Living organic soil from start through recycling

[RanchoDeluxe]

Good Lord. I wanted to learn about reusing my soil, but have no desire to read 523 pages.

Is there a book to read that is shorter than this thread? I only have a few questions...
I have great books on organic gardening that are easier to wade through.

Do you need to store it for long periods of time? ( I mix about 60 gallons worth and have space limitations).

Is there any reduction in yield reusing the same soil?

I'm using Phillthy's mix , with a dry amendment upon recommendation. I have Von's basic compost tea recipe which I've used on my property for a few years and hit the girls with too. ( Veg and flower , copied from the canna cabana).

I'm currently re-reading this thread for the THIRD time. It just keeps getting better along w/ my notes. With a small amount of growing skills a person could easily grow some quality cannabis by simply reading and taking notes from the first 50 pages or so, a mere couple hours of time. Or a person can decide not to read it and spend days (if not weeks) scratching their head...wondering what's wrong.

Good Luck.
RD

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

One day, when this thread actually "finishes", I'll collect this sucker into an e-book for everyone... Every time I think it's winding down, a new gem appears But for real, I will eventually organize the meat of this thread into a PDF by topic - Shmalphy has been awesome enough to do a page-by-page breakdown of the topics for the first 65 or so pages, but seriously, this is the fastest-growing thread I've ever participated in.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

So I'm about to mix up a little soil. A couple of things I learned this time.

A 3 cu. ft bale of peat moss turned out to be 38 gallons.

For the first time ever, I busted out the bale into a kiddie pool and hydrated it w/ aloe, alfalfa, kelp tea. Usually, I would mix it up straight out the bale, w / EWC, aeration, dry amendments. Never liked the way the soil looked afterwards, always was hydrophobic. A few days after hydrating, the peat is light and fluffy and can absorb water now.

 

[Gascanastan]

So I'm about to mix up a little soil. A couple of things I learned this time.

A 3 cu. ft bale of peat moss turned out to be 38 gallons.

For the first time ever, I busted out the bale into a kiddie pool and hydrated it w/ aloe, alfalfa, kelp tea. Usually, I would mix it up straight out the bale, w / EWC, aeration, dry amendments. Never liked the way the soil looked afterwards, always was hydrophobic. A few days after hydrating, the peat is light and fluffy and can absorb water now.

This is a good method...I think it was Coot or MM who mentioned rehydrating it before using. Which makes sense considering the hydrophobic nature of peat....maybe watch the dry amendment inputs if you are going to pre-soak it with extra goodies though.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

It was Coot. Ran across it the other day scouring this thread. It's gonna get mixed up w/ some recycled soil that only had 1tbs per gal Espoma Bio-tone starter plus added to it. (first recycle) Test plants are halfway through flower w/ no issues...so it looks like all of it will be getting used up here shortly.

BTW Stan, did ya get that PM I sent ya?

 

[somoz]

I always thought 1 cu ft = 7.5 gallons?

Also, has any one worked with Raw Aragonite as a substitute for Oyster Shell Flour? Bought a bag at the feed store while I did some quick reading on it while there. raw-aragonite.com

However, at the same feed store the guy tried telling me there wasn't a difference between fish meal and fish bone meal, and that his fish meal was organic but forgot to mention till I read the label that his meal is preserved by ethoxyquin. I wouldn't feed that to my dog, why would I feed it my plants?

 

[CT Guy]

I always thought 1 cu ft = 7.5 gallons?

Also, has any one worked with Raw Aragonite as a substitute for Oyster Shell Flour? Bought a bag at the feed store while I did some quick reading on it while there. raw-aragonite.com

However, at the same feed store the guy tried telling me there wasn't a difference between fish meal and fish bone meal, and that his fish meal was organic but forgot to mention till I read the label that his meal is preserved by ethoxyquin. I wouldn't feed that to my dog, why would I feed it my plants?

You're correct, but the peat is a compressed bale and expands. Just FYI, the 3.8 cubic ft bale expands to approx. 6 cubic ft (manufacturer told us 7.5 but we found it to be inaccurate).

 

[Cann]

RD, thank you for finally changing your avatar That last one was scary..

 

[John Deere]

And on a different note, I get weird foot fungus from time to time, yea yea I know gross, but I have sweaty feet.

So Instead of using the regular pharmacy product I think I'm going try soaking my foot in a Neem / Silica / Aloe bath.

Gonna start a fenugreek sprout tea as well, and use that as the base water for the mix in a couple days. If its a good fungicide for my plants why not my foot eh?

You going to pour the remains on your plants afterwards?

 

[Red Swan]

I can sum up how I was shown to grow organically in 3 paragraphs.


1st paragraph... excellent soil mix. ( It works whether you obsess over every minute aspect of the recipe or not) Simple, easy to access ingredients and it works very well.

2nd paragraph... Excellent tea recipe's from Von for veg and flower ( I don't care how it works and don't need a microscope. The growth using these tea recipes is simply explosive. Microbes = good.)Simple, easy to access ingredients and you don't need to know biology for it to work!

3rd paragraph... 12 on 5 off 2 on 5 off lighting schedule for veg to create tighter nodes and less shock when plants go to 12/12 reducing stretch , lowering electrical and increasing yield tremendously.

I was looking for the 4th paragraph. Add this, this and this to your reuse your mix when you are done with the run, let it sit covered for 30 days and reuse it. Simple, easy.

I think I'll just ask in PM. Quicker, simpler, easier.



Thanks for taking the time. I'll be on my way.

 

[Gascanastan]

The thing is....every soil mix becomes something different for each user. Inputs may be source related,one user may not be able to source what another can. It's a custom thing based upon what you understand about basic soil biological processes and what materials are used.

If you reach that point and come here and ask..."hey,what do I do now that it's time to re-amend,this is what I have.???..."...someone will help you,but it is here in the thread..all the little things each grower does to sustain the soil for repeated indoor cannabis cycles.

 

[Neo 420]

Its ALL about the soil baby....... Insects, fungi's, microbes and OM included!

 

[BlueJayWay]

Re-ammending I find is fun - you get to pick and choose a few things to mix in there, and then watch plants grow to see how ya did!

 

[somoz]

CT Guy

Darh dee darh darh, thanks for pointing out the obvious for me on that one and the MF's claim......pretty sure I woke up extra dumb today.

Red Swan

If you filter the posts from Cootz you get all of his information and the posts from Gas as well. Between the two of them they really touch on almost every topic in this thread.


Raw Aragonite: if anyone has any experience with this please chime in, I'm going to dig deeper on the web but always useful to hear first hand experience.

 

[Neo 420]

Red Swan

If you filter the posts from Cootz you get all of his information and the posts from Gas as well. Between the two of them they really touch on almost every topic in this thread.

While I will not disagree Cootz and Gas are the Guru's around here, there is valuables information to learn from most of the other key players around here such as MM, MrS, BJW, W89, YS, DM, IBB, etc (forgive me if I did not mention you).

 

[Coba]

The thing is....every soil mix becomes something different for each user. Inputs may be source related,one user may not be able to source what another can. It's a custom thing based upon what you understand about basic soil biological processes and what materials are used.

If you reach that point and come here and ask..."hey,what do I do now that it's time to re-amend,this is what I have.???..."...someone will help you,but it is here in the thread..all the little things each grower does to sustain the soil for repeated indoor cannabis cycles.

Its ALL about the soil baby....... Insects, fungi's, microbes and OM included!

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While I will not disagree Cootz and Gas are the Guru's around here, there is valuables information to learn from most of the other key players around here such as MM, MrS, BJW, W89, YS etc (forgive me if I did not mention you). [/FONT]

Re-ammending I find is fun - you get to pick and choose a few things to mix in there, and then watch plants grow to see how ya did!

One day, when this thread actually "finishes", I'll collect this sucker into an e-book for everyone... Every time I think it's winding down, a new gem appears But for real, I will eventually organize the meat of this thread into a PDF by topic - Shmalphy has been awesome enough to do a page-by-page breakdown of the topics for the first 65 or so pages, but seriously, this is the fastest-growing thread I've ever participated in.

I'm currently re-reading this thread for the THIRD time. It just keeps getting better along w/ my notes. With a small amount of growing skills a person could easily grow some quality cannabis by simply reading and taking notes from the first 50 pages or so, a mere couple hours of time. Or a person can decide not to read it and spend days (if not weeks) scratching their head...wondering what's wrong.

Good Luck.
RD

The greatest thing I’ve picked up from this thread is to not be afraid of living soil. That was fuelled by the Gasman himself.

 

[Payaso]

To reiterate... an attempt to summarize this information was published in the last International Cannagraphic eMag. We created a whole section about Living Organic Soil.

This is the thread that got me started using organic soil and nutrients, and thankfully ALL my plants in the garden are flourishing nicely! From tomatoes to Pune, everything is doing amazingly better than last year. I will post some pics soon...

But here is a condensation of just one topic about Living Organic Soil from the eMag:

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[Payaso]

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[Payaso]

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[rasputin]

Good to see this thread opened up again. Now people who weren't around when it was active can still access the info without having to dig through the forum. It's pretty lame it took this long, though.

It should be a sticky but at least if it's open it can be bumped periodically.