So I have some questions about making a soil mix for my first grow. I plan on planting half of my plants directly in the ground and the rest in pots. My main question is if I can use native soil to make my mix instead of pro-mix or some other plain soil. I know the purpose of using a store bought amendment less soil is for sterilization but is that really that important? The reason I want to try and use native soil is because the soil in my region is supposedly pretty good and it has a pretty good nutrient profile (despite having some clay). Also it could decrease costs. Would this ratio work? 1 part native soil or pro mix 1 part peat moss .25 compost .25 worm castings Amend further with pumice and perlite(I have not set ratios on these but I intend to eyeball it) What do you guys think? Am I missing something? Suggestions?
Mostly we mix a very light fluffy soil so the roots can move easily through it as well as the rapid wet and dry cycling it causes and most strains of cannabis do well in that type of mix.. Peat is used more for it's high CEC capacity.. We really do want a soil that's just chock full of life.. Microbes by the trillions are the basis of a good organic soil.. Left to her own devices mother nature will do her best work with just a tiny bit of help from us in the way of just providing as diverse a range of amendments in the soil for the microbes to do their work with.. . This is best done with a combination of very high quality compost and EWC.. (earth worm castings) Find your local worm supplier on craigs list and buy a 1000 worms or more and get your worm farm started.. I wish I'd have started mine years ago.. Ecoscraps compost from Home depot is acceptable.. Bu's Biodynamic Malibu is top quality as is Coast of Maine Lobster Compost.. This really was the hardest part to find quality material of.. Rip open any bag of so called compost your thinking of buying.. Beware wood chips, branches or bark.. Compost should have zero identifiable bits like that in it.. That's mulch not compost.. So much of what I ripped open was just more chopped up trees with no composting time at all.. Same with all the city offerings.. That much raw heart wood is a giant nitrogen sink and it'll suck the life out of anything planted in it.. To sum it up you need good compost but nearly everything your going to find is shit-mulch-ground up trees not compost even though the bags say compost.. Sweet deal huh ?? LMAO.. BNW Edit:: Home Depot carries Perlite in the giant 2 cubic foot bags for about $16.00 a fair enough price and I use a lot of it
Thanks for all the info! I found some bu's compost but it has wood chips in the ingredients. Is this the wrong kind? It has a bunch of other good stuff though
Bu's biodynamic is excellent quality.. The chips are likely bark and that's acceptable.. It's core-heart wood that's so bad.. BNW
