Hey all -
Curious about planting with molasses and/or Turbinado sugar directly in the soil as a carb source for plants and feeding center for the microherd.
Thinking of adding a bit of both, maybe 4tbs to a 10g pot on molasses, with 1tbs of turbinado sugar... hows that sound?
Theres a million molasses references here; read a ton. Seems its always in tea but rarely in topdressing and few use it directly in soil.. Extraction
Preparation of turbinado sugar begins with the crushing of the sugar cane plant in order to extract juices. This helps keep the natural molasses in the crystals.
Heat
After the extraction process, the juices are heated, which causes evaporation. The resulting product is a thick syrup that is then crystallized.
Spinning
The crystallized product is finally spun in a turbine or centrifuge. This leads to the removal of any moisture that may still be on the sugar.
Benefits
Turbinado sugar is made in a way that keeps it free of chemicals. Unlike refined sugars, turbinado does not contain phosphoric acid, formic acid, sulphur dioxide, preservatives or bleaching agents.
Nutrients
Turbinado sugar contains calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and iron. It retains those minerals and vitamins due to the processing method.
Be very careful with putting sugars in bulk directly into the soil, or you can cause a HUGE bacterial bloom. That's why I prefer to top-dress or root drench with sugars.
I did. Turbinado sprinkled and a tbls of molasses layered in the root hole at transplant, then again on topdress.
Used lots of bacteria w/Dr GoodEarth powder, so I needed to feed em.
Used too much vegan nutes in hole + topdress (alfalfa meal, kelp meal, azomite, etc) so I cooked soil on my poor girls. Lost 2.
=(
But the rest, even the other 2 who verrrrry nearly died (soil about 85f when I 1st tested; argh I messed up) ....
... rebounding strong. Blowing up now.
Stoked.
Gonna use turbinado and molasses again, I think. Also going to put turbinado in homemade tea packets I think ....
Nice get up dust your self off keep at it. Lesson learned. Hoping the best for your harvest. Best to make a tea with the molasses like your thinking ive always had good resukts with that method.
Happy farming.