What to add to soil?

Why on earth would you ever do that?

Never mind. Doesn't even matter.

J

 

All a bigger pot does is allow your plant to grow larger if you veg it for a lengthy period of time. It will flower when you change the light schedule, or is it an auto? And btw, add perlite. I wouldn't add more than a 30% perlite ratio though. Also I'd consider a 5 gallon instead.

 

Perlite is cheap. eBay or garden store. Also consider cocco coir as an additive to your soil. Wayy better than the crap nutes you get in a bottle.

 

You don't have to fill the pot all the way up to the brim. Putting anything other than pure coco on the bottom is a bad idea. You only have to buy 15 gallons one time. After that it is reused indefinitely, and that is where all the lifetime learning comes in.

 

I stand by what I said. Bottled nutrients are garbage. I prefer to mix my own "super soil" using only organic biologically available sources. I also keep my plants vegging on a 15/9 schedule and flower at 11/13, then slowly shorten my light period as I flower. All that crap you flush out of the soil was already absorbed by your plant, then you are ingesting it.

 

Correct. Normal potting soil can support a plant. Quality increases with it's available nutrients and available light(duhh), so doing it without added chemical just makes it a step above the rest. It tastes better and won't be laced with any unwanted leftover nutes absorbed by the plant. I don't suppose it matters if you're making oil.

 

When I switched from peat based to coco based soil I started phasing out perlite. Coco has better drainage and perlite just takes up valuable room for organic mediums. I have some pumice but man you have to be careful with that stuff, unlike perlite it never breaks down and you are married to it for life. I have a whole case of perlite out back, about $3 per 8 qt bag. If you ever get serious about pumice and money is no object General Pumice will sell you 5 lbs of 3 different sizes total 15 lbs for $30. Enter all trying to save money and tell me I can get it for free from the mine. Oh well, I can get it for $30 and don't have to drive anywhere. It's just a one time purchase, 15 lbs should be more than enough for any soil recycler. My system has 8 cubic feet of soil including the worm bins and I'll never have to use anywhere near 15 lbs. The reason I mention it is the secret to drainage is different sized particles and the 3 sizes they conveniently deliver to your door are about perfect. Also, another one to consider is lava rock. I buy .5 cubic foot at Lowes, dump it out back on a slab or anywhere that wouldn't look bad if it was red for a month and take a 2 gallon bucket and like a child pick out 1 or 2 gallons of only the largest rocks. They take a trip through the worm factory at about 7 or 9 big rocks per tray and then I pick them out and put them back in their 2 gallon bucket and anytime I think I need to aerate something they go in and come back out at my will. I also use them to mulch my containers. They just protect the topsoil from the light, and can easily be removed and reused anytime anywhere. Avoid the small bags like Hoffman unless you are committed because once added to soil are too small to pick back out easily. And that is the whole thing, pumice, perlite, lava all out last the soil so when it breaks down all you are left with is rocks. I started just dumping normal soil from the old grow in bins, and now years later about all that is left in those bins is perlite.

 

I would just hit up google. Research is key. Read a few different sites, pick your favorite soil recipe, or combine a couple and make your own.

 

or you can pick one up every time you buy a taco at Taco bell. Reusing soil? I costs me about $9.00 to make a cubic foot of soil starting with a cheap 16 qt bag of potting soil. Then it takes me about $90 to reuse it. And that doesn't include airfare to the basalt mine. The first thing I realized was simply dumping garbage on old soil doesn't improve it or even restore it. It really doesn't have much to do with what's in the soil, it's just a matter of what is living in the soil. Over time, fertilizer stops being food for plants and starts being food for soil. The soil becomes the boss and the grower and the plant are just innocent bystanders. I feed the soil alfalfa and it makes nitrogen for the plant. Yeah it's a trip man, a life long learning process, and relatively new since all the literature was written before containers and high powered indoor lights and no rain or winter.