I didn’t. I need to though. I’ll try to get that going this week.
It’s interesting as We bought several bags of cedar mulch and starting applying to our garden but on the 3rd bag I saw in small print not to be used for organic gardening or organic vegetable growing.
Any idea what that’s all about?
I too had read about issues using cedar mulch in general.
Didn’t see anything about not using for vegetables but could be?
Joke - just don’t use that 3rd bag on garden the first 2 bags just don’t read warning and should be fine…lol
I didn’t choose cedar based on it being the best to use but because in February it was the only non treated (chemical coloring) mulch I could find around me.
What I remember reading about issues using cedar was when putting a thick layer down (thick) that it could cause changes in soil PH. I’ll have to read up again about cedar use for mulch.
Straw is a great choice from what I’ve read.
Last grow I used cedar mulch and light top dress of granular blood meal. This time I used feather meal up top before applying the cedar mulch.
We actually removed it all and threw in the trash bin.
I have blood meal and feather meal. Both are small grain size.
What is the thought process behind using one or the other?
You could have just put the cedar in a compost pile rather than in the trash.
As far as which to use for nitrogen add both seem to work.
I had blood meal back then but not feather meal. I used feather meal this time because I had it and it fit the need of slow release.
Here are a couple articles relating to cedar.
I am looking up more about cedar but these articles are a good start.
My perfect mulch would be using smaller round branches from hardwood sources…maple, cherry etc and using a shredder grind them up and let them dry and use that.
Also using straw I have seen many organic growers use that from articles and books etc I have read.
I don’t throw anything that is natural in the trash bin. It all goes somewhere in my yard. Food waste (except meat, dairy which I will toss in my Bokashi bucket to break down anaerobic)
I never take my leaves to the street for pick up as it’s my resource for making good soil and why give away your stuff. When I trim my bushes I don’t bag it and pay to have it hauled away I simply let it lay under the bush that I trimmed as mulch and the trimmings contain the minerals and nutrients that the plant needs so it naturally amends the soil that that bush needs and provides free mulch.
Over the years advertisers have worked their magic on how people think things should be done in order to further their bottom line without regard to best and cheapest ways one can maintain a healthy ecosystem in ones yard. Roundup…or any chemical spray etc… screw that I love the various “weeds” in my yard along with the grasses, clover, broadleaf plantains and so on…many of which are edible and or used medicinally for thousands of years. Natural processes versus chemical death…lol
Keep it all…it all ends up decomposing and benefitting your yard.
I have 5 or 6 edible “weeds” in my yard that I can source knowing they are not contaminated with chemical crap
After reading that on the mulch, I wasn’t going to risk whatever adverse effects/content was there.
We have worked to hard with a compost, worm bins, and overall organic plan to let the possible poisoning by cedar.
I received this answer from Kind Soil regarding amount needed for growing Autos.
Makes 100% no sense to me! So growing an auto in 1,2,3,5,7,10 gallon pots all only need 3 Lbs…
Maybe I’m missing something here I don’t know?
Also he replied regarding not using RO water…didn’t say anything about the lack of calcium in RO etc but said you can’t check Ph of RO water…well I’m not sure about others here but I don’t seem to have a problem getting reading…just take a little more time…
Maybe the many times I’ve taken readings of my RO were all erroneous but to me seemed in line with range of fresh RO expected by the output of near neutral 7
I guess moving forward I will mix the RO with maybe 10-25% of my filtered (another filter system I have) water which has ppm of around 250ppm with the RO of around 5ppm that should give me a “proper” Ph reading and if needed adjust from there
A little vague!
RO has no ions or buffers to counter the acid (H+) or base (OH-) you would use to adjust the pH thus you have wide swings of pH while really not adding much volume of your ph adjusting solution. Thus it makes no sense in pH’ing water.
Additionally RO water (or even tap water with a low PPM) cannot effectively move the pH of soil given it has low or no buffering capacity even if it is pH adjusted.
Maybe he is suggesting mixing 3lbs Kind soil with the remaining volume neutral medium.
I think that’s the case.
But as skydiver says, what if you plant in a 10 or 20 gallon container?
Who knows if the auto would need all that, but I see some pics of autos and it looks like 10 gallon would not be a “waste”.
20 gal pot put 20 lb in bottom fill rest with soil10 gallon 10 lb
My dad years ago decided to take all his cedar chip and add it to his garden to compost. Turns out he really messed up the ph of the soil causing a not so productive garden. It took him a few years to get his garden back to normal. I don’t go near cedar to avoid that problem.
Hardwoods are pH neutral, but do remember thet microbes will pull nutrients from the soil in order to cause the decomposition of the mulch.
I was looking at the ingredients for kind soil. On the list is oyster shells. You said you added oyster shells to amend your soil. Possible calcium toxicity? Here’s something explaining symptoms of calcium toxicity.
First of all Calcium toxicity is hard to diagnose and it is almost impossible to do from just observing the leafs but you can observe calcium toxicity by getting signs of Magnesium, Potassium and Manganese deficiency as too much calcium will lock out these three elements and in some cases you can also get Iron deficiency symptoms.
I’m not saying that’s what’s up but worth taking a look at.
@shindig153 thanks for that info
There is always the possibility of that going on.
Only thing is with a living soil the critters sort all that stuff out. The crushed oyster shells I added if not used/needed by the plant during the grow will just be left over and recycled in my next use of the soil.
If I was jamming nutrients down the plants throats using chemical nutrients than that could be a consideration/concern but no feeding tubes here…lol
Most of the hassles that come up when growing anything is by using chemical shit. With a living soil you end up spending less money, less time and less worry and let the critters do all the heavy lifting.
The oyster shells are slow release and won’t force themselves on the plants etc etc etc…
I may have an excess or deficiency of something and I’m not ruling that out but I’m still leaning toward jamming too much light down their throats lol but I may be wrong.
Thanks again for taking the time to look into that
Thanks @Cyle1
The difference is if using Photo seeds which is a much longer grow cycle than Autos the recommend 1Lb per gallon of pot size.
They recommend 3Lb when growing Autos regardless of pot size.
Maybe because of Auto living only 8-12 weeks regardless of size of pot used that 3Lbs will be enough to supply the plant through harvest regardless of pot size.
I think I’ll have to experiment with Kind soon using less than they recommend with both Auto and Photo grows.
My current grow in 7 gallon pots I used the recommended 7Lbs but afterwards I thought about it and heck when transplanted they had already been through 70% of veg time without Kind soil so I’m sure there will be a lot of unused Kind nutrients left over after the grow…
Wow, glad I tossed them
Interesting movie is you have amazon prime it’s available on prime video.
Genetics relating to the end product relating to humans but I would assume all living things.
6 minutes in if you just want a quick snippet but so far very interesting and expanding.
Beautiful Worms, @Skydiver, I don’t know if this is redundant info. You can place worms in a small canister in the refrigerator with soil, and place corn bread/meal. They will survive surprisingly quite a long period of time. Waikiki Queen & Worm grow advocate!!!
