I have read a lot about living soils and threads about them that’s why I feel confident in trying this I was just looking for some more advice and input from others on this thread and would love to hear more about what works well for others.
What you're doing by "cooking" the soil is effectively allowing life to colonize the soil in the form of microscopic bacteria and fungi, as well as larger organisms. By providing the soil with air and water you allow provide what the organisms need to colonize your soil and create life within it. Over time, these organisms will break down the amendments in the soil and multiple at an exponential rate. Once the soil has "cooked" it is ready for a host plant, as there is a civilization of living microbes waiting to form a symbiotic relationship with a host plant. The plant and microbes will continue to feed and care for one another, and all we have to do is continue to provide water and amendments to keep that cycle going.
The process of colonizing (or cooking) a soil takes weeks because the growth is exponential. People use compost teas to jump start the process because the teas contain a significant amount of microbes and this cuts down the cooking process by a few weeks. However, I don't recommend using compost tea after you have plants in the soil unless it is a simple Earthworm Casting (EWC) tea. The reason for this is because teas throw off the balance of your soil and certain microbes are attracted to certain amendments. Using teas is comparable to using synthetics, because you are taking control of things away from the plant and soil and putting it back in your own hands.
Look into a book called "Teeming with Microbes" as it is one of the best books on the subject of living organic soil. That book will do a better job explaining anything than I ever could. If you can't get a look at that book for some reason, look into "living organic soil" instead of just "organic growing" because there is an enormous amount of deception with the word "organic growing". And no matter what happens, never get discouraged and take everything as a learning experience. When living organics is done properly you will be rewarded with such incredible flavors that you will never be able to go back to anything else.
Something to consider about the word "Organic" though is that it is often used incorrectly, and a lot of "organic" products aren't truly organic. There is a common misconception that just because something isn't synthetic/chemical that it is automatically organic, and this is not the case. With the exception of Liquid Kelp, Fish Hydrolysate, and Liquid Fish none of those bottled "organics" are truly organic and are simply derivatives of products used in organic growing.
The definition for "Organic" is as follows: "relating to or derived from living matter".
So essentially, without life a soil cannot be truly called organic. The soil and amendments themselves are not life, the plant and microbiology are the life. Soil, minerals, water and amendments are just the means through which this life in the soil is possible. Just like with people: food, water, and shelter are the means that make life possible yet those three things in themselves are not life.
I only bring this up because a lot of people try "organics", get poor results, then give up and go back to what they were successful with. I believe this is intentional. If everyone started growing with living organic soil there are a lot of people that would lose money. It is a self sustaining method of growing that, over time requires little to no expenses at all. Say you start a farm with 50 gallons of living soil in no-till. Over time, that 50g of soil will become pure compost so you'll have to make a new soil. So now with your 50g compost, you add 50g peat and 50g perlite to get 150g of soil. Over time, that 150g turns to compost which eventually turns into 450g of soil when you start over again. As you can see, over time you'll have more soil than you know what to do with because it increases at an exponential rate. You only have to purchase Peat Moss and aeration/drainage and amendments for top dress to keep things going.
If everyone started growing like this, not only would synthetics go out of business but so too would all the farms that use them. Not only do I have less overhead with living organic growing, but there's significantly less labor involved and since time = money that's even more "money" saved. Someone that has to pay for the cost of synthetics, combined with the labor involved using them will have to charge a higher price for their products to compensate.
There are a lot of soil recipes out there filled with way more ingredients than needed, these ingredients are either expensive, superfluous, or in some cases both. Clackamas Coot's soil recipe (which he got from an agriculture school that's name slips my mind now, Cornell I think?) is considered the best soil recipe because it provides absolutely everything your plant needs with only a handful of amendments and minerals. Another thing to consider is that you don't always have to use the ingredients these recipes tell you to use, as long as it provides what your soil needs you can use it. For example, perlite and lava rocks both provide aeration and drainage. Perlite will be cheaper for some people, and lava rocks cheaper for others. Use what is most freely available to you. I live in the desert, so I have an abundance of sand I can use instead. Or Oyster Shell Flour, buffers pH and provides calcium. If OSF isn't cheap or available, use Dolomite Lime. If Crab Meal (provides chitin, calcium, and NPK) is too expensive, you can substitute for insect frass and a guano with a similar NPK.
The point is, it isn't so much about the type of amendments you use but what the amendments provide to your soil itself. Look into the Clackamas Coot's recipe, I highly recommend you start with that. It's affordable and accessible to just about anyone and is also a water only soil. You only need to top dress with more compost and amendments every 4 weeks or so and water it, that's it. I highly recommend you read the entire ROLS/No-Till sticky in this section of the forums, it's a long read but it is filled with an incredible amount of information. If you're willing to read through that entire thread with a pen and notepad handy to take notes you will be rewarded with an immense wealth of knowledge that will make growing just about any kind of plant idiot proof.
I like organics because it's idiot proof, which means it's hard for me to fuck it up! This method of growing puts the plant and soil in charge instead of us. It would take man a
long time to calculate the exact PPMs of the various nutrients a specific plant needs, even if you found the exact PPM numbers of nutrients for a tomato this won't help for all the other plants out there. By taking a step back and simply providing the soil with the tools necessary to sustain life (nutrients, water, air, etc) we allow the plant and microbiology to take over, resulting in plants that always get the perfect amount of nutrients.
I hope this was useful to you in some way.
