Grow Journal - 4th week

Here we are at the end of week 4. My friend, Don, gave us a really great tip that the plants just love! He suggested that we add Organic Sucanat to our water. He said the plants would be in microbial heaven! Guess what! He was right!

Also, people have asked what super soil recipe we use. My husband has modified SubCool's recipe a little bit and this is what we use for our hot mix:

To make half of a batch:

5 - 1.5 cu ft bags of TGA soil or any good soil - ProOrganix is also very good.
2.5 lbs of each:
  crab meal
  bone meal
  blood meal
  bat guano
  alfalfa meal
12.5-25 lbs worm castings
1.5 lbs of each:
  rock phosphates
  oyster shell
  kelp meal
.5 lbs diatomaceous earth
1 T humic acid
4 cups organic brown rice
3 cups green sand
1/2 cup azomite
1/2 cup lime
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup epson salt

We use a turnable compost maker to make this. After a month, it goes into garbage cans for use.

This super soil hot mix goes in the bottom of the pot, then blend in some regular soil, then plant the plant using the regular soil, leaving 4 inches or so at the top to add the super soil hot mix as a dressing later. We still use a little nutrient in the water, and of course take our cues from the plants as to what they need. And now we're adding Sucanat. Very cool stuff.

So here are the ladies after a week..

Filly Bean

day 29

day 22

Vortex

day 22

day 29

Timewreck

day 22

day 29

The Flav

day 22

day 29

Pennywise

day 22

day 29

Orange Vision

day 29

day 22

And lastly..a view of the room..

Oh, we bought a worm farm. The worms arrive next week. We'll probably keep it in the flower room for CO2 release. I'll include pictures next time. Another month..maybe..basking in the lush!

Happy garden..Happy me! 

~ Blessed Be! ~ 

A Gardening Update

I flood irrigate 4.6 acres of pasture. I do it because I'm better at it than my husband. He put in several new headgates for me to use so that I don't have to use tarps. I hate tarps. I much prefer to open and close little gates. Easier on my nails. This year, since I haven't done the irrigation in thirteen years, I'm going to just grow it and not cut it for hay. I need to re-seed the pasture anyway, so next year burning will be a bitch, but whatever. It's looking pretty good, except for one dry spot. The main area is around 3 acres and is beyond the cross fence in the picture.

The greenhouse is doing well. We put in a drip system which the plants seem to like better than a "me" system. I'm not consistent enough apparently so drippers it is! On the right is a hot pepper plant with interesting peppers on it. They haven't turned red yet, but they still look cool. My new pink blueberry bush hasn't produced any fruit, so maybe next year it will. I'm looking forward to that!



This is the platform my husband created in a willow tree outside the greenhouse. He did this because of the deer who think they own our property and believe they are entitled to everything growing there. The picture to the right is a shot of the pond from atop the platform. I have pepper plants growing up there as well on the railing he put in to keep me from taking a header off the thing. And yes, I'm totally capable of doing something like that. There are times when I need a keeper, and this was one of those times. I'm growing the beans in two big pots and they've been very prolific this year.

Below is a hyrdroponic lettuce raft in which I'm growing romaine lettuce. I really like rafts for growing all kinds of things, but lettuce does extremely well. This is the first time using one outside though. 

I also have a hydroponic tub inside the house with bok choy growing. Bok choy is awesome to grow hydroponically and has a much higher water content than what we buy in the produce department. There's really nothing like it. The tub has little sprayers inside and come on every so many minutes and spray the roots with nutrient solution. It's awesome!




To the right and left are pictures of some super soil we made. We used the recipe from TGA Genetics and it works well for anything you want to grow. I bought a turnable compost bin to make it as well as compost for next year.

And speaking of next year, we have plans to build a bigger greenhouse and to do something interesting with floating docks out on the pond. All in a effort to circumvent these guys:

Happy gardening!