Dr.J20 said:

Composting inside takes some guts for sure. I can imagine with all the delicious goodies you've been adding that your pile does have some amazing life. Only things I notice from your post are:

1) Foaminess is a fairly mythical way to judge the microbiological activity of your tea. you can have a wonderful hoard developing with almost no foam and vice versa. Indeed, water with just molasses in it can foam up pretty good, all on its own and if you have anything that can act as a surfactant then your bubbles are indicators of surfactant activity rather than an indication of microbial life/activity.

2) be careful with manures, particularly inside, particularly if you're getting any of your manures from a local source, particularly horses, cattle, and other field grazers. These manures should be aged before added to a compost pile so any harmful plant seed etc. can die off before germinating/growing and causing you headaches. Of course, from the sounds of it, these are mostly store bought manures/guanos (unless you're an avid spelunker, which would be badass!) and are probably totally safe/preaged. just a head's up on that one--and its probably way more important for an outdoor garden than for containers.

3)"soil mite" encompasses a lot (1000s) of species of mite. Among them are predatory mites, which can be considered beneficials because they prey on pests; detritivorous mites, which help to break down organic matter and eat rotting/dead plant and other microbial matter. They can also be beneficial, and will largely not harm living plant roots. There are also phytophagous (plant eating) mites which would obviously be bad to have. If the mites you see are slow moving (to the point of appearing to be stationary) and are of a whitish coloration, then they are most likely detritivores. They like a very moist habitat and usually show up in vermicomposting systems when moisture content has become too high. They do not constitute a problem, per se, but if their populations grow to the infestation level, it can be an indication that you're pile is a little over-moist.

4) Let me preface this by saying I don't grow in straight coco, but I would imagine that plain old topdressing compost directly on top of the coco would work. I don't know how it will effect the porosity and texture of the soil, but if your compost seem particularly "muddy" when water is added to it, you might think about adding some aeration before using it (like crushed pumice, or just perlite). It may be more effective to continue to apply it via tea, but coco growers will have to chime in to get you better advice than this.

5) You probably don't need to add any mycorrhizal supplementation, especially since there aren't any roots in your compost pile with which such fungi could develop their symbiotic relationship. mycorrhizae, added to straight soils without plants (i.e. root systems) in it just end up dying off and becoming more organic matter to decompose in the soil (by detritivores like your mites!). I don't know if this fits the bill for any of the stuff you listed but voodoo juice and piranha sound like they might. Save 'em for transplanting and apply directly to the root system.

compost is very cool and if you're cool with organisms sharing your abode, i would highly recommend doing a vermicompost bin alongside your pile. And, if you really get into it--and have the room-- try a cool compost pile outdoors, one that you never have to turn and that never really heats up or anything, but rather decomposes over the course of a year. Each year you can have 27cu.Ft of super loamy compost with just a 3x3x3 pile, and that is some great stuff to work with!

HTH
be easy,
Dr.J

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Oregon Grown said:

I have a half gallon of iguana juice that's about 5 years old and was thinking of adding it to my compost pile. What do you all think is this going to be beneficial or should I dispose of it some other way?

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