Guys, are you conspiring to make my head explode with info here?! LOL... I am starting to have trouble keeping up seriously
Anyhow I think I now have a basic handle on this, and here is how I see it:
The plant is in control. The plant will attract what it needs to it, all we can do is make sure it will be around. The plant will then control soil pH, aeration, chelation, and everything else as long as we do not ourselves put it out of balance. A well-prepared soil, therefore, will have the same plant in it more than once OR for a long time. Root exudates will control levels of fungi and bacteria etc...
This is the basic story behind microbrial gardening. It is the most basic level to which I could break it down. So once we have innoculated our soils and as long as we keep providing composted material, microbial life will thrive. In an ideal situation the soil will need very little amendment. As long as we have patience for this. If we want to let the natural process be what grows our plants, we have to be happy with a few less than perfect results in the first run seeing as reefer is an an annual, and be patient to allow the first grow to build the soil structure to what it should be, then plant the next run in the same substrate. At this point odds are everything will be absolutely perfect. Soil shall be self- pH'd and buffered from disease etc. Providing we do not cause damage to the rhizosphere that is.
Before this point is where I will need the dolomite lime in my soil to take care of the pH. As the lime is used up, the life in the soil will take over it's job. So technically, just top-dressing with some compost should be sufficient from the point that my ecology is flourishing, all I need to do then is feed the microbes, really.
Any flaws apparent in my thinking there? I'd like to get the principles jacked before playing with the recipes.
I can no longer look at the world around me in the same way. Teaming With Microbes has changed me down to my core. I now worry about the waste water from my hydro system knowing what it does and having learned about mobile elements v/s immobile nutrients. I feel like a mass-murderer for having killed a few gazillion life-forms using salt-based ferts. And I feel like farming as a rule is responsible more for mass genocide of our essential partners living in the soil than it is responsible for producing food for humans.
My interest in the topic stretches far beyond reefer. I have never been so taken by anything in my life. I am going to be quite the 'microbial gardening' activist. I am already preparing to make my own innoculants using the Lacto B and indigenous micro-organisms in the 50/50 mix style. The rice is fermenting quite happily.
Guess what EVERYBODY I KNOW is getting fro Christmas
