I get the vegan thing, and... if it's what floats your boat, then that's your boat, floated. No skin offa my nose. ;)
Hey all
Im new to this site, but have been growing organically with teas for years. Recently, Ive been transitioning to veganics and am having a hard time finding a replacement for the phos guanos I love so much. Soft rock phosphate was my first choice, but Ive heard it can cause cancer and actually kill the microbes if you use the wrong kind. (I have no sources, just hear-say) Idealy, OMRI certified SRP is the goal but Ill settle for anything that doesnt hurt people or microbes. Ive done a good amount of research at my local stores, on the internet and have read basically every microbe book out and now Im turning to thcfarm hoping for a little direction. Any advise is appreciated greatly!
Thank you in advance!
-gro
Heres my current list of tea products molasses, kelp, insect frass, EWC, glacial rock dust, soluble seaweed, humus, a dash of alfalfa meal and vegan compost.
Viruses may be the cause of
many cancers. Now what?
SRP takes about two years to become plant-available, so you should add it in soils now with the idea that in about two years you'll be able to reduce P inputs. There's also the question of your base media/soil. Are you working outdoors with your native earth? If so, you really need to know some basics about that soil
first, before you can make an intelligent decision about which direction you should go. Also, if you're in a situation like me and you're watering with very hard, alkaline water high in carbonates, then you must take care about how that may interact with the other variables. Ya dig?
As far as harming anything... think on this--how do we acquire the rock dusts in the first place, eh? Usually it's mining activities, right? But we need a lot of this stuff that's held within the crust of the earth, so we make some trade-offs.
One of my trade-offs is that I use rock dusts (still trying to source locally to reduce impact/footprint). I'm also quite willing to use the natural effluent from animals (and myself, pee is free, after all, and it's damn near a complete nutrient whose main problem making a complete/total feed for my needs is my ability to produce enough) as well as the byproducts from using animals. I feel strongly that if we're going to kill the cow that we should use the WHOLE cow. Kill it humanely and use the whole thing.
In that vein, I suggest trading perlite for an ag waste byproduct, such as rice hulls, for lightening up mixes. I suggest finding local rock dusts with analysis. I haven't been too successful in finding quite what I want (reliability is a local issue/problem, the level of which is pretty unbelievable for someone who lived most of her life in the LA area).
I prefer to use other ag wastes when and where I can, and while I know not all may be 100% organic, they're better than the blue alternatives.
High P alternatives to guanos (which aren't so renewable, unless you're going with chicken shit, which is pretty high N) would be bone meal, which I use, smells like chicharrones. I also use Cal-Phos, because I'm sitting on acidic, Ca-, N-, heavy soils and because my water *is* high in CO3, my sources of Ca tend not to be CaCO3 (same w/Mg).
This is specifically for my outdoor growing in my native earth. If I'm using pre-mixed top-soil, I don't have quite all the same concerns, with the water being the main exception.
Organic meats are being produced and processed, and so there are organic byproducts from those that have been raised and slaughtered humanely, that are also renewable (the issue I have with stuff like fossilized guano beds), and they're a good, renewable source of fairly ready P. I don't suggest making tea with bone meal (neither do I often suggest using guano--food safety perspective is hard to shake) because it smells
awful, no longer like tasty chicharrones.
You know what chicharrones are, right? :D
