So what enzyme booster would you use to prep your soil before transplanting from 3 in starter pots to 5 gallon buckets using FF OF?
Right now I’m using natures living soil. Sprinkle just a small amount in at transplant so you have mychos right at the roots. Then after transplant I water it in with a mix of vegamatrix prime zyme (my new favorite enzyme product), some liquid kelp, and some molasses. Just a cap full of each in 1 gallon distilled water.
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Outdoor, biochar make myco boost hit turbo. They hyphae literally wrap up the char and envelope all the inside pores on cross section.
I have never played w it indoor. You would have to load it first with compost tea or urine first (or chem nutrients if you use them). It will strip the soil otherwise.
I load my char by mixing it with table scraps in 5 gal buckets. Then filling it to lip with urine and soaking a week before I put it in my compost tumbler.
If you cut out the table scraps you could use it as a wet amendment when you first mix your soil for indoor.
I just want to scream biochar from the mountain tops it works so well for mycohyzae growth.
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@Noddykitty yeah biochar works great if you charge it first. The easiest way I have found is to activate it like activated charcoal using water and calcium chloride and then bake after rinsing. Once that’s done I soak it in a bucket of compost tea with enzymes and liquid kelp. After that I inoculate it with mychorrizae and mix it in my soil.
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Md buds I love the tip of calcium carbonate first. It would buffer up. and release calcium. That’s brilliant.
Have you ever added epsoms salt to the calcium carbonate solution too? Cal mag (maybe) baby. ?
I have also used spent aquarium carbon (on tanks I know had no weird fish meds or antibiotics) in. Just cut the carbon sack corner and put into soil. It’s pre loaded this way too.
Salt water (used carbon) has cal and mag in it because salt mixes are unnaturally amended up with these as they are quickly depleted in reef tanks. Anyway, it helps buffer if you have low ph troubles late in the grow ( acidic tap water always does this).
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@Noddykitty the epsom salts take away from the activating with calcium chloride you can definitely throw some in that tea though when you charge with the tea after removing the moisture in the oven.
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Chloride. Sorry. Calcium carbonate would help if the ph chronically ran low. It would buffer too.
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Prelude: not trying to argue. I know you can’t tell body langue, tone or intonation online. I just wanted to continue the conversation. I quite well am wrong.
That said, I went on a walk with my kids and could not stop thinking about the chemistry. I see an experiment in my future.
Wouldn’t (?) the Ca(Cl) + Mg(Cl)= Make drooped equally (tblspoon or so) into solution (H20) Ca+ and Mg+ ions both. And then carbon with 4 bonds (if ever an element could) hold on to both? Or does one do some weird double or triple bond with the carbon?
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@Noddykitty calcium chloride is used to activate charcoal and biochar. It works as a desiccant helping to pull moisture from it which activates it so it can be used to detoxify, purify, or be charged with nutrients. It does add some calcium to the charcoal but not much.
You don’t want to add anything to it while activating so the chemical process is not interfered with.
Once it is activated you can charge it with whatever you like. Calcium bicarbonate and Epsom salts in a compost tea to charge it like an advanced cal mag/enzyme booster and inoculate.
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Wow guys @Noddykitty @MDBuds yall are so far ahead of me on this chemical knowledge I actually felt stupid trying to grasp it all. Had to go back to the start and chew on it in little bites. I guess the saying is true that if I knew 10% of what I thought I knew I would be really smart.
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Don’t laugh, but I also go to the coast after wind storms with buckets and scavenge the ripped up kelp fronds and bulbs. They become paste left to liquify for about 30 day. Dilute and share the love (in veggies too) on rainy day. Plants all seem to dig it.
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@MDBuds @Noddykitty So let me shoot this at yall and see if I understand properly. Biochar is to nutrients what peralite is to water (kind of a specialized sponge)? Then activating it and charging it is removing unknown and possibly unwanted (nutrients) then putting in the ones you know and want.
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Biochar is probably the best keep secrect in soil growing. Especially if you talking long term soil usage e.g. no till, permanent beds, etc. Glad to see some discussion on it.
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@Rye Biochar is great stuff if it’s made right and charged properly. I prefer to make my own even though I don’t have a system capable of the pressure needed to make true biochar. My home made charged charcoal works pretty good though.
I always hated buying biochar from big companies. It’s almost never charged and half the time it isn’t real biochar. It’s just charcoal labeled as biochar.
So far the best I’ve find was through these guys www.buildasoil.com
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@Jared just about spot on. Biochar is just a specialized form of charcoal/carbon designed to be a soil fixer. It pulls heavy metals out of soil but it also leaches nutrients if it isn’t charged first. It also has a lot of microscopic tunnels and channels in it that make it a great home for mychorrizae and beneficial bacterial colonies. It’s amazing stuff and can really benefit the environment by rebuilding topsoils and making no till methods more effective. You just need an ethically sourced brand that is true biochar otherwise it will deplete the soil.
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Well guess i will be using biochar (or a homemade version) all the time now then. I have unlimited supply of wood (own land and a sawmill) and already make my own hardwood charcoal for grilling and forging (55 gallon retort). I have already been using my fines in the garden. Just had no idea about charging or loading it. I looked up making it at home. Looks pretty simple will have to check out the pressure reference though @MDBuds thanks for bringing that up.
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@Jared i meant a pressurized vacuum chamber. The best biochar is made it extremely low oxygen environments. It burns slower in the process of creation and it gives it special properties.
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Cool i will look that up in the morning.
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The original biochar is still an unknown. What we use now is as close as we can get to what the native people in SA made, so its important that is sourced correctly so you know it’s made properly. Build a soil is probably one of the BEST sources for a TON of soil and growing needs. I use their stuff a lot.
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