Completely New to Organics, help needed!

Indoor Growing Organics
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#1

So I only grown soil a handful of times and that was at the very begining of my growing career so to speak… Now after running hydro 5 ways to Sunday, including my current full organic Recirculating Hempy Waterfall Topfed systems (RHWT). But after picking through the forums, I want to try soil again as a little experiment to determine exactly how close, or far off, I am from a traditional organic soil grow. This is the soil recipe ive compiled, and I figure I would follow other people’s tea recipes for recharging the soil and whatnot…
Base Mix:
1/3 Peat Moss
1/3 EWC
1/3 Perilite
1 bag of Base soil (FFOF etc)
Amendements (Per 1 cu ft soil)
Kelp Meal (1/2 Cup)
Neem Meal (1/2 Cup)
Crab Meal (1/2 Cup)
Oyster Shell (1/2 Cup)
Fish Bone Meal (1/2 Cup)
Langbeinite (1/2 Cup)
Gypsum (1/2 Cup)
Azomite (4 Cup)
BioChar (6 Cup)
Malted Barley Powder (1 Cup)

Then I am going to mix all of it together and let it “Cook” for ~ 3months until I am planning on using it. To be honest, this is just a concoction of things ive read which would be beneficial, along with using @ReikoX recipe as a base and adding things to it. What I am wanting is something that I can just add water to, along with an occasional tea in flower and still yield dense, odorful, flavorful, and stoney weed which would be better than what I am producing now. Thanks for your help everyone, lets see if I can kick the bottle (well, mineral salts in my case!)
Thank you everyone!

  • BDGrows
15 Likes
#2

If something goes right for you, why change it? I don’t know many growers that go from hydroponics to soil, specially organic. Hydroponics are faster and less complicated, you normally get great results with less daily work.

In organic soil you never know what’s in it and if something goes wrong it is difficult to find out and solve it.

I have great respect for organic soil growers as they must have a deeper knowledge. Check this post of one of the most reputated sorciers in this matter, he explains much better what I am trying to say … :sunglasses:

5 Likes
#3

I see nothing in there that you need to “cook”. You can sow a cover crop and plant in it right away. I would up the gypsum to 1 cup, maybe dropping a cup of the Azomite.

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#4

Personally I would cut back on the Azomite. For some reason I think 4 cups could make it more like concrete.
I would cut the base soil also. I don’t see the point in that for organics. I use 2-3 cups of amendments per cubic foot of soil. How much is a cubic foot?
3 half filled 5 gallon buckets.
1/2 bucket peat moss
1/2 bucket EWC
1/2 bucket Perlite
2-3 cups of ammendments
1/2 cup gypsum
bio char
DONT FORGET THE LIME!! You still need a PH buffer.

That is what I would recommend. Your amendments look on point.
Kelp is the bomb.

Edit: I use 1 cup lime per cubic foot of soil.
Nothing against @ReikoX but if you cut out the base soil and use what I recommend…I would let it cook 3 weeks. My recipe can be hot for a couple weeks.

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#5

Small adjustments often is the answer George, I am always learning something new.

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#6

I agree, but without those fertilizer bottles previously thrown away it is not and easy duty, you’ve got to know what you’re doing or your plants will suffer … :sweat_smile:

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#7

Thanks, I ment to comment on that. The base mix is the 1/3 peat, compost, and aeration. No need for FFOF or the like…

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#8

Typically, I find that many former hydroponic growers run into these two main issues (some other points I’ll touch on along the way, as well). First, you aren’t going to be able to grow a huge plant in a 4” container of medium. No, sir. Soil volume is the name of the game. If the biodiversity in your soil can’t keep up with your plant’s demand you’ll be forced to supplement—which as already pointed out is a bit of a crap shoot in organic. You begin overcompensating and throwing off the balance of your ribosome. That being said, I’ve had a lot of success with the “bud-sickle” style in the past. 2-gallon pots with a fresh 6” tall cutting thrown straight into flower. Most indicas finish around 18” tall with very little supplementation needed, most sativas finish around 24-30” tall with almost no supplementation necessary. Climate conditions will exacerbate things as well, like how often you need to water and how compact the plants will grow (colder makes for stockier plants, hotter makes for stretchier plants).

Second, things happen slower with soil, good and bad. So give adjustments a bit of time to show results before panicking, or giving up.

I’ve found that overthinking tends to be my biggest issue. My best runs came from a solid soil base, a proper soil volume to plant ratio, and a weekly dose of basic compost tea.

And if you increase your Gypsum to 1 full cup (as mentioned above) and also your Ouster Shell, you shouldn’t need additional lime to buffer ph.

If I think of anything else you may not have come across in your own research, I’ll swing back by. Happy growing!

9 Likes
#9

To a degree, I think this is true. It wasnt until I learned how plants grow, how microbes work, etc. That I was able to succeed with organics.

Quoting that because it needs to be said again. Think of the soil as a battery. The bigger the volume of soil, the more nutrients it can hold.

12 Likes
#10

microbes are the answer;)

what was the question again :wink:

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#11

I started in organics with 5 gallon fabric pots and now grow in 20 and 30 gallons. I have thought of doing one 100 gallon grow a year just to see what it looks like. You can’t grow big fat buds like the magazines without soil volume. It is one of the biggest mistakes.

That recipe I put above will grow beautiful plants with water only for one grow, but you have to have at least 8 gallons of soil. Anything less and I have a fade too early in flower.

Edit: Sorry I’m high and on a roll.
Get some worms going. That is something I can’t recommend enough. Fresh homemade EWC’s and Kelp are like a fix all tonic. Water in with some aloe…Oh BABY!

10 Likes
#12

Ditch the bagged soil, your already creating your base from scratch so you don’t need ocean forest, it’s a waste of money and it’s shitty bagged soil at that. Langbeinite I would drop as well, you don’t need it.
I would up the gypsum and oyster up to 1 cup each and use only 2 cups of azomite per cuft. If you didn’t buy the azomite yet I would consider replacing that with a paramagnetic rock dust like basalt or granite. Azomite is loaded with aluminum

7 Likes
#13

Get rid of the Azomite and get some good leaf mold from someone. I have replaced rock dust with leaf mold in my garden. It is the base for my soil and worms.

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#14

Noticing some of the ‘mixers’ here, are leaving out or encouraging elimination of the actual soil portion, of the mix. Good base, don’t need it? To get the best out of organics, the soil needs life. IMO 'castings, manure, and myco’s shouldn’t just be an afterthought. Soup-style organics, isn’t gonna get you or your plants, anywhere near where your hydro methods got you. IMO lose the ‘weekly additions’ of nutrients bit, learn a living soil (tlo,rols, no-till) organic style and you’ll save money and get great quality weed with yields approaching what you used to get with hydro. Ponder this, If you need to ‘cook’ these mixes for 3 months, what does a heavy concentration of any n p k organic additions do at week 6 of bloom?

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#15

Man, there is some gold in this here thread!
:+1::seedling:

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#16

Nothing the plant will be finished before it gets into the system. Yep you have to think ahead like playing chess. It would help with the next round of veg though. I tend to load up a bit more heavily at the start of Veg and then flower, same with the bacteria, and then let the plants cruise along hopefully with that.

I dont think anyone is saying eliminating the soil portion, I think its about buying a jaws mix, and adding it to the soil you are making. It would help initially to have, as it is like a ready charged battery, the plant can use while the soil and bacteria is getting up to speed but small plants would get enough food just from the EWC at the start.

I load up on gypsum as it has no effect on soil PH.

Edit, @BDGrows if you are looking for inspiration, Stonedmason has just started a no till grow. Heres a link.

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#17

I guess thats what this windbag was worried about, I kinda think backward, the smallest being the biggest etc. Simple KISS can be confusing to get, and really hard for me to explain…advice comes off totally douchey sometimes…

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#18

Yeh I know what you mean, after I type something I have to spend 10 minutes making it coherent lol. Then I think of 20 other things that are more important, I would say 90% of my posts are re edited after I post them.

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#19

Ive always done for organics runs 65% limed peat 10% ewc 25% perlite…I imagine a mix with 1/3 of high quality ewc would be very muddy , heavy… :thinking:
The main benefit of EWC is to add a broad range of bacterias spores fungi nematodes and even worms…i see it as an inoculum of life…adding too much of it will reduce the oxigen retention properties of your mix…in my opinion… :smiley:

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#20

The recipe actually calls for 1/3 compost. I usually use something like Coast of Main compost in my soil mix and top dress with the castings.

If your castings are muddy, you may be overwatering your worm bin.

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