Living Soil

Hi Everyone
Welcome to the my ramblings on soil , i could go on for pages about this topic but i will keep it short and sweet ( somewhat )

Soil is the life blood of any grow , if your soil is healthy there is no possible way to not have a happy and healthy lady. Soil like life can not thrive without  healthy bacteria and fungi levels.
To understand why we need the bacteria and fungi we first need to understand the Soil food web

Redefining the Soil Food Web for Indoors by Matt Rize

The complex relationship between plants and soil is called the soil food web. This describes the connection between roots, soil, and soil organisms. In the past 15 years this topic has been the center of attention for organic gardeners, thanks in large part to Teaming With Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis.

Plants produce sugars (carbohydrates) and proteins via photosynthesis, a well known process. Lesser known is that these photosynthetic products are then exuded into the soil, via the root system, to encourage beneficial bacteria and/or fungi. The bacteria and fungi feed larger soil organisms. It is the poop from these larger organisms that feed our plants. This is organic soil gardening at is core.

Soil organisms include (from tiny to small): bacteria, fungi, algae, slime molds, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, gastropods, worms, and insects. These, and many unlisted organisms, are partially responsible for decomposition/aeration of soil. Decomposed soil releases nutrients, which are then used by plant's roots for nutrition. Aeration of soil is a major issue, and has led to many growing with soil-less organic media. Peat/coco/bark, the organic soil-less grow medias, are much more airy than traditional soil.

But soil organisms are not the only ones decomposition and improving soil structure. Plants decompose soil chemically by exuding organic acids, ie citric acid, via their roots system. This is how plants actively take nutrition from soil. Plants also alter soil pH to their liking with these same exudates. Plants, like soil organisms, aerate soil via growing and moving root systems. Plants do exert a level of control over the rhizosphere.

Taken indoors the root soil food web is different. Indoor container growing is done without the larger soil decomposers, worms and insects. Bagged potting mixes may be void of other crucial soil organisms due to processing and/or sterilization. This means indoor potting soil won't be continuously aerated by worm and insect tunneling. This lack of large decomposers has led to indoor growing being based on mostly lighter (more air) and less nutritionally balanced soil-less organic media instead of actual soil. Familiar examples of soil-less organic media again are: peat, coco, and bark.

Soil-less organic potting mixes made from peat/coco/bark need food supplementation, as these mixes do not provide complete plant nutrition, especially in high yield environments. Normally, in the outdoor soil food web, worms help to feed the plants. But indoors we have to do the worm's job, so we add bottled and dry nutrients to our indoor food web. Indoors we use a root-soil-nutrient food web instead of a root-soil food web.

The constant addition of vermi-compost (EWC) by worms does not apply indoors, and this plant nutrient source must be replaced for high yield indoor organics. The bottled and dry nutrients replace the worm's decomposition of soil. The switch from soil to soil-less organic (peat, coco, bark), due to soil-less' airy structure, means most of the nutrients that plants use must be added by the gardener. The dry and bottled nutes that we water in are eaten by the bacteria and fungi, which are eaten by nematodes and protozoa, who poop plant food. The root-soil-nutrient food web

Bacteria and fungi are the building blocks of life so for me to grow in a medium that is not rich in life how can i expect my ladies to be rich in life.

Unfortunately in a modern age a lot of bacteria and fungi diversity has died of in nature to a degree because of all the crap people put into the soil. This is why i like to collect soil sample from wherever i go , i make a AACT from it and inoculate my compost heap with the bacteria, by doing this you are increasing the bacteria and fungi diversity in your hope compost heap and in turn it will help your ladies.


My goal with this mix is to just water with molasses and AACT with no other feeding needed. I like to get down and dirty with my soils   
It takes a bit of work to get the soil right but it will be better than anything you can buy.

Reaf's Organic Promix  (250L)
100L Coco Peat
30L Worm compost
20L Mushroom compost
30L Growlite Perlite
60L Living Soil
1kg Bone Meal
1Kg Talborne
500g volcanic Rock Dust

Reaf's living Soil Mix
60L Soil
40L Worm Compost 
20L Mushroom Compost
500g Bone meal
500g Talborne
1Kg Dry dog food
500g kelp
500g lime
500g Volcanic Rock Dust
3 tbl compost starter
This mix needs to cook for 2 months minimum. ideally you also need to water this mix with molasses and AACT.
You will need to turn the soil every few weeks.
The work will be worth it , you will end up with a wonderful rich soil.

The perlite is from pratley and is a bit different to the regular stuff but it seems nice


Big bag of Perlite and Coco  


The start


Making sure its mixed


finished product

Lactobacillus Serum

This is the workhorse of the beneficial bacteria we’ll be discussing here. We use it for everything! Foul odors, clogged drains, cheaper pig/chicken/etc farming, aquaculture, the applications are amazingly diverse. Learn how to make and use this and you will have a powerful tool in your farming arsenal.

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How to Make:

1. Get container, fill halfway with rice-wash. Rice wash is the water leftover when you rinse fresh rice. For example, go buy rice, whatever kind, bring it home, put it in a pot with warm water, swirl it a bit and then drain the [now milky colored] water. The water is now a rich source of carbohydrates. In this step, you can substitute rice with another carbohydrate source if you don’t have rice, as long as it is complex (don’t use simple carbohydrates like sugar, honey, syrup, molasses, etc). You can use wheat, barley, kinoa, other carbohydrates as the base to make your carbohydrate wash. This wash will attract microbes from the air, among them lacto bacilli.
2. Cover loosely and let stand for a couple days to a week
   • When is it done? When you see a light film on top (molds) and it smells a little sour and forms 3 layers. This is indicating the rice wash is infected with various microbes. This happens more quickly in warm temperatures because microbes are more active. Thus it is all relative since we don’t do this in controlled laboratory conditions.
3. The layers are distinct
   • Top layer: floating carbohydrates leftover from fermentation and possibly molds
   • Middle layer: Lactic Acid and other bacteria (cheese buffs will recognize this as a makeshift “rennet”). We will use this layer.
   • Bottom layer: Starch, byproduct of fermentation
4. Extract the middle layer using a siphon. This layer contains the highest concentration of lactic acid bacteria and lowest concentration of the unneeded byproducts
5. Get a new container, larger than the first. Take the extracted serum from the last step and mix it with 10 parts milk. By saturating with milk (lactose), we dissuade other microbes from proliferating, leaving L. bacilli. E.G. if you have 1cup of the serum, mix it with 10cups milk.

TIP: The best milk to use in unpasteurized natural milk. However, any milk will do, even powdered milk. In our experience, the best is unpasteurized natural but just use what is available. We just want to saturate with lactose to promote L. bacilli bacteria.

6. You want to keep this stage anaerobic as much as possible. You can use something like rice bran, barley bran, wheat bran, etc sprinkled on top of the milk. I use a sealed container with a one-way valve.
7. After about 1 week (temp dependent), you’ll see curds (made of carbohydrate, protein, and fat) on top of the milk. The water below will be yellow colored – this is whey, enriched with lactic acid bacteria from the fermentation of the milk.

NOTE: Microbes like L. bacilli are more active in warmer temperatures. The curds you see are a byproduct of the fermentation process. Fermentation is generally associated with microbial processes under anaerobic(no oxygen) conditions. Now, L. bacilli is a facultative anaerobe, that is it can live and work with or without oxygen, but less competition in anaerobic conditions.

8. The water below(whey+lacto) is the good stuff. You want to extract this. You can either skim the curds off the top, pour through a strainer, or whatever other methods to accomplish that

NOTE: Remember the curds, or byproduct of milk fermentation by L. bacilli, are great food. They are full of beneficial microbes like L. bacilli. Feed the curds to the soil, compost pile, plants, animals, humans – whoever wants them! They are full of good nutrients/microbes. No waste in natural farming.

9. To preserve at room temperature, add an equal part sugar/molasses to the serum. So, if you have 1L of serum, add 1kilo sugar or 1L molasses. Otherwise store in fridge to keep.

Example Recipe:

• 1 L rice wash
• 10L Milk
• 10kg sugar
• After rice wash and milk remove curds – around 1L
• = 20 L lactic acid bacteria serum

What to Use it for and How

Before using, first mix 1:20 with water. 1 part serum to 20 parts water. Then follow instructions below:

Odor Reducer:
Add mixture to animal’s water at 2tbsp/L. You can mix it more or less, there are no rules here, just how we typically do it.

• Apply to places where there is odor buildup. The harmless bacteria “eat” the odor causing germs and the smell is gone!
  • Indoors: reduces foul odors, including animals like cats, dogs, mice, other pets. Stinky shoes? Wet clothes from being outside? Gym clothes that haven’t made it to the wash yet? Smoker in the house? Kill these nasty smells!
  • Outside: use to control odor in pens – pigs, cows, chickens. In barns, around the yard, etc

Household use:

• Clear clogged drains: dump mixture into drain to clear clogs. Exact amount depends on the clog, haha. A few tbsp to 1L works well. For semi-clogged drains (like kitchen sink draining progressively slower), use at night and allow at least the night for microbes to work.
• Keep septic clear. Tired of having your septic system drained? Add lacto! Depending on size of your system, pour a few tbsp. to a few L into the toilet every few months.
• Houseplants: Mix 2-3tbsp per 1L water and use that to water them.

Animal Bedding: 
Mix 2tbsp to 1L water. Mix with animal bedding to reduce smell and increase longevity. In natural pig farming we use at least 1 yard deep of bedding so there is plenty of space for microbes to work. Bedding consists of organic substrate like rice hulls, wood chips, sawdust, wood shavings, shredded corn cob, any other high cellulose, high lignin material. Natural pig farming is a future topic on this site. Spray until bedding is slightly damp but not wet. How much you spray really depends on your climate. If you are in a very dry climate you can spray a little more and mix in evenly. Wetter (more humid) climates use a bit less. Mix into the bedding evenly where necessary (in many cases, like with pigs and chickens, they’ll mix it themselves). How much you use is all relative. These guidelines are for pigs and chickens. More extreme smells, just use more! Want to spray less often, use more! As we notice a smell we spray. Thus, as pigs grow bigger, make more poop, we spray more often! Dosage/frequency is relative and will depend on your situation.



Animals – Digestive/Growth Aid: 
Mix 2tbsp to 1L water, then add that mixture to animal’s water at 2tbsp/L(so the animal’s water contains little less than a quarter tsp/L of lacto serum). But this is very flexible. The Lacto serum is not harmful, so its just about adding enough to be effective, without wasting it.

• Improve digestive efficiency in humans and animals alike:
  • Improves how you feel after meals, particularly meals rich in meats. It’s awesome. After eating, mix 1-2tbsp lacto with a cup of water and drink that. Makes you feel so much better after! Lessens that afternoon lull, gives you more energy!
  • Aids digestion in animals. This is critical. You can raise animals on less food, and see the same and greater growth rates. Amazing results in pigs . The principal is that the microorganisms help digest the food coming in – better digestibility means better nutrient absorption. Save on feeds, better feed to growth conversion ratio!

  TIP: If you really want to boost growth, mix 2tbsp to 1L water and soak the food in this solution for a few hours to a few days. Food is pre-digested when animals eat it, AWESOME!

  • Great results in livestock and poultry.

Plants – Growth Aid: 
When added to water for plants, nutrient uptake efficiency is increased, which increases growth!

• Improves growth of plants when applied as foliar spray and soil drench. Improves their efficiency in uptaking nutrients so naturally, growth is enhanced. With the use of these microorganisms, the nutrients you spray or drench to feed your plants become more bio-available and easily absorbable by the plants. Technically, you can say that plants do not use organic nutrients directly. Microorganisms convert organic nutrients to their inorganic constituents which the plants utilize. Utilizing microbes, you will notice better plant growth and health.

Disease Resistance:

• This is a consequence of the increased efficiency of nutrients. More nutrients available at smaller metabolic cost.
• Lacto suppresses harmful bacteria in food/water that animals consume, enhances their gut flora so that line of defense is working optimally, etc.

Aid Compost:

• Mix 2tbsp/L and spray on compost pile to improve decomposition. This is a huge topic that will be expanded upon in another post.

Aid Organic Fertilizer: 
Add 1-2tbsp per gallon water-nutrient solution. Lacto consumes organic nutrients making them bio-available to plant roots.

• Plants don’t use organic fertilizer! Microbes break it down to inorganic constituents, and plants take those up. This product makes that process more efficient.

Aquaculture:
Lacto works in aquaculture just fine if you don’t have BIM available. Add lacto at roughly 1L per 700m3 of fish-containing water. Example: you have a pond that averages 20m wide by 30m long by 2m deep. So, 20 x 30 x 2 = 1200m3. In this case you would add roughly 1L of BIM or Lacto

• Microbes digest fish wastes, cleaning up water and improving water quality.
• Allows fish to grow larger due to digestive efficiency
• Allows higher population of fish in the same amount of water! Literally, increases the carrying capacity of your body of water! This is awesome for aquaculture setups

BIM

Beneficial Indigenous Microorganisms(BIM) is a fermented microbial solution that can be used for many applications 

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How to Make:

The idea here is to collect microbes from natural healthy ecosystems. Different areas have different types of microbes in the soil – for example an old growth forest will have microbes that grasslands don’t and vice versa. To get the greatest diversity of microbes, you want to collect them from as many different habitats as you can. For starters, at least get from forest, grassland, and the boundary area between them. 

TIP:  Plant-specific microbes! If you are growing vegetables, find areas where natural veggies are thriving. If planting ornamentals, look for areas where wild ornamental type plants are. Also, target nitrogen-fixer plants since they have rhizobium bacterial strains present – legumes, as well as some other plant genuses such as Alder or Bayberry fall into this category.

Here’s how to collect microbes and make BIM:

1. Cook a carbohydrate source to use as the attractant. Rice, barley, wheat, oats, etc should work no problem, most often rice is used here in Asia.
2. Get a wooden box or perforated plastic box and fill bottom with rice. The rice should not be too deep, around 1 inch usually, otherwise it will take too long for all the rice to become infected. Don’t pack the rice, leave it loose to allow airflow. The whole idea is to create more space for the microbes to infect – the surface area of the rice.
3. Mark side of box with date and intended location.
4. Cover box with something that’s breathable – nylons stretched over, or newspaper, just something to keep big critters out – secure with string around top of box.
5. Dig a little depression in the desired location, a place with undisturbed soil where a healthy population of native microbes is likely to flourish.

TIP:  In forest, look for areas where leaves build up and mold. In grassland, look for areas where grass is most thriving.

6. Place the box in the depression and loosely cover with the dirt and leaves around it.
7. After 5-10 days (depending on temperature), the first colony of microbes you will notice are white molds. Then different colors like yellow, green, black, etc if you leave it much longer. Generally we harvest when it is in the white mold stage. Disregard rice if black molds have formed on it, this is generally a sign of non-beneficial microbes. In nature when there is plenty of food the beneficial microbes dominate. When there is less food, the opportunistic, non-beneficial microbes tend to dominate.
8. At this time, remove container from habitat and transfer rice to a plastic container/jar, and mix with sugar
   • Mix 1:1 with sugar. E.g. 1kg cooked rice with 1kg sugar/molasses(molasses is great and cheap)
9. Mash up the mixture with gloved fingers until it’s mashed but don’t overmix or you’ll destroy all the mycelia
10. Cover this mixture for 3-7 days.
11. When it is quite liquid, add 3 parts water.

TIP: 1kg=1L, so if you start with 1kg cooked rice, you’ll add 1kg sugar and then 6L water to that

12. Leave this diluted mixture for 7 days. Cover the top with something air permeable just so animals don’t get to it – cheese cloth, nylons, newspaper, etc
13. You should end up with a mud-like juice. Strain the liquid out of the mixture into a glass jar but don’t seal the top – let it breathe until bubbles in the bottom stop forming.
14. After you stop seeing bubbles forming in the jar, seal it up
15. Now you have your microbial inoculant for that ecosystem
16. Repeat the above steps for each area you are collecting microbes from. The more ecosystems you collect from, the better!

To make the final BIM product, combine all your microbial extracts. To increase efficacy, combine this concoction 1:1 with lacto serum. Lacto is the workhorse and is good to have in combination with other microbes. Now you have created your BIM inoculant!

How to Use:
This is a powerful tool in the natural farming arsenal, with a myriad of applications! It’s a microbial inoculant, so it can be used wherever you are trying to increase/establish populations of microbes – the most basic level of a healthy ecosystem!

Add 1-2tsp per gallon of water. 

Plants

Apply as a foliar spray or soil drench. Greatly enhances growth and health of plants by establishing a healthy population of microbes in the soil and on leaf surfaces. Check out the benefits:

• Transports food to roots
• Builds a healthy ecosystem from the ground up. This is an invaluable job and the greatest benefit of this serum.
• Aids disease resistance – fights pathogens, occupies spaces that could otherwise go to harmful bacteria/molds.
• Aid composting – massively enhances compost – there will be a whole separate post on this concept
• Aid organic fertilizer. Add to your nutrient solution, microbes break down organic nutrients into bio-available forms that plants can utilize directly. Another key feature

Animals

This can be used the same way as lacto, but it is a more diversified solution.

• Boost growth by enhancing digestion
• Inoculate farmyard (spray ground) where animals occupy to maintain healthy microbial system.
• Aids disease resistance. Fight the bad bacteria!

In aquaculture

Add 1L BIM per 700m3 of water containing fish(pond, lake, aquaculture tank, etc). Lacto works in this application also, though not quite as well as BIM(less diversity).

Example: You have a pond that averages 20m wide by 30m long by 2m deep. So, 20 x 30 x 2 = 1200m3. In this case you would add roughly 2L of BIM or Lacto (you can dilute the 2L in a larger amount of non-chlorine water if you want more even application). No need for exact measurements, more or less won’t affect it (to a point obv)

Benefits are built by the microbes:

• Microbes digest fish wastes, cleaning up water and improving water quality.
• Allows fish to grow larger due to digestive efficiency
• Allows higher population of fish in the same amount of water! Literally, increases the carrying capacity of your body of water! This is awesome for aquaculture setups