total worm organics.

[angular ocelot]

so, ''total worm organics'' is the name i thought up to describe my system, which if truth be told should properly be called ''totally lazy bastard'' system. i'll explain my uscientific and lazy methods.
i've got two mars hydro three hundred's (old old style) set longitudinally in a five foot by two foot space.
ten red bottom airpots (five or six litres) under lights, two airpots out of cupboard (awaiting harvest/putting new soil in/letting soil settle a bit).
soil, biobizz light.
ferts, worm leachate and worm castings. a bit of epsom (which i think i can stop using now) but that's it.
two newly popped seedlings in the spare pots go in every two weeks as two finished plants are harvested in a seventy day cycle (so the theory goes, lol!).

basically i am so lazy i can't be arsed fucking about with bottled ferts, they creep me out, they're expensive and i'm sure some of them only contain the piss of laughing dutchmen*.

so, i switched to worm leachate and a bit of castings. i was averaging about thirty g a plant with bottled ferts, my new method so far has yielded 21, 24 and 26g (the sister to the 26 is out the space awaiting harvest this afternoon). i'm quite pleased with this as when i started this the worm bin was only a couple of months old and is now starting to mature.
there is still a lot of fine tuning to be done, which i think i can do with worm food. for instance i had some magnesium problems so i gave the worms a feed of molasses and as the bin has matured that seems to have stopped in the newer plants.
then i got very dark leaves with a bluish tinge and red stems. the plants seemed to have enough nitrogen so i thought phosphorous was the next likely limiting factor. since then i've been feeding the bin with melon skins/banana skins/sweet potato peel, etc. and that seems to be cured (fingers crossed).
i'm pretty sure i'll be back to over an ounce a plant soon.

so, that's how it's working now but quite soon i will be going into phase two. this involves recycling my soil. the idea is every two weeks 12l of soil goes in the worm bin along with food scraps/amendments. the worm bin consists of five 25l trays. it should take twenty weeks for the soil/food/amendments to go through the bin and come out the bottom.
then it gets a bit of perlite, goes into pots, seeds go in, back into cupboard for ten weeks.

does this sound feasable? i was wondering if it might be a bit hot for seeds so might use a root riot.
i was also a bit worried about worms in my pots after spotting some baby ones in the castings i have so have started covering the top of the soil of new plants with a hand made mulch i make from old yellowed fan leaves off ready to harvest plants.
the idea is nothing comes out except buds. nothing goes in except food scraps, maybe bonemeal/bloodmeal/lime as needed.
ph may be a problem, which could be amended as soon as i get my arse into gear and get a test meter.

does this sound workable? has anyone else tried anything similar? i'm making it up as i go along but if someone else has already crashed and burned like this a link to the wreckage for me to pore over would be much appreciated.







*actually works well but smells of beer and smugness.

 

[angular ocelot]

i also put all my plant roots, stems and leaves in the wormbin. i'm hoping to encourage fungal growth in the soil with a bit of sawdust and paper in the bin now and again.

 

[Joe383]

Sounds cool. I would get a little Azomite for trace elements to toss in your mix.

 

[angular ocelot]

just checked out the azomite on ebay. fifteen quid postage from u.s. so i might wait a bit on that one, no offence. it does look good though.
mind you, it's also for sale in france at much cheaper postage but much more expensive per gramme. i'd only need a bit. hmmmmm....................

 

[angular ocelot]

i had no money when i started it so the plants that first came through the system were some sugar black rose that i had from a grow last year that went tits up, five plants were culled but i kept the one that looked likeliest to survive, the sbr. i got a q and twenty seeds, musta been the stress. i was keeping the seeds for an emergency and then i had no money so in they went.
next was auto somango (the twenty six g plant and the one i'm about to chop) which i grew in my first grow and like to chuck in now and again as a sort of test plant to see how i'm doing. i've grown it three times before and have chopped down at different ages and everytime it was nice. my girlfriend likes it because it's not overpowering.
in a week or so it'll be the turn of the fastbuds' gsc's. i got some money that was owed to me by a previous employer and went a bit nuts on seeds from this point on. looking like i might get three quarters off each of them.
after that it'll be fastbuds' green crack which looks like it'll do better.
then dutch passion blackberry kush. doing very well, had to tie her down.
then two sour crack from mephisto which are seedlings at the mo.
then i can't decide.......................

as i say, i went a bit nuts on seeds and now have enough from mephisto, dutch passion and fastbuds to last me til next august! and that's not including the ones i'll keep back for my seed production programme that'll most likely never happen due to sheer bone idleness.

 

[Corgy]

..........worms, banananana peels and such, reusing soil, Azomite.....great casting.........

I am planning exactly the same as you. Got 2 worm farms going but haven't harvested any goodies yet, they have been going for 4 months now. At the moment I have 12 plants in 25 L Autopots with air injection and soil straight from the last grow in the pots. I leave the soil in the pots for 3-4 weeks after harvest, water every 4-5 days or so with Cannazyme or similar, and then it's back to the game. The only things I add to the soil is Neem cake and Diatomaceous Earth(DE) in an attempt to prevent bugs feasting, and that seems to have worked well.......so far, knock on wood!
Well, the recycling hasn't prevented the usual jungle from appearing, so all's good. I feed with Flora Nova, enzymes, epsom salt, Cal-gel from Bio Nova, CannaBoost and every now and then additional trace and Canna PK(the trace and PK is more because it makes ME feel good rather than I think the dames are in any actual need....haha)

You might want to give @HubbaBubba a poke in the ribs, he's reusing soil too.

Oh, and here a few shots of the damsels giving recycling a go a couple of days ago, the Six Shooters are getting close, around day 70 on these pics, but the Thinkers has at least 3-4 more weeks.

Fastbuds Six Shooter #1

Six Shooter #2

Six Shooter #3

Some Big Thinking dames.......yes, it gets very intellectual in there........

 

[angular ocelot]

View attachment 534614

I am planning exactly the same as you. Got 2 worm farms going but haven't harvested any goodies yet, they have been going for 4 months now.

are you going to use the leachate? how much longer before you start using it?

and thanks for the budporn! making my thread sexier!

 

[Corgy]

Yes, I'll be using the leachate(already have some, GH Bio-worm bought in a 1 L bottle for a Kings ransom and for once I didn't check the dosage, bloody hell, 50 ml/l as a foilant) and I'm gonna start being "a user" when the next run kicks off in a couple of weeks, the six shooting gunslingers allowing.

What dosage will you be using for watering into soil?

My understanding, and that might be flakey, is that it's virtually impossible to overdose, short of using it pure in copious amounts possibly.

 

[angular ocelot]

i've been diluting ten to one, sometimes more like eight to one. might try going down to five to one as i'm getting no tip burn or anything.
seedlings i go twenty to one just in case, up to about day ten.
i put some seeds in at ten to one and the cotyledons were burnt when they popped but i had also dosed heavily with rootjuice, possibly twice as i was *ahem* ''heavily medicated'' at the time. lol.
i'm generally quite bad at measuring ferts (and fish medicine but that's another, slightly horrific story) and so i'm hoping the worm stuff will be more forgiving.

 

[Eyes on Fire]

thats awesome to see soo many natural and organic interests in growing.nicely done!