Organic No-Till Garden With Worms, Re-Used Dirt, No Bottles!

[t-pain]

interesting video.

sounds like what grassmatch used. leave the rootballs in for the worms to eat.

use aloe vera plant to make clones. no clonex needed.

its all in the video!

 

[trichcycler]

plus I lost weight, shaved my beard now too.

[MightyMightyMezz]

I stumbled onto that video last night and learned a lot, grass!  I am going to try some of these techniques.  Already have an aloe and a couple bins of worms... 

Edited March 16, 2015 by MightyMightyMezz

[GrowGoddess]

interesting video.

sounds like what grassmatch used. leave the rootballs in for the worms to eat.

use aloe vera plant to make clones. no clonex needed.

its all in the video!

 

 

Before the law was enacted here in Michigan. I was too paranoid to purchase seeds or go into a hydro/grow shop.

 

That is great there is an organic method to assist. Back in the day, I didn't use anything to help me clone. I just took my cuttings, planted them in my pearlite, vermiculite, soil mix and kept misting them. I also kept a baggie over each cup. I only got maybe a 50% ratio and it took twice as long, but you can take clones with out any hormone assistance.

 

I prefer going the organic method vs. synthetic. Especially since one of the rooting hormones I did use says that if inhaled begin CPR immediately. That kind of spooked me. That one was a very dusty powder. Used to do everything the hard way, 100% under the table.

[MightyMightyMezz]

Does he put the pot away for a while after harvest to let the bacteria and worms break down the roots?

[trichcycler]

You could keep a larger composting bin for the worm job, or just keep using the same dirt in the pot for successive plantings.

 

I warn though, after a couple uses the breakdown of organic matter becomes troublesome in the cannabis garden. The soil gets hot, the worms escape, to find friendlier organic composting jobs.  grow room worms should only be fed dried vegetable material to avoid molds. I feed mine a Cannabis Only diet for the veganic experience.

 

I didn't even know about cloning gels and powders when I was a kid. I was taught to use willow water, and still do actually.

boiled apical meristems of the willow tree, and the liquid gold lasts forever. I found it to be a spectacular foliar addition in veg too. this knowledge is hundreds of years old I learned.  I've tried aloe too, and jello, and aspirin, and blood meal, and and and.....

[flower pharm]

always have bait!

[trichcycler]

true, but little wigglers. I wanted so bad to use earthworms, the big walts crawlers type, but they are not suitable for what I do/did. red wigglers was the winner, kinda small on the hook, but that's what I used(to drown, feed lake fish, etc )

[trichcycler]

Before the law was enacted here in Michigan. I was too paranoid to purchase seeds or go into a hydro/grow shop.

 

 

 

I prefer going the organic method vs. synthetic. Especially since one of the rooting hormones I did use says that if inhaled begin CPR immediately. That kind of spooked me. That one was a very dusty powder. Used to do everything the hard way, 100% under the table.

when you really want to get bummed out, compare the key hormones in most rooting gels/dips/powders to those found at elevated levels in Morgellon's Disease( http://bit.ly/1FrS8Nc) sufferers. Add that to the largest concentration of these sufferers is in Russia, encircling a large obscure laboratory. The lab works exclusively on GMO plant varieties for military/medical/industrial purposes. They have cultures and plants there producing fuel, making light, poisonous gases, and prescription medicine, and from there it gets really scary..... It's a brave new world

[MightyMightyMezz]

You could keep a larger composting bin for the worm job, or just keep using the same dirt in the pot for successive plantings.

 

I warn though, after a couple uses the breakdown of organic matter becomes troublesome in the cannabis garden. The soil gets hot, the worms escape, to find friendlier organic composting jobs.  grow room worms should only be fed dried vegetable material to avoid molds. I feed mine a Cannabis Only diet for the veganic experience.

 

I didn't even know about cloning gels and powders when I was a kid. I was taught to use willow water, and still do actually.

boiled apical meristems of the willow tree, and the liquid gold lasts forever. I found it to be a spectacular foliar addition in veg too. this knowledge is hundreds of years old I learned.  I've tried aloe too, and jello, and aspirin, and blood meal, and and and.....

 

 

Would you explain that part, grassmatch?  My understanding is that as it breaks down is gets less hot; it needs to get broken down to not be so hot.

[trichcycler]

so sorry mez, I did notice the way I wrote that, there might be a misunderstanding.

The organic matter does raise the temperature, and 60 days of flowering, a few weeks of vegging, does not afford the time to degrade

the roots, some which live for a long time in the soil. Eventually a mass of stringy roots and bits will be throughout the soil and not broke down at all.

The ph value is disrupted, waay too many nematodes come n to chow the mess, root rot, "hot" nutrient readings,  and the heat of the eventual compost, contained in a plant pot,  suffering results.  Sprinkeling dried roots and leaves into the 60 day plan pot is not a good idea I find. The composting should be a separate matter, and the worms in the pot don't like fertilizers added to the soil. They escape most nights from plant pots.  

 

It took my worms much more than a couple months to compost roots, balled or chopped, and they could not consume green cannabis leaves. The material was consumed very quickly if dried first, as I did. The root material stays wet in the worm farms for too long to be a good thing, as the farms become over run with insects trying to eat the excess "live" greens, fungus.

[MightyMightyMezz]

I agree it would be best to recycle the contents of the pot back to a worm bin to break down the roots.  It's always seemed to take a while for my worms to process roots too.  That dude uses those big #15 smart pots though so maybe that's why it works for him.

 

I'm intrigued by having worms in the pots and using rice hulls instead of perlite.  I'm already to the point of using Ocean Forest mixed with as much homemade vermicompost as I can spare.  No "nutes," I water with molasses nearly every time and top-dress with crab shell meal, kelp, vermicompost and Indonesian guano as needed.  Plants are super healthy with no sign of deficiency, just the barest blush on some petioles.

Edited March 18, 2015 by MightyMightyMezz

[trichcycler]

at full blast my worm farms consumed a five gallon pail of dried sweep trim in a week or so, but green leaves would mold and rot in the farm.

root balls turned to dirt in days if they were sun dried first, difficult in the winters. I used to use a dedicated tray to dry roots/fluff, with a little dirt to

make sure it was not usable of course.  all done with that mess now.

[trichcycler]

It's so stupid we're forced to hide in our cubby's if we want to grow our own medicinal herb. I feel so silly buying grow bulbs, paying electric bills, dikken with soils and worms.....all this stuff is done naturally and way more efficiently than we could hope to......  OUTDOORS!  But nope, we have to hide, and spend, and toil because we're sick and their chem drugs have not helped us.   How do they sleep at night ?

[t-pain]

worms have no teeth.

cannabis roots are very tough, thats why you can pull the darn plant out and the roots are almost all still attached! you are putting 40-180 psi to pull the dang stalk out of the ground, the roots widthstand all of that.

 

so the worms cant eat the strong woody roots easily.

 

plus, cannabis is a darn weed. you can cut the stalk back to the ground, pull the whole rootball out and toss it on the ground, it may resprout!! this isnt commonly done because it can take a long long time to re-veg and thats a lot of light bills. but it is possible to reveg a complete bare stalk harvested plant and re-flower it.

 

worms dont eat live matter. worms eat decaying things and molds and fungi that grow on decaying matter.

 

so the darn rootball you took out , may still try to grow for 2 months, thus all of the roots are still absorbing water and staying alive.

[rockinsteady]

zombie pot root balls

[garyfisher]

worms have no teeth.

cannabis roots are very tough, thats why you can pull the darn plant out and the roots are almost all still attached! you are putting 40-180 psi to pull the dang stalk out of the ground, the roots widthstand all of that.

 

so the worms cant eat the strong woody roots easily.

 

plus, cannabis is a darn weed. you can cut the stalk back to the ground, pull the whole rootball out and toss it on the ground, it may resprout!! this isnt commonly done because it can take a long long time to re-veg and thats a lot of light bills. but it is possible to reveg a complete bare stalk harvested plant and re-flower it.

 

worms dont eat live matter. worms eat decaying things and molds and fungi that grow on decaying matter.

 

so the darn rootball you took out , may still try to grow for 2 months, thus all of the roots are still absorbing water and staying alive.

the method of replanting into living organic soil is to dig out the main root ball taproot.  I dont think a plant will try to regrow from all the secondary roots.

[t-pain]

oops, after reading some stuff about revegging, it says it requires some stalk to regrow. if you cut cannabis back to the ground, it will not resprout.

[trichcycler]

problem happens when this rotting vegetable matter(roots) sits in the pot, watered daily, and continues to rot/mold. the pests and smells associated with the stinking mess in plant pots was enough to get me to learn more of the art of indoor composting. the rootballs were not suitable for the indoor worm bins unless broken up and dried in my experience, which was an intense composting machine, not a laxidaisy for fun experiment, which would have different results probably.

[MightyMightyMezz]

problem happens when this rotting vegetable matter(roots) sits in the pot, watered daily, and continues to rot/mold. the pests and smells associated with the stinking mess in plant pots was enough to get me to learn more of the art of indoor composting. the rootballs were not suitable for the indoor worm bins unless broken up and dried in my experience, which was an intense composting machine, not a laxidaisy for fun experiment, which would have different results probably.

 

With plenty of worms in the pot I don't see old roots getting stinky and I've been worming for years.  The thing I don't understand about this guy's method is wouldn't the old roots bind up the soil and make it harder for new roots to thrive?

[trichcycler]

I've had worms outdoors for along time, but my indoor fun began with cannabis. I had mixed results also, without going into them all, I chose the method I stayed with as the ultimate for me, here. We probably have differences in our grow style/intensity environment so your differing results don't surprise me. I'm glad you had easier than the giant compost indoor bin show with 10 4 foot high stacked commercial worm farms(in my veg room to boot). Smells were a particular concern for me in my sealed rooms(sharing veg/flower air. I learned to recognize many garden issues with my nose, even in the worm bin and soils. Heck maybe my sniffer is more sensitive than others. theres a million ways to grow a cannabis weed, I've seen a killer one growing in a driveway crack with no attention! Sometimes I think I made my job tougher than it needed to be. All behind me now though happily

[t-pain]

sprouted seed tea? dont remember that, although i may have given up on the video halfway because i thought it was looping.

[t-pain]

The thing I don't understand about this guy's method is wouldn't the old roots bind up the soil and make it harder for new roots to thrive?

i've seen roots grow through walnuts, sponges, leaves, etc.

 

not to mention plant roots always have to compete in nature.

you have to ask yourself, in nature, are there living and dead plant roots in the soil? yes, of course.

 

so you would have to do an experiment to see if a dead root ball and a live plant grows better or worse than a live plant by itself.

 

also try companion planting / living mulch / green manure , thats really interesting how you can use other living plant roots to break up, loosen and even aerate the soil to make it more friable.

[WET]

Sst!!!! What seeds are you guys using? I usually go barley, but the local shop stopped carrying unmalted. I've done alfalfa, mung, and corn with great results. I like mung the best. Corn in veg. I know this is an old thread but I think about sst and act's too much. Probably the time requirements of the whole charade.

 

Wet

[WET]

I'm the only one!?

 

Well, for the benefit of any noobs....

 

Alfalfa or mung for flower.

 

Corn for veg.

 

Soak 1/4cup for a day or so, put under damp towel, let sprout until root is 1/4-1/2 inch. Blend. Add to 5 gal h2o. Combine with act and you too can win the cannabis cup. Or you can simply enjoy your meds knowing thhey are superior to all others

 

Wet