New to Living Soil, got questions

[Eastcoast]

I have been out of the loop for a number of years and I’m getting back into growing indoors.
Picked up a Vivosun 4x4x6’6” tent, California light works solarxtreme 500 COB style light. I want to use SubCools / Coots formula but I’m a little confused as to how to approach it. I just picked up 2 , 1.5L bags of Roots Organics Lush soil, seems to have all of the required ingredients included and I would like to know if I can go with it as it is or would it be better amend further ?

First time in soil and want to go the living soil route. Last time growing I did the bubble buckets, then the hempy buckets first using perlite then coco. Lots of work with mixing & daily watering etc.

Just ordered some BOG Gear the infamous Sweet Cindy and his Sour Blue Tooth. Looking forward to the end results.

I was on the Original OG still have a lot of info on old hard drives some where. the last couple of grows was a Blue Satilite 2.2 and from Kootanay (?) juicey and great berry flavor on the pallet, the other was Lapis Mountain Indica, tasted like temple hash. Great herbs.

Thanks for any info. Looking forward to the winter.

East…

[BasementBeans]

You’ll be able to run it as it is, but it’s going to run out of nutrients eventually. You’ll probably want to pick up some dry amendments, worm castings, that sort of thing. You can reuse it over and over, the microbial life in the soil will get better over time if you’re treating it right

[Gpaw]

Hey @Eastcoast, welcome back to Overgrow!!

Here’s a handy recipe book:

soil recipes.pdf (193.4 KB)

Coots is a straight forward 1:1:1 mix of EWC, peat & aeration of your choice… plus amendments. I’d suggest some rock dust as well.
My cover crop favorite is micro clover (it just takes longer to get to full size)
I started with “True Living Organics” by The Rev as my bible. lots of good stuff there.
There’s some folks here working that Korean organic system. I haven’t much more than skimmed that, but it looks interesting.

First order of business, you want a worm farm… Fresh EWC is magic.
If you are in Canada, check out the Gaia Green product line.

Back to your question, use the Lush soil as the peat contribution, mix in an equal amount of EWC or worm compost and then add the aeration material (pumice, perlite, rice hulls etc). Then add the amendments mix and wait a week or two. With those ingredients waiting isn’t mandatory.
This is your base soil mix, the stuff you can start seedlings and clones in.
I add some bone and blood meal (in different ratios) to the base for veg and flower mixes.

I suggest you look through the amendment lists of various recipes to get a feel. You might need to do substitutions because of price or availability, that’s OK, there’s no ‘right answer’ .

Cheers
G

[HeadyBearAdventures]

I’ll second FRESH earthworm castings, and suggest fresh compost (not the bagged stuff that’s already dead), and about 10% well composted manure.
For my grow, I calculated the mass of each element present in my Down to Earth soil amendments (mass of the bag x percentage of element), and then made a recipe based on Jack’s 3-2-1 part A and B, that mimics the NPK ratios but in an organic format.
Then I added azomite, and some granular humic acids to make sure my micros/trace elements were on point.
At flowering, I top dressed with Langbeinite, Bone meal, and Bio Live, with more azomite and kelp meal to push Phosphorous and Potassium numbers up.
Hope that’s helpful!

[Dirt_Wizard]

If you want to keep it really simple:
-veg in the dirt, it’ll be fine
-top dress before flip and after stretch with Coast of Maine Stonington Blend dry fertilizer and another 1/2" of soil
-water throughout with Real Growers Recharge, Fish Sh!t, AgSil16h, and blackstrap molasses, do one or two of each per week
-extra credit: do a rice wash and make some LABS solution, use it as a soil drench and a foliar both

[HeadyBearAdventures]

@Dirt_Wizard

extra credit: do a rice wash and make some LABS solution, use it as a soil drench and a foliar both

I just bookmarked several Korean Organics threads! I make fermented foods at home, so I’d really like to try a run with lacto fermented teas. Any recommended reading @Dirt_Wizard ?
(This concludes my thread hijacking)

[lotus710]

No-Till Gardening

No-Till Gardening: Revisited

[HeadyBearAdventures]

Much love @lotus710
Funny story, yours is one of the posts I bookmarked to study!
I also keep stumbling upon 4 year old posts of yours that I almost accidentally respond to…i.e. wholesale pricing at Seedsman from a post from 2017
Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[Rogue]

Go for a walk in nature with a big bag and gather tree leaves, nettles, thistle, dandelion (10% calcium), grass clippings, anything that’s not posionous and has a deep taproot, these plants all contain lots of minerals.

It doesn’t cost you anything and you’ll have gotten some fresh air, chop it all up, and mix it with your soil, or keep it for topdressing.

Perhaps a little horse manure as well, people who own horses will give it to you for free, happy to get rid of it. Use in moderation, like everything.

Covercrops are great too: vetch, clover, etc…

Let it all do its thing and topdress whenever you see your soil has sunk a little.

I water from the bottom once a week or every two weeks.

PS: Kitchenscraps! Especially bananapeels (potassium & phosphorus) are great.

[Dirt_Wizard]

I’m not a tea user yet, though I imagine that FPJ/FFJ and worm bin leachate are in my near future. I’m not super interested in brewing aerated teas, one of the reasons I’m in soil is the ease of the process and relative LITFA of it vs other methods. I use LABS because it’s super simple and easy to make, and I used to be a sourdough bread baker so I’m real familiar with lactobacillus cultures and the nutritional/digestive benefits of it for humans. As soon as I read some KNF stuff it was pretty obvious that the benefits for soil are similar: outcompeting the bad stuff and predigesting nutrients to make them more bioavailable. In bread, sourdough (lacto and yeast complexes) makes the wheat significantly more digestible and nutritious, to the point where many people with gluten sensitivity (not celiac) have no problems eating it.

When it comes to sources for info, I sometimes use the Internet Archive cache of the Uncommon Gardener, I think it’s called? But my favorite source is the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Ag:

University of Hawaii Publications

If you want the deep dive, I’m currently working my way through Jeff Lowenthal’s books Teaming With Microbes, the first of four books he’s written about natural processes and horticulture/agriculture, they seem to be the gold standard for non-scientists:

Jeff Lowenfels

[HeadyBearAdventures]

@Dirt_Wizard You’re my hero.
Thanks for the study material so that I can be an even bigger nerd!

[Eastcoast]

Hijack away…

[Eastcoast]

Ok, day 19 or so since the Sour Blue Tooth from BOG Popped. Running California light works solarxtreme 500 W COB LED light.
All 4 sprouted lost one. Had them in red Dixie cups transplanted into 1Gal grow bags when the leaves just spanned the width of the cup. Roots where just shy of the bottom of the cup .
They have been under 24 hr light since they popped 18” or so off the tops. Just noticed something on the leaves of one.

[Eastcoast]

This is about day 20 from seed popping. I mixed up 3 cu ft of Roots Lush Soil with the following :

~1/2 cup Kelp Meal
1 cup shrimp meal
1 cup lime
1/2 cup blood meal
1/2 cup Gypsum
1 cup bone meal
10 cups worm castings
2 cups green sand
Maybe 20 cups vermiculite.

I have 2 sweet Cindy popping in the cups.

[Eastcoast]

The additives where per cu ft of soil mixed

[Gpaw]

Which “lime” are you using i.e. dolomite (Ca + Mg) or ‘garden lime’ (Ca)

They say the Roots Lush is already amended.
If it was me, I’d cut the Green sand back to 1 cup and the lime (Dolomite) to 1/2 cup.
Then adjust next time as per the results of the grow.

Cheers
G

[Eastcoast]

Espoma garden lime, says Dolomintic Limestone.

[Eastcoast]

Close inspection of the leaves shows slight yellowing along the veins. If the mix is too hot I’ll get some CSPM and thin it out.

[Eastcoast]

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[Eastcoast]

Looking pretty nice less than 30 days from sprouting.
They have been under a 500w COB LED 24/7 since they popped.
These are all BOG Sour Blue Tooth. The sweet Cindy pack I got is problematic, 6 for 6 failure rate on those. Too bad because that is a favorite of mine but I have never grown out the BOG genetics .
Ordered some malted barley and am looking forward to see what it will do.