Back-yard dirt

Is it possible to turn back-yard dirt into a fine soil?

add some Perlite, and vermiculite. Worm Castings, Bone Meal, Chicken manure (or compost, generally), Lime and you'll be off to a great start.

Regards,

Parlabane

Ola, P.R. dude
By fine soil do you mean in gradient or in quality?

If you mean gradient (as in size)

I suppose you can sift shovelfuls and seperate the fine soil from the coarse soil and use that if you'd like..Fine soil would have a very low retention quality and I don't recommend you use it unless you're willing to water your plant or crop like a gzillion times a day. Also it has little to offer in the way of nutrients.

Thats me being a smartass I know you mean quality.

The thing about backyard soil is that unless you've lived in that house or area for decades or what not you might not know whats been leached into the soil (i.e. parked cars oil leaks) also soils bought in garden stores or indoor gardening stores simply are of a higher quality and your guaranteed to not have any oil or other contaminants that might stress your plant or worst . Furthermore your backyard soil might contain pests/molds/fungus that could inherently infect, eat and basically destroy all your plants and the work or if your lucky before you have done any.

I suppose you could treat your soil maybe sterilise it and add your own essential organisms, and while your at it you might as well pull the shit out of a cow pasteurise the manure and so on and so forth, but that would be rather intrusive for the cow, not to mention how you feel about it.

My suggestion is that if you want to brew up your own soil type based on the characteristics of the strain you chose to grow or on the preference of how much time your willing to dedicate to your plant or crop you can FIRST and FOREMOST buy soil from a gardening store or indoor gardening store and then add as Parlabane has indicated Perlite, Vermiculite etc. till you've attained your desired soil quality.

Peace

by pasteurising you mean heat it up in an oven... that's not gonna smell good. All times i have grown outside, i'll admit having used the soil already there without too much change except for a few extra ingredients as i mentioned. and all went well. It must have been my luck...

Regards,

Parlabane

You're probably blessed with some reasonably good soil then, Parlabane. The kind of crap we see around here you'd be lucky to get anything growing in it never mind an impressive crop fit for a king

Too much clay around here under the topsoil, a lot of plants dislike it (and not just those you wanna roll). I'd always advise at least grabbing a bag or two from a garden centre and throwing that on top before planting anything. The extra nutrients will enhance fresh soil and may be enough if you've got reasonable soil in your back yard.

I tried using the soil in our back yard with completely disastrous results--despite additives it had a clay like composition that simply would not drain no matter what. I lost about 40 plants......never again.

P.R dude said:

Is it possible to turn back-yard dirt into a fine soil?

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Yes and no. Backyard soil contains weed seed and pathogens. Soil can be sterilised and weed seed killed by baking the soil in a hot oven (~200C) until the core of your lump reaches 60-100C and is maintained there for a while.

Baking a lump of garden soil will release evil smells into your kitchen. Unless you have a spare oven out in the garage, you might give this one a miss and just use commercially made potting soils.

Or... you can be much braver and try a flood hydro system using a sterile media like rockwool. It's much easier than you think.

Rockwool is cheap, lightweight and easy to dispose of, given that it is made from basalt rock which is heated to 1500C and spun out like cotton candy. An 8" pot of dry rockwool weighs about 100g, compared to a kilo or more for a pot of soil.

Rockwool, being made simply from melted rock, is also 'biosoluble'- it can be buried or simply disposed of in common rubbish collection. Better yet, the rockwool is discarded and fresh media used with each new crop, removing the possibility of soilborne diseases.

I hate soil in general because of the weight and mess as well as potential to pass on pathogens or bugs to the next crop if re-used. It's completely impractical for indoor homegrowers unless you're only doing a very few plants.

I've also tried expanded clay pellets in my op. What a pain in the ass. Drop a handful of the stuff and you'll chase it all over the room. About 3x the weight of rockwool, even when dry. No thanks...

I tried it for my first grow and it worked got some killer smoke but not a lot. Also growth was slow and plant size was small. Didn't add any fert. You can try adding stuff but it is much easier to go to the store unless you have access to dung (shit) non-human of course. A 50/50 mix would probably work good just make sure you use dark soil, the lighter the dirt the less good stuff it has in it (compare dirt when dry) and stay away from clay or hard pack dirt. That is not good for drainage or root growth. On my current grow I have used a 50/50 blend of miracle-gro with 6 month fert. and sta-green with 9 month fert. and I have 5'+ tall plants after 2.5 months; almost twice as high as my first grow. I have heard that miracle-gro has a low pH of around 5.0 and you should have a pH of 6.5-7.0 and a real good soil is Black Gold (so I've heard). Hope this helps.

P.R dude said:

Is it possible to turn back-yard dirt into a fine soil?

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i've grown outdoors with dirt njo nutrients and and the plants have turned out just fine

I'm trying my first ever grow with backyard soil. I added Scotts Starter Fertilizer to the soil and added water and mixed it up and around before putting my seeds into the pot.

I'll let you know how things go once I start adding pictures.

Plant a few Desmanthus illinoensis seeds. Just dig up the whole plant and take dirt from the root system! Of course I would recommend sterilizing the dirt before you use it.

been growing outdoor in pots for a few years now, always used dirt from my own yard, i just mixed in some peat moss and compost. works fine. i add organic nutrients later in life as needed. your soil will differ from mine, just make sure you have good drainage coupled with good moisture retention.

aattocchi said:

Plant a few Desmanthus illinoensis seeds. Just dig up the whole plant and take dirt from the root system! Of course I would recommend sterilizing the dirt before you use it.

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The reason I said this is because D. illinoensis root system house nitrogen producing organisms/bacteria.

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but what if I planted the weed in manure? Nothing else, just manure. I could easily get buckets of the stuff (neighbours got a dozen cows out the back) but would it do?

i honestly walked right out my front door and got some soil, it seems to be pretty good stuff and my plant's are looking pretty healthy, any suggestion's for nutrient's for a newb grower, or just leave it like it is if it's goin good..thank's

this is just dirt from my front yard nothing added, and im using purified water, and a GE 60 watt energy saver light bulb, seriously that's it

here's abetter pic, sadly the seedling on the right had a accident the other day and broke, i put her back in the soil and she seem's to be alright, but i notice the seedling on the left how thick her stem is, is that a good sign?

harvester said:

Ola, P.R. dude
(i.e. parked cars oil leaks)

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swrim (who really, really really knows outdoor lawn and garden)says that he runs into places in people's yards where there are just voids... black holes where NOTHING will grow but grass and he says that it is because of old things in the ground like septic tanks (terrible chemicals used to be used in them, it's not nuts) from 100+ years ago or old sewer lines that were partially filled with some weird gel to dissolve the concrete over 100+ years; almost forgot the big one - people used to build pipelines for any god damn reason and there are a TON left filled with old chemicals... or as harvester said, car oil leaks or just plain rotten chem spills that stick in the soil... it's rare but does happen, but he says this is the only reason your ass needs to go buy a bag of miracle grow

It's what I like to call the Gandolph theory - There are terrible and ancient things in the earth and you shouldn't go digging too much

As a teen I used to work in a nursery and every morning we would "cook" the soil to remove baddies from it. It actually didn't smell all that bad, kinda sweet smelling. But the soil would go into a oven of sorts to be sterilized, just cant recall the temp or time. It's been a looong time since I worked there lol. I would however follow the advice of these guys. They know what they're talking about

If you really want to know the makeup of your soil, take a sample to your local agriculture office, and ask them to test it. They will tell you exactly what needs to be added.

(Dunno much about weed, but I used to raise the hell out of tobacco.)