Hello all, almost time for my first shot at a couple plants. I'm the type of guy to put in a lot of hours of research before I even attempt something new so I figured I'd be a little bit more involved with my plants and try the organic route! SO, size is an issue in my current living space so the plan is a 2 plant CFL micro grow in a ~15 x 24 x 28~ file cabinet. AS WELL as a 4-6 plant setup at a buddies house under 2 industrial 400w MH lights. (Looking into HPS lights and or/researching more on ballast adapters ive heard about) Making a good amount of this supersoil since it seems its much easier to find most of these items in bulk. My particulars are as followed: Base 4 Cubic feet of Premier Spaghnum Peat Moss 4 Cubic feet Supreme Organic Perlite 2 Cubic feet local (Everett, WA) Organic EWC mixed with 2 Cubic feet "Plan B" Organic Compost 12 Cups Garden Lime 48 Cups Glacial Rock Dust Amendments: 15 Cups Kelp Meal 7 Cups Alfalfa Meal 7 Cups Crab Meal 7 Cups Dr Earth organic fertilizer Is this a good recipe to ensure my plants will be nutrient sufficient? Any suggestions are appreciated!
Looks like you are off to a good start. I would switch out the lime for some oyster shell flour, if I could. Also, I believe you could drop the alfalfa because there should be plenty of that in the Dr. Earth, and pick up some neem meal. Mix your amendments together in equal parts then add 2-3 cups per cf.
DaltonChase Please check my arithmetic - I'm counting 12 c.f. total mix. For that amount of potting soil you could (should?) drop the kelp meal down to about 10 cups or so given the rest of the materials on your list. HTH CC
My Kelp Meal measurement is based off of 36 cups of total nutrients. Correct me if I've read wrong but shouldn't I have 2, or in my case 3 cups of equal parts of each nutrients except double the amount of kelp meal. Should I not use 3 cups/Sq. ft.? I am considering dropping the alfalfa meal after reading through Dr. Earths fert ingredients.
Thank you all so much for your suggestions! What benefits does the Oyster Shell flour show over Garden Lime? Very curious as I know I'll need to pick up some more nutritional amendments after typing up how much I'll actually need for 12 cubic feet of potting soil.
Other than sounding cool, there is no benefit of OSF over Garden Lime. They are both nearly 100% Calcium Carbonate and chemically nearly identical. Same thing, just different sources and pretty much the same price for the product itself. If you aren't real close to the west coast get the garden lime. The OSF only seems to be available locally close to the west coast and shipping anywhere else is stupid expensive. IDK where the "double the amount of kelp meal" came from. Seems to be a fairly recent internet 'truism' with no basis in fact or, good sense. CC is more than correct with the 10 cups or less amounts. 1/2cup/cf is sufficient and 1cup/cf is kind of pushing it. 2cups/cf is just entirely too much. *I* use ~3/4 cup/cf. Wet