First Organic Soil

Since no one else is gonna step up, I'll tell you what I think.

I saw in another thread that you are attempting the finest soil in all of Tahoe, correct?

From the ingredients you listed locally available, I can tell you IMO, you will be unable to achieve that feat. Maybe the finest locally sourced soil, but you would fall short of having the best possible soil, once again, IMO.

Using those ingredients, it is possible to mix up a soil, but there are many better choices that you may be able to find out in your area, or at least close to you. Especially out in CA. I personally don't use perlite, vermiculite, SRP, dolomite, blood, bone, cotton, guanos, DE, or epsom salts, so my comments on those may be fairly biased. If you are dead set on using those, I hope someone else chimes in for you.

Finding a good source of compost/EWC is the most important. Just cause it's called the same thing, doesn't mean it's made the same. Organic growing, successfully, is more than just learning a new style but more of a new attitude. Organic growing is more about feeding the microbes in your soil a good, clean, diverse diet of organic matter that they then process for our plant. Don't think along the lines of "What do I need to feed my plant" but more along the lines of "What do I need to put in my soil so it feeds my plants properly."


I would recommend a soil something like this:

Peat - base, CeC, microbes.
Compost/EWC - Humus, microbes, CeC, etc.
Perlite/pumice/lava rock - aeration.
Local soil - If wanted. Microbes, minerals, etc.
Glacial rock dust - CeC, minerals, etc.
Kelp - NPK, minerals, etc.
Alfalfa - NPK, minerals, etc.
Crab shell - Calcium, Mg, chitin, NPK, etc.
Fish bone - NPK, replaces bovine.
Neem meal - NPK, minerals, good for soils.

 

^yep. The ultimate factor in determining how good your soil is will be the humus (compost and/or ewc), not the amendments. Once you have good humus you're set- the amendments are truly secondary to the humus. You can have the very best amendments in the world and still have poor soil if you don't also have good humus.

I'll chime in for some of the products Izzy doesn't use:
1) perlite- perlite is basically inert, meaning it isn't adding anything to the soil other than aeration. Pumice, rice hulls, lava rock, etc. all contribute to the soil in ways other than just providing aeration, making them more desirable than perlite. But if perlite is what you have, it works fine as long as it is plain perlite and not perlite with chemical fertilizers added. I use perlite because it's cheap and locally available and it works fine as an aeration amendment.

2) Diatomaceous Earth- DE is a great source of silica and also helps control pests in the soil. DE is a very good addition to your soil, but note that it is not a substitute for rock dust. Make sure you use food grade DE and not DE used in pool filters.

I don't use SRP, bone/blood meals, vermiculite, guanos, epsom salts, or dolomite.
Of these, SRP, blood/bone meals, vermiculite (fine grade), and epsom salts are things I would advise you to avoid. You can use guano if you want to. Same with dolomite lime, but calcitic lime would be a better choice.

With regard to your liming amendment- I prefer calcitic lime (CaCO3) to dolomite lime ( CaMg(CO3)2 ). It has to do with CeC and the ratio of Ca to Mg. Your other amendments will provide more than enough Mg. If you can find oyster shell flour, that's a great thing to use as a liming amendment. Oyster shell flour is CaCO3, like calcitic lime, so if all you can find is calcitic lime, that will work fine. I use calcitic lime because oyster shell flour isn't locally available, and I try to keep my soil amendments as locally sourced as I can.

The amendments Izzy gave you are spot on. Excellent advice. One more thing- find a feed store in your area. This is the spot to buy organic amendments, not the hydro/grow store.

 

Hey PB,

1) Oyster shell flour is great. I'd use 1 cup oyster shell flour per cubic foot (or maybe a little more osf). You could also do 1/2 osf, 1/2 lime, or some combination thereof. If you can't get the osf, use 1/2-1 cup of lime per cubic foot.

2) What do you mean replace the SRP? You don't need to replace it with anything, there's more than enough P in your other amendments, and you don't need to risk heavy metal contamination by using the SRP. SRP is not a rock dust. Period.

For your rock dust, you want dust from igneous rock like: granite dust (granite "slurry" from a stonecutter), basalt dust, glacial rock dust, rhyolite dust, or azomite.

3) I would include the guano as part of your amendment mix. In total, I wouldn't use more than 1/3-1/2 cup of guano per cubic foot, especially with your other amendments.

4) see #1 about osf and lime

5) I would use maybe 1/4-1/2 cup DE per cubic foot. Whatever you like, it's not going to mess anything up if you use a little more or a little less.

6) You don't have to use the SRP. You don't need to find a "replacement" for it. There's more than enough P in your other amendments. If you do end up using the SRP, I wouldn't use more than 1/4 cup per cubic foot, if not less.

edit: With tomato tone, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, and some guano, all your plant's nutritional needs will be more than covered. If you're going to add anything, it should be neem meal and crab meal (or some other shellfish meal).

 

Whew!

J

 

Hey PB, you want to use 4 cups grd per cubic foot.

 

Ayuh.

J

 

PB, you were asking about adding (mycos) mycorrhizae ...
Best time to use mycorrhizae is when you transplant. Just sprinkle on the moistened root. You can also make a bacterial tea to further inoculate the soil at transplant...
Adding to the soil sounds like it makes sense but, when mycos comes in contact with roots is what causes the spores to germinate....

Adding humic acid to the soil is a good idea and will help build a good active soil...
BioAg has both product for the above applications in super concentrated forms so, you get what you pay for and in the endo form that cannabis uses.....
BioAg Humic and Fulvic Products page for Agriculture

 

per cf of soil...1/3 each peat/ewc/perlite
*meals, lime, tone and guanos @ 1cup.
*Kelp @ 2 cups.
*Rock dust@ 4-5 cups.
I normally I would not use the blood and bone meal in a mix but, because your not going to have a real diverse mix here I might double up on the tone...The guano take longer to cycle and will probably be better in the second grow with your mix...

 

Should be fine. My first soil was nothing more then compost from home depot, with peat, perlite, some 'tomato tone' like fertilizer, and alfalfa.

 

Add some chicken manure pellets. Very cheap and very effective. Add a cup per CF. if your plants were well established I'd say maybe a little more. Maybe. A cup is safe. It makes excellent nutritional teas as well.

Depending on how much soil you're making, because I know when I do outdoor it's go big or go home, the worm castings can get quite expensive. Use half good compost and half castings for your humus component. Compost is around a quarter the price of castings and, in its own way, equally effective. Almost.

I've never used DE so can't comment on it.

Lastly, be careful!!! of any products that animals will be attracted to, such as fish. Trust me when I tell you that skunks and other critters WILL find your garden and attempt to find the imaginary fish, very effectively digging up and killing your plants in the process.

J

 

Hey Jerry do you dilute your manure tea any?

 

About 2 1/4 cups is a pound of kelp. I think you will want more than vermiculite for aeration

 

Shane, I've been using the "Chickity Doo Doo" brand - or something like that. I've been using a few handfuls - lets say one cup in a five gallon pail of water. The pellets soften and basically dissolve in a few hours, but I've just been stirring here and there and letting it sit overnight.

No dilution but I'd be leery of using on a young seedling or clone. It's strong stuff.

The rests are fantastic and very obvious.

J