I am looking for advice on my first soil mix. Here is what I have already mixed/planning on adding/other things available. Starting soil: 28.3L Promix Organix (ingredients below) Canadian sphagnum peat moss (60-75%) Peat humus Compost Perlite Gypsum Limestone Organic fertilizer Mycorrhizae - PTB297 Technology Added so far: 17.6L of Spagnum Moss 20L Worm castings Still need to pick up: 20L perlite/vermiculite (half/half maybe?) Alfafa meal 1.25cups Kelp meal 1.25cups Shrimp or crab meal 1.25cups Azomite 2.5 cups Basalt 2.5 cups Gypsum 2.5 cups Lime 2.5 cups Humic acid granules .66 cups Anything on the still need to pick up list I am open to suggestions (subsititutes, more/less, not needed, etc). I also have some promix organic fertilizer laying around I could add, info below GUARANTEED MINIMUM ANALYSIS: Total Nitrogen (N) 9% Available Phosphoric Acid (P2O5) 16% Soluble Potash (K2O) 16% Calcium (Ca) 1.70% Iron (Fe) 0.10% Manganese (Mn) 0.05% Zinc (Zn) 0.05% Copper (Cu) 0.05% Boron (B) 0.02% Organic Matter 29%" Lastly, I also have some hen manure pellets they are 5-3-2 and say "with calcium" on the carton but I am unsure if that means there is added calcium or just whatever calcium might normally be found in hen manure. Thank you for your input. I tried to include as much info as possible but will gladly answer questions if needed.
Not sure I follow? Are you saying that this will just burn the crap out of the plants? I won't be planting directly into this. I will be used in the bottom of the pots and then as a top dressing if/when required. Also possible I messed up the calculations when I was doing some conversions, if so, please advise me on what you feel is out of whack. If I misunderstood and its something else, please elaborate.
I would add bio-char to your mix, 10-15%, it's a soil aerator and it helps retain nutrients and moisture. your mix is good, IMO bio-char would make it better. so for your aeration I would just do perlite and bio-char.
60 liters of soil equals 2 cubic feet, it would need only 2 cups of lime, and I would use 2 cups of kelp, 2 cups of gypsum
Just an example of what a good living organic no-till soil can do. she's in a 20 gallon fabric pot that has grown at least 4 plants before this one
I like to live by K.I.S.S. stands for keep it simple stupid Neem for nitrogen Seabird Guano for phosphorus and calcium Langbeinite for potassium, magnesium, sulphur. Done and done. The base mix is peat, bark, compost, biochar. Plants are over two feet tall after only 21 days veg in 25 gallon containers. Click the link in my signature to see my grow log. I mixed this batch from scratch and it's the first grow in it.
i would just buy the perlite and skip the vermiculite. i wouldn't buy the humic acid granules either as it's just not needed. compost and peat will have natural humic acids. i would also try a tried and true recipe that someone isn't mixing up for the first time and still in veg with it as they can not speak about the reliability of their recipe. i use a tried and true recipe that you can work with once you get going and learn more about growing. it's 1/2 cup each per cuft kelp, crab/shrimp, and neem or alfalfa then 1 cup each gypsum, CaCO3 lime/oyster shell and i just add a cup of basalt. here's a lower branch using the recipe above.
Thank you for the input. That plant looks great. This recipe was based off a supposedly tried and tested recipe I found online somewhere, I just don't remember where. I only changed a few small details. Not needing the humic acid is good news, one less thing to buy. Perlite is what I've used in the past so I'll take your advife and skip the vermiculite. Do you think I should try to incorporate some neem into my mix?
i think you should just stick which the recipe you choose. seems like the more we deviate from it, the more problems can evolve.
Here's things to remove from your list. 1.Peat humus - humus is "the organic component of soil, formed by the decomposition of leaves and other plant material by soil microorganisms." You already have this covered with your compost. You don't need to add decomposed organic material ontop of more organic material . 2. You don't need gypsum. This is used for breaking up clay. You have no clay in your peat. 3. Limestone. You don't need lime, it's the same exact thing as gypsum. It's just calcium carbonate used to break up clay. Again, you don't have clay so you don't need lime. 4. Organic fertilizer. If this is the dry fertilizer you plan to mix into the peat then it's fine. If it's something bottled you can remove it. 5. Mycorrhizae. Don't buy this stuff. It'll naturally form from your compost. 6. Alfafa meal. This stuff is useless. It's got barely any npk value. 7. Kelp meal. There's nothing special about kelp. Almost no npk value. All the other trace minerals and what not can easily be found in compost or other plants like dandelions. There has been studies showing the salinity and toxicity of kelp actually hurt yields. 8. Shrimp or crab meal. I stay away from by products of other industries. They literally threw this stuff out until somebody was like "grind it, bag it, and sell it to consumer hobby Gardners for extra profit". Buyinb crab meal is like buying fan leaves after someone's harvest as a fertilizer. Plus someone on this board mentioned it takes A VERY LONG time for crab meal to break down, I tried to search this on scholar for hours but couldn't find anything for or against this argument. So if rather be safe than sorry and not mess with a product like this at all. 9. Azomite. Has been shown in multiple field trials to bring down yields by 33% 10.Basalt. same thing as azomite. Been shown to bring yields down by 30% in different gardens , for different plantas, over 3 years of documentation. 11.Gypsum. already went over how useless this is 12.Lime. useless again. Calcium carbonate is used to break up clay in compacted soils. Peat has no clay. The calcium in other dry amendment fertilizers liek the crab meal will lime the peat. As will the compost. 13.Humic acid granules. Pointless when you have compost
Some of what you discussed here are ingredients in my prebagged soil (Mycorrhizae, compost) I listed the ingredients of the promix organic blend so that people would know what was in the soil before I add to it. The reason I decided to use some bagged soil and then add my moss/worm castings/ammendments to it was so I knew at least some of the mix already had nutrients broken down and thought the microorganisms in the store bought soil would help break down everything new being added. As far as kelp and alfafa meal go, I am aware they add very little npk nutrients, it is the micronutrients in them I am after. If I run into npk deficiencies, I will topdress what is needed or use an organic fertilizer. I've seen people speak very highly of both far more than I've seen people be critical of them. I am also going to let this soil sit for about a month until I germinate my seeds. Once I germinate the seeds will be going in store bought soil for a couple weeks before I transplant into a larger pot that will be about 1/3 -1/2 my mix on the bottom and promix organic on top, so I am not worried about nutrients that take a while to breakdown. I appreciate your input, but I think you might have misjudged what my goal is here. I am not trying to make a cheap soil that will do fine, I am trying to create a repeatable recipe for myself so I can have consitant high quality soil until I know enough to be able to adjust it on the fly. I just want to make sure I am not overdoing any of the nutrients to the point of creating problems for myself, or missing an ingredient that is worth including.
Missed this earlier. I am going to be growing moby dick by dinafem, it is a slightly sativa dominant fast growing plant based on my research. It is my first time growing anything other than random bagseed of unknown origin.
Someone's intentions don't change what makes a quality soil. Quality soil is quality soil, wether you are outdoors or indoors, wether you are growing cucumbers, tomatoes or cannabis. Best of luck to you brother! Signing out!
This soil mix will do well for all types of cannabis. The frostiness of buds is determined by genetics so your results will vary but it can grow great weed.