Rock Dust.

[Om]

I and several friends are using rock dust, the general consensus is that the plants are studier and generally more healthy all round.

Do you think rock dust could be used in conjunction with rock phosphate and calicified seaweed?

Om

Edited February 27, 2007 by Om

[Guest Rex Mundi]

Also is it truly organic as there is a posting that states because it is a by product of Mining it isn't and it is only allowed by the soil association by written permission and with special justification

The chappie also states that there is no Nitrogen content so i'm a little confused as to the perlite/basalt test grow as some say it works well as long as a High N soil/compost is used.

G.A.T.I B)

Edited to take out an extra "as long" DOH.

How can it NOT be organic?

What is soil?

[Guest Rex Mundi]

I add rockdust to my garden every year, my tomato's are full of flavour, and my beetroots cannot be beaten on flavour, in fact, they are probably too beetrooty for most people who have got used to bland high street veg.

[Guest Rex Mundi]

Sounds interesting. How much basalt do you add to say a 6.5l pot of compost?

1kg of rockdust is good for 2600 sq. m. of garden.

[Guest Rex Mundi]

Where do I get some basalt rockdust? Garden centre?

I want to make a couple of additions to my compost mixture. Calcified seaweed and Rockdust.

google SEER CENTRE

[GETAROUNDTOIT]

How can it NOT be organic?

What is soil?

Hi Rex Mundi,

It was stated in the gardeners forum i was reading and the chap seemed to know a lot about it.

I only heard about the stuff on here last night so went off to find a bit more about it as it sounded interesting.

As with everything there are the for's and against's and i am neither.

If you know it to be totally organic then thankyou for clearing that up for me although i thought anything mined was considered not to be, but i don't understand your question "what is soil"

G.A.T.I B)

Edited to say i know where you are going with the "what is soil" question now after a little google

Soil for Schools quote

Soil is one of the three major natural resources, alongside air and water. It is one of the marvellous products of nature and without which there would be no life.

Soil is made up of three main components – minerals that come from rocks below or nearby, organic matter which is the remains of plants and animals that use the soil, and the living organisms that reside in the soil.

The proportion of each of these is important in determining the type of soil that is present. But other factors such as climate, vegetation, time, the surrounding terrain, and even human activities (eg. farming, grazing, gardening etc.), are also important in influencing how soil is formed and the types of soil that occur in a particular landscape.

Soil can form from the rocks below, or from rocks a very long distance away - perhaps being carried by wind or water. The glaciers of the last ice age acted as giant bulldozers pushing truly huge amounts of soil along as they grew and dropping the soil as they melted.

But mining isn't a natural occurence is it

Edited February 27, 2007 by GETAROUNDTOIT

[GETAROUNDTOIT]

Right i understand now how loose the term Organic is now after reading the "why grow organic" thread and seeing the Seer's site where they themselves call Rockdust (Trademark) the "New Organic" and have a little badge from Organic Farmers and Growers stating "Product approved for Restricted use Derogation Required".

It is a great use of a by product of mining to replenish the minerals and element's lost from the natural soil by aggressive farming or turning barren land fertile but it isn't truly Organic but then to be truly Organic seems like a very hard thing to acheive.

At the end of the day it's a great idea but just another company trying to market it's overpriced product imo.

Source your own from a local quarry and be more eco friendly i say.

ATB

G.A.T.I B)

[oldtimer1]

I only know of a couple of quarries that are extracting basalt and they are in Scotland. Transport costs many times the product cost.

I understand “the” its not organic principle, ie growing under lights is not natural or environmentally friendly. Digging or plowing soil is not natural, come to that neither is any cultivation, or fertilisation, where do you draw a line?

The main benefit of rock dust it it contains virtually every micronutrients and trace mineral that is know to be used by plant life. A lot of these are no longer present in farmed land or they are seriously depleted, there are even less in composts. It seems adding rock dust increases the micro flora population and activity many hundredfold when added to depleted soils. Rock dust has little or no macro nutrients, plants can virtually survive on just macros, that does not mean that is what is best for them.

Organic farming is about recycling and conserving land with little or no input from the outside, personally I think this is an over reaction to the abuses of chemical farming where the input of chemical salt macros has virtually eliminated the soils fauna so it has become a dead media, this means it has become a nearly inert medium holding dissolved chemical salts, ie its a very basic hydro system.

The thing is every time a crop is taken from land, in that crop are minerals micros and macros, they do not go back to the land because we use toilets to dispose of them.

So I see nothing wrong with adding back the missing minerals from the original source that put them in the soil in the first place, ie rock dust.

Small amounts go a long way, I add it when making garden compost on my allotment, this blends it with the waste plant matter, gives the micro fauna a chance to get working on it, the result compost + as a mulch round plants it encorages worms to take it down adding it to the soil.

As Rex says, it contributes to very tasty fruit and veg.

[Leprechan Sweet Leaf]

Hi All.

I am goin to be adding some calcified seaweed to my compost mix next time. EO said that it acts like a buffer for the ph and stabilises the compost.

If I use rockdust and calcified seaweed together, is this ok?

[oldtimer1]

Hi All.

I am goin to be adding some calcified seaweed to my compost mix next time. EO said that it acts like a buffer for the ph and stabilises the compost.

If I use rockdust and calcified seaweed together, is this ok?

[Leprechan Sweet Leaf]

thanks Oldtimer.

Ideally I would like a compost heap but (unfortunately) I am a apartment dweller and dont have an allotment or garden to work on. Maybe a small worm bin this summer for a start.

For my ganja...

I will use a mix of; compost, worm-castings, calcified seaweed, rockdust and innoculate with ecto & endo mychorrizals and good bacteria.

Does this sound ok someone like me? Any sagely advice about my mix Ot?

take it steady bud.

lsl

Also Cheers for the seer centre link Rex Mundi.

Edited March 13, 2007 by Leprechan Sweet Leaf

[The_Embalmer]

Informative thread.

I have taken much on-board. Very interesting. Changed my thought process as to a few things.

Thanks OT1, et al.

[buddly]

Mrs buddly an I took a trip out to pinetum arboretum t,other day to pick up some rockdust an compost..

The chap that runs it used to own an run cumulus organics and what a nice and helpful chap he is

He had some SEER rockdust or the pinetum version..Their the same apart from the pinetum version is more refined and should work quicker

So we got a 24kg bag of the pinetum rockdust for a tenner and also picked up some carr,s organic compost..

The chap tells me that its the best organic mix hes used in all his years in organics..Lets hope hes right

Below is the pinetum rockdust analysis

[oldtimer1]

Thanks buddly, ground finer is what I have been looking for.

[seedsandsticks]

when I googled pinetum rock dust it took me a gardeners' forum and the results of a side by side experiment with seers, pinetum and just compost.

With radishes the seers seemed to perform better than the pinetum. The author ventured that there may be other unknown inclusions in the pinetum stuff.