I do want to get my water tested, obviously it would tell me so much information, valuable info.. Im just in a rental home right now, im on a few acres out in the sticks but won't be here permanantly, but hopefully in the next year or so i will get into my own house again and have tons of space and privacy, man i miss that! Anyway, i dug my holes right in my lawn, the first couple inches of earth underneath my lawn was some serious black healthy looking shit, but it quickly gets very clay filled, id say probably 70 % clay atleast.. We had tons of rain today and i noticed some water staying in atleast one of my holes. I am planning on using a lot of perlite, i bought a few extra bags today, along with a few more bags of compost. I used the pick and chopped up the bottom's of my holes real good so the roots will have some broken up loose shit to dig down in to..
Im going to get out and do that a bit more then put a couple inches of perlite on the bottoms of the hole, with a few inches of native soil underneath that, i will mix the perlite into my medium pretty heavy as well. I wanted to use some mulch on top mainly just to cover up the perlite from the air, is using a bed of mulch on top of my holes ok?
About the well water too, with my well water being 8.2 i was ph'ing it down to 6.5 or so when i do an indoor grow, but what puzzled me was whenever i start seeds i just use my well water and continue to use it usually until i start actually feeding the plants in a couple weeks, and i have never seemed to have any strange ph roblems with my young seedlings, wouldn't you think a ph of 8.2 would fuck things up fast, im talking indoors here though, wasn't an organic grow... I guess for the outdoors ladies i will jjust use straight well water, i should have enough goodness in the soil to take care of them for awhile, and i can top dress a little with the prganicare later on if i need to..
Off topic i have one other question, when these guys grow these big tree's in northern Cali and grow real nice outdoor organic plants do they just give straight water the whole time? Is it because they use such big pots or holes that they can supply the plants with whats in the soil all season, or would they sometimes give a tea to their outdoor plants? Or maybe top dress with a good organic fert? I don't totally understand the whole outdoor organic thing yet. Guess that's why the Rev always stresses how you need to have a total mind shift when doing organics, got to resist the urge to want to bottle feed the plants with extra's...
Gypsum is what is typically used to help make heavy clay soils more friable. Heavy clay soils are often very high in Mg, so the gypsum provides good amounts of Ca, and it's not bound to CO3 (carbonate) molecules, which makes it
much easier for microbes and plants to utilize.
I personally hate perlite--it adds nothing to the mix except volume, floats to the top, is conspicuous, and adds nothing. Rice hulls are
much more effective in this scenario and cost a fraction of perlite. They decompose slowly, takes 2-3 years IME, add potassium silicate and make a fantastic home for fungi. They also
don't float to the top when a body of soil is watered, unlike perlite.
Perlite-laden rootballs are awfully fun to throw into a brush burn pile, though. Really crackles and pops!
I use our unfiltered well water for my outdoor irrigation. It is
very high in carbonates, and I've gotten pH readings as high as 9. As long as the soil food web is working well, and you've avoided adding more carbonate-bearing products (oyster shell flower, dolomite lime, crab or shrimp meal), or even amended with something like peat, assuming your soil pH isn't already too acidic, you'll be just fine.
Every grower does it differently. Almost every commercial guy I know has gone through cycles of Growmore 20-20-20, to organic, to compost teas, to Jack's, back and forth, back and forth they go. I have a very strong opinion about how everything should be grown in all scenarios, so I'm pretty strict about my organic regimen. However, the MAIN reason I stay organic is cost--it's really very cheap once you get all amendments in place, get the soil going--just add water, you don't have to fuck around with bullshit like pH, just water and watch 'em explode.
To reiterate, the quality of the soil and amendments are what can really affect growth, along with how much space the roots are given. Since you're going with in-ground plantings, there are no space restrictions.
I would ditch the perlite altogether, but I would still mulch. However, I wouldn't just mulch, I would (will and DO) cover crop. I prefer the lower-growing plants for cover cropping, fenugreek has become one of my must-haves for that reason plus it goes to seed pretty quickly, so it's always self-sowing. I don't limit my cover crops to fenugreek, however, because I've seen best results in all plants when I use a mix of at least five cover crops. Just be mindful of finishing height, and you'll not only be golden, you'll be better. Plus, you won't have to cover up the fucking perlite!
Honestly, stop reading 'the Rev' and start reading outside organic material. It will help you understand in a HUGE way its importance, and ease, and why plants perform so much better. In fact, start reading Blaze's threads, he'll educate you.
