Sharing proven soil recipe!

Dr. Who said:

Nah, it has a rather alarming ammonia smell when you open the bag...very cat pissy smelling....something else to it,,,,fermenting bat/bird turd tone....My SS's smell like nice dirt or humus like smelling,,,kinda comfortable like, earthy, natural...
Phil's soil is HOT....One of the tests I'm running with it is cut with my base and completely mixed in.....Gotta have fun with it and "see"....overpowering urge to "know"....eh?

Doc

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st0wandgrow said:

That's not uncommon. When the microbes are mineralizing the high N organic inputs there is an ammonia odor given off. Phil claims that his soil is "hot", which likely means that he used a shit ton of alfalfa meal, blood meal, etc. I would NOT use this soil just yet. It can burn your plants roots. I would put it in a container and turn it a couple times a day, keeping it moist but not wet. When that smell dissipates you should be left with more of a typical earthy soil smell, at which point it's safe to use.

The other issue could be that the soil has turned anaerobic. Depending on how much they wet the soil down before bagging it, and how long it sat in that bag, anaerobes may have taken over. If this were the case I'd spread the soil out on a tarp and let it dry out a bit. Once the texture is a bit more crumbly wet it down with a compost tea. The beneficial aerobic bacteria will out compete the anaerobic bacteria with all of that fresh air and the soil should be fine to use.

This is why I never buy soil, compost, castings, etc by weight. Always buy it by volume. When it's sold by weight the manufacturer has a vested interest in saturating the soil for more profit.

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