Post your Soil(less) mix!

[blueJ]

I don't think I've seen a thread here of different mixes (unless it's burried in the past), thought it would be a good idea to have one since there's a thousand ways to skin a cat (in our case to grow cannabis!) and results can be fantastic with many different options/amendments etc and not to mention geographical issues with sourcing some items. And quite honestly i'm always looking to try new products and add things to the mix - VARIETY!

Well, here's my mix, it's a year in the making and a good bit based on the 3LB's mix and i've been using it for a few runs with consistent good results. I only use bottled nutes in flower (lightly), alternating with ACT's, and am currently experimenting with a few ladies only receiving water/ACT's and so far so good.

Here's the mix:

10 gallons reused soil mix (or new FFOF/HF, roots organic etc etc)
2 gallons perlite
2 gallons Vermiblend (or any quality green compost or EWC)
1 cup bone meal
1 cup dolomite lime
1 cup alfalfa meal
1 cup kelp meal
1 cup greensand
1/2 cup neem meal
1/2 cup azomite
1/4 cup insect frass
1/4 cup dry humic acids
1/4 cup epsom salt

Most all amendments can be obtained as omri Down to Earth products & I mix in one of those compost tumbler things and usually only cooks for a week or two tops.

Here's the tea:

5gal RO water
20-30ml molasses
1 cup vermiblend (or EWC)
1/2 cup alfalfa meal

Everything gets the tea at least every other feeding/watering but is cut out the last two weeks of flower

1st pic (unknown strain) has not received anything from a bottle (until a few hours ago lol, it's like heroine i can't give up the bottles) the 2nd is a God Bud @ 66 days, 3rd & 4th are Sour Bubbles @ 36 days & 5th/6th are Sour Bubbles @ 16 days.



Well, share your tried 'n true mixes if you'd like and lets talk SOIL

peace

 

[RetiredMatthebrute]

i use just FFOF (1 bag) equal amounts of pro-mix, a bag of perilite, a bag of EWC and a bag of epsoma garden tone organic fertilizer.... seems to do well for pretty much a full grow

oh and a few cups od lime to stabalize PH and add cal/mag to the soil, epsoma brand as well

 

[blueJ]

Love it, that's the thing, it can be very simple and very successful i have a bad habit of over complicating/thinking things, but as long as i enjoy it, am peaceful doing it and am learning it's all good!

 

[polyarcturus]

used to buy bagged soil.....
any ways

i do a coir peat mix 50/50 (doint know about 30 gal?) 3cft of ea. perlite and verm. 1tbs per gal os soil mix of lime, and whatever i make with that i mix with a soil mix 60/40 70/30 about something like that.. i eyeball everything and mix it till its the consistency i want, add a little here a little there just depends.

bout the only nute i do add is small amt of green sand and bonemeal. cup of ea. for like 60 gal of mix.

 

[T.H.Cammo]

I used to use all the "Big $ Crap", soil, nutes - whatever. All that stuff was a little hard to find (in person, especially in a fairly small town/city), not to mention a bit pricey. The results were wonderful, but where's the fun in that? Where's the challange? I decided to go Organic, cheap and generic (for the most part). Part of my decision was due to reading many posts here at RIU that basically said "I can't find so & so anywhere" or "Brand-X is so expensive!". So, my goal was to come up with a DIY soil mix that was cheap, simple, and made up from ingredients that could be found at any decent Garden Center or Hardware Store. In general - something to give Foxfarm's "Ocean Forest" a real run for the money! Here is what I came up with:

The basic soil mix is called "Four-way Mix", it's not my baby, I found the recipe years ago. It consists of equal measurements of four basic ingredients:

"Four-way Mix"
1 part Topsoil.
1 part Compost.
1 part Perlite and/or Vermiculite.
1 part "Composted Steer Manure".
The Compost can be either "store bought" or "home grown", but the Topsoil should definately be "store bought" not something you dug up out of the back yard. Store bought topsoil tends to be more "Fluffy".

To each gallon of the Four-way Mix I add two things:
1. About 1 Tblspn. of dolomite lime, it varies according to ingredients, so check your Ph.
2. A good "All Purpose", meal based, organic fertilizer at "about half the suggested strength".
I actually use a combination of three ferilizers to get a wider variety of ingredients; FoxFarm "Marine Cuisine" (10-7-7), Whitney Farms "All-Purpose" plant food (5-5-5) and Kellog's Organic "All-Purpose" Fertilizer (4-4-4). Between the steer manure and the dry fertilizers, I get all the beneficial bacteria (mycorrhizae, etc.) I could want.

The stratigy is for the soil to provide a well balanced (but not overly strong) amount of nutes for the plants to grow in from a couple of weeks old - all the way through harvest. Each repotting allows you to add more fresh soil.
During the Veg stage I spike the water with a little "Mexican" Bat Guano Tea (high N) and Alaska fish emulsion (5-1-1).
During the Flowering stage I spike the water with a little "Indonesian" Bat Guano Tea (high P) and Alaska "Morbloom" fish emulsion (0-10-10).

So there you go, not just a soil recipe - but the whole stratigy to back it up!

In less you live in a real small town; everything should be easy to source locally, except maybe the bat guano, especially the Indonesian bat guano. Buy it on line, if you have to, it's worth it!

 

[Kalyx]

FYI Marine Cuisine and Fish Emulsions are not organic.

 

[Kalyx]

Hey BlueJ nice thread idea! Heres my current iteration:


Kalyx's NOT VEGAN SOIL MIX for Rize up! Veganic Gardening


From what I've read (CANNA also confirms) FFHF and other less hot peat mixes tend to fall short for BIO CANNA based veganics so I based my mix on FFOF. Then I switched to Roots Organic Potting Soil for few reasons but either will work. Also, with (Rize up!) veganic gardening techniques (super-alive mostly vegan amended soilless) perlite has been referred to as a lifeless void in the rhizosphere. Thus, I have tried to keep (chunky... always chunky) perlite use to a minimum. Now perlite only shows up in base bagged soil, and in my reused mix.




THE BASE:


1.5cu ft Roots Organics Potting Soil (about 10 gal, 50%)
Coconut Coir (2 gal, 10%)
"Aggregate"--Dyna Rok Silica Stone OR some chunky perlite (2 gal, 10%)
COCONOT(2 gal, 10%)
EWC(2 gal, 10%)
Ancient Forest Alaska Humus (2 gal, 10%)


*if you cant get COCONOT, and dyna-rok you could easily substitute chunky perlite (4 gal, 20%) instead of the harder to find two as the "Aggregate" in this mix. You just lose the non-synth silica from dyna-rok and the increased volume for your microbes that the COCONOT offers opposed to perlite. If you cantfind Ancient Forest you could substitute any high quality compost with high microbe diversity. Or you could just up the EWC (no fungi in EWC though).


AMENDMENTS (can go this high but I didn't):


2 cups Dolomite Lime (1 cup/ ft3)
2 cups Baseline Granular Concentrate Peat Humus (1 cup/ ft3)
2 cups Alfalfa Meal (1 cup/ ft3)
1 cups Powdered Glacial Rock (1 cup/ ft3)
1 cup soft rock P


1 cup Kelp Meal (.5 cup/ ft3)
1 cup Azomite (.5 cup/ ft3)
1 cup neem meal
1 cup karanja meal
.25 cup Epsom Salts
Complete Inoculant (Bacteria and Fungi and Myco; whole SPORES are better than propagules!) like GreenGro Granular Plus Mycorrhizae


I mix everything thoroughly and water in about 2 gallons of RO or AACTwith liquid kelp and micros. Ideally I let it sit for at least two weeks as it will be a hotter mix. I use Extreme Gardening Mykos dusted onto the roots and under the rootball at transplant. I cut this mix 50/50 with used soil of the same mix for small veg transplants and go straight into this mix for large veg and soon to bloom plants.

 

[blueJ]

Thanks Kalyx, I figured there's about a dozen threads started in just the first couple pages asking about soil mixes, why not get a thread going to condense the information so you can just scroll down and pick 'n choose what might work best for you and what's available. Pics are also great so people can see results one is getting with any particular mix/setup.

That is a great mix Kalyx! Good to see someone else using coconot, and i bet more people would use it if they never called it cocoNOT, everyone associates coco with positive grow results so why would i want to use something that is NOT coco? They should call it what it is, anyways.

I have 20 bags or more of coconot in my reused mix, and I also get coco through the roots organic bagged soil in there also. Once I find a feed store around here I will get some rice hulls and replace the perlite with that.

It's awesome not having to buy more or any bags, just a few bags of the vermiblend or ewc once a month or so and the grows keep getting better. I find that what I do is actually farming soil and plant growth is more of a side effect. Most of my work is all in the soil and keeping it fresh/alive.

I have a VEGAN MIX I haven't tried yet but will eventually do a side by side. Here it is anyways.

1 bag COCONOT
1 bag VERMIBLEND

1 cup VEGAN MIX (down to earth product)
1 cup dolomite lime
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
1/2 cup kelp meal
1/2 cup neem meal/cake
1/2 cup greensand
1/2 cup azomite
1/4 cup dry humics
1/4 cup empsom

That coupled with AACT's, alfalfa teas, nettle teas, Mycos @ transplants and supplement some biothrive or biocanna and you're growing in vegan heaven!

 

[Kalyx]

I like what you have to say about reuse. I cant believe more growers can't pitch the disposable economy mindset, f-ing grow shops spreading misinformation (soil sales get customers in to hear the new hype).
Agreed cocoNOT is a stupid misleading name, but this stuff is on the opposite end of the spectrum from coco so I guess I can follow their rationale. Make sure to source the rice hulls that have been burned/charred already, Matt said they are better for soil mixing.
Thanks for starting this thread, now I hope everyone finds it and contributes their mix, and yes there are still people who have trouble clicking and reading; starting threads like whats a good soil mix. lol

 

[mackey]

lesson learned on 2nd organic grow. Must let soil set for 30 days. A week is not enough. Tested my soil and very little N and plants growing very slow. Looks like no N at all in the soil they are growing in, I guess they used it up. Adding now and waiting to repot so soil will be better. Live in very small town and can't find anything to boost the good mycro stuff here. Used mollasses. Anyone know of any other that would be easy to find?

 

[WyoGrow]

This is the soil mix I have used in gardening for years. So I'll be using it in my first grow. This soil has helped me grow multiple grand champion peppers and tomatoes at the Wyoming State Fair.....

I pre-screen all of my soil based ingredients through 16 mesh screen except for the sand.
My soil base consists of:
5gal screened peat moss
5gal screened compost
5gal screened composted steer manure
5gal Perlite fine grade grade
5gal Vermiculite
5gal -80 mesh sifted river sand collected from a was well away from agricultural runoff.

I mix this well and split into one 20gal and one 10gal batch. Batch #1 is my top mix and is what makes up the top 2/3's of the soil in my planter. It's has more nitrogenous fertilizers in it to facilitate rapid growth. Batch #2 is my bottom mix and the nitrogen ferts are replace with more phos and potassium rich fertilizers to help flowering and fruit development. Batch #2 is also a richer in the common ingredients than mix #1. I tried scaling back the ingredients to match the smaller batch size and my results were consistnetly not as good as going with a richer #2 mix. All the next ingredient listed with a ** indicate additives I add equally to both batches.

To batch #1 I add:
2 cups rock dust**
2 cups cotton seed meal
1 cup blood meal
1 cup fish bone meal
1 cup kelp meal**
1 cup agricultural gypsum**
1 cup alfalfa meal
1 cup pulverized oats**
1/2 cup wood ash
1/4 cup Iron Rite**
1/4 cup Epsom salt**
1/4 cup Age Old Organics "Root Rally"**
5tblsp water soluble Mycorrhizae**

To batch #2 I add the same amount of the ** ingredients as I did to batch one and:
2 cups fish bone meal
1 cup pulverized oyster shell
1 cup wood ash

Both mixes are stored in separate containers and activated with a alfalfa/kelp extract tea. Then I toss in 2 dozen night crawlers into each batch. The soils are sifted to remove the worms before use. Batch #1 is tumbled daily to keep the mix aerated. Batch number 2 is tumbled once a week. I have no scientific evidence to back up the different tumbling schedules. I just figure that the top 2/3's of the soil gets way more air than the last 1/3. So why not mimic those conditions as I culture the micro flora and fauna in my soil.

 

[WyoGrow]

lesson learned on 2nd organic grow. Must let soil set for 30 days. A week is not enough. Tested my soil and very little N and plants growing very slow. Looks like no N at all in the soil they are growing in, I guess they used it up. Adding now and waiting to repot so soil will be better. Live in very small town and can't find anything to boost the good mycro stuff here. Used mollasses. Anyone know of any other that would be easy to find?

The nitrogen is there.... just not in a form that your plants can use yet. You have to let the soil develop a healthy population of bennies. They feed on the raw material you add in your mix and their metabolic waste and by products are what feeds the plant.

 

[T.H.Cammo]

FYI Marine Cuisine and Fish Emulsions are not organic.

Alaska Fish Fertilizer (5-1-1) is "OMRI Listed", it doesn't get much more organic than that! As for the "Morbloom" and Marine Cuisine, I realize they are not exclusively organic.

I believe the term Organic can be used and still allow a little "wiggle room". It's just a word, not a religion!

 

[polyarcturus]

Alaska Fish Fertilizer (5-1-1) is "OMRI Listed", it doesn't get much more organic than that! As for the "Morbloom" and Marine Cuisine, I realize they are not exclusively organic.

I believe the term Organic can be used and still allow a little "wiggle room". It's just a word, not a religion!

word, truth be told. you can find all kinds of 'inorganic" fertilizers in nature......

 

[T.H.Cammo]

Thanks for the "understanding" responce! I was really expecting a whole ration of grief for not being completely "Kosher Organic" (is that even a thing?). If it is, I guess I'm what you might call "Sunday Morning Organic" - meaning that I try to follow the organic guidelines, to a point, without being overly zealous about it. And yes, some of the products I use do have some inorganic ingredients - I can live with that.

 

[Kalyx]

My bad, I thought this was a post your soil mix thread in the Organic forum. So I wanted to point out two products that do NOT fit in here. This is from a tomato growing site posted 4/2011:

Be aware that the Lily Miller brand Alaska Fish Fertilizer 5-1-1 is no longer OMRI-listed. I think it may have something to do with heavy metals from the heating process in its production. I noticed that the new packaging for it states that it is "natural" and NOT to be used for organic growing. I use Neptune's Harvest now. But I've used the Alaska 5-1-1 when it was OMRI. It worked fine for me. I didn't use it as a foliar spray, just diluted and applied at the base of plants.

For those of us who do define organics as 100% organic (OMRI will list products which are 96% I believe) OMRI is a good starting point, but each item and its source ingredients ARE scrutinized in my style of higher organics. The alaska emulsion gets the majority of its N from synth nitrogen forms. I was just pointing this out. Neptune's harvest fish hydrolysate is OMRI listed and way more full spectrum nutrition than any emulsion product, listed or not. Anyone else got any good ORGANIC mixes? Post em up and don't put synths in them IMO if you are gonna toss the O-word around.

It only seems religious to ones who may not be as dedicated/educated about the importance of reviving a living organic mindset as opposed to a petrochemicals are all around so who cares mindset. Growing is a journey, we are all on it and have our own personal preferences. Me personally, 100% organic or as close as I can get to my knowledge is the only way I care to do it. Obviously, not everyone who can click on the word organics on RUI shares this strict of a definition, IMO the closer you get to true living organics the better your medicine will be. Oh yeah and organic is more of a lifestyle decision, it will make you greener and healthier in more than just the cannabis you consume.

 

[T.H.Cammo]

Kalyx,
I can appreciate your "100% Attitude", and I certainely respect your adherence to those stringent guidelines. But to insist that everybody has to follow suite, or not be worthy of the term "Organic". is a little over the top, don't you think? I'm not really trying to be flip here, But who died and made you the "Organic Police"?

Are there a few inorganic ingredients in the products I have mentioned? Absolutely! But for the most part they are derived from animal and vegitable sources, with a few "chemical sounding" phosphates and sucrates thrown in (at the bottom of the list). I mention "the bottom of the list" because the FDA "truth in lableing rules" require the ingredients to be listed in order of proportion - with the bulkier ingredients listed first and the "small amount" ingredients being listed last. I'm not actually sure that the same rule applies here, with Agracultural products, I'll have to check on that. My point is, if they (the manufacturer) throw in a little rock phosphate, or whatever, the product is still predominantly organic in my book. Because I don't subscibe to your 100% guideline, does that make me an "Organic Outcast"? I don't think so!

I think that just places us at different points along the "Organic Scale", as opposed to "Organics all the way, or the highway". I have nothing but respect for your 100% point of view, but when you profess that to believe otherwise shows a, somehow, inferior position - you just come off sounding like an eliteist snob! Yes, I'm sure there are those who couldn't care less about petrochemicals, they're the ones that use crap like MiracleGro and other products that are mostly just chemicals! I'm sure there is a large percentage of people on this Organics Forum that don't subscribe to your 100% philosophy. Not, as you said, due to a lack of dedication - but rather as a matter of practicality.

"Dedication" implies that there is some sort of, emperical, "right or wrong" way of doing things. 100% organic may be the ideal goal but because of practical issues, I'm perfectly satisfied with cutting a few corners! Clearly, some of us are not as dedicated as you, there, do you feel better now?

 

[Kalyx]

I feel great and did before I read your organic-based opinion. To many here organic is like pregnant; you are or you aren't. IMO your product shouldn't be tagged with the O-word unless it comes from a 100% organic grow. I agree with you that I am a pot snob. If you gave me some of your "organic" (based) flowers I'm sure they'd burn ok and get me medicated. Chances are also good that the same cut could have expressed a bit more of its genetic potential grown in my organic police setup with no cutting corners. I also have been called Nazi organic by some who prefer to 'cut corners' as you state. All techniques are fine with me, just DO NOT tag it organic unless it really is IMO. I try to only consume higher organics in food and medicine. I appreciate your opinion THCammo and agree to disagree on how organic you have to be in the garden for the product to be called organic. Sorry for the unintended threadjack BlueJ.


Lets get back to posting our mixes! Nazi organic or not.


Here is my Fallback (easy and quick) mix. It is 100% organic to my knowledge (depending how YOU define perlite of course!)

5 scoops happy frog
2 scoops coco coir
2 scoops chunky perlite
1 scoop EWC

Mix and transplant right away. It would not hurt to add a scoop of high quality compost as well. Danks for all the recipes this is great info to share

 

[blueJ]

Good stuff fellow growers and no worries on the hijack We're here for good discussion and that's what i've seen so far, although the organic vs. organic based is a topic i think we can all agree to disagree on lol.

There's been some discussion on reusing soils & i see a few different approaches to it. I've been working with the same soil now for a solid year in a very perpetual grow and as i touched on before it's really developed into taking care of soil and the plants are a natural side-effect to this (there's a better word for this but i've been sitting here searching for it way too long!).

Here's my approach, fairly simple I think but I do all my mixing and storing in tight quarters so it feels like a slightly overcomplicated process but i know when i have room to stretch out it will be easier/quicker.

So mainly i finish the ladies out in 5 gal paint buckets, I chop them off and let the rootball and all sit in the bucket for a bit, until there's room in a storage bin (50 gal typical large pastic bins from the big box stores). When i have one mostly empty they'll get dumped in until it's full, most of the roots just get broken up, the larger mass around the stem/surface i shake clean and those get tossed in the compost, otherwise at least 90% of the roots get reused. When its full i water a couple times with enzymes and compost tea and surprisingly after only a week or two most all the roots are broken down enough to where you wouldn't recognize individual clumps of roots etc and crumbles up easily in the hand.

From there, i have a round compost tumbler, i use a 2gal paint bucket and dump 5 loads (10 gallons) of the used soil in, one load of compost and one load of perlite (more or less if needed, will be trying rice hulls shortly) and then all the amendments as listed in my first post. It gets tumbled and mixed up (my exercise for the day!) and repeat until full, 2 and half times so i guess the tumbler fits aprox 35 gal or so.

After its good and mixed it gets a watering of some good and frothy compost tea and sits a few days, check it and its toasty hot, tumble a few times every day or so and if i have the space it gets dumped into a storage bin and will sit for however long until needed. I always need a new batch fairly quick so it never cooks for more than a week or two, i'm trying to get ahead of the game and get some more bins so they can sit for longer, but honestly a one week "cook" has never given me problems and the plants love it no matter how long it cooks. So I always say, from experience, don't worry so much about cooking the soil for months, its aaall good But just to note, i do not use blood meal which is one ingredient that is super high in available N and will burn plants without being properly broken down, especially when using high "super soil" amounts of it.

Anyways, that's how i reuse my soil, if i ever get too high and forget a step i guess i went off on the details here so i can come back to this thread to reference lol.

Oh, one other thing i've let go too long and will be an issue probably for everyone that reuses soil:

FUCKING FUNGUS GNATS!

I get a shit ton on my yellow stickies now and the plants certainly haven't suffered (visibly) but i have lost some seeds because the stupid flies managed to get inside and lay eggs in my seedling mix which always has it's lid on. So a few seeds never saw the light of day, instead a nasty larva worm went to town and had a $10 seed feast lol.

Anyways, regular neem foliars (i alternate, neem foliar and then fulpower foliar). I just ordered beneficial nematodes from Arbico organics and watered those in. And i've also picked up the full line (nute/root/foliar) of CAPS bennies which i've heard does wonders that i will add to my compost teas. I'll touch bases here in a few weeks to let ya'll know how the nematodes and CAPS bennies handle things.

Lastly, despite the current excess in flying annoyances, my ladies love the reused mix and amendments i choose to use, every run i see more vigorous growth and any sort of deficiency appears to be a thing of the past and i'm using less and less from the bottle as i see such great growth/results with simple teas + alfalfa here and there. With so much good stuff in the mix it's hard to go wrong

 

[brotherjericho]

Mine is simple

1 part peat moss
1 part compost mix (several different composts mixed before hand)
1/2 part perlite
1/2 part vermiculite
1 tbsp/gal lime
1 tbsp/gal 4-4-4 (Jobes Organic)

My plants do really well, but I need to top dress after 40 or more days in this to complete the grow. I top dress every 3-4 weeks, depending on how the plant is doing.