Grow Diaries 2024 #16 'Living Soil' And A Weird Growth 🍄
Disclaimer:
This post is about medical/recreational cannabis.
I recommend you don't use it.
It could be illegal in your country.
Be careful!
Living Soil
Especially in the German cannabis community there is a hype around 'living soil'.
There are also brands selling it. (Supersoil (?))
People pay large sums to buy what really is just compost.
Commercial 'living soil' gets inocculated with certain microorganisms and spores and stuff.
Compost
I made my own 'living soil'.
For free.
In my garden, I just throw everything organic onto a pile and eventually, it will break down.
This compostation is slow. It takes years to break down.
But I have time and space and it's no work, at all.
I usually don't achieve a high-temperature bacterial compostation. Maybe in some spots, but the whole pile never gets warm.
My own compost needs no inocculation.
It's basically inocculated with everything under the sun.
There is fungal activity, insects... even mice are helping me to break this stuff down.
Issues
When I first started, I made a major mistake with this, though.
I planted the seeds into compost.
The compost was full of armadillidiidae (rolly pollies) and they ate the seedlings.
That was a disaster and I wasted seeds that were very special to me.
A lesson, I won't forget.
I have a process now, that gets rid of them:
I bag some compost and let it dry out in the bag, to kill all insects.
Then I soak it again.
Then I plant.
Still: this soil is a bit unpredictable.
Fungi
So this morning I found this growth in the pot.
Almost certainly fungal activity.
It almost looks like Lion's Mane (hericium erinaceus). Which is edible and actually delicious.
But it's very soft instead and slimy to the touch.
Whatever it is: I'll leave it.
The plant does not seem affected.
Conclusion
Sorry! This post is not well structured.
All I am trying to get accross: You don't have to buy compost.
You don't have to buy anything, except maybe the seeds.
Shipping compost in the mail is absolutely ridiculous, and yet, some people make bank from it.
I could claim that this compost above was a 'hyper soil' with a certain strain of slimy fungus in it, and some people would probably buy it.
Insane.
Peat
Peat has its place. Not because peat is very fertile, but because it is uniform.
If you grow stuff at scale and want no surprises, then peat is great.
I'll use recycled peat for germination from now on, because I have easy access to it.
Use Compost
Once the plant is established, it goes into compost; Well aged, dried and then rehydrated compost.
It's free. It's organic. It's full of life and colonized by all sorts of fungi.
If your compost runs hot and is fresh, then you might want to add some inert soil, like clay.
Or whatever you have in your surroundings anyways.
Peak retardation was when the most popular German cannabis-youtuber suggested to a commercial grower, who grows directly in soil, to use raise beds and create a 'living soil'. link
Like the soil wasn't already alive. What a clown.
Please don't spend money on something that is available and abundant.
I can't believe some people are so detached from nature, that they buy these products.
If you grow indoors, it might be different. But then you are on the wrong path to be begin with.
I discussed this in an earlier post.
For the record: I grow in 3l pots.
If the pots were larger, the plants would be larger.
I do this intentionally.
TL;DR:
All it takes is water, sunlight, soil. In that order.
Save the money, preserve the planet.
The best part about making our own living soil by ourselves instead of buying is that we get the chance to connect with nature and of course, save the planet.
That is some healthy soil if your getting mushrooms in it
Loving those sugar leaves.
Great points you bring up in this article about composting your own live soil.
That is certainly true, and in my opinion one of the issues with the industry. It's easy to choose the next buzz words and slap it on a bag and clueless people will buy it right up.
It makes more sense to learn how to compost your own.
I utilize a type of fertilizing composting, which is not really composting, while adding blood in a composting type of way to the soil I have sitting nice and moist in a bin. It sometimes grows mushrooms too :)
That doesn't leave a good taste for those who believe we take into the field what we learn in the books, or maybe better put as a question; how can it be starting off on the wrong path when valuable insights can be taken into outdoor growing? It seems a little cynical towards indoor cultivation the way you put it. Can't say that I agree with this perspective but that's ok.
I just throw it all into a pile. That's it.
Nothing to learn, honestly.
If I didn't have my own compost, I'd find a place where leaves congregate; ditches, under dead tress, etc... I'd just dig some of that up and bag it.
Did you read the linked post?
I go into more detail there and I don't think you could disagree with that and also understand, where I am coming from...
This seems logical to me. I've heard soil that's been under heavy leaf cover can bear nutrient rich soil, and that makes perfect sense with the foliage breaking down and cycling back for uptake. as well as protection from getting scorched from the sun.
No, but perhaps you will change my mind if I do. I feel doubtful that you will change my mind that experience growing cannabis indoors translates to useful experience that will be beneficial for outdoor cultivation as well, but I'm always up for a challenge :)
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Chickens love to help mulch up compost. I throw everything into it. Dinner scraps, leaves.. Even a couple bodies (snakes). You're doing right by composting everything.
I'm about to cover my garden area with what we've been composting... Hopefully when spring comes next year we'll have a better yield☺️
With my soil and the winters we get, if I apply it in winter it's all gone by next spring.
Might be different for you.
I got quail for the same reasons, but they don't scratch, don't eat scraps, don't forage.
With my current situation, I can't really keep chickens...
I absolutely can not throw cooked things on the compost, or I'll attract rats.
Everything else seems fine though, yes.
Quail is cool cool! One of these day we'd like to get some of them also. Bummer😮💨 you can't have chickens. They're great. Especially free ranging. We use to keep them in a pen but that was when we were in town🤗
My biggest issue with free ranging tho .. they try and hide their eggs from me. Only a couple actually lay in the same spot twice. 🤦 So it's a daily hunt. 🤣
And another draw back to free ranging... hawks🤬 There's not a lot you can do about them. But try and keep them scared off. I like trying to keep crows around. I've watched them chase off a hawk. They'll gang up on it 2 and 3 at a time.
Anyways...
Where I'm at, with the dogs and the chickens they don't share much scraps with any other critters. Two Snakes have been the main issue in the yard... Outside of it tho there's woods and 2 overgrown pastures.
Hopefully we're going to buy this place, and if so, those pastures will get cleaned up for something 🤔🤷 livestock or gardens, orchard.. Something 🤗
Defiantly a great sign!