Uncle Eckley
Extreme Member
I suck at dirt. Perhaps oddly, hydro seems simpler to me - plants need water, light, and nutrients, so we give them those three things and only those three things and it works! The thing is, though, that's not all plants want. It's difficult (maybe impossible?) to simulate all the little things that go on in natural ideal growing environs when you're regularly dumping and refilling the concocted nutrient solutions we use in hydroponics. I don't even try. I use three-part NPK bottles, Hydroguard, pH up and down, and that's it. Dump and refill. Keep it clean, pH adjusted. Rinse and repeat.
So my simple hydro works and that's great. My closet is always full and productive. But I like to take advantage of our long growing season to grow more stuff outdoors and hydro sucks outdoors. I use fabric pots (though I did just put in a new raised bed I'm working to fill) with some potting mix, compost, and perlite, and I'm lost beyond that. If my dirt plants start to look deficient I start watering them with hydro juice and/or top dress with compost.
I'd like to come to understand soil growing better. I once seriously considered pursuing a formal education in botany. The University of Hawaii at Hilo was at the time offering a generous stipend for undergraduate students enrolled in the program. Wife's educational goals could not be as well supported on the Big Island, though, so I ended up taking my degree in political science in Virginia. I took geology courses to satisfy the limited science requirements, so what I know academically about soil was taught from a relatively sterile perspective - rocks and minerals and water cycles and so forth. Biology wasn't often addressed, and when it was it was on a much more macro level than would be useful for hobby gardening.
In an attempt to get a handle on some basics, I propose an hypothetical experiment. My understanding is that plants need the three macro nutrients, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, and a host of micronutrients likely present in my tapwater in sufficient quantities. Plants then further benefit by various biological processes that occur in the soil as time goes on - everything from earthworms to fungus to microbial activity. So what if I were to fill a large vat with tapwater, mix in these three organic fertilizers in quantities to be determined, and then add some kind of relatively nutrient-free organic base material (coir or peat moss or something) to soak?
If I drained off the water (or just let it evaporate) and planted in what was left, would stuff grow? And then - and more to the point - would I eventually end up with good rich soil if I continued to grow things in it, amending as necessary along the way? Could I continue to develop this stuff into something like @Northwood showed us in his Christmas Harvest thread?
So my simple hydro works and that's great. My closet is always full and productive. But I like to take advantage of our long growing season to grow more stuff outdoors and hydro sucks outdoors. I use fabric pots (though I did just put in a new raised bed I'm working to fill) with some potting mix, compost, and perlite, and I'm lost beyond that. If my dirt plants start to look deficient I start watering them with hydro juice and/or top dress with compost.
I'd like to come to understand soil growing better. I once seriously considered pursuing a formal education in botany. The University of Hawaii at Hilo was at the time offering a generous stipend for undergraduate students enrolled in the program. Wife's educational goals could not be as well supported on the Big Island, though, so I ended up taking my degree in political science in Virginia. I took geology courses to satisfy the limited science requirements, so what I know academically about soil was taught from a relatively sterile perspective - rocks and minerals and water cycles and so forth. Biology wasn't often addressed, and when it was it was on a much more macro level than would be useful for hobby gardening.
In an attempt to get a handle on some basics, I propose an hypothetical experiment. My understanding is that plants need the three macro nutrients, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, and a host of micronutrients likely present in my tapwater in sufficient quantities. Plants then further benefit by various biological processes that occur in the soil as time goes on - everything from earthworms to fungus to microbial activity. So what if I were to fill a large vat with tapwater, mix in these three organic fertilizers in quantities to be determined, and then add some kind of relatively nutrient-free organic base material (coir or peat moss or something) to soak?
If I drained off the water (or just let it evaporate) and planted in what was left, would stuff grow? And then - and more to the point - would I eventually end up with good rich soil if I continued to grow things in it, amending as necessary along the way? Could I continue to develop this stuff into something like @Northwood showed us in his Christmas Harvest thread?
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