Indoor McDee goes Organic

[McDee]

i have before without any ill effects, but it may have been overkill.. then again, i reuse soil for years sooo

I have a jar of it, and wouldn't mind keeping my microbes "fat & sassy" as coach T says lol. I usually use it in teas, but maybe I should be using it more often...

 

[hecno]

I use Molasses 1 or 2 times a week , main reason microbe food , and the calcium and magnesium , as for ppm , never done it , I also reuse soil . and for soil I call it growing soil , as you do for plants because that is what you are doing , The way I do it takes about 3 months , well that's how long takes me and I get good results , I have 400 ltr batch and use about half of it so I have half to start the top up batch with , Now here is a funny story , A mate of mine asked if he could have a pot full to try , he was using store bought just the ducks nuts soil , paying a fortune for it and getting it shipped here , [ remote ] Ok I said , cut a long story short , my soil flogged the Ducks nut soil , Then he asked if he could buy it off me - No - I said , make your bloody own ,


Ps Ducks nuts -- Aussie slang for the best

 

[WildBill]

It makes mighty fine cookies too! My question is can you use too much? Like should I put it in every time I hand feed, or is that overkill?

You're not gonna hurt anything if you do it with every watering, but it is a bit of an overkill in my opinion. But one positive is that it will acidify your water a bit. Remember, the biggest reason you're doing that is to feed the microbes.

Now, in my opinion, the time that you would really want to do what you're doing now is right at the end of flower. As your plant approaches the end of its life cycle, it starts to sort of shut down systems that are not essential. It begins to devote all its energy to the actual bud production In hopes of reproducing the next generation. It begins with the fade and that's when You would want to add molasses every watering. Your plant normally will feed your microbes. At some point, it stops doing that. Microbes are dumb, so if you feed them, they will still feed the plant.

 

[WildBill]

I use Molasses 1 or 2 times a week , main reason microbe food , and the calcium and magnesium , as for ppm , never done it , I also reuse soil . and for soil I call it growing soil , as you do for plants because that is what you are doing , The way I do it takes about 3 months , well that's how long takes me and I get good results , I have 400 ltr batch and use about half of it so I have half to start the top up batch with , Now here is a funny story , A mate of mine asked if he could have a pot full to try , he was using store bought just the ducks nuts soil , paying a fortune for it and getting it shipped here , [ remote ] Ok I said , cut a long story short , my soil flogged the Ducks nut soil , Then he asked if he could buy it off me - No - I said , make your bloody own ,


Ps Ducks nuts -- Aussie slang for the best

You know, I've been cooking mine in totes, only because it's easy. And the biggest thing is It's easy to control moisture using totes. But, everyone should be able to do it. 3 months is a good figure because that's basically the same length as you're going to have during a grow. So when you finish that grow, you will have fully biologically active media ready to go for another grow. And that's doing it the slow and lazy method............ Only turning when you need to add moisture or additional amendments.
Yeah, you could do it quicker, but it does involve quite a bit of turning. Just like making compost. I rushed this last batch and could have stood at least another 10 days. I do think one of the key things why this batch went so quick was that I put them in the tote and amended it with fresh root balls. The water that I used to bring it up to proper moisture level was compost tea. That tote got very hot, very quickly! I probed the temperatures daily and when the temperature dropped, I turned It and added any moisture if needed.
If I stay with pots For the largest part of my grow, I would probably go ahead and build an area that I could cook my media. All I would do was form a bottom with flat concrete blocks and then build a three-sided enclosure with cinder blocks. And then make a cover to control the moisture level . I put it behind my shop for ease of access.
I'll always have pots for various things ...........moms, clones blah blah blah. I'm ready to use beds as my main way of growing my cannabis and going fully no-till. Realistically, I can only do that when I build my grow room in my shop. The biggest reason for that is ease of access to all sides. Ease of access is extremely key with my screwed up damage to my back! Hopefully that will be some time next year! Hopefully!

 

[McDee]

I use Molasses 1 or 2 times a week , main reason microbe food , and the calcium and magnesium , as for ppm , never done it , I also reuse soil . and for soil I call it growing soil , as you do for plants because that is what you are doing , The way I do it takes about 3 months , well that's how long takes me and I get good results , I have 400 ltr batch and use about half of it so I have half to start the top up batch with , Now here is a funny story , A mate of mine asked if he could have a pot full to try , he was using store bought just the ducks nuts soil , paying a fortune for it and getting it shipped here , [ remote ] Ok I said , cut a long story short , my soil flogged the Ducks nut soil , Then he asked if he could buy it off me - No - I said , make your bloody own ,


Ps Ducks nuts -- Aussie slang for the best

Do you do anything to your soil before you reuse it? I was reading something MOG wrote about composting your soil before you reuse to kill pathogens. The debate was it's easier to do that than putting it in your oven I think, but I was stoned and may have missed the point lol. I just broke it up out of the bag, pulled big roots out and added craft blend. I added water and let sit for 10-11 days. I put germinated beans in and here we are. I will compost it if I need to, but prefer not to considering somehow I screwed up my compost already. Duck nuts I like it most of my Aussie slang comes from Fosters commercials.

 

[McDee]

You're not gonna hurt anything if you do it with every watering, but it is a bit of an overkill in my opinion. But one positive is that it will acidify your water a bit. Remember, the biggest reason you're doing that is to feed the microbes.

Now, in my opinion, the time that you would really want to do what you're doing now is right at the end of flower. As your plant approaches the end of its life cycle, it starts to sort of shut down systems that are not essential. It begins to devote all its energy to the actual bud production In hopes of reproducing the next generation. It begins with the fade and that's when You would want to add molasses every watering. Your plant normally will feed your microbes. At some point, it stops doing that. Microbes are dumb, so if you feed them, they will still feed the plant.

OK, so more beneficial at fade than everytime. That's simple, and I like simple

 

[WildBill]

OK, so more beneficial at fade than everytime. That's simple, and I like simple

I would say it's the most beneficial at that time to finish off your product the best that it can be. It's still key at all times in my opinion.

 

[hecno]

@McDee No mate , I just add things and never had a problem , Maybe it has something to do with the environment I live in , 300 km to our nearest big town .

 

[McDee]

@McDee No mate , I just add things and never had a problem , Maybe it has something to do with the environment I live in , 300 km to our nearest big town . View attachment 1635036

That's cool bud! I'm hoping since I'm indoor, and grow from seed that I don't need to do that.

 

[WildBill]

Do you do anything to your soil before you reuse it? I was reading something MOG wrote about composting your soil before you reuse to kill pathogens. The debate was it's easier to do that than putting it in your oven I think, but I was stoned and may have missed the point lol. I just broke it up out of the bag, pulled big roots out and added craft blend. I added water and let sit for 10-11 days. I put germinated beans in and here we are. I will compost it if I need to, but prefer not to considering somehow I screwed up my compost already. Duck nuts I like it most of my Aussie slang comes from Fosters commercials.

Look at it like this. What hecno does is basically cold composting. It's more like what occurs in nature. It has its distinct advantages and a few disadvantages.
It's way less labor-intensive.
No need to remove your worms. They stay in your media and work for ya getting things ready for you. Your beneficial insects stay in the media. No need to reintroduce.
No carbon to nitrogen ratio to worry about at all............. You don't need to worry about getting it right Since there is no heating process.

It is more susceptible to going anaerobic, but that's easily eliminated with a little bit of experience.
It does take much longer. A little bit of planning will cover that.
It can be a source of bad bugs such as gnats and others. Again, experience makes that less likely. If you have a good biologically active media sitting there, you will have good bugs to take care of the bad bugs. And most time when you have bad bugs you have a problem with your media.
To do it the way hecno does it, It is a bit of a learning curve. But as you can see, it can be done.

Hot composting is quick!
If you have a tote you can do it anywhere.
You can do it in the dead of winter time. Cold composting slows in the winter to a crawl. If you live in a temperate zone, that means you need to plan more for the cold composting, if you grow year round.

I think it is easy AF!
But I've been doing it all my life. That's a long time man!
Moisture level and the amount of air you have in the media is more important than the carbon to nitrogen ratio. You can miss the exact target with the carbon to nitrogen ratio and still get a decent result. It won't get as hot and will takes longer if you miss it. Definitely leave those root balls in it! Try to start it as soon as possible after the harvest to take advantage of all the biological activity in the roots. Put all those leaves and branches in there that you harvested from your girls.............. Those leaves have the nutrients you are looking for! I think if I give one tip to most people that try the hot method, is to begin the process with compost tea as the water to give you the proper moisture level. I also bumped that up a little bit with at the time of application I will add a normal dose of molasses to the compost water I'm using.
If you got everything close, you should notice it heating up quite substantially within 12 hours. If you don't see that then you have something amiss in your ratios. Whether it is too much moisture, too little moisture or too little air. If you have your carbon to nitrogen off, it just won't get as hot, but it will have heating in that same time period.

There's science behind both methods, but just like composting, it really is an art form. It is flexible enough for you to do anything that you want to do with it. Neither method is better.