Sup Buds In this episode ill be showing you how i I have slowly shifted from using 20 some odd ingredients to just a handful literally five or six now since my “black gold” compost has replaced most of the ingredients i used to have to buy out of pocket and yet producing better quality cannabis than i ever have before. eventually I want to be completely regenerative using no outsourced purchased ingredients other than the food i already eat and any leftovers from growing.
soo stay tuned to learn all my most up to date methods
the Video Version
I dont believe in keeping secrets for profit. I share my exact methods on my youtube and my organnabisgrow blog on lightseekerseeds.com if you wanna grow your own Organnabis. They will forever be evolving, i think any one who claims to be a master is too stubborn to keep learning, so i may contradict something i say in my earlier vids but thats because I’m forever evolving and keeping up with the the most recent findings while combining ancient practices and uncovering lost knowledge that was meant to be shared at no cost, and so i share it at no cost so that its not lost like many ancient secrets before us. i love learning from the legends before us and paying it forward. currently finishing up a video on my regenerative composting methods and how I have slowly shifted from using 20 some odd ingredients to just a handful literally five or six now since my “black gold” compost has replaced most of the ingredients i used to have to buy out of pocket. and eventually I want to be completely regenerative using no outsourced purchased ingredients other than the food i already eat and any leftovers from growing.
guess that’s the benefit of not going to college and feeling like I’m owed something for the years of research I’ve done but instead i did it on my own time, and i like to spend money on new books, seminars, etc and painstakingly learning the hard way through experience and then relaying those years and hard earned dollars to the community so that we can all benefit from the information out there. and so while others charge you for secrets i will act as a relay of everything i know as i learn it after i have tested it. Keeping secrets for profit harms and suppresses evolution, i believe in sharing knowledge so that we can all become the best possible versions of ourselves as we all have something to learn and we all have something to teach.
with that being said, its time to learn my most up to date method too create My “Black Gold” Compost and all the nutrient i use as well as tips oon how i apply them to create the best organic cannabis possible using organic regenerative methods.
now lets dig into it, no literally
my old compost bin was inn rough shape and it was time for an upgrade, which i will get to later and show you how to layer your compost bin, but first im just going to show you what the process has been like to harvest freshly made black gold compost which some would advise against because this process leaves some pieces only partially broken down but since i have two different types of worms in my pot, ill explain the two types later but they handle the rest of the decompose that the microbes and fungi then finish off to create constant worm castings and humic acids directly in the pot. some people would have a worm bin separately and these people would often say that you cant keep worms alive in a not till pot but mine have been alive for years thriving thanks to the partially digested scraps i feed them, now i wouldn’t want to put food scraps directly in the pot and if i had a worm bin instead of a compost bin, the worm casting from the worm bin wouldn’t be enough to sustain the worms in my no till pots, so since i don’t have a good spot for a seasonal worm bin i do it this way to keep my worms inside and happy and i always have partially decomposed material mixed with black gold to feed my red wigglers, so if you have a worm bin you would be better off just keeping them separate and topdressing the worm castings into the pot, but both are perfectly viable methods it all depends on your specific needs and setup and what works for you, thats the best part about growing cannabis is theres so manny different ways to achieve very similar methods once you understand the basic needs of the plant throughout its cycle, which i will explain more on my updated compost teas in my next seed to harvest video, but i recently made on on alfalfa seed sprout teas that has greatly improved my flowering results so i def suggest checking that one out if you haven’t.
i utilize two different breeds of worms, red wigglers are the best composting worms so i use them to work the top layer and break down the partially digest material and black gild i add to my pots, they then pass this off to the nightcrawlers that work the deeper layers and make creating tunnels deep into the soil, drawing the material from the red wigglers down deeper and speeding up the process of breaking it down into humic acids quicker than the red wigglers could alone with the help of the microbe mites and fungi that have been doing this job and handling negotiations between the plants and soil for millions of years. by using synthetic nutrients we attempt too fed the plant directly and talk to it ourselves instead of hiring the amazing life in the soil to do the work and business negotiations for yo and the science too such as stabilizing PH so this gives me more tine for the fun stuff like pruning and selecting the ideal plants to get the the dankest harvests
like i said i used to use even more ingredients than whats on this list, and i still have several that i don’t think ill ever get rid of as i prefer the “kitchen sink” approach basically making sure theres enough of each mineral in different release rates to maintain my soil through to harvest even if i decided not to do any compost teas or SST .
as you know if your plant is lacking something it doesn’t matter if everything is in abundance as the results are going to rely on whatever the soil is slacking in, the microbes and fungi can handle the distribution as long as you don’t goo crazy overdoing the recommended ratios, its not like twice the nutrients will get you twice the harvest, sometimes less or a lot is better than a lot of one thing if ya get what i mean.
4 minutes inn
basically if you wanted to start a no till pot from scratch i would suggest starting with my super soil video, and make the super soil which is designed to fill the bottom 1/3rd if a pot, then fill the rest with whatever your base soil is for your super soil but add some pumice stone for long term aeration, then after your first cycle you can begin top dressing and it will now be a no till till living soil as long as you minimize disturbance and stick to regenerative methods it will get better with each cycle and provide higher quality results each round.
i suggest you also plant some cover crops, to start harnessing the benefits of the nitrogen fixing bacteria that colonizes the roots of legumes like clovers, and things like alfalfa for cheap green fertilizer, then you can also start experimenting with things like chamomile and white yarrow to increase the terpenes of plants grown around them, i mentioned some of this in my vid on 5 nutrients i wish in knew about sooner and ill be making part two if that as well as a video dedicated to cover crops alone where ill go more in depth on some different benefits of popular ones.
no hate to the company i just dont want people too get ripped off on ooverpriced marked up products like tis or the flimsy chemically ridden compost bin when there mooney could be bbetter spent on more costt effective items too improve their grow such as betetr genetics like the 80$ compost bin i mentioned, as i said most of everything i use is on my link page on ligghtseeekr seeds .com in the description of all my vidoes.
I dont typically add my larger stems to my compost i actually will let them dry out then i can easily break them up and into about thumb sized pieces and use them as mulch after i top dress into my no till pots too cover the soil and conserve water and help the cover crops stay hydrated while also allowing the life in the soil to reach higher into those layers to break down my fresh top dressings.
the initial hurdle for super soil can seem a bit steep, but you don’t want to use any soil from your old toxic synthetic bottle nutrients so its best to start from scratch so you have confidence in the purity of you soil as your continue to add things and improve it over time,
so at the same time as making a super soil to gget prepped to convert to a more regenerative w i would suggest starting and outdoor compost bin like mine, it doesn’t smell, and it costs nothing to maintain, mine literally started with room small twigs and weed stems i collected mixed with leaves i raked up in my yard and weed leaves with a bunch of organic fruit scraps, within a few months i saw that i had created soil and that this wasn’t so hard after all, i also was amazed that as long as there was enough dry leaves and brown material en there was no smell at all,
this black gold is my top dressing as well as my compost tea main ingredient, I’ve had this same compost pile going for several years and i just continually freh material on top , and mix it slightly while taking what i need from thhe bottom, i don’t like the tumbler compositors because theres no need to tumble everything since i like to continually add material daily i need to be able to just add it to the top so i basically am just top dressing my compost bin with fresh food scraps, as well as cannabis leaves layer on top to make leaf mold ,before breaking into the top layer. i also throw in any old scraps from my vegetable garden and egg shells for calcium, i am able to constantly feed this and as long as i have plenty oof weed leaves to add i don’t have any issues, i like too let my weed leaves dry out first before adding them in so they break down easier, the tumble composters also have a tiny door so they make it hard to add scarps and to harvest the soil i like to, basically they’re designed to just to be filled on each side then tumbled until completely done composting then ou would empty the finished compost out so i guess in this case its ok but i want to be able to constantly fill the bin, and i also didn’t want to get ripped off on a 250 dollar flimsy bin that cant be moved at all, or a tumbler that seems stainless steel but the inside that actually touches the soil is a cheap foam that will leach chemicals into the compost especially if things get hot in the summer, which is why i also wanted to avoid any plastic composters, galvanized steel came to be my go to and i was set on just cutting holes in a metal trash can but then i found the company Behrens actually made compost ready version with small legs to slightly raise it off the ground and predrilled holes for aeration, And it was only 80 and held just as much as the 200 dollar composters so it was a done deal l]
the 80 dollar composter it is, with galvanized steel theres no leaching and its rust resistant for years to come, this is the same kind of process they use to protect the nails used for roofing.
the ideal carbon to nitrogen ratio somewhere around 30:1 or 20:1 , and although its an option most aren’t typically testing their soil in a a lab so to achieve the desired carbon to nitrogen ratio we want to maintain 3/4- 2/3 brown to 1/4 1/3 green ratio. these are two different ratios one relates to the carbon and nitrogen and the other just to the basic form of the components you add to the soil to achieve something close to these ratios. i really don’t worry about ratios much, i add the components as they come, and i do trimmings every few weeks so it helps having fresh dried leaves to add, and depending if i have been adding more fruits lately or not i will out them in fresh if i haven’t added many fruits or veggies lately but typically i let them slightly dry out and add them later as brown source, my compost has never given off any smelly odors and any critters within it have always stayed contained. some great recent additions ive added are the ashes from my weed ononly ash tray, i remove roaches or resinn
and no im noot wearing gloves cuz of the compost i actually came out to clean a yeti cooler that a friend abanndoned and was full of rottinng moldy foood but i didnt wanna let it go without a fight so i will be tryinng to clean that after i fill this comst bin
( be careful not to harvest near polluted sources, if unsure keep it away from the garden)
Green
fresh clippings or fresh plant waste ( green clones, plants, leaves, or flowers)
veggie or fruits scraps
tea leaves
corn husks
BROWN
Yard waste (woody twigs small sticks weeds etc. )
Dried leaves or leaf mold
shredded straw hay ( dried grass plants, leaves, or flowers )
dried Cannabis stalks or stems and leaves
ashes from wood or cannabis only ash tray ( avoid gloopy resin this is to greedy)
Crushed egg shells
Nut Shells (peanut etc.)
untreated Saw dust
if its not getting hot as you want add nitrogen
if it gets smelly add more brown carbon items ( my static compost doesnt get as hot as my other composts or my super soil does) then add more
to layer this new i would start with bigger twigs or stems at the bottom then some leaves then some food scraps then more leaves to cover it, and within a couple months it will break down and you’ll be able t start just adding more in the top every few days or whenever is convenient for you, i have this tiny kitchen counter composter that i leave by our back door so i empty it when ever i get a chance but no real urgency, it can even get juicy in here and its still fine to add to the compost bin. and now you’ll have fresh compost to constantly yield from the bottom,
things i also add include
organic fruit and veggie scraps are the main component from when i make smoothies and dinner, feeding my soil actually encouraged me to eat healthier aa i realized i should eat a lot less of anything that cant be composted. other things i like to add include
organic egg shells from free range chickens,
all the gardens waste from my vegetable g arden from stalks to old fruits, etc
nut shells, like peanut shells, some people add coffee grounds or their spent tea if its organic, theres only a few herbal teas i will compost but only if i remove them from the bag,
if you have chickens or herbivore manure you can add this as well b but know this would take longer to break down and so should be done in a separate “Hot” pile to kill pathogens rather than the static pile you intend to be harvesting compost l from more consistently, one day when i have farm animals i will have multiple different compost piles too meet different needs
but for now i like a veganic based static compost that is always ready to be harvested and it breaks down fast enough on its own once the life gets started that i never have an issue with it getting too full, as i use the nutrients in my garden and my outdoor vegetable garden as well as to feed my friends grow, so the more compost i make the better.
you always want to leave some compost in the container to keep the cycle active and going otherwise it take a lot longer for things to break down,
Static composting
some things you dont want to add include
bread
meat or bones ( this can be done with bokashi)
any oil or grease,
dairy ( lacto bacillus can be made for the plants pots if thas the style yooure going for but most say its best to leave it oout of the coompost)
cooked foods,
styrofoam,
plastics oof any kind
my out door compost is actually at the point where its attracting its own beneficial insects, a few seasons ago i had a fungus gnat issue from not adding enough leaves and too many fruit scraps, but a native species of rove beetle was smart enough to sniff them out and colonize my compost bin and now i get a fresh scoop of rove beetles in every cup of compost so it comes with its own built in pest defense now, you could add this on your own of course but its amazing they did it on their own,
for any issue theres always a natural solution, if you do end up with fungis gnats in your pots don’t freak out, i made a video on how to fix this by applying beneficial nematodes and you will clear out the issue in no time, they will stay alive in the pots until no more food or larvae is left fir them to eat, and while there are harmful nematodes, the beneficial kind pose no threat to your plants, humans or pets. i recommend natures good guys, everything i use can be found on my amazon list on my link page at lightseekerseeds.com
so if you want to grab anything i mention just check the description of the video to find the link page on light seeker seeds .com
the cool thing about no till pots is that as they develop wit each cycle you have to begin to be able to cut out things that used to be essential purchase,
especially if you begin utilizing cover crops as i mentioned to boost nitrogen, improve terpenes and to maintain the mycorrhizae population so that you no longer have to buy any and ad it transplant. after the initital introduction the mycorrhizae remains alive on the cover crops roots and will quickly transfer to the roots of your cannabis plant once you transplant it into the pot as long as you are careful not to disrupt all the cover crops.
as. i mentioned earlier i also have active rove beatles introduced from mt compost as well as beneifcial mite and tw
theres so many differnt methods that will produce great results and great cannabis, this is just the most regenerative playbook that i have solidified and tested so far to work and the last few cycles have been danker and bigger yields than ever, and while i did just add alot of new soil and upgrade from 15 gallohs to 25 gallons while carefully not disturbinng my old no till soil, and just adding some fresh oil beneath them and around them , so now the next few cycles will be even better now that these larger pots have had the chance to get established after two big dressings and several compoost teas and ssts to improve aminno acids and enzyme activity
the only other thing thast is essential to mainntaining your regenerative compost is clean filtered wateryou dont wnat to use plain tap water and i dont use ro water because it is more wasteful and then the ph needs to be corrected to stabilize it, so i like to use a 4 stage filter that filters akl the bad things from heavy metals and bad toxins but doesnt strip everything so it has little effect on the ph of the tap water and mine comes out, at 6-7 and it also sits in my reservooir beforre it is drained through the blu mat sysstem which uses ceramic carrots to automoatically mainntain the proper moisture levels i set, i have a seperat video on that. so basically once i transplant and adjust each pot to the rightmooistuer i dont need to do much anything and i only check the ph of the faucet every few months to make sure nothing weirs is goin on, if i noticed any issues with the plants
and to maintain it now every kind of fruit scrao
🙏 yeah it can be challenging for me to diagnose some issues as I haven’t really had to in a few years now with living soil its different than synthetics, with living soil the mycelium speaks to the plant ahead of time and gives it what it needs so we don’t have to try and read the signs of deficiencies to correct things later, very rarely experience any issues and anytime I have they were due to environment vpd being off But i always do my best and anything i dont know ill try to research and ask others with more synthetic experience in other chats to help you guys, but my goal is to get yall on the organic wave eventually
As thats what i can help you all with the most,