My own way of mixing bagged compost.

Hi folks,

Well, given all the organic heavyweights around here, I'm a bit hesitant about sharing my compost recipe. But maybe I'll get some useful feedback and just maybe it might help someone else. I won't go into detail about everything I mention so if there are any questions, please ask.

Some start up info first. I grow indoors, using the pot up method during vegging. I veg under a 400W MH (on a very short travel light rail) and currently grow sat dom hybrids from UGORG (UK).

For the final pot up (use to be 10L buckets but switching to 6L to reduce veg time for my next grow) the ladies go under a SCRoG screen and under 1800W of HPS, also on light rails. However I may change this paradigm. I'm considering either reusing my compost or using larger pots, taking out the the main root stalks and replanting in the pots to preserve soil fungi. Comments on this are more than welcome.

I use to use a lot of AACT but given what I have read here in this forum (thank you LD), I will be cutting back on that a lot. I'm still uncertain how to approach feeding given what I have learned here, but use to feed with a compost tea of bat guano/molasses/kelp. A modified AACT basically. Again, comments here are deeply appreciated.

Okay then, on to the formula and mixing tools.

 

The Formula.


~ 10 cubic feet -BAGGED COMPOST. An EB STONE mix relabeled for a nursery in my area

~ 5 cubic feet -COIR FIBER

~ 7.2 qts -----HI-N GUANO (Either Bat or Seabird or blend)

~ 7.2 qts -----HI-P GUANO (Either Bat or Seabird or blend)

~ 18 qts ------EARTHWORM CASTINGS

~ 99 oz ------HUMMIC SHALE OAR (ground fine powder)

~ 72 oz -------ROCK POWDER (this is a fine, talc like powder meant for livestock)

~ 63 oz -------DOLOMITE POWDER

~ 12 oz -------SU PO MAG

~ 30 oz ------- EB STONE SURE START (ground fine powder)

~ 15 oz -------KELP MEAL

~ 1 Tbsp.------ Sub Culture (their bacteria mix) by General Hydroponics

Due to the nature of the fine powders liking to clump up (I tumble the ingredients in a compost tumbler to mix them), I sieve them with a bread basket in batches. I layer the ingredients until the basket is full-ish, lift and shake and repeat.

 

Here is the bread basket I use to sieve and the rubber maid container it sits in.

 

Here is the big tumbler I use to mix and store the finished product. It works veddy nice.

Just want to mention here that I get amazing results in veg, but am struggling a bit during flowering. I believe it is because I need to get my feed regime sorted. But since my vegging plants do so well, I feel like my compost mix is pretty good.

The above formula fills the tumbler about 4/5 ths full. It takes about 5 hours to mix and the compost lasts over a year of hard use (3-4 grow cycles) using my old methods. If I were to reuse it it would last much longer.

I go to all of this trouble as I live in a big city and don't have anything resembling a yard.

 

Thank you. I've been growing this way for over 4 years now, with modifications along the way. The biggest was reducing the So-Pol-Mag by half from where I started.

Vegging is perfect. I get problems during flowering. I think I was misdiagnosing my yellowing as a lack of feed and would overdo it.

I'm still not that sharp on diagnosing issues with my plants. Partly as I'm a bit ADHD and a wee bit color blind.

 

This is my smaller tumbler. What I would do is get my clones rooted using a power cloner, then plant them in a 50/50 mix of my blend and the base bagged compost. The 50/50 mix goes in this tumbler for mixing and storage.

What I want to do is store that blend in a rubber maid tub (with holes covered with netting so it doesn't get anaerobic), and use this tumbler to mix up used compost and kitchen scraps, comfrey, alfalfa meal, etc, for my worm farm.

I would love to do thermophilic composting, but don't have access to a lot of fresh greens.

 

I'm just finishing up a harvest now and will start a journal for my next grow.

Btw, can I be a member of the bong squad as well?

 

Will these do? Sitting in front of my newly acquired 50# bag of rice hulls.

The left one is to be cleaned and am cleaning the other one.

 

I should mention that I am on my last grow (next grow) with my current compost mix. Once I get that grow started, I'll be mixing up a new batch, hence my desire to learn as much here as I can. Typically my compost mix sits for at least a month before I use it (and then this is just for the first grow I use it for, later grows it's obviously more mature), this time I'm hoping for 3 months of sitting before the first grow.

 

Thanks dude.

As mentioned above, I allow at least a month of sitting in the tumbler before using. My next batch should sit even longer. Since a batch will last over a year, the grows after the first one get very well seasoned compost as I allow the mix to just sit in the tumbler. It's an excellent storage device as it allows lots of air in. Not only is it an excellent mixer and storage bin, but it's pretty ergonomically friendly as far as getting lots of compost in and out of the tumbler.

It smells like a new forest after a rain after it sits a bit

I sift the mix again when I take it out of the tumbler, then fill my pots, wet them and let them sit for 24 hours before putting the plants into the pots.

I haven't used dry molasses, mostly as I hadn't thought of it and I use an AACT on every pot up and in flower. Again, I'll be cutting way back on my AACT applications, but will still use it for pot ups.

My big concern right now is my flowering feeding and helping to foster more fungal growth.

My last harvest I averaged about 3 oz per plant of dried high quality bud and about 1.5 oz of popcorn bud/larf. I think I can improve that with a bit of fine tuning on my lighting and trimming.

 

Cool beans and thanks for the tip!

 

My latest harvest. This is one plant and I have 6 like this. This is dried, waiting to be jarred and cured.

 

I have a park near me and could probably find some greenery. Taking all of this new organic info in has been a bit of a challenge for me, even though I'm sort of ready for it. The harvest coming in and it being our busy season at work is kinda doing me in.

I'm still not certain if the percentages of browns and greens is by weight or by volume.