Gonna have to read up on more of this stuff over the winter, be a good way to help keep the snowy winter time blues away, as well!

[freddyyola]

yeah it has everything a plant needs to grow and full of enzymes you grind it up and toss it in some bubbling water/compost tea and use it like that. you can subsitute corn for barley, alfalfa, and you can use coconut water and aloe water or get freeze dried powders of both.. idk if you know mendo dope guys but they grow 20 ft trees 8+ pounds a plant and thats all they use plus kelp and fish head soup!

[freddyyola]

[freddyyola]

here is video where brownguy420 (channel got deleted from youtube earlier this year..) is using cover crops similar to how im cover crops except im using a mix instead of straight crimson clover (use their leaves to pull nitrogen out of the air and when they die it releases that nitrogen to your plants) and i add my dry amendments and then cover with bamboo leaf mulch which is also to be broken down into worm castings.. and you can just repeat these steps every time you need to reamend your soil.

[freddyyola]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee-oTKO__zg

[Rwise]

I too do things organically, have for many years! Now that the laws I live under have changed, I will be doing an indoor grow with the same methods.

[freddyyola]

this crate is now topped off and the cover crop underneath will start to come up soon and ill update you guys! this should be plenty for those worms and microbes to chomp down on! i have a caption on each picture for more info!

[Crow]

You know I'm at the end of my grow that has been covered, from the 4th week, with an assortment of cuttings and such with red wrigglers doing their thing in the soil underneath, amidst the roots. My cover has been much thinner than I see you are doing and not as studied. I trusted that my soil which is an organic mix out of the bag had enough going for it and that my "experimenting" too much by might ruin a good thing. Next grow the soil will be more complex as I intend to keep this current soil and the resident worms active all through the winter in my, soon to be, worm bin. Have to admit that this is lots of fun!

So freddyyola you are using a milk crate lined with landscaping cloth - or with a smart pot set inside? Either way sounds lie a good idea as it makes for stable & movable pots. Could be a good solution to keeping my grow shed organized and arrangeable. I like to spin the plants every few days to optimize full "sunshine" , i.e., 3 - 600 wattt LEDs.

As an aside - Has been in the low to mid- 20°s F this past week with a few overnights below that. The grow shed has been cold 55° to 58° at night even with the ceramic heater. I have stopped using my fans and run the heat all day on low with the 3 LED units to just jeep it around 65° F. (Glad there is only a week, at most left - might give up and harvest this weekend.) Anyway - came home today after 8 hours away and found that the heater with the lights tripped the surge protector. Was 36° and dark when I opened the door at 4 this afternoon. I was actually more worried about my worms . Yeah, I know they will be fine and so are the plants. A day of near freezing isn't the same as days of actual freezing. Anyway - all back to normal now. Rearranged my outlet situation. All good.

Have fun out there!

Crow

[freddyyola]

yeah its a milk crate lined with weed fabric if you can get your hands on some for free people actually use crates to grow because you can stack them side by side really modular and you can move them! but i will be trying to have bigger pots in the future because i think itll be better for what im trying to with no tilling/live soil.

while you plan on keeping and reusing your soil i think you should toss some new compost and maybe some amendments and some cover crop seed mix to sprout and by the time winter is over or when you are ready to plant again just smash the cover crop down and make a spot for your new plant... the mulch/cover crop will be worm food/humus layer and if you added any kelp bone meal blood meal or whatever itll also be broken down or breaking down.. the cover crop helps keep the soil soft and alive with microbes and also a + for worms.

first cover crop seed i suggest to start out with is crimson clover its one of the cheapest! super cheat at 1.50$ish a pound you can cover ALOT! probably 10 big plants/pots worth.

the great thing about crimson clovers are they pull nitrogen out the air into their leaves and roots so when you smash them and break their stems they die leaving the nitrogen to break down into your soil.. so its almost free organic plant available nitrogen! plants have everything a plant needs so feed plants.. plants!

[freddyyola]

if i plan on lining pots ever again and decide to go bigger i think a good idea would be to make a square using something like 1 inch wire hardware cloth or the wire fence with 2x3 in. holes stuff people use to make chicken coops and compost bins out of and then line those with the fabric.

another cheap way is to get some reusable wal mart fabric bags they are a decent size if i can find some ima try it out you can ask a local feed store for used feed bags too.. amazon has fabric pots for cheap too!

[Crow]

I like the idea of a cover crop over the worm bin. Can I assume then that there would be no need for a layer of cloth or paper, as so often recommended? Won't the cover crop require light to grow properly?

Thanks for the ideas.

[freddyyola]

yeah just put a little light maybe 1 big cfl the cover crop will grow and be the blanket the blocks the light and if you leave the bin open since you have the cover crop growing the worms wont try to escape cause the light above so you wont need a cover or lid.

every 4-6 weeks crush down the cover crop and add coco coir on top of that then toss in new seeds to grow on top and repeat..

[freddyyola]

heres an update to my no till crate plant..