You're just recycling some soil. I have a batch of soil that I ran 2 cycles on without adding anything but my own ewc and lobster compost. The first harvest using this soil mix was my heaviest, so I didn't add much as far as amendments. The second harvest was slightly less that before but it was my best tasting harvest ever, so I'm thinking I need to re-charge my soil a little. I plan on adding kelpmeal, alfalfa meal, Espoma's biotone and gardentone, peruvian guano, greensand, rock phosphate, some unused akadama but only adding half the amount I originally used. Its about 50 gallons of soil that I add tea made of kelp,alfalfa, ewc, gardentone and I use Neptunes's Harvest Fish Seaweed blend. The only thing I'm unsure of is how much lime to add. Do I add 1 cup/cf of half that?
I think it might depend on how much you limed the soil on your initial mix, and what agent you used. You may want to get in touch with Wetdog as I consider his liming knowledge and experience to be the best around. Wish I was more helpful.
Nutty, you really like that organic stuff? It's all smelly and dirty and has yucky slimy worms and shit. I like Sams comment about how much you added the first time. You've also got the lobster (calcium carbonate) compost in the mix. I do know it takes awhile for it to really break down so you may be still holding onto some if you added it the first time you mixed. My suggestion would be "go light". Hey, it nice to be able to reuse this dirt ain't it? I've been down the cellar for a little while mixing up some more old soil myself. Nice. J
When I re amend, I do everything @~3/4 of the initial mix. The real slow release stuff is even less, like granite meal, ~1/2 strength. N I usually add at full strength, it really gets depleted. For the lime, I use a cup/10 gallons of used mix. Easy because just about everything is in 5 gal buckets and that comes out to ~3/4 strength. Same with the kelp, rock phos and greensand. Alfalfa, ~1 1/2cups. You can play with it. Get one of those mixing tubs from Lowes or HD and do varied amounts 10 gallons at a time and note the results. There is nothing really set in stone here. Wet
Nice tip on the nitrogen depletion Wet, I will be mixing in a full dose of alfalfa. But I will try different amounts of lime with different batches of soil. One batch with 1/2 cup/cf and another batch with 3/4 cup/cf. At least this way I'll have a more tailored answer. The amendments I'll do at 1/2 strength because my girls are given tea a few times during their lives and I'm really anxious to see how adding a fish hydrosylate to my formula affects my garden. And yes Jerry I love this organic stuff, I love when my soil and my teas smell like a dozen different types of shit, literally. I love the smell of neem and I like to look at greensand(weird?). Also I love when I harvest some ewc and my worms are fat and juicy looking.