Indoor Soil Recipe - keep/toss?

How goes it devildog, you've definitely been hittin the books. Damn good job. If I could only input,

Soil: FFOF is crap, take my word on it brother. Pretty much what you need is a bale of ProMixBX, its sphagnum peat moss and mycorizhae, but all in all a blank slate (Nutrient free). Gives ya more room to work with, and you know exactly how much of what is going in. My base recipe looks like this;

1 Bale of ProMix BX
2.5 Cups AgLime
1.5 Cups Magnesium Sulfate
30 lbs. EWC
1 lb. Mykos
1 'Bag' Alaskan Forest Humus
10 Gallons par-boiled rice hulls
4 Cups Trace Elements
4 Cups Kelp Meal
3. Cups Alfalfa Meal
1 Bag Mushroom Compost

Now what we need to do is break down your soil into stages: We need so much for veg and so much for flower...its best to transplant before flipping the lights to give the roots maximum area to expand, more nugs. So make pretty much a 'base recipe', this is things that are going to be in both veg and flower blends...similiar to what I have up ^^. Now to those 2 seperate piles of dirt we are going to ammend them respectively, add your high nitrogen guano to your veg soil and phosphate guanos to your flower.

Ammendments: Stick with around 25-30 EWC, but it wont hurt either way so its your call. Drop your meals down to 1/4 what you have there, about a lb.

Use 1.5 cup epsom salts, 3 cups powdered dolomite lime per bale of promix.

Drop your azomite for a much better product called Glacial Rockdust, I use a product called BioChar (Its burn earth, castings, humates, and alot of Glacial Rockdust, kind of hard to come by but definitely worth it.). Use 3 cups per bale.

Add humic soil instead, Alaskan Forest is a good product from I think general organics? I forget, always go look at the bag if you need me to....I also make a good habit of feeding liquid humic acid as well (Also the general organics brand, its called Diamond Nectar Black, also used Ancient Amber from RootsOrganics, either will do).

Need to add either perlite, or parboiled rice hulls - and alot of it. Better drainage = better roots.

For a seed/clone starting soil, set aside some promix and EWC, mix an appropriate amound, I use about 5lbs ewc for roughly 10 gallons of promix, add some perlite as well to this. More than adequate to get through to transitional juvenile stage.

I know you only need a little bit of soil, but it gets better over time so mix all up at once, then store the excess in big fucking plastic totes from walmart, watering and stiring every couple months to keep it aerobic. Understand also, that this soil you're mixing now needs to sit at least 5-6 weeks before you can use it, otherwise you'll definitely burn your plants.

Best of luck.

 

Right on brother, ever since I got my release papers I've been goin at this

I really do recommend just mixing up the whole bail. Once its all mixed, water it down with about 2 gallons or so then it throw in your garage bins, but do be sure to keep em covered. More heat is always better for your soil, so maybe sitting the bin outside by the shed isn't a bad idea, do keep it covered though to avoid bugs getting in that will cause a big problem later on.

I also use smartpots and I fucking love em. The way they work though is to allow oxygen to the roots and a way to sort of 'prune' the roots because as they fill out the pot and begin to go throught the walls, the tips will die off and cause the roots on the inside of the wall to go nuts. Yes, it does provide for more 'drainage', but we need 2 types for our setup - overall drainage for the pot so we dont have standing water and then we add perlite for drainage within our root system. It gives an opportunity for the water to really hit the bottom of the pot and gives easy access for the roots to spread, more porous soil = less resistance. This is another thing to remember when filling your pots, pack em down but do your best to leave it somewhat 'airy', even after the pots are filled try not to kick em around or be the fucking brute you are Marine

http://www.gaiagreen.com/rockdust.html If you can order it, this is the best brand/sourcing. Don't worry about being inconspicuous, its a fairly common garden/lawn product. If you can't order it...hit up your local growstores first and if that fails, alot of commercial greenhouses and nurseries carry soil products but they're dumb as fuck so it might be best to go equipped with an online print out so they know exactly what you're talking about.