Awesome! Thank you! What size pots do you recommend for autos? I know it’s best to put them straight in the final container. I was thinking 2 or 3 gallon fabric, but not sure if the 3 gal is overkill. Might be getting this started sooner than I thought. Wifes tired of running out, and we’ve gotten into more than one fight over me being on the site, but it’s also made her curious as to what I’m learning. With her major depression (possibly bipolar), and anxiety being out of meds creates huge problems in our household.
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Having gone from years of soil growing to coco coir, I gotta disagree with that but only from my personal experience.
I have had pH issues with soil more often than I’ve seen with coco, usually due to things like inconsistencies in drainage and nute buildup. I also found course corrections with soil required a much longer time to accomplish. Overwatering especially was a hard thing to fix after the fact.
With coco I’ve not had pH issues and I rarely if ever adjust. It also allows me to do a hard reset in events of over or under feeding. On top of that I’m able to water my plants as often as I want to with little worry about overdoing it. It’s just easier and simpler, in my opinion.
In the end though gotta find what works for you and not be afraid to try new things.
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A gallon for every month of the plants life is the rule I follow with autos so I’d say 3 gallon is perfect 
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2-3 gallons is perfect IME.
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I use 3 gallons, but I actually do one transplant from starter. Haven’t had a problem with an auto transplant yet. I just think it’s easier to water that way.
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I was thinking about this today. Might have some extra money to get off the ground soon. I had a question though. When using this mix for autos, should I fill the pot with the full mix, then hollow out a hole in the middle to put starter mix in for starting the seed to avoid transplanting?
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Warning: straying off topic. Kinda.
I’ve long had an idea to have a competition for soil & nutrient companies running the same clone in a controlled environment(not something I can foster). Have it all time-lapse video’d, show the “truth” of the matter. 
ok it’s safe now
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That would work. However I have transplanted every single one of my autos at about 10 days with absolutely no hitches and I must have grown 20 of them this year alone.
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I saw you said that somewhere. More looking for idiot proof. My dumb ass would end up transplanting it upside down or something lol. If I get it off the ground I’m only gonna have time for one round before we move and I would like to try and make it as problem free as possible. Hoping to get some high quality and a decent yield to hold us over until we move and I can get a more permanent system going with a mix of photos and autos.
I thought about doing that, or possibly cutting the bottom off of a plastic cup to make watering the small plant easier. I haven’t tried this mix with autos yet, but with the Coots mix I have just started auto seeds directly in that without issue.
You can transplant them, but be gentle when doing it…
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Good idea.
I’ve done that before with good results.
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Hey ReikoX! I’m getting together the ingredients for this, but I can’t find any good info. Would 10 lbs of EWC be about 2 gal? To me it looks like it should be around 2.5, but other sources ping it more like 1.5. Trying to make about 15gal total of this mix.
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I honestly don’t know, I make my own EWC. I’ve never weighed mine. But it doesn’t sound like 10 lbs would be enough
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I tried searching up on it, but couldn’t find anything definitive. How would Clackamas Coots water only mix stack up against your mix? Just found a local retailer selling it made and delivered, supposedly with house made premium worm castings, at $27 for 2 cu. ft. Its a hell of a lot cheaper than trying to piece together all the ingredients. Hit up my local shop and all they had was bone meal. Otherwise, $20 for 15lbs of good fresh worm castings isn’t a bad price.
I use a coots mix in my no-till beds. It works great, but it costs more to make yourself. Also, I use EWC, but really any compost will work.
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So, it kind of sounds like this is a base mix that will need further nutrients throughout the grow, and cooking. It had a quote from coot saying “This mix is perfect for starting seeds or for planting seedlings or transplants that you buy at shows.” Here’s what their site said the mix is:
Coot Mix Ingredients
- Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss (CSPM). Think of this as the frame on your car. This material is standard in the nursery industry and we can get this at Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Lowe’s and other stores. This material is compressed, so we’ll want to break it apart so that it’s loose and you can move your fingers through it easily. We want 1/2 bucket which is about 2.5 gallons.
- Vermicompost. A good alternative is 80% compost and 20% worm castings. If CSPM is the frame for this project, the vermicompost is the entire drive-train. I cannot stress enough the importance of sourcing the finest vermicompost that you can find in your area. Measure out 1/2 bucket and add to the CSPM. I’m going to switch gears a bit and we’ll add the amendments to this combination and it’s only 6 items so nothing to worry about.
- 2 cups of malted grains from a home-brew store. Have them grind it for you at the store. Try to get it ground to as close to whole-heat flour as possible.
- 1 cup limestone (I.e. Calcium Carbonate - CaCO3). You do not want to use Dolomite Lime which will have 10% or so of Magnesium. We want to use limestone only.
- 2 cups of granite rock dust. Almost every retail and even commercial potting soil lacks this all-important item. Soil at it’s basic level is rotted plant and animal material and shattered rock. For the microbial health in the soil as well as other reasons we want to add either basalt rock dust(West Coast) or granite on the East Coast. Please avoid Azomite, Bentonite,Zeolite because all are alumina-silicate compounds and the last thing that we want in our soil is aluminum especially at the levels found in these colloidal minerals.
- 1 cup kelp meal (North Atlantic) to our developing soil mix. No other plant has the array of nutrients, compounds and such as kelp meal.
- 3/4 cup of Karanja Meal
- 3/4 cup Neem Meal
- Now, water this mix and let it soak for a few hours to make sure that we have good hydration in all of the material.
- 1/2 bucket of perlite or rice hulls for aeration. Use a pitch fork or hoe and thoroughly mix everything together. At this point, you will see your potting soil coming together.
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