...I was expecting to go through this thread to find a lot of mistakes in my current soil cook, as I have mentioned to Gandalf or Myco before, can't quite remember, I am doing things the way my grandpa used to when he was alive. The old man really was super-jacked on this stuff. I am now learning he was a microbial gardener of NOTE.
So what I have done so far is: Got some good organic soil pre-mixed from a friend's farm, pretty fine stuff, nearly black. To this I added compost made out of horse poop and straw, it went through a year-long process and ended up as a yellowish almost powdery substance. I made some of grandpa's stinky fruit juice, pretty much just fruit pieces cut up and left in a bucket for a week or two, taking only the juice no pulp, and wetted down with this while mixing up and left for two weeks. Then came some serious aeration in the form of a very rough grade of Leca, I let it cool a bit and re-mixed it, this time using a 'tea' made from alfalfa and horse poop, the horse poop came off the bottom of a HUGE pile, it was already an orange sticky kinda texture, and smelled of mushrooms.
With both the first and second mixing generous amounts of fine dolomite lime were added, the way gramps mixed for his tomatoes, just over a teaspoon per litre which I think translates to a tablespoon per gallon roughly.
After the second mixing I left it to cook for another week, now totalling three weeks of prep at that point. This morning came the final mix, where I added some mushroom compost (just found it in the local agri store today actually), and a very cool product made out of earthworm castings and gypsum. A bit more Leca, and some perlite to keep it from compacting too much (I know now from reading this thread to use carbon instead, but I guess that will have to be the next mix).
For the last mix I wetted it down with a tea that was brewing for quite some time: I knew we were getting a lot of rain, so 2 weeks ago I left out a bucket with some rough alfalfa stalks and all, topped up with more horse-poop from the bottom of the pile. A few rains filled the bucket right to the rim almost, it was in a shady place outside for around 2 weeks and got a daily stir. It had a tiny bit of vermicompost (the juice) added along the way, and a tiny touch of fish emulsion also. It is not the most pleasant smell in the world I assure you LOL. Actually it's bit of a mission getting the smell out from under my nails, definitely gloves in future, I really enjoy mixing by hand.
I made up for the added solids with some more dolomite lime, also as per granpa's methods. Now it's in the final stretch of cooking, I will only need it in 3-4 weeks so I figure it is perfect timing.
I am a bit concerned that it might be pretty hot as the original soil I amended was quite decent, aside from being too fine for my liking. I am really liking the look of it now, and it has a mushroomy yet sweet smell to it, or at least it did before the wetting with horse-poop tea LOL. I am going to test it with some tomato seedlings and some reefer clones, if it doesn't burn 'em I know I am solid.
I wish I knew about the chitin before though. Shells are going to be a bit tricky for me to find. But that is the best way I have ever seen or heard of to deal with larvae (goooodbye fungus gnats).
My next step now is harvesting microbes as described in this thread. I have tons of BTi granules around so the soil mix is going to come out again tomorrow and have some of that mixed in too
I haven't had this much fun preparing for a run in many, many years. Awesome stuff, and really is excellent having this great big 'Organic Support Group' right here... Only halfway through this thread now. DL'd every .pdf that was linked. As I read the same info being repeated here and there across the organic threads, it really is starting to stick in my head now. Bloody marvellous. And I can't wait to apply the same principles on a large scale in my outside gardens, my veggies are going to LOVE me and my fruit-trees too!!!
