PLEASE HELP WITH ORGANIC LIVE SOIL!!!

Hi Everyone,

I am making my own supersoil for the first time today and I would really like to hear opinions or suggestions on areas where my soil is lacking & soil having too much/too little nutrient(s), also id love to hear more suggestions for other Nutrients or soil base I should add, Im trying to have a nice balanced soil but everywhere I go someone suggests a different amount of the same nutrient so I am not confident with my mixture, so I'd love to hear what others have to say and how much Nutrients you would have use compared to me, these measurements are for 20 gallons of soil total.

Soil Base:

30% Peatmoss =6g
30% Oly Mountain Compost = 6g
13.75% Perlite = 2.75g
11.25% Lava Rock = 2.25g
7.5% Roots Oganics Worm Castings = 1.5
7.5% Organic Artic Humus = 1.5

Nutrients:

Bio-live - 2cup
Kelp Meal - 2cups
Insect Frass - 2 cups
Blood Meal - 1.5cup
Alfalfa Meal - 1.5cups
Azomite - 1.5 cups
Bokashi - 1cups
Dolomite Lime - 1cup
Epson Salt - 2.5 tbsp
Powdered Humic Acid - 2tsp
Mycorrhizae - (sprinkle on roots)
Seabird Guano - 1/2cup
Bat guano - 1/2cup
Fish Bone Meal - 1/2cup
Bone Meal - 1/2cup

I just use biolive, dolomite, and perlite with promix. Why are you using an all purpose fert and individuals?

I just do 3 parts promix,1 part ewc. 1 part perlite..
1/3 cup biolive, 1 tbs dolomite per gallon of dirt.
Pretty simple and easy. I do a kelp and fish feed here and there in flower.

Boatguy said:

I just use biolive, dolomite, and perlite with promix. Why are you using an all purpose fert and individuals?

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Would the bio-live be the only all purpose fert? Promix only has peatmoss and perlite with Mycorrhizae, none of which I added i infact measure the perlite from the promix i didnt buy any extra, also bio-live was a substitute for crab meal, bio-live consists of fishbone meal, Kelp Meal, Alfalfa meal, Humic acid,(these 4 i do already have) Fish Meal, Crab meal, Shrimp meal, langbeinite, Basalt, Mycorrhizae fungi, and beneficial bacteria(i believe, like i said 1st timer) Seemed like a wise replacement to crab meal... should I look out for anything down the road because of this??

Boatguy said:

I just do 3 parts promix,1 part ewc. 1 part perlite..
1/3 cup biolive, 1 tbs dolomite per gallon of dirt.
Pretty simple and easy. I do a kelp and fish feed here and there in flower.

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Nice I've seen some nice and simple mixes not really looking to simplify just wondering if I put to much of a type of Nutrient or maybe more soil or something but thank you

SaucyJoshy said:

Would the bio-live be the only all purpose fert? Promix only has peatmoss and perlite with Mycorrhizae, none of which I added i infact measure the perlite from the promix i didnt buy any extra, also bio-live was a substitute for crab meal, bio-live consists of fishbone meal, Kelp Meal, Alfalfa meal, Humic acid,(these 4 i do already have) Fish Meal, Crab meal, Shrimp meal, langbeinite, Basalt, Mycorrhizae fungi, and beneficial bacteria(i believe, like i said 1st timer) Seemed like a wise replacement to crab meal... should I look out for anything down the road because of this??

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Cant help you there.
I just went with the biolive to avoid buying everything individually. It is a decent mix by itself.

You probably see lots of different values cause this stuff doesn't really have to be an exact science. Between half a cup per cubic foot on a lot of the amendments and a qtr cup on some of the hotter ones like blood meal or lime is totally fine. You can always add more in top dressings later...your mix should work out fine. Some stuff you could argue against like using blood meal and bat guano together...another grower might suggest avoiding that and using something like neem/karanja and some crab. Either way will probably work, its just a lot of preferences and opinions with this stuff when generally it will all get the job done. Keeping your microbial health alive I would say is a lot more important than whether or not you used half cup or 3/4 cup of Nutrient X

IIReignManII said:

You probably see lots of different values cause this stuff doesn't really have to be an exact science. Between half a cup per cubic foot on a lot of the amendments and a qtr cup on some of the hotter ones like blood meal or lime is totally fine. You can always add more in top dressings later...your mix should work out fine. Some stuff you could argue against like using blood meal and bat guano together...another grower might suggest avoiding that and using something like neem/karanja and some crab. Either way will probably work, its just a lot of preferences and opinions with this stuff when generally it will all get the job done. Keeping your microbial health alive I would say is a lot more important than whether or not you used half cup or 3/4 cup of Nutrient X

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Thank you for all the advice you answered alot of questions I had and also raised a few, I will look more into maintaining microbial health but id like to ask you why bat guano and blood meal shouldn't be mixed? Also i decided on bio-live instead of crab. Thanks again

SaucyJoshy said:

Thank you for all the advice you answered alot of questions I had and also raised a few, I will look more into maintaining microbial health but id like to ask you why bat guano and blood meal shouldn't be mixed? Also i decided on bio-live instead of crab. Thanks again

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Bat Guano and Blood meal are both high nitrogen sources and on the "hotter" end, and the whole animal by-product thing and potention pathogens and ethics and all that stuff that goes along with that, ...You also have fish bone meal, regular bone meal, and seabird guano which are all high P, they're all kind of doing the same thing...you could argue that less is more in this case. If it were me I would drop the bat guano, epsom, and regular bone meal, and maybe even the Bio-Live. Langebeinite is better than epsom and has all the potassium, magnesium, and sulfur you could ever need. You'll get plenty of calcium from the gypsum, fish bone, and seabird guano. I would add crab, neem and karanja mix, gypsum, greensand, and langebeinite as a "better" "home made Bio-Live".

IIReignManII said:

Bat Guano and Blood meal are both high nitrogen sources and on the "hotter" end, and the whole animal by-product thing and potention pathogens and ethics and all that stuff that goes along with that, ...You also have fish bone meal, regular bone meal, and seabird guano which are all high P, they're all kind of doing the same thing...you could argue that less is more in this case. If it were me I would drop the bat guano, epsom, and regular bone meal, and maybe even the Bio-Live. Langebeinite is better than epsom and has all the potassium, magnesium, and sulfur you could ever need. You'll get plenty of calcium from the gypsum, fish bone, and seabird guano. I would add crab, neem and karanja mix, gypsum, greensand, and langebeinite as a "better" "home made Bio-Live".

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Well I actually knew that the guanos and the bone meals did the same thing and actually thats the reason they are all 1/2 cups, I mix them together to equal one cup i fully realized that was unnecessary, haha just a newbie trying to get more Nutrients in my mix, I don't know much about langebeinite but I do belive it is in bio-live so I hopefully ill be covered there but I will definitely have to try that homemade biolive mix. would make a for a good top dressing?thanks for the help

SaucyJoshy said:

Well I actually knew that the guanos and the bone meals did the same thing and actually thats the reason they are all 1/2 cups, I mix them together to equal one cup i fully realized that was unnecessary, haha just a newbie trying to get more Nutrients in my mix, I don't know much about langebeinite but I do belive it is in bio-live so I hopefully ill be covered there but I will definitely have to try that homemade biolive mix. would make a for a good top dressing?thanks for the help

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I want to do more experiments on how little we actually need...Coot always talked about keeping it simple with the neem/crab/kelp/minerals mix. I'd like to do some side by sides of Coots mix, the Subcool mix, my own, and some others to see the differences. I feel like neem/karanja, crab, kelp, azomite, blood, bone, seabird, gypsum, lime, azomite, greensand, langebeinite, bokashi, and insect frass mixed with good aeration and the best compost/vermicompost possible is the "perfect" soil, its just dialing in ratios at that point

IIReignManII said:

I want to do more experiments on how little we actually need...Coot always talked about keeping it simple with the neem/crab/kelp/minerals mix. I'd like to do some side by sides of Coots mix, the Subcool mix, my own, and some others to see the differences. I feel like neem/karanja, crab, kelp, azomite, blood, bone, seabird, gypsum, lime, azomite, greensand, langebeinite, bokashi, and insect frass mixed with good aeration and the best compost/vermicompost possible is the "perfect" soil, its just dialing in ratios at that point

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I'd love to see a side by side with some different mixes. I wish I had the space to play around with things a bit more. I find myself happy with my results, but always wonder if little tweaks make much of a difference. I guess as long as they are looking and staying healthy we are on the right track.

What are your thoughts on the blood and bone meal? I figure I get enough N from all sorts of other inputs and hopefully enough P as well without those two inputs. I used DTE fish bone meal for the first couple of mixes I did, but eventually just dumped the rest in some outdoor compost bins and never repurchased some. I find myself leaning more towards balanced NPK amendments instead of the more weighted options. No real rhyme or reason about if this is the correct way to go, just kind of where I am at right now and am curious on your input.

loco41 said:

I'd love to see a side by side with some different mixes. I wish I had the space to play around with things a bit more. I find myself happy with my results, but always wonder if little tweaks make much of a difference. I guess as long as they are looking and staying healthy we are on the right track.

What are your thoughts on the blood and bone meal? I figure I get enough N from all sorts of other inputs and hopefully enough P as well without those two inputs. I used DTE fish bone meal for the first couple of mixes I did, but eventually just dumped the rest in some outdoor compost bins and never repurchased some. I find myself leaning more towards balanced NPK amendments instead of the more weighted options. No real rhyme or reason about if this is the correct way to go, just kind of where I am at right now and am curious on your input.

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I know a lot of people are stopping the use of blood meal but IDK I still use it cause I have it laying around and its still a great nitrogen and iron source imo...I'll probably always use it. I'll probably just use fish bone meal and not regular bone meal in the future...Blood, Fish bone, and seabird is already arguably all the N and P you could need. IDk if its better to have a large variety of fertilizer that conatins a little nitrogen, or to just one one high nitrogen source, but I'm going to guess the variety is better. I never go over a qtr cup per cubic foot with blood meal. Blood meal is pretty readily available for the plants to absorb so smaller doses spread out regularly vs one heavy dose when you build your would definitely be better...plants cant make proteins without nitrogen. I dont want to do any topdressings or teas with how I grow...I'm trying to figure out the best mix for that before I continue on to other techniques like the probiotic sips

IIReignManII said:

I know a lot of people are stopping the use of blood meal but IDK I still use it cause I have it laying around and its still a great nitrogen and iron source imo...I'll probably always use it. I'll probably just use fish bone meal and not regular bone meal in the future...Blood, Fish bone, and seabird is already arguably all the N and P you could need. IDk if its better to have a large variety of fertilizer that conatins a little nitrogen, or to just one one high nitrogen source, but I'm going to guess the variety is better. I never go over a qtr cup per cubic foot with blood meal. Blood meal is pretty readily available for the plants to absorb so smaller doses spread out regularly vs one heavy dose when you build your would definitely be better...plants cant make proteins without nitrogen. I dont want to do any topdressings or teas with how I grow...I'm trying to figure out the best mix for that before I continue on to other techniques like the probiotic sips

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Awesome man, thanks for the response. I'm always super curious to hear people explain their thought processes on additions to their mixes. I find myself wondering if their is a specific "one mix fits all" as the best option. I feel like the variables from mix to mix and even one container to the next of the same soil mix are too abundant to truly nail it down to one exact combination outshining all at this point in time. I think our compost sources truly are the heart and soul of all things and are never quite the same in any given environment. I also like to think as long as I cover a lot of broad bases and have some of the basic aspects covered (aeration/compost/buffering) all should go well with proper watering. All solely perspective and just my thoughts on some things right now.

Sorry been a long day and just got started on the bowl, so I ramble on.. Hope everyone is well and having healthy grows..