Water spots on your plant leaves? Clogged mist heads? Fertilizers don't seem to go far as you think they should? Let's talk calcium carbonate!
I spent some time today cleaning out my Fre-Flo water conditioner and I wanted to share a bit about irrigation water and fertilizer utilization in #garden and #nursery situations.
This device here takes the calcium ions in our water and carbonate ions in the water and combines them back together into a form of calcium carbonate crystals called vaterite, which is like talc powder when dried.
Since the ions are combined into the crystal and remain crystalized in the water, they won't bond with other ions in the water or soil.
This helps prevent a few things for us in the garden:
- the calcium and carbonate ions from bonding with other fertilizers, helping to lessen the amount of fertilizers needed and improving the efficiency of microbes in the soil getting needed nutrients to plants
- helps us from getting water spots on our plant leaves in the nursery and clogging irrigation parts with minerals. The vaterite will wash off in the rain rather than form crystals on the plant surfaces.
Incidentally we're using this to treat all the water in our house/farm since it's in-line with the line from the well. So this helps with clogged shower heads and sinks and water spots as well as making soap go farther.
Inside this device is a core which is coated with a catalyst to combine the calcium and carbonate ions into crystals. The rough surface helps add turbidity to the water to ensure the ions come in contact with the catalyst:
The core fits into a pipe which goes in-line with your water line, so it doesn't impeded the flow of water:
This gets cleaned out 2-3x per year with some CLR (Calcium-Lime-Rust) solvent just to clean up the catalyst. There are no filters or consumables other than the CLR cleaner.
Here is the website for the company describing the science behind it:
I learned about the effects of calcium carbonate salts especially with respect to soil science (fertilizers) from John Kempf via Matt Powers Regenerative Soil Science course. Here's an article on the interaction of hard water specifically calcium carbonate in agriculture:
#plantstr #gardening #permaculture #grownostr
This device here takes the calcium ions in our water and carbonate ions in the water and combines them back together into a form of calcium carbonate crystals called vaterite, which is like talc powder when dried.
Since the ions are combined into the crystal and remain crystalized in the water, they won't bond with other ions in the water or soil.
This helps prevent a few things for us in the garden:
- the calcium and carbonate ions from bonding with other fertilizers, helping to lessen the amount of fertilizers needed and improving the efficiency of microbes in the soil getting needed nutrients to plants
- helps us from getting water spots on our plant leaves in the nursery and clogging irrigation parts with minerals. The vaterite will wash off in the rain rather than form crystals on the plant surfaces.
Incidentally we're using this to treat all the water in our house/farm since it's in-line with the line from the well. So this helps with clogged shower heads and sinks and water spots as well as making soap go farther.
Inside this device is a core which is coated with a catalyst to combine the calcium and carbonate ions into crystals. The rough surface helps add turbidity to the water to ensure the ions come in contact with the catalyst:
The core fits into a pipe which goes in-line with your water line, so it doesn't impeded the flow of water:
This gets cleaned out 2-3x per year with some CLR (Calcium-Lime-Rust) solvent just to clean up the catalyst. There are no filters or consumables other than the CLR cleaner.
Here is the website for the company describing the science behind it:
FRE-FLO WATER SYSTEMS, INC.
FRE-FLO WATER SYSTEMS, INC.
Conditioning Water Naturally Since 1972
Scientific American
The Chemistry of Bumper Crops [Excerpt]
Irrigation is more than just throwing water on a field—it can be a nuanced chemical conversation between humans and plants
Here's a closeup of the bag. Looks like the cardboard is starting to break down in here.
Not ideal that the tree isn't in the ground yet, but if you need to preserve some plants until you have time to plant them, this works pretty well for me.
I can share some other resources on Effective Microorganisms (EM) if you're interested.
The other thing cool about EM-1 was discovered after the Fukashima nuclear plant accident. At a nursery in Japan, they were testing the crops after the fallout to make sure that there were not radioactive elements present in the food.
One of the fruit nurseries does a soil drench and foliar application of EM-1 to build up the biology in the soil and on the leaves.
They found that the fruit from this nursery had very little or no contamination from the radioactive elements.
My understanding is the EM-1 helps establish good fungal and bacterial presence in the soil and on the leaves which forms a sort of protection from the radioactive elements. Instead of taking in the raw element as ions, the fungi is preventing the plant from taking them in as the plants are relying on the fungi to provide them with what nutrients they need, and not just taking them from the soil.
#grownostr #permaculture #gardening #plantstr
#nursery #permaculture #plantstr #business #grownostr
I can fit about 4500 -5000 cuttings in here.
After it is cleaned out, I'll set up the intermittent mist system, which is made from 4 misting heads, a propagation water controller, and a water valve I can control from the controller.
The controller will turn on about 15 seconds every 10 - 12 minutes to mist the cuttings.
The cuttings are cut with multiple lead nodes. The bottom leaves are stripped off and only the top left on, and those are trimmed as well. They are then dipped in rooting hormone and put in the sand. The mist keeps them from drying out until they root.
#plantstr #gardening #propagation #nursery #grownostr
Put the branch and bees into a hive.
2 deep supers... didn't have foundation so there are just frames in them. I figure the bees know what to do.
Then a medium super in top with no frames... the bees were on a branch so I dumped the branch into the medium on top. Should I fish that branch out in a few days?
Anyway... nice surprise ending to the day!
#beestr #beekeeping #grownostr
If you look closely you will see 2 kinds of canes: The 2 older looking, taller, darker canes, and then a small plant that looks like it's sprouting from the base.
Those canes are from last year are called the "floricanes", and will bear this year's fruit. It's forming now, here's a zoomed in picture.
The canes from this year are the "primocanes". They will grow this year and will become floricanes next year. Here is a different angle so you can see the primocane forming at the base:
The plant spreads underground and will pop up new primocanes further and further from the parent plant. Some of my patches now are 20' long and thick with plants produced by only 3 parent plants. after about 4 or 5 years.
To propagate this type of raspberry, in the spring, I will dig up the plant around the floricanes coming into their second year and pot them up. The root base from that plant will then send out roots which will sprout into primocanes and continue the plant.
You may also see "bare root" raspberries, those are plants that have been dug up as I describe and sold prior to the plant putting on any growth. They are cheaper, but, as some of my customers have mentioned, when you get them, they "look like sticks" and so are not as attractive for retail customers.
#grownostr #gardening #permaculture #fruit #plantstr
There is a 25 PSI pressure reducer in-line to reduce our house water pressure which tends to be around 40 PSI off our well.
I have the irrigation come on each morning for 90 minutes. I have a timer running off of our spigot at the house that controls the watering.
If I were to water just the plants I have now by hand it would take me at least 20 minutes, so the automation is a time saver as well.
I've found that with a hose and hand watering you just can't get the same deep watering as you can with a light overhead watering over the course of an hour. With hand watering, the water seems to just run through the pots whereas a light rain-like watering over the course of 90 minutes daily will really help the plants stay hydrated.
I have the wobblers up 5' in the air on 3/4" PVC water line risers. The PVC lasts about 3 years out in the sun before needing replacement.
You can really see how they wobble back and forth and spin when they are in action!
#plantstr #garden #propagation #permaculture
The long term plan is to get completely away from the commercial fertilizer by fertilizing with compost tea, but I'm not there yet.
The more I interact with people, the more I realize what I'd consider common knowledge, is not common. Specifically worm castings, I sold some blackberries yesterday and mentioned that I had just top dressed them with worm castings, and the customer had never heard of using worm castings as a fertilizer, or even what they were.
Other things to teach is the seasonality of fruits, and that different varieties of the same fruit produce at different times. For instance, I have 4 different varieties of red raspberries that, when planted out, should produce most of the summer up to the frost. But people don't know that so you have to mention it.
Final thing to mention is this little garden scooter that I got a few months ago from AM Leonard. This thing is a back saver and puts you right where you need to be at eye level with the plants.
#permaculture #gardening #wormcastings #propagation
We have a landscape trailer, 10.5' long by 5' wide. I can fit about 180 to 200 plants in trade 1 gallon pots onto that trailer.
After we load, and this is KEY, I cover the plants up with a shade cloth tarp to prevent the wind from ripping all the leaves off while we are driving.
At the event, we've either set up the plants on low tables or on the ground. I have information sheets with me (DM me and I'll send you the PDFs!) as well as setting up a sign with our offerings.
My goal the more I do this is to create a more exciting and inviting booth. As I look at the pictures of our set up booth, I can see we need more color (as in flowering plants) as well as more abundance and variety of leaf shapes, plants, etc. So we are going to branch out a bit into things like lilacs, daylillies, hydrangea, etc.
#permaculture #gardening #propagation #grownostr
