Soil

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rkmcdon

Well-Known Member
There's quite a bit of info on this forum on building your own soil. Build a soil also has a nice tutorial here

Basically you make a base soil with sphagnum:aeration:compost/ewc. I believe 1:1:1 or 2:1:1 are pretty common ratios to use. You then amend this with rock dust at about 3-4cups per cuft of base soil and organic amendments at about 2 cups per cuft of base soil. What rock dust and amendments you use are a balancing act between personal preference, variety and simplicity.

My personal mix is:
26 gallons sphagnum
10 gallons ewc
8 gallons pumice (aeration)
7 gallons rice hulls (aeration)
1 gallon insect frass
1 gallon bio-live (fish bone meal, fish meal, crustacean meal, alfalfa meal, langbeinite and kelp meal with added beneficial fungi and bacteria)
4 cups each azomite, basalt, gypsum and oyster shell meal
2 cups neem seed meal

Mix the soil and water it in to activate the microbes which break down the soil to make the nutrients available to the plant. I think most people recommend letting this break down process (referred to as cooking) for 3-4 weeks before planting in the soil. This isn't strictly necessary, but if you plant in it early, you might need supplement with organic liquid nutrients for the first few weeks.

Hope that helps

Edited to correct my aeration components. Also to note that despite the two common ratio's i listed, I actually use a slightly different ratio of 5:3:2. I switched this from 2:1:1 for two reasons. First, I felt i didn't have enough aeration after having a couple of plants with root rot. Second, i read somewhere that 20% compost/ewc was somehow the "ideal" amount. Although i don't know if thats actually true, it fit will with my plan to increase aeration
 
Last edited:
Redwing77

Redwing77

New Member
rkmcdon said:
There's quite a bit of info on this forum on building your own soil. Build a soil also has a nice tutorial here

Basically you make a base soil with sphagnum:aeration:compost/ewc. I believe 1:1:1 or 2:1:1 are pretty common ratios to use. You then amend this with rock dust at about 3-4cups per cuft of base soil and organic amendments at about 2 cups per cuft of base soil. What rock dust and amendments you use are a balancing act between personal preference, variety and simplicity.

My personal mix is:
26 gallons sphagnum
10 gallons ewc
8 gallons pumice (aeration)
7 gallons rice hulls (aeration)
1 gallon insect frass
1 gallon bio-live (fish bone meal, fish meal, crustacean meal, alfalfa meal, langbeinite and kelp meal with added beneficial fungi and bacteria)
4 cups each azomite, basalt, gypsum and oyster shell meal
2 cups neem seed meal

Mix the soil and water it in to activate the microbes which break down the soil to make the nutrients available to the plant. I think most people recommend letting this break down process (referred to as baking) for 3-4 weeks before planting in the soil. This isn't strictly necessary, but if you plant in it early, you might need supplement with organic liquid nutrients for the first few weeks.

Hope that helps

Edited to correct my aeration components. Also to note that despite the two common ratio's i listed, I actually use a slightly different ratio of 5:3:2. I switched this from 2:1:1 for two reasons. First, I felt i didn't have enough aeration after having a couple of plants with root rot. Second, i read somewhere that 20% compost/ewc was somehow the "ideal" amount. Although i don't know if thats actually true, it fit will with my plan to increase aeration
Click to expand...
Thanks muchly man
 
Y

youraveragehorticulturist

Well-Known Member
Also consider using a pre made, commercial bagged soil, maybe with some extra work castings for your first run.

If you use something like Roots Organic, after your first grow you'll have a nice "Base" soil that includes peat, coco coir, perlite and pumice without having to track down each individual ingredient. From there you can amend with whatever compost, nutrients and minerals you want.
 
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