Help

[Turpman]

I have 25 gall half full of peat moss and red wiglers. Been feeding kitchen scraps all winter. I would like to try some out door organics this summer.
In Canada we have a lack of good amendments.
This is what I have. Along with perlite and vermiculite.

What else do I need and can someone give me a guideline on ratios to use.

 

[Turpman]

Let’s start with PH how do I measure?
I have a good pen.

 

[Capt C]

Let’s start with PH how do I measure?
I have a good pen.

@Turpman not a soil guy but i am pretty sure they make a soil PH probe to check that. Your pen would be for liquids. There are several good organic growers on here to help out. Sure seems like you need a lot of stuff on the organic growing.

 

[Turpman]

Ya LOL they all say it is easy peazy. As long as you have all the bags of amendments. LOL
I like hydro.Complete control. But I have a shit load of worm compost and would like to do some organic.

 

[Capt C]

Here's how to test your soil.
Take some distilled or RO water.
A coffee filter a jar or cup.
A handful of soil taken from a few spots of the mix.

Check ph of water being used to verify it's # first as a comparison.

Mix the various soil about an inch or two deep in vessel of choice. And about 3x that level of the water.

Mix well let it settle some and strain through the coffee filter to remove solids.

PH test the water after filtering.

Very cool did not know that about testing soil ph. I do have a question about that though. When i used to run a Ro filter. i always thought that the ph was kind of unstable in the Ro water. Am i wrong about that?

 

[Capt C]

I know when i was fist starting growing i was using a RO filter and it took me a while to figure out that is was pretty unstable till you added something to it. I am lucky now i have city water that just use a charcoal and a sediment filter. It comes out of the filters at about 90 ppm.

 

[Turpman]

K thanks for the help. I use RO so I’ll adjust the PH to 7 and do a test on my peat and maybe one on the worm compost and get back.

 

[Turpman]

I'll try one adjusted and one not and see if the difference is the same. My RO is pretty high around 8 I thought 7 may be a better starting point.

 

[Turpman]

No it's just my water is 600 PPM and they are about 90% efficient. So it leaves something behind that raises the PH. My RO is about 60 PPM.

 

[Turpman]

Ya you could re run it but you'd loose 50% as that is what bypasses the membrane to flush it. Not worth it. 60ppm is low enough for me LOL what I should do is have it tested to see what is in it. I'm guessing mostly sodium as our water is fairly soft. Wonder how sodium effects ph. I'll have to look that up. I'm guessing it raises it. Our spuds usually have some scab which is caused by too high a ph. We are in a low lying area. Ground water and dirt is high in ph.