Hello all,
I want to build a soil from scratch, and I’m wondering if any of the amendments I have sitting around will be useful.
I am planning on going with 1/1/1 compost, spaghum peat and perlite.
I do veggie gardening, so I have some amendments sitting around.
I have Feather meal, dolomite, azomite, gypsum, canola meal, bone meal, agricultural lime, rock phosphate, green sand, blood meal, mycos, and humic acid
Can I make a successful combination with these? Or should I buy neem cake, crustacean meal and kelp as seems to be pretty standard?
I use neem oil 70% cut to 1tbsp per gal for soil drench start.
Lactic Acid Bacteria’s for your microbes
Fermented Plant Juice for your foliar veg.
Kelp Meal
& everything you list except bloodmeal. Your FPJ will be a better replacement.
Neem cake and crustacean meal(crab/shrimp meal) are both great additives! I like Alfalfa meal too…especially if you plan on reusing the soil! I use rabbit poop as well…it’s the only shit from a animal that does not need composting(ready to use)and has more available nutrients than any other!! I’d also add in Epsom Salt(Magnesium Sulfate)
Your soil recipe is very similar recipe to what Buildasoil.com has available…it’s a good one!
At 1/3 by volume compost might be a bit heavy you’d probably be just fine at 1/4 of compost.
Peat moss is a good soilless material though I prefer coco or a mix of the two.
Alaskagrown
EDIT: If you still want to use Bone Meal I’d use Fish Bone Meal…Just a better quality product all the way around!
Checkout TLO True Living Organics by the Rev. I hear it’s great & will give you a list to make your own. I’ve bought the book & looking into it myself. Thought I would use the soil from winter grows done indoors in the spring. Reuse old soil save some $$. Haven’t tried it yet but someday lol
Thanks, that’s a lot of info in that thread. I’ve read some of it and have a medium understanding of KNF, but I haven’t dedicated the energy to get a handle on it for everyday use. I used to brew beer so I get the fermentation thing, too. I need to dedicate this year to be the year. I use Roots organics dry stuff, but $$$, you know. I’m glad you linked that thread. I have it open in a new tab now and will stay with it. peace
I love saving money and want to keep these living soil beds happy and alive. I have not dove very deep down those rabbit holes, would love to get into some of this natural wizardry though. When we bought this place 2 years ago, there were 1000’s of 4 ft-8ft tall thistles that had grown up in massive thick groves on about 1 acre of the property. These things are pretty vigorous once they start growing, so I was thinking of making a ferment out of some this year possibly. I assume it would make a good veg ferment with hopefully a decent mineral content since the taproot goes so damn far once they get big.
Unless you’re living in a stupidly high humidity climate I’d leave the perlite out, I’ve never used it.
When you go the no-till method then the roots from the previous grow will do what the perlite does, while also providing food for the microbes and fungi.
Go easy on the amendments. I’d add only 3-4 cups for every 10 liters.
I’d go for 2/3rds compost, 1/3rd spaghnum, plus a few cups of amendments.
Not familiar with any of your amendments…
Cheapest is free, grab a big bag and go for a walk in a forest, gather some tree leaves (plenty minerals), little bits of dirt, dandelion (10% calcium), nettle, thistle (these have deep roots bringing up many minerals) and then also fruit and veg kitchen scraps, the more varied the better. And mix that in and topdress with it.
Also bananapeels (potassium & phosphorus) are gold.
Chop them up and thow em in!
Then keep sowing in the same pot. Works great once it establishes a balance.
I’m using a stacked approach, small pot on top of a bigger pot.
Small one has your cannabis + covercrops.
Big one below is where you topdress.
Feel free to visit my No-till Mystery Cult thread.
Hey Alaskagrown… remember making Sub’s Super Soil years back. Man, I spent so much $$ buying all them ingredients and realized really quick that it was more for large scale peeps and not I… I was using it in Soma Boxes I’d made, also not cheap… but I was young n healthier then and loved a good project.
Now… I mix Foxfarm’s Strawberry Fields and Roots Organics together and love, love this mix.
Note: The FF Strawberry Fields will grow mushrooms out of drain holes as it’s a mushroom
compost. tripped me out the 1st time,
I do indeed remember mixing up batches of Super Soil…letting bake in the sun for 45-60 day’s before use…break down the mix so it didn’t burn the shit out of the plants!
It’s ultra expensive to make for sure and I wouldn’t use in a large scale…I did though for a few medium sized grows and was a massive pain in the ass!! Lol At one point I had three large batches cooking off before use in large kiddie pool covered in plastic…but the results were as good as anything I’ve grown in the past 30 years!! FACT
I’m a big fan of Root Organic soil…it’s really good for a bag soil…that’s what I used as the base to the Super Soil I would make. Haven’t mixed up any in over a decade!
For my outdoor high tunnel this coming year I’ll be running long Grassroots no-till style raised beds…cover crops…the whole nine yards so to speak!
Excellent stuff.I am starting to go this way.I have a bag where I mixed the basic soil from Biobizz,the lightmix,and added the leaves ofthe plant I cut Yesterday.I added some Hay borrowed from my bunny and Will add a Little compost.Let It sit 15 days and then setting up 4 x 2 gallons pot that I Will feed with FPJ and FFJ.
Good stuff to get started with. Is this for indoor container growing? Are you trying to go for a water only supersoil or are you able/willing to top dress through the grow?
Hey there! The Coots Mix has been popularized by Build a Soil, and by all accounts grows great plants using Neem and Karanja in the fertilizer component. I have 2 BaS Coots kits waiting to get mixed up this spring.
That said, both of those products likely made it to me from another continent via a diesel-powered shipping vessel, then rail transport to CO, then truck transport back to the east coast. Yikes.
I’m excited to give that particular recipe a try, and wanted the consistency of using a proven formula, but it’s at the price of more energy to make than if I’d looked for local organic inputs. At the end of the day, cannabis does not have such specific nutrient requirements that it won’t grow well in most temperate zones (or in comparable indoor environments).
I’d also add in Epsom Salt(Magnesium Sulfate)
