So I finally busted open that bale of straw that I grew in for the past two summers.
I was surprised that it was still veryslightly damp and really crumbly.
Continue to crumble it and add it to my outdoor soil?
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So I thought I’d make my own compost (because I read something and watched some YouTube videos)
I was planning on taking more pics, but my hands got nasty.
So I ended up making two layers of crumbled bale, worm castings, eggshells that I’ve been cleaning/collecting/smashing for about half a year, a bunch of veggie and fruit scraps, and the little blue bucket had the fine material and small chunks that I collected out of my fire pit (thanks @LoCoRocK ), and fresh straw… all sandwiched in between two layers of dirt that I dug out of the garden. I was going to put some pond muck in there, but I got too wrapped up and forgot about it.
The top buckets have holes in them to drain into the bottom buckets. The buckets are now sitting in the downstairs bathroom/drying room with the big black saucers on top to use as lids. I’ll take them out to sit in the sun later.
Still work do do with them over the next two months, but I hope to have my own fresh compost to use as top dressing for the living soil I’m going to try to build in the next week or so. 
03/28
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@TheMadFlascher Bob, I know you’re super busy now and I see you answering questions on so many threads.
So here’s that weird microbial thing that grew on the bale of straw last summer. And I guess it’s still… not dead?
Since I’m going to be busting up the rest of this bale to use in my living soil project, I pulled this little bit off to save.
What are my options for using this thing? Could I bust it up separately and use it as a dry amendment around growing plants? Mix some in with my living soil? Do you want a sample of it?
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Hi Oly!
Well, I’d say it definitely went ‘inactive’!
Since there is obviously a lot of organic matter left in that straw bale, food wasn’t a limiting factor, so I’d have to guess either moisture content or temperature put your Saprophyte to ‘rest’!
I don’t think there would be any benefit including it in your living soil or amendments because Saprophytes always thrive on the SURFACE.
If you want to propagate it just for fun, you could crush and sprinkle it over your remaining straw bales and when conditions are favorable, it may grow again !!
Hope that helps! Bob
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I throw just about all our eggshells in and leftover veggie parts about once a month… lol when I can remember and time it right. Oooh boy … Lemme tell ya also. I buried it deep in the compost but about half the fish guts and shit from the 3 bass I filleted last week. OOOOOH it was fresh smelling for about 2 days. But its back in my corner by the loud ass Mexican neighbors house. They blast the most awful music just about every weekend. Have you ever heard Mexican techno - ya it exists and it’s terrible man. Friggin trumpet and morracos… no wait, what are the shaky things with beans in them? LoL
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omg… that brings back some good memories. when I lived in Long Beach, CA there was some apartments that played mexican techno when I was walking the three blocks to the grocery store/pizza place on friday and saturday nights. it really wasn’t my thing, but just hearing it in my memories of being young and in college with barely any responsibilities and pretending to be a grown up.
If you liked bands like sublime or dirty heads, check out this band I just learnded about…
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I love it. A breakfast song with brownies and all…
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So what’s everyone up to tonight? (Or tomorrow morning for the time travelers on the other side of the IDL.)
1 Here’s my seedlings. My one blueberry yumyum (top center) looks like it might be wonky. And one of the money cakes is doing that klingon bird of prey thing that I see sometimes. I guess now lit looks like a little bird coming in for a landing.
4 It’s almost bed time for everyone. My kush is the red pot looks awful. She had been in coco and perlite for a few days after got her with just water and a little miracle grow (gasp) that I had for my houseplants. Anyway, I knocked as much of the coco and perlite out of the roots as I thought was safe and tried to carefully plant it in the Sohum. She did NOT like that. @1sttimegrower You might want to treat your two with a little more care when you transplant them. I’ve been watering with either water and fish shit or water and recharge. I might have to ammend with something.
6 Here are three of the clones that were in the brownish vase
3 Oh! Here’s what I do with my clone cups now with my daughter’s crafting hole puncher.
You can kind of see everyone lined up in the background too 
c And of course there’s this plant next to my computer
a omg. This picture gives me vertigo.
9 So this little plant… will soon be in the blue pot.
12 Move under 9. Had roots like this. (this plant is 6 months old, planted in Sohum, with nothing but tap water [now with fish!t or recharge ]. I didn’t think it would grow.)
See post 328 for first pics of these two clones. They’ve been in those flower pots since the beginning of October. I hope I gave them some time to get some good-ish roots before just leaving them outside.
13 this damn picture…
15 This big one…
14 Had roots like this
2 Here’s where we have to start rearranging pictures. Here the clones are this morning. They stayed outside all day and got a little rained on as a bonus.
5 And so this morning I thought it would be a good idea to see what kind of roots I would get if I put these clones in the same water/recharge/fish shit stuff that everybody else got this morning before work.
10 sweet baby jesus. i forgot about the toxie plant that I saved to watch the roots swoosh around in the water. I think I dumped the water out at least once a day because I wanted the water to look clear. Anyway the roots look pretty good (I think), so this morning I dumped out yesterday’s water and gave her some fresh water with a little bit of the recharge/fishshit stuff that everyone else got. Because I don’t know what I’m doing. And there’s a glass with seeds that are now resting in a damp paper towel in a baggie in the cupboard.
04/01
I am way not high enough. That’s no April Fool’s. But we will soon fix that.
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omg! that gives me an idea! and now I have to remember to go to lowes or home depot tomorrow to try and get some of those 8-pack solo-cup planter holder things. Thanks for the idea @happilyretired !
Edit: this is how we get around it.
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Check them out above, cloudy!
Your methodical spacing of drilled holes did not go unnoticed. edit: lol!
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So I was hanging out tonight in one of the veteran’s cannabis growing groups that I belong too. Honestly I was not paying attention to much until I heard the magic words “do you guys want to see the tent?” there was probably 12 people in the facebook chat room. We all said yeah. So he shows us the two plants he has left in his tent. (20 min earlier we all cheered as he harvested one of his plants. it’s that kind of group.)
No shit! I had just witnessed him harvest the left hand plant in real time…
I asked him about the plant on the right and he says that it was THIRTY SIX DAYS out of the soil. I said, “did you say 36 days?” I said “I don’t care what you’re doing or not doing with your grow, just keep doing it! Or not doing it. Whatever. That plant looks fucking amazing!”
Then he picked the plant up to show us the underside of the plant… And there were THREE plants in this pot. He intentionally grows THREE autoflowers in one 5 gallon pot. then this conversation happened.
Then I showed him (and everyone else) how not to grow clones. NOT important to the story at all.
I don’t remember the strain or soil or nutes or the light cycle he uses or anything else except for the whole “three plants in one pot” thing he had goin’ on.
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Good stuff, burning the midnight oil and getting s*** accomplished huh O!!! Dang gum
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So I went to Lowes to pick up a handfull of these solo-cup trays. I ended up talking to some Ron Swanson type employee about using perlite vs lava rock vs clay pebbles.
The guy had been a professional gardner for XX years. When we finally to the answer and I asked where I could find it, he LITERALLY GAVE ME DIRECTIONS to my local grow shop. So when I go there tomorrow I’m gonna tell them that story.
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Did you put all of these out of order on purpose!!! It hurts my OCD eyes!!! LOLOL
I love this story. You do have great stories.
Haven’t the sunny days been lovely? Back to … you know … tomorrow … sigh … 
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I loaded a bunch of pictures in different batches and each time the phone would load them in an unknown order. Some pics had to be resized so they had to be loaded a second time.
I did all my organizing, writing, and rearranging on my desktop. Most of the writing was done out of order. I left most of my instructions to myself in the messages. It probably doesn’t even make much sense because I was editing other stuff at the same time.
When I finished the post and re-read it, I thought it was hysterical nonsense. 
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I find them trays very useful 
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It was a hysterical nonsense! LOL
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ISK @mudman
Wash
I did this at a growmie’s house nearby. That was pretty fun.
I haven’t tried the ISK yet. I did try the Wash and I’m way higher than I thought I’d be. We pressed ~3/4 of a zip of what I had left from the Wash I harvested in October.
woo-wee.
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looks amazing. i would love to taste that 
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