Help me build a water only soil.

http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1116550-easy-organic-soil-mix-beginners.html
 
What are your measurements for amendments?
Like 1 cup kelp per cf? gallon? yard?

 

I'd say your right on the money.

 

What brand castings did you get? That's the MOST important part of this entire mix.
 
Also how long do you plan on nutrient cycling for?
 
I suggest leaving the Vermiculite for Mushroom growers and try and source some Pumice

 

 
That just ain't gonna happen without serious over doing it. Get over it and plan on top dressing a month or 2 in. No big deal, just pick up on some Espoma. Just need to do it a couple of weeks before it's needed. I'm still working on that after a few years. LOL
 
Your mix is close, but not quite and I'll give my .02 in another post.
 
Wet

 

 
I wouldn't try and pop seeds in this, but it doesn't seem overly hot and you will need to top dress before flowering, but big deal, takes a minute or so. Way better than scorching the suckers with a too hot soil.
 
Wet

 

Tree
 
Really?? Cut down the stone powders? I thought 4cups/CF was standard?

 

A good quality compost.

J

 

Well, 1 cup *used* to be standard and worked fine for me.
 
The 4-5 cups deal was a "up to" amount if you read the thread carefully, a max amount.
 
4 cups (5 actually, +1 cup lime) made my mix too heavy. I'm cutting this mix down 50/50 to get the amount of dust down to ~2cups/cf.
 
The lightened mix @2cups is lighter and seems to be working well so far, but I've only re amended ~4cf out of 11 or so.
 
Just my experience.
 
Wet

 

8- Large bags of High quality Organic potting soil with a coco and Mycorrhizae

1- 25-50 pounds of Organic Worm castings
5 lb. Steamed Bone meal
5 lb. Bloom bat Guano
5 lb. Blood meal
3 lb. Rock Phoshate
¾ cup Epson salts
½ to 1 Cup cup Sweet Lime ( Dolimite)
½ Cup Azomite ( Trace Elements)

2- TBS Powdered Humic Acid

 

Ya, not like it's a secret or anything

 

Thats not a water only soil. I ran his mix in 10gal buckets inside and gassed out by week 3-4 of flower. Def with a compost tea and 2 top feedings it can do good things. It cost 28 a bag here in oregon. Some great stuff tho. Its funny the bag recommends to top feed with just more of the dirt around day 45 iirc.Sent from my LGL55C using Grasscity Forum mobile app

 

"should I replace"

Let me ask; have you already bought the "Alaska Humus"? If you've bought it already use it, but figure it into your peat part and not into your compost/vermicompost (humus) part. It really is just overpriced/hyped peat anyhow.

So at the very least replace the "Alaska Humus" with some real, quality compost. Now, you'll find that there are MANY different consistencies with compost, depending on what it was made from. Keep this in mind when you add your aeration - you may want to adjust your aeration one way or another.

Let me tell you a little secret about organic soil recipes - there isn't a "best one", there isn't perfectly set values and if you even follow it roughly you'll be just fine. This isn't a French restaurant where everything needs to be perfect - it's soil. There are guidelines, but they are just that - guidelines. Follow these guidelines and it'll work perfect. Perfect.

1. We BASE our organic soils on soil microbes. These soil microbes are necessary - without them our soils would not work. These soil microbes break down organic matter - all organic matter whether it be peat or fertilizer down to a point where our plants can now use it as plant food. I saw you asking above; this is called Nutrient Cycling. These microbes do much, much more too - they will actually carry nutrition over distance to our plants roots, they help keep pathogens at bay, they help keep our plants disease free, they work symbiotically with our plants to help with everything there is to help them grow; that soil microbes are important is an understatement. So, since we rely so heavily on these soil microbes where do they come from? For the most part they originate in the compost and worm castings that we add to our soil mixes - thus the massive importance of basing your soil on quality humus. Compost does more than just supply soil life though, it acts as a soil conditioner and supplies nutrition as well.

2. Nutrition. We need to make sure our soils contain all the nutrition needed for our plans to survive from start to finish so we add a little diverse group of soil amendments - kelp, neem, alfalfa, etc. The general consensus is to use somewhere around 2-3 cups per cubic foot of soil (total) but I'll tell ya, after a few mixes/practice you'll find that these numbers only matter so much. I haven't followed a recipe for a long long time now - when I mix a soil I just grab cupfulls/fistfuls of this and that and make sure there's plenty in the soil mix of each.

3. Let's call these "bulking agents" - they can be Sphagnum Peat, Coco, Leaf mold. We add a bunch of these cuz we want lots of soil right? They also help maintain consistency in your soil, aerate to a certain amount and act as "soil conditioners".

4. Liming Agents - kind of a debatable subject. Peat is a little acidic so calcium based amendments are added to help buffer/stabilize your soils pH. Examples might be lime, oyster shell powder/flour, crab & shrimp meals, lobster shell, gypsum. Even worm castings contain quite a bit of pure Calcium Carbonate. Generally used at somewhere around a cup/CF. If you use ProMix you'll find it's already balanced but using these items either way is just fine. Just sprinkle some in. I've made a bunch of soil mixes using ProMix and never added any liming agents but the added calcium is always a good thing - in moderation.

5. Aeration. SO important. Perlite, rice or buckwheat hulls, whatever - just add enough so that your soil drains well; this is a must. Heavy, dense and wet soil plain ol sucks and will hinder your plants growth tremendously and will yellow leaves, make them all funky looking, just generally causing slow growth.

So we've got these 5 guidelines. Check this out, and you can go about things this way or not, doesn't matter. Just take a mess of peat or ProMix and add around the same amount of compost/worm castings and mix it up. Add your soil amendments; kelp, neem, crab, liming agents, rock dusts, etc. a little extra or less won't make a difference one way or another. Once you do this and mix it up just add enough aeration so that you KNOW it'll drain well. You want to be able to take a fistful of soil and squeeze it as hard as you can and when you open your fist it'll still just fall apart - then you know you're all set.

It's that easy. This isn't rocket science or a Restaurant - use the general guidelines; make sure your soil is based in quality compost/EWC's, make sure there's a bunch of varying nutritional amendments, rock dust and that it's decently aerated and you're good to go.

After you mix it up wet it down well and let it sit and Nutrient Cycle for a bit - let's go with the general com census of a month but this really depends on how active your soil is - how quality your humus base is. This time is necessary to allow your microbes to start breaking down your soil amendments and give your soils pH time to stabilize.

HTH

j

 

Sounds like bullshit to me, at least when compared to the soils being constructed around this forum. $28.00 a bag? Bone, blood, rock phosphate & Epsom salts? I say lame.