I use it a lot, carbon in various forms has been a priority for me, The NOG regime has a carbon tea as one component that smells great. Carbon is important to some extent as well, we are all carbon based and need it. Calcium is important, virtually every other bottle in the NOG lineup has some calcium, they place a high priority on calcium. Their biggest seller,
Herculean Harvest has all the calcium in liquid form you really need, but I haven't seen any problems with all that I add in addition to the Full NOG regimine and soil, but their PH up has a higher concentration and comes in handy when messing with the ph which I have learned can range from 5.4 to 7.0 depending on the micros that you want to give the plant at each feeding. NOG has a chart that's easy to read and pinpoints the PH and micros that allow it to pass to the plant. With the NOG regime it relies on your experience to notice the signs of any deficiency and adjust the ph to get the most to the plant on next watering.
So I stop with the Biochar at the worm phase and AACT, never noticed any benefit from putting it on the top of a plant unless your pots are full of worms, worms that passed the sieve as eggs or really small. You can always tell the pots with the most or least worms by the way the top of the soil takes on water without passing through to directly to the tray. I try to let the worm castings pass the biochar to the plant at the time of planting, just have to be careful to keep the super soil porous enough to let water pass through, from there on out I will put it in every other AACT. From what I have read aerating it will bring lots of benes and my tea is full of benes, I throw the kitchen sink in my mesh bag suspended above the bubble snake.
gives a lot of Calcium, I've not seen a sign of calcium deficiencies since using NOG
I have a worm farm that I have built up to 12 bins, I've got about 100+ lbs (3 large bins) of it stockpiled. Try to put a diversity of organic amendments in my worm bins, Compost (a perpetual compost in a 10g pail. where my coffee grinds, veggies, MY own EM2 and EM3, Biochar as well as a host of other biodegradables. Also spread some on top of the bins, the worms do the mixing. That rounds out all the micros spread some on the top at the start of a new tray. Azomite in copious quantities, SEA-90 and Roots Elemental (powdered Calcium that seems best when added to the worm bins and in the soil mix. Lots of various noso (kelp) from different sources seems to be the best amendment. I have a recipe I follow when I set up a new bin. I can post it, but I am not sure anyone is interested. There were 20+ amendments I tracked when making a batch of amendments for the bins so I can basically control the temperature (winter I put more and summer a lot less). The amendments have some nutes as well which will heat the soil, but have to be careful, I've lost a lot of worms adding too much in the summer. In the hottest times of the year I put a small amount in every week so the tray gets a standard amount over the 6 months it takes before the castings are ready and they have so many bene's in there, it gets watered in until I start to see a little leaking out, at which point I stop. Don't want to loose any of the benefits of the castings until it's been watered a few times at each transplant.
Read that plants like to be transplanted a lot as opposed to being stuck in a 5g pail and left there through harvest. I start with a .3g airpot (the real ones, not the crappy rip offs on amazon), move to 1g air pots, 2g airpots, 3-4g is usually where I stop, sometimes 2g, but I have every size, just a few of the 5g and 7g, expensive and not needed. All the airpots are expensive, but well worth the investment as opposed to bags. Just can't let them dry out, it's a pain to get the soil saturated unless I literally dip the whole pot in the nutrient and let it soak it up, usually takes on 2x the water than top watering. So I alternate from soak to top water, which is fine, the pots will take in water when the soil is moist a lot better.
Anyone interested in some castings I make, send a message. a 1 gal bag seems to hold a kilo, just about 2.2lbs, I sell it that way, if you want a lot I will put it in the appropriate size container. I been getting $20 off Craigslist per kilo, but I would be happy to sell it for $15 for anyone on the site and discounts for larger purchases (These go a lot further than what you may be buying and will have worms in them as well as eggs that if you don't let the pot dry completely, will become part of the Rhizosphere). Nothing better than moist living castings that will turn the water black the second you put the media bag in the bucket, before adding air. You can put it in a container and catch the runoff to get it in liquid form. Add a little carbs and you can let sit in fridge for a while. Castings work great as a deterrent to insects. I increase that by adding Neem seed meal (DTE) to my amendments. Thinking of trying the Neem cakes I am seeing more of lately.
Anyone been to a feed store lately? I recently saw they were selling Fermented Alfalfa, never seen before, but I have been adding it to my compost for a year or so now, I believe it has a lot of probiotics (I associate fermentation with probiotics and EM's as bene's that are passed to the castings and the soil. You can use them to get your compost started as well, seems the benes will work as an organic compost accelerant.
