What's your organic soil recipe?

Indoor Growing Organics
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#172

Haven’t been around in a while so figured I would drop in.

For amendments, I use and suggest any and all of these companies I’ve listed below.

Earth Safe Organics
http://vitalearth.com/earth-safe-organics/

Down to Earth
https://downtoearthfertilizer.com/

Build A Soil

Kelp 4 Less (they’ve got allll kinds of good stuff)

I love Mykos from Xtreme

This company’s silica is topppp notch. Plants are noticeably hardier.

Kelp meal, insect frass, Mykos, and harvest gold silica will always be in my soil mix.
IMO all make a huge difference in my soil mixes

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#173

Great idea. Really great. I have access to Alpaca poop. Similar to rabbit poop in many regards.

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#174

I’ve been using this for a few years. Two religiously. It makes a huge difference in plant health. They get a certain look to them when mycos is in the soil. More vibrant. I always use it in containers.

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#175

Mykos is still labeled Glomus Intraradices iirc but the new name is Rhizophagus Irregularis, and it’s the only fungus shown to interact with cannabis the way we want it to. Not to say that other species aren’t useful too.

I like to use mykos as a seed inoculate and the rest later on, because some other life forms, trichoderma iirc, tends to take over if they’re all at the same starting line.

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#176

That trichoderma. Is that the stuff that makes your pH take a nosedive? Happens real fast if you piss off the microlife. I have some beldi apollon at 3 days old. Should be plenty dry enough to send. I’m headed to the post office tomorrow for someone else hopefully that works for you

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#177

Can’t find the proper study, but here’s one along the lines of what I was looking for.


The one I was looking for studied beneficials in common commercial mixes, and found that in their test the trichoderma outcompeted everything, instead of just the pathogens.

So i take that to mean if seeds are planted in a sterile media with the rhizophagus irregularis / glomus intraradices it can develop the relationship we want, in peace.
Then when transplanting from the solo cups, inoculate the new media with the broad spectrum of beneficials for all the environmental controls

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Master Marks soil blend
#178

This thread has been very useful as I get back into the game. I definitely stopped growing at the wrong time, about 13-14 years ago. The idea of a supersoil intrigues me, but that’s a lot of ingredients and time between mixing and using. I’m use to just mixing a Simple soil blend, just promix and some more perlite, vermiculite, and gardening lime. Then feeding using liquid fertilizers, either organic (Alaskan fish or Neptune) or chemical. Since I got into growing berries and peppers this year, I’ll have more reason to go completely organic and get all the associated fertilizers and techniques in my tool belt.

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#179

You can grow excellent plants in the ground using only the local soil, compost, blood meal, bone meal, kelp meal, and lime. And anything you can think of to add air into the soil , such as chopped up one ( or older) year old leaves.

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#180

Outdoor: 1 part compost, one part soil, one part peat moss.
Indoor: 1 part compost, one part worm castings, one part peat moss.

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#181

I don’t keep track of measurements much, mostly go by feeling.

  • Certified organic potting soil
  • Basalt
  • Malted barley
  • Kelp meal
  • Alfalfa meal
  • Chopped banana peels

For next amendment gonna skip the kelp and alfalfa meal as I’m running out and don’t wanna buy more, and instead add:

  • horsemanure
  • dandelion
  • nettle
  • thistle
  • grass

And gonna start growing my own beans, alfalfa and clover. Why waste money buying it if you can grow it? Either outside or in your pots after harvesting your weed. When it’s time for your next weed grow just chop & drop and sow. Gonna have two cycles of pots going.

After cleaning out my gutters I now also have a bucket of black gutter compost mainly built from leaves and tree seeds (only partially broken down, lots of little balls in there), and quite a bit of pollen as well I imagine. It’s been in my garage for weeks and it’s staying moist without adding water.

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Soil Recipe Megathread
#182

I’m new to this and am aiming at Rols and soon no till this is my recipe as follows I’ve been mixing in 6 cf batches
1/3 base soil
1/3aeration
1/3 compost

base soil is promix the 2 cf bundles of organic garden mix I think it’s called it’s 60 to 70% spagnum, 20 to 30% coir and 10% pelite plus a few things mycos etc

aeration 50% perlite 50% rice hulls

compost currently using rabbit manure compost pine and paper bedding coffee kitchen scraps etc but hope to have vemi producing soon

amendment
biolive 4 cups
barley 2 cups
kelp 2 cups
mineral 2 cups each
basalt
azomite
gypsum
oyster flour
DE 2 cups

the compost is inoculated with local microbes Ivē been playing with from the JADAM Book and recharge going to water with each any thoughts on my mix topdress ideas teas not sure what to “feed” them used to using bottled chelates been playing with making humic/fulvic acid any thoughts or help would be great thanks folks havē a great day
edit i’m wondering about teas molasses if i’m going to hav ph issues cal mag i’m not using much “hot” amendments blood bon or even crab working on building the beds so i can setup the no till but from a bottle grower point of view idk how or if i will need to “feed” the girls the promix and the biolive have myco do i need more anybody have experience withbferments i’ve found a bunch online and here on notill but most of it involves a shopping list of stuff i don’t have kinda feels like the opposite of what I’m aiming at thanks

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#183

For that size batch I use 9 cups of meals. I’ve been using biolive exclusively, buy just make sure the ratios line up. You are a bit light on that.

So far I can water only, but I’ve been using ewc and bus blend. The mix has done better than when I used rabbit pellets. Do like to use a little ffj in flowering, but I’m running sips now so I really can’t.

It seems to me that using bio live gives me a better “cook” on my soil. Before I was wetting with a compost tea to be sure. With all the benes in bio live, I don’t see a need.

#184

Yeah I went back and thought I was light I think the last batch well the first batch had three cups of the minerals four cups is a kelp and barley and six cups bio live working on making my first batch of labs also some veg and fruit ferment think I might be having pH issues water is very alkaline but when I measure runoff it’s coming out right around 7 thanks for the help and yeah the bio live got it hot fast edit that bus blend is malibu right been looking for some might have to order it got some worms working now i appreciate the help

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#185

When I started using ro water possible ph issues went goodbye. I found a 5 stage ro system for fish tanks for about 60 bucks.

No problem man. Anu other questions I’ll do the best can to help.

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#186

I thought I didn’t need to check my water… should’ve at least once. All the way into my first grow, like a week or two before harvest, I happen to test it, because alkaline poisoning made sense given all the deficiencies the plants showed. Tested over 8, the highest my strips read. Well shit. Hooked up RO, and my plants since then have thrived.

It’s one of those things people who don’t know why they’re repeating it take it too far. Organic soil can and will buffer ph, but be reasonable, it’s not magic.

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#187

yeah i have had issues in the past with ph tested its at 8 or above didn’t know how this new soil mix and such would affect it when I do the runoff test its still comng out a bit high like 7.1 or7.2 I will have to look into an ro setup

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#188

Mix above looks good … I wouldn’t worry about higher ph the plant adjusts its own ph in and around the rhizosphere don’t try and fix some that’s not broke is my mantra.

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#189

Yeah I added some more/better compost to the last batch and so far so good just 1 plant showing some cal mag issue other than that looking good still thinking about an RO system but I’m loving the living soil
Edit I think it’s time to build the no till beds

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#190

1/3 compost, 1/3 peat, 1/3 potting mix… best base for anything

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#191

Base soil mix:

1:1:1: CSPM (Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss) : Pumice/Lava rock : Compost - Malibus B/U is an excellent choice if it is available in your area.

Amended per cuF with:

1/2 - 1 cup Neem or Karanja
1/2 - 1 cup Kelp
1/2 - 1 cup Crab/Crustacean meal
1 cup MBP (Malted Barley Powder)

1/2 cup Gypsum (nice sulphur source)
4-6 cups Basalt
6-8 cups Biochar

Small handful of worms per container

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