How To Use Organic 200x Aloe Vera In Your Garden

February 14, 2014 0 Comments

So you just ordered an ounce or two or the best 200x Aloe on earth from BuildASoil.com and you want to make sure you are doing it right.

First off, I'm stoked for you, this Aloe is one of my favorite additions to my garden. I drink it and so do my plants.

Notes:

1/2 Teaspoon of this particular Aloe Powder weighs just over 1 Gram.

That means that 1/2 teaspoon is good to use for 4-5 gallons of water.

If you are mixing less, than just use less. I would use 1/8 teaspoon for 1 gallon of water.

Don't be scared if you use a little too much, it won't hurt, it will just be a slight waste.

1. Measure out some aloe powder based on the amount of water you want to use. I'm making enough for about 2 gallons here. Just under a 1/4 teaspoon.

Click here for the rest of the article and photo's

Soil Fungi Are The Root Of All Yields

February 12, 2014 0 Comments

Survival of the Fittest and the Evolution of an Organic Gardener

February 08, 2014 0 Comments

(Image from Zazzle)

How did you evolve as a grower?

When you talk on the phone with organic gardeners everyday you start to get a sense of where they come from and what makes them similar to each other.

When I first set out to Create BuildASoil, LLC it was to create a lifestyle for myself working with people that I look forward to speaking with. If you have spoken with me via chat or on the phone than you know how much I really love talking about soil and growing. It’s with that unique perspective that I’ve identified a similar path that many of us have followed. This isn’t a statistic for vegetable gardeners, this is a path that many indoor Organic Soil Growers have followed….. Did you?

I go from first person to second person and it’s a little scattered but you’ll get the idea. This was one continuous flow of writing and I don’t want to edit it.

The Long way around, 10 steps to becoming an Organic Grower.

Read the rest by clicking on the Full Article Here.

DIY Instant Kelp Meal Tea - Coots Hydrated Kelp Meal Trick

January 21, 2014 0 Comments

If you could only use 1 of our DIY plant tea's. This would be it.

Not only is this quick and easy to prepare ahead of time, it's practically instant once you've pre-made the Hydrated Kelp meal.

I could go on and on about how kelp meal is a must have for your garden but I think you already know that. Just in case, I'll hit a few key points.

Kelp contains: NPK along with over 60 micronutrients. Plus Alginic acid, Mannitol, Cytokinins, Indoles, Hormones, Auxins and Gibberellins.

There are MANY "liquid" seaweed nutrient bottles and they aren't nearly as good as this easy DIY solution.

See all the photo's are read the full article by clicking here.

How much does each amendment weigh?

January 10, 2014 0 Comments

How to cultivate and use BIM

November 14, 2013 0 Comments

Grow your garden without any irrigation! Save water, time and money with hugelkultur

November 04, 2013 0 Comments

Why TLO? Dissecting the Rev Mix line by line

October 31, 2013 0 Comments

Dissecting the Rev Soil Mix Step by Step:

After discussing organic growing indoors for so long, you start to come across a few things over and over again. I have a book on the shelf called TLO by the Rev. If you are reading this, then I’m guessing you have either read the book or have read his laundry list of a soil mix and were looking for more information on it. In my opinion, that book perpetuates many cultivation myths and then goes a step further and actually creates some myths of it’s own. Many of the amendments being used in the soil mix are ridiculous when you learn more. That’s why I wanted to list the entire list of ingredients and break it down line by line.

Please argue with me, I’m not writing this for my own good, but to create a conversation about where our amendments are coming from, and how we are growing our plants. My goal is to keep things as simple as possible, and to duplicate Mother Nature as much as I can while bringing organics indoors.

Free Spreadsheet List of Dynamic Accumulators and Nutrient content

October 25, 2013 0 Comments

DIY Fertilizer and Homemade Fish Fermentations

October 21, 2013 0 Comments

Homemade Fish Fertilizer from GilCarandang.com

Fish fertilizer is an awesome product for promoting plant growth. It’s high in Nitrogen for growing plants, can be naturally produced, and is an awesome food for microbes! Fungi love this stuff. Fish fertilizer can be expensive in the store, but it is easily produced at home. This is a great recipe for making your own fish hydrolysate fertilizer. First lets look at the two main types of fish fertilizer:

Fish Emulsion

Fish emulsion fertilizer is made several different ways depending on who is making it. The important thing to know is that fish emulsion goes through two stages of processing. The first stage breaks down the fish parts using enzymes, proteases, or chemicals. Then, and this is the important part, heat is used to break it down further and allow oils and other things like amino acids to be more easily removed. It’s this second stage of processing that makes fish emulsion less advantageous than fish hydrolysate. Fish emulsion fertilizer lacks many oils and proteins that fish hydrolysate fertilizer has in abundance. So let’s look at that!

Fish Hydrolysate

Fish hydrolysate fertilizer generally starts out the same way as fish emulsion. It gets broken down using enzymes, proteases, or chemicals. However, fish hydryolysate doesn’t undergo the heating and skimming process that you get with the fish emulsion. The higher quality fish hydrolysates only undergo “cold-processing” which just means they are never heated enough to break down significant amino acid chains. Good fish hydrolysate also retains the fats and oils that microbes love!

Our Fish Fertilizer Recipe

This method of making fish fertilizer is awesome because it is a cold process, chemical-free, completely organic way to make fish fertilizer right at home. While fish emulsion lacks beneficial ingredients vital to the final product, this fish hydrolysate recipe preserves all those active ingredients. You don’t want to miss out on those oils that microbes love. Try this recipe.

How to make your own fish fertilizer:

Buy a fish.

Continued: To Read the rest of the article click on the title at the top of this page.

DIY Nutrients from Dynamic Accumulator plants

October 20, 2013 0 Comments

A friend posted some valuable information the other day and I asked him If I could steal the content and post it here for everyone to benefit from.... and here it is, Thanks Wayne!

Dynamic accumulators are plants that gather certain micro nutrients, macro nutrients, or minerals from the soil through their roots, the nutrients are then stored in their leaves.

These accumulator plants are great for using to make your own organic nutrients, by either making a tea or drying the plant matter, grinding it into powder to make a "meal" and adding it to your soil mix like you would any other dry nutrient.

Here is a list of some of the better accumulator plants that you can use to make you own plant based nutrients that you may be able to find around your local area..

Comfrey, Stinging Nettles, Yarrow, Valerian, Alfalfa, Borage, Dandelion, Horsetail. You can also check this website for many, many more http://oregonbd.org/Class/accum.htm

You can also use this site to see actually how much, and of what phytochemicals the plant contains http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke/plants.html

So far I have made two plant meals, Comfrey and horsetail. And I will probably make another from yarrow or dandelion.

This is how I done it...

Step 1: I took my plant matter and hung it to dry, it must be bone dry or it wont grind into dust.

Horsetail:

Neem Cake and Neem Oil: Information on the Neem Tree

October 19, 2013 0 Comments

Neem Tree

From the University of Waikato, New Zealand is this helpful article on the how & why Neem products function.

Neem protects itself from the multitude of pests with a multitude of pesticidal ingredients. Its main chemical broadside is a mixture of 3 or 4 related compounds, and it backs these up with 20 or so others that are minor but nonetheless active in one way or another. In the main, these compounds belong to a general class of natural products called "triterpenes"; more specifically, "limonoids."

LIMONOIDS

So far, at least nine neem limonoids have demonstrated an ability to block insect growth, affecting a range of species that includes some of the most deadly pests of agriculture and human health. New limonoids are still being discovered in neem, but Azadirachtin, Salannin, Meliantriol and Nimbin are the best known and, for now at least, seem to be the most significant.

If you could only use 1 of our DIY plant tea's. This would be it.

Homemade Fish Fertilizer from GilCarandang.com

Fish Emulsion

Fish Hydrolysate

Our Fish Fertilizer Recipe

Step 1: I took my plant matter and hung it to dry, it must be bone dry or it wont grind into dust.Horsetail:

Neem Tree

Step 1: I took my plant matter and hung it to dry, it must be bone dry or it wont grind into dust.

Horsetail: