Cubensis-Cannabis life style recycling tek: When I first came onto myotopia I avidly read all the teks I could get my eyes to focus on. There were many teks working with garlic stalks, bamboo and leaves that came to an end without knowing if they were successful or not . Some of these authors are long gone so I couldn’t ask them.
I decided to think of a tek that recycled my hobbies and lifestyle perpetually and follow it through to success or failure and then post it. It is an evolving work. First I made, or rather my worms in the 2 worm boxes made soil from spent hemp stalks and male leaves along with kitchen scraps, newspapers, cardboard and coffee grounds and previous used potting soil. So I recycled my growing soil resulting in not having to buy potting soil. In the process created the best quality soil I could, not requiring chemical nutes.
My compost tumbler was fed likewise the leaves, other kitchen scraps, cardboard and coffee grounds to make potting soil . This compost was mixed with worm castings and with kelp from my seashore sojourns to grow the plants in containers indoors. (As an aside I make wine and the gallon bottles have gas off bubblers to generate CO2 in the grow closet for the plants to consume) Once a crop was finished the stalks were stripped of their buds and leaves at maturity. Stalks and branches were retted ( soaked in my rain barrels for a week) then stripped the fiber, dried and cut up. The remaining stems stalks and roots which were then ground in a Vita Mix blender and mixed with the fibers for use as substrate. The spore prints were made into syringes and syringes grew the spawn in the grain and then the colonized grain was added to pasteurized hemp fibers, roots and ground stalk substrate which when colonized then were cased with compost from my tumbler (pasteurized). When the mushroom fruits were through producing the spent substrate was dumped back into either the worm bins or compost tumblers where soil would be made again to grow more plants . The spent soil was leached with rain water collected before putting into the recycling process and then replaced into the compost tumbler or worm farm for further processing by my “workers” I am growing the grain (millet) next summer in my garden to use in the colonization .
Thus the cubensis-cannabis cycle results in little waste and less and less outside input. The results of hemp waste growing of cubensis is demonstrated. I wonder what they are going to do with all the hemp waste in Washington and Colorado? Could pans be grown on it too instead of classical wood chips? All and more questions for this resource.
the pictures and captions:
The compost / soil factory (kitchen scraps, cardboard, newspaper, seaweed, and spent mushroom waste)
The worm factory for making worm castings to add to compost
The worm employees at work
The worm casting product produced
The plant that grows in the compost and worm castings
The plant stripped and ready for retting with the soil returned back to the tumbler and worm
Ready for Retting (soaking and submerged for 5 days)
The fiber obtained from retting multiple plants (dried)
Hemp fiber and hemp "wood"
Hemp fiber and wood chips in jar
Edited by hyphaenation, 10 February 2014 - 01:39 PM.
