I have soil cooking for April/may start. It's the ITG sticky beginners mix. 1/3 compost 1/3 peat 1/3 perlite The compost is 50/50 Malibu BU & agrowinn EWC. This is a great soil and my trial plant is a healthy vigorous lady. Absolutely no added nutes or teas. However... I had trouble accessing neem so I just got it and decided to dump my buckets onto a tarp and mix it in. I discovered NOT ENOUGH AERATION!! Somebody here awhile back, Wak? Poke? Warned that the compost was good but pretty heavy & 1/3 aeration might not be enough. Boy were they right! The pots were suspiciously heavy and holding way too much water. I'll mix in more perlite and reload my containers. To sum up: 1/3 aeration may not be enough depending on what compost you use
Here is my trial plant growing healthy in this soil. It had more perlite for reasons I can't remember, thus saving me from potential problems Here she is in just a 3 gal pot. 2 weeks in flower
Agreed, 1/3 is just a starting point. It's a hands on judgment that you just have to work with while mixing.
if you use a lot of pure EWC like I did, it can make the soil almost muddy. Also I was told the Malibu BU blend compost is great stuff but pretty heavy http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1357118-Scotty%27s-first-grow
thanks! Yeah I'm itchin' to get my outdoor seedlings started too. You got your soil ready? http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1357118-Scotty%27s-first-grow
No soil at the moment...I just packed up my current grow room and dumped the soil in the vegetable garden. I am looking forward to moving back to my home state PA and getting my outdoor grow on, just not looking forward to the humidity.