Hey all. Im making a new mix to add to my soil from my current grow. This is the base. 5 gal. Peat 5 gal perlite 4 gal. Home grown EWC 4 gal composted horse manure My amendments are kelp, oyster, blood meal, bone meal, gypsum, rock dust, Azomite, epsom salts, and an all purpose organic fert with microbes (Dr Earth). oh yea...dolemite lime. I have a bale of Alfalfa hay that I use to feed my worms and in my compost tumbler. I ground a few pounds into a somewhat fine powder to use in my soil mix. Is this a good amendment and how much should I add to basically 20 gals. of base soil? Thanks in advance for any help you experts can give! Advise on my other amendments would also be appreciated!
If inside it's OK. If it's intended for outside omit the blood and bone meal as they are both known to attract diggers. Raccoons, Possums, Skunks will dig up your cannabis looking for the blood meal. Use Alfalfa and Kelp meal at the same ratio. 1 cup per CF is usually the upper limit. I used pelletized as it is easiest for city dwellers to find. Try and find out if wormers have been used recently on your horse manure. Depending on your water supply you may want to skip the lime and add sulfur. High PH water like I have use sulfur. If your water is low PH use Lime. BNW
a quarter cup a cubic foot is what i use for alfalfa. but i'm concerned about your base mix. that is 50% compost/manure i think you should use 4 gallons EWC and 1 gallon horse manure myself or it will not drain as well, have lower oxygen content and can be overwatered really easily.
Thanks a lot guys. It is an inside grow so im not worried about animals, (except maybe my pooch) My horse manure is actually less than 25%. It started out in my composter with sea weed, leaf mold, grass and household scraps. It only heated up for a very short time so I just let it go for about 3 months. Then I dumped it into large totes and let it go for about 6 months. Not Ideal but the worms really loved it. I will keep an eye on the drainage although Im in fabric pots and mixing with my current grows soil, so I should be fine. Thanks. If I need to I can add more of one thing or another to get it right. Do you all have any more ideas on my other amendments? Love to hear them and Thanks again. B61
you know @jerry111165 has a similar mix with the leaf mold horse poo combo. maybe he will have some advice to share?
I would try some "natural small pine bark nuggets" in your mix. I think that would compliment your manure mix quite well and help it breath. I also think it will prolong how well your mix works in the longer game. Bark absorbs and in turn gives up water in addition to breathing well and seems to work quite well with fabric pots. cheers os
Alfalfa is going to add a lot of nitrogen that will release and be available rapidly. How long do you plan on aging your medium before planting in it? Have you had any issues using the horse manure? I ran some in my soil a couple years ago and found I had compaction problems when combined with peat down the road in my containers.
Cool! I have some pine bedding pellets from Tractor Supply. I use it in my composter, but I never thought of putting it into a soil mix. Once it gets wet, it crumbles to sawdust type stuff. Wouldnt that be too "Hot" for a soil? I only have about a month and a half or two to let it cook. I'll stay away from the bedding pine and maybe add some coco intensive mix that I have laying around. B61
Use the alfalfa hay as a mulch. Have used it many times with great success. Sent from my LG-H933 using Tapatalk
Thanks. Thats what Im doing with my current grow but it hasnt been long enough to see any results. Im looking forward to this crop. NYSD
This or if you live nearby pines and spruce, you can rake up fallen needles. This is the newest fad in Peat, plus I think the slight acidity, much like OSinse’s pine bark nuggets. If you look only you see the crazy sum of money they are charging specialty growers buying Pinestraw bales. They pay migrants $1/bail to pick up needles in public lands. I say enjoy the free ones. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Actually the bark will help tie up a touch of nitrogen, so its almost the opposite of being hot. I wouldn't use coco in your mix. It causes a lot of problems for a lot of folks. If you want to use coco, I would recommend finding someone that uses it successfully and mimic there set up. The small bark nuggets are the type you find for landscaping. I would go for that over something that turns to sawdust. I bet they have it at TSC. cheers os
Saw my name floating on the ether. Just looked back upwards. OP - mix looks good but only way to tell is to give it a whirl IMO. The alfalfa can and probably will heat it back up so allow it to cycle after adding the alfalfa. FWIW, one of my favorite, inexpensive & effective amendments is chicken manure pellets. Great stuff. Dont overthink it - looks like youve got your bases covered. Make sure it drains well. Thanks @skunker~ j
Oh he has leaf mold compost and horse poo and wanted some advice. It would be the post right above where I mentioned you.
As long as the Alfalfa or horse feed wasn't treated with Monsanto's finest, why not? I used contaminated Alfalfa as ground cover in my vegetable garden a few years back that negatively affected growth and harvest.
Alfalfa breaks down quickly, and so the nutrients are available from the beginning. The nutrients persist in the soil until the plant has used them up. So yes, if you do nothing else, the plant will consume nutrients and the levels will decrease in the soil by flower time. Alfalfa is a really neat soil amendment because it has an almost ideal ratio of NPK, 2.5/0.5/2.5 . It’s quite a useful amendment, the only drawback is that since it breaks down fast, it also gets physically hot when initially breaking down. That’s why it’s an amendment that should be allowed to nutrient cycle, or cook, for a period of time before using. A lot of times folks can’t wait, so it’s not used. There are two good ways around this cooking loophole. The first is to top dress. The heat isn’t an issue on top of the soil. The second is to make a tea. Cheers Os