Hello everyone! Was hoping to get some opinions or suggestions on this soil recipe I came across online. I already have everything listed, but I’m ok adjusting or adding if you feel it would be beneficial. 1 cu ft peat moss 1/2 cu ft rice hull 1/2 cu for Black lava rock 1/3 cu ft worm castings 1/3 cu ft Malibu compost 1/3 cu ft arctic humus Clover cover crop 3 cups Neem seed meal 3 cups kelp meal 3 cups Biolive 3 cups malted barley powder 1.5 cups of gypsum 8 cups basalt 16 cups biochar I can add or remove lava rocks and rice hull and can adjust the ratios. I also have alfalfa meal, sea bird guano, insect grass, fish bone meal, and azomite. Appreciate any input.
I don't know the first thing about growing organically.....but that looks like a lot of different that I have heard and read about....so I'm guessing it's gonna be a kick ass medium!! Maybe you can bag some and send it my way??
1. You are missing lime which you need at 1c/cf to counter the acidity of peat moss. 2. I would replace rice hulls with a more permanent form of aeration like pumice or perlite. 3. I would add 1c/cf of crab meal This will basically give you the no-till soil which you can reuse over and over. No-Till Gardening: Revisited
Thank you for your suggestions. 1. Add 3c of dolomite lime total. 2. Replace the rice hulls with perlite. Should I keep the black lava rocks? Read somewhere that adding the black lava rocks would help with longevity and that I could re-amend rice hulls down the road. 3. The biolive has crab meal in it. Should I still add the additional 1c/cu ft, or will this be too much? Definitely appreciate it.
lava rock is good. bio-live is more of an all around fertilizer so I would still add the crab meal. Maybe even cut the bio-live in half.
The bio live doesn’t list how much crab meal is in there so I may just do that. Any opinions on the insect frass or the addition of azomite?
Use if you have it but I wouldn't buy it. IMO the insects in the soil provide plenty of frass, just provide them with a thick layer of dry mulch that will decompose and feed the soil critters.
Your mix sounds great. I use biolive in lieu of crab, in addition to neem, kelp, MB. Use rice hulls as mulch because top dressing water in so well. My.mix has a coco component so I use oyster meal as well as basalt, gypsum and volcanic rock dust. Get a handful of worms on there, top dress and let them do the hard work
I just always use food grade, after it was discussed in this forum or another one, not sure, it's been awhile, but I do remember to only use the food grade, I know that I should know why, I just didn't retain the reason why, but after I googled ethoxyquin, I'm gonna say yes, but there's probably other factors involved that would have convinced me to use the food grade.
I had a girlfriend that was Norwegian back in my twenties. This was exactly my thought about Christmas dinner when I met her family. RD
Her old man was "testing your metal". Did they make you eat Lutefisk too? That's the white fish that they soak in lye, and then sun dry before storing till winter. When they steam it it is ripe. I was afraid of that stuff when I was young. cheers os
What size are the lava rocks? 3/8” is best for aeration. If not, the larger kind have caused issues for me in the past. I would dump them outside and get horticulture Perilite. Will save you from heavy soggy soil. I would also suggest using a little over a cu.ft. in aeration, it will help prevent root rot unless you really flood your pots everyday. Lol You don’t need MBG in the soil mix, just makes it cook longer, save it for top dressing during veg and early flower. I would add the Alfalfa meal, insect frass, and fish Bone Flour to your mix. My soil mix has kinda evolved over the years into this craziness right here lmao! 1 cu.ft. (7.5gals) Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss. (Hydrated) 1 cu.ft. (7.5gal) Earthworm Castings 8.5gals Horticulture Perilite 2 gals Bio-Char (RAW, uncharged) 1 cup Alfalfa meal 1 cup Comfrey meal (homemade) 1 cup Eggshells (ground, homemade) 2 cups Fish Bone Meal Flour 2 cups Kelp meal 2 cups Crab meal 2 cups 50/50 Neem/Karanja meal 2.5 cups Oyster Shell Flour 1 cup Gypsum Pellets 3 cups Balsalt Rock Dust 1 cup St. George’s Black rock dust. 4 cups Rice hulls Let this cook for a month before use. Overall it sounds like you’re on the right track and lots of knowledgeable people around here chiming in here, you’ll be fine! “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” - Lao Tzu Prepper420’s No-Tillin Adventure!
Oh yeah man lutefisk and every other half rotted fish you could think of. I failed the test miserably. The family dog got most of my meal on the sly, until the dog had the worst gas imaginable. Busted! RD
I like the small 3/8” lava rock or pumice. They’re both great, IF you can get it that size. Had a lot of issues with trying to crush my own and then issues with slow growth, holding to much water, not enough consistency of aeration throughout the soil mix. I dumped those pots and screened the lava rocks out and remixed perilite and all the issues went away. Also weighs a lot less if you move your pots around a lot. Just my experience with it. If I could get 3/8” pumice locally, that would be great, but hard enough to find a regular 4 cu.ft. of perilite around here, only one place in town sells it.