I want to make my own base soil and already have a list of things that I will be using but dont know how much of each to put in the mix. Any advice is greatly appreciated, here is my list: - Ancient forest humus -Coco Coir -Earth worm castings -Perilite -Green sand -Rock Phosphate -Oyster shell -Dolomite Lime (for ph purposes) -Slow release granular azomite from Down to earth -Soybean meal 7-2-1 (slow releasing) from Down to earth -Bio Live fertilizer mix 5-4-2 mix from Down to earth (contains beneficial bacteria and Mycorrhizal fungi as well as Fish Bone Meal, Fish Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Crab Meal, Shrimp Meal,Langbeinite, Humates, and Kelp Meal) I will be using a bat guano 9-3-1, kelp meal 1-.1-2 tea mix during vegitative stage and sea bird guano 1-10-0 and kelp meal 1-.1-2 tea for flowering. Let me know what you think about my recipe and how much of each ingredient to add for the base soil.
Jp, you've got a good selection of amendments to work with. You want your base soil to be comprised of about 20-30% aeration amendment (perlite), 25-30% humus (EWC and your ancient forest humus), and then 30-50% peat moss and coco coir. I have never grown with just coco, so I can't speak to using coco without peat, but I'm sure someone will come along who can. You can use a 1 or 5 gallon bucket to measure stuff for your base soil. Now for your amendments: -you want to add about 2 cups TOTAL (that means 2 cups of a mixture of all your meals and your dry fertilizer) per cubic foot of base soil. 1 cubic foot is about 7 gallons. I would make a mixture of 2 parts bio live fertilizer to 1 part soybean meal and 1 part kelp meal and then add 2 cups of that mixture per cubic foot of soil. -kelp meal: add this to the soil mix directly, see above -you want to add about 3 cups of your mineral amendment mix (mix of greensand, azomite and oyster shell flour) per cubic foot of soil -lime: 1/2-1 cup of lime per cubic foot of soil -rock phosphate: remember that this is not a mineral amendment like greensand, etc. RP is a P supplement. I wouldn't add more than 1/4 cup per cubic foot of soil. -guanos: you will get more bang for your buck by adding your guano in your soil mix. Guano takes a while to break down before it is available to the plants, so adding it in your soil mix will give it time to break down and become more available. I would add no more than 1/4-1/2 cup of guano total (bat guano + sea bird guano) to 1 cubic foot of soil. You will have a diverse mix that will grow some mighty healthy plants! HTH For your amendment mix, you could just use the bio live fertilizer and kelp meal and leave out the soybean meal entirely. Almost all soybeans grown here are GMO, so even if it's organic, it's still most likely GMO. If it's important to you to avoid GMO's, you could leave out the soybean meal with no ill effects. Otherwise, refer to what I said above.
Thanks! Your info was really helpful, I will make my measurements and hopefully head out to the hydro shop later today, I will be making enought to fill ten 5 gallon buckets. Ill prob wont use half of it but its always good to have some extra justin case. Also I was planning to cook the soil for at least a month, but would this really be necessary? Can I do just 2 weeks?
It's always good to have extra soil on hand! Do you have a farm/feed store in your area? If so, that is a much better and cheaper place to buy your amendments than a hydro store. The longer you can let the soil cook, the better. The whole point of "cooking" the soil is to allow the microorganisms to start breaking down the amendments into a form that the plant can use. You can burn your plants with soil that has not been cycled properly, not to mention that soil that hasn't been cycled won't do much for your plants. If you can give it 3 weeks you should be ok. Are you planning on starting seeds or clones? The reason I ask is because seeds and clones can be started in your base mix. The EWC will provide plenty of nutrition. Then by the time they are big enough to need more nutrition, your soil will be ready. Another thing: I didn't think of this in my above post, but you are using just coco and no peat, correct? I would recommend adding some peat along with the coco. But the point is that if you are just doing coco you don't need to add so much lime. The point of adding lime to a peat-based mix is to neutralize the acidity of the peat. Coco coir is pretty much neutral, so the only reason for adding lime would be as a sort of pH buffer (but too much lime would not be good in just coco). Since you have the oyster shell flour, you don't really need the lime for the Ca either. 1 cup of lime per cubic foot is wayy too much for a coco coir mix, I would go with more like 1/4 cup of lime per cubic foot. If you go with a mix of peat and coco, bump it up to 1/2 cup of lime per cubic foot. Also, since you are making a good bit of soil, you can break it down into smaller batches if you want. Mixing 5 or 10 gallons of soil at a time is way easier than mixing 50 gallons! Just follow the recommended ratios. HTH
Sweet mix jpine. I would suggest adding pumice along with the perlite. Also try sourcing some Neem seed meal as well. Good luck
So I went to the hydro store and they didnt have much of anything that I wanted to use in my recipe so I had to order it online. What I was able to get was four bags of 1.5 cf (1cf= 7.5 gallons) of roots organics soil less mix which contains the following: Roots organics soil less mix - Coco fiber, perlite, pumice, worm castings, bat guano, kelp meal, oyster shell flower, greensand, soluble kelp, glacial rock dust and leonardite I will use this as an aeration amendment since it mostly consists of coco fiber , and perilite.It was better that I got this stuff rather than the coco fiber, perilite, and earth worm castings individually since everything is already mixed and it was actually cheaper for me this way too. I also got two bags of .5cf Ancient forest humus. I bought this at the hydro store as well and here is a link with a description of it for those wondering what it is.GH - ANCIENT FOREST .5CF BAG 100/P | ehydroponics.com. Its got more than 35,000 species of bacteria and over 5,000 species of fungi which help start bacterial growth for cooking soil and its not expensive at all. It also gives some texture to the roots organics soil less mix. I believe that with this I wont need to add any mycorrhizae to my soil which also contains plenty of bacteria and fungi just like the ancient forest humus. Mycorrhizae are fungi that add life to the soil and increase nutrient uptake by improving the ability of the plant to access soil resources. I am also going to go back to the hydro store and buy a bag of earth worm castings for my compost tea and will probably add .5cf to the mix for the same reason that the roots organics soil less looks like it contains mostly coco fiber and perilite. I had to order the rest of my supplies online, I decided to not use the bio live fertilizer in my mix since I will be adding most of the amendments in the fertilizer individually and the roots organics already contains bat guano so adding the bio live would make my mix too hot. I also took Ganja Girls advice about not using the soy bean meal since they are genetically modified in the lab and since Im doing all organic why not go all the way. I will also be adding my amendments based on the amounts recommended by Ganja Girl which is 2 cups of Nutrient amendments (meals) per cubic foot of base soil (Ancient Forest Humus, Roots Organics soilless mix, earthworm castings) and 3 cups total of mineral amendments per cubic foot of base soil. So here is a list of supplies I ordered online @ ehydropinics.com, the shipping was a bit pricy (almost $100) but this website offered discounts on all the products I bought saving me around 40 dollars which means I actually payed about $60 dollars in shipping. This wasnt too bad since most of the fertilizers are over 5 pounds a box. (I am including the weight of the unopened box of amendments in pounds, this does not mean Im adding this amount to the soil mix!) Mineral amendments from Down to Earth: -Granular Azomite, an A to Z of minerals including trace elements (6lbs) -Greeensand, a rich source of potash and iron (6lbs) -Oyster Shell, rich source of calcium and helps balance acidic soils (6lbs) I also decided not to use dolomite lime and will just use oyster shell instead since theyre both almost the same thing (exept oyster shell does not contain magnesium unlike the dolomite lime, but thats what the granular azomite is for) Nutrients from Down to Earth: -Crab meal 5-2-0, slow release of nitrogen and also a superb food source for microorganisms and beneficial bacteria (5lbs) -Neem Seed Meal 5-1-2 (5lbs), slow release nitrogen, strengthens root systems and helps get rid of fungus gnats (flies) -Kelp meal 1-0.1-2, a rich source of potassium, trace minerals, and amino acids (5lbs) Im also going to make a compost tea for flowering only, since Im adding alot of slow release nitrogen in the mix combined with the earth worm castings, a high nitrogen compost tea during vegetation seems unnecessary. I am also going to grow some autos which only vegetate for about 20 days. Tea: -Seabird Guano (Down to Earth) 1-10-0, increases both the amount and size of blooms throughout the flowering period and is also water soluble which is perfect for teas(20lbs) -Molasses (Botanicare STRAPPED - BLACKSTRAP MOLASSES), contributes to microbial growth in compost teas (1 gallon) -Earth worm castings, have not purchased these yet but any kind will do. I am also adding some phospate rock to this mix, but like Ganja Girl said this is not a mineral amendment but a phosphate supplement which probably means adding too much of this stuff will cause some phosphate toxicity in my plants so I will only add 1/4 cup per cf of base soil. -Triple super phosphate (Grow More), highly effective in preventing phosphate deficiencies (3lbs) This soil mix (7.5cf of base soil plus mineral and nutrient amendments) should give me about 60 gallons of soil mix which will fill twelve 5 gallon buckets. Like I said before I will not be using all of this mix at once but I am hoping that I will have enough to last me a year. I spent about $300 in all these supplies including the $100 for shipping so I think I did pretty good for the amount of soil that I will have, plus I know exactly whats in my soil and how much. I am a total noob at growing and this will actually be my first grow, I have followed many grow journals and feel like this soil mix will not burn my plants. Anyone feel free to comment on my soil mix, any and all advice is greatly appreciated.
If I remember correctly, Microbeman did some research/testing on the humus products you were referring to above. He used a slightly different brand name called "Alaska Magic", which is just a different brand name of the Ancient Forest product you just bought. Both are sold under the guise of "Alaska Humus". During testing, both the Alaska Magic and Canadian Sphagnum Peat both contained decent amounts of microbes. It turns out that there is confirmation from an expert that the plant material/matter in the Alaska Magic product was simply sphagnum peat...*lol* Microbe Organics The Ancient Forest product will work, but it will not work any better, nor does it contain more or different microbes than sphagnum peat - it just costs alot more. Be aware. j
-Triple super phosphate (Grow More), highly effective in preventing phosphate deficiencies (3lbs) A few notes off of a different gardening (Veggies) website regarding your Triple SuperPhosphate product... Superphosphate will kill off earthworms. Just a little too much superphosphate applied to the soil of growing plants will kill those plants. Superphosphate is a very soluble form of phosporus and is the source of much of the phosphorus pollution many lakes and ponds have that is causing the growth of toxic algae. Superphosphate is not something anyone would really want to add to their soil, even if a good, reliable soil test indicated the need for phosphorus. Less expensive is Rock Phosphate, the source of superphosphate, if a good, reliable soil test indicates a need for phosphorus. During my lifetime superphosphate has never been recognized by anyone as an acceptable organic product. Sir Abert Howard wrote against its use as did J. I. and Robert Rodale. Many other organic garden wirtters over the past 50 or so years that I have been gardening organically have found superphosphate unaccetable to organic gardeners because of the acid bath used during its processing, that mkes the nutrient too readily available bypassing natures soil bacteria. Seems there was a study some years ago that showed that superphosphate, applied to soil, was harmful to the soil bacteria and earthworms, but mostly the objection is that the acid bath puts an unnecessary step in the processing of it. There is no reason to do that and that process adds major pollutants to our environment that we do not need. Just something to think about, thats all. What makes you think you need that kind of fertilizer in your mix? This is some crazy powerful stuff. Best, j
Great info Jerry! I often wondered what the negatives of triple/super phosphate where, just never wondered enough to look. Thanks
[quote name='"jerry111165"']Triple SP is SP broken down even further - with sulfuric acid. It ain't for me. J[/quote] Word!