[Boyd Crowder]

Howdy Yall!
Boyd Crowder here again with an in depth look at some shit I know jack shit about.

What we have here is a nicely rooted Star Kush clone about 3 weeks old with a gorgeous root structure and in need of a medium to grow in.

I picked up some 40 gallons of used organic soil from a buddy of mine, and have been afraid to use , for fear of bugs and or pathogens.

Well, I decided to take some clones a few weeks back and , well, fuck, I got no where to put em at the moment.
They are all healthy and rooted , but sitting in veg in dwc , I just dont have the airflow or space or pumps etc to give them all a happy bucket.

So after much thought , I decided to try an experiment.

I grabbed a pot, some perlite , a handful of hydroton and that mystery soil and set it all in the kitchen.

So , what Ive done is take the hydroton and line the bottom of the pot with an inch or so of it , poured in a layer of perlite .5" thick or so , and hydrated the soil with water. That took a while cause it was bone dry and didnt want to take in the moisture .
so , after mixing in the water, and letting it drain for a while, Ive transplanted my first clone into soil!

My idea is to keep this plant on my desk for a week or two , far away from my garden , in quarantine, to see if I get any critters or problems from this questionable medium. I figured I could spare a clone should this soil harbor bad nasties,and if so, Ill just throw it and the experiment out the door.

So what the hell, if it turns out to be ok, Ill learn how to grow in soil during this experimental grow a rama, and find a place in my toolbag for its use and care, thats super cool and funky with me.

What bouts you? ICMag ? You down for my little ride down Mystery Lane ?
Can I get a Hellz Yeah ?

[Boyd Crowder]

this lil girl is looking nice and feeling happy.
I see no traces of illegal buggery so far.
It would be super awesome if this soil was clean and ready to amend and put into use on some of my clones...
we will be patient and see

Cool stuff! I see a lot of green in that there room =D Glad you're having fun

[Boyd Crowder]

hey , this soil seems to be safe - so I potted up some moms i will be keeping just in case any of these phenos is a standout.

[Boyd Crowder]

Hi all - I'm now going to ask for some help from more experienced growers, hopefully they will chime in with some wisdom.

Lemme start by saying , you most likely will be just as confused as I after reading this thread.

Ill start with what I believe I have here.
This soil is 1/3 peat moss promix, perlite & vermiculite. I have made this soil in the past for outdoor raised bed gardens , so I kinda know it when i see it. Its been used before and theres more in it than just the basic three parts. according to r fortune , who mixed this batch, he used all purpose 5-5-5 , dolemite lime , sea bird guano and michorizhae in unknown %'s and that theres more in it than that , and assume it was made by an experienced canna gardener.

Its been inactive for at least 6-9 months. I dont have bugs in it. I have transplanted several potential mothers into it a week ago. They are doing fine so far. I fed them with leftover solution from one of my dwc buckets last night, about 8oz per pot at ~900 ppm and this morning, they seem to be just fine. I havent had to water them yet beacuse i saturated this soil mix and let it drain with plain water the day of transplant. Most of these are 2 liter pots.

I dont want to feed these girls GH, I would like to go organic with these mothers.

Heres what I have laying around:
Half box of dolemite lime eb stone organic
half box eb stone organics 4-6-2 starter ferts
sample bottle of orca
some little tea pack samples - kelp blast, myco blast &sweet myco tea
a bag of kool bloom
something called sos in a quart bottle
and GH flora line nutes with random other gh stuff i dont use.

So let me get started: I have probably 30 gallons in a bin im not using yet.

1 - how do i test the soils ph? what range should i aim for?
2 - how do i get a baseline reading on the soil?
3 - in order to see how much food is still in it, should i just water it until i see a deficiency ?
4 - what , if any , should i use for a top dressing?
5 - what, if any, should i use as a tea?
6 - what should i get first? bat poo ? kelp ? barley seeds ?

I will be starting a worm bin soon and probably a new compost pile, but assume I have to start from scratch here.
I imagine this experiment will work out fine and after a few months this soil with either be in some outdoor garden or tuned in and fully healthy for my moms and possibly a full on grow. but, as you can tell, I didnt start reseaching this path till last week and its stll a bit overwhelming.

I dont have the budget to go all crazy on making my own yet, but i can get 1-2 bags of this and that a week.

[BigBozat]

Subbed, pulling up the barcalounger & breakin out the vape...

[stihgnobevoli]

i'm not the best at organic. you should post in the organic growers section with your questions for better response. as for the pH you should take a sample and do a slurry test. you take soil and mix with distilled water shake and let settle for 30+ minutes. pour off water and measure ph in another container. when you water your plants measure the pH going in and water till you get some runoff, enough to collect and measure. this will let you know how to adjust the pH whether go up or down.

as for nutrients i think you need to get a soil test done. they do it for free some places. contact your department of agriculture in your state. top dressings and teas, and recipes all can be had in the organic forum stickies.

you can't really know how much food is in the soil and if its enough for the plants till you grow in it really. if they run out early add more base ammendments or topdress, feed with supplements etc as you go.

[BigBozat]

Originally Posted by Boyd Crowder

Hi all - I'm now going to ask for some help from more experienced growers, hopefully they will chime in with some wisdom.

Lemme start by saying , you most likely will be just as confused as I after reading this thread.

Excellent!
Then my incoherent replies will not be out of place!

Ill start with what I believe I have here.
This soil is 1/3 peat moss promix, perlite & vermiculite.

FWIW, my general rule of thumb when mixing up a fresh batch o' soil is that the ratio of perlite to vermiculite should be something like 3:1.

Perlite & vermiculite have very different total porosity (TP), water-holding capacity (WHC), and air-filled porosity (AFP), so they're not really interchangeable. Perlite provides more aeration/drainage, vermiculite more water-holding. Vermiculite can/will degrade over time & release some elemental nutes, and will compact (as will the peat). Perlite is chemically inert. OTOH, vermiculite provides high CEC and some clay-like mica minerals (slow-release).

Typically, in a real 'living organic soil' mix, the mix is 1:1:1 ratio of bulk:aeration:humus... peat is typically considered the bulk/base substrate, and perlite & vermiculite are the aeration components... so, where is the humus/other organic matter in your mix? No compost?
Seems like amending in organic matter to 1/3rd of the total volume of your mix would be on the agenda...?

I have made this soil in the past for outdoor raised bed gardens , so I kinda know it when i see it. Its been used before and theres more in it than just the basic three parts. according to r fortune , who mixed this batch, he used all purpose 5-5-5 , dolemite lime , sea bird guano and michorizhae in unknown %'s and that theres more in it than that , and assume it was made by an experienced canna gardener.

To me, experience canna gardener implies coco coir somewhere in the substrate, but maybe I'm reading in too much between the lines...?

Depending on whether the 5-5-5 is synth chems or not, might be working at cross-purposes? Generally, soil biota in real organic soil don't take well to synth chems.

You might want to consider further amending with parboiled rice hulls, if some of the aeration functionality has been compacted out of the soil.

Its been inactive for at least 6-9 months. I dont have bugs in it. I have transplanted several potential mothers into it a week ago. They are doing fine so far. I fed them with leftover solution from one of my dwc buckets last night, about 8oz per pot at ~900 ppm and this morning, they seem to be just fine.

Feeding leftover hydro dwc solution is prolly not a great idea if you want the mycorrhizal fungi (and/or n-fixing & p-solubilizing bene bacteria) in the soil to do its job.

The teas would be more suitable to charging up the soil biota. Or the Orca. Or even the eb stone organic starter nutes, whatever they are (IDK eb stone)...

Hydro nutes are generally designed to be run at much lower pHs than what is appropriate for soil. The ideal target pH for soil is 6.4.
Generally, don't use hydro nutes for soil methods (unless what you're really doing is a hydro set-up that really is just using soil as if it were a soilless substrate to be thrown away after use {instead of being recycled})...

I havent had to water them yet beacuse i saturated this soil mix and let it drain with plain water the day of transplant. Most of these are 2 liter pots.

I dont want to feed these girls GH, I would like to go organic with these mothers.

Heres what I have laying around:
Half box of dolemite lime eb stone organic
half box eb stone organics 4-6-2 starter ferts
sample bottle of orca
some little tea pack samples - kelp blast, myco blast &sweet myco tea
a bag of kool bloom
something called sos in a quart bottle
and GH flora line nutes with random other gh stuff i dont use.

So let me get started: I have probably 30 gallons in a bin im not using yet.

1 - how do i test the soils ph? what range should i aim for?

Test the run off after you saturate the containers. I use a BlueLabs pen. But my soil is stable enough at this point that I don't do a lot of pH testing these days...
IMO, the ideal target soil pH is 6.4.

If you build from decent components, in roughly the right ratios, and you balance the base cations reasonably well (see, e.g., Albrecht formulas), and you inoculate with mycos & bene rhizobacteria, the soil should self-adjust over time towards a 6.4 pH naturally.

2 - how do i get a baseline reading on the soil?

A soil test is ideal. I'm spoiled, as around here my university's ag extension service does soil testing for like $14 for basic tests ('tho the mehlich-1 test that I use when I'm trying to balance the base cation saturation ratios is more, like $35). In its absence, you're shooting in the dark... unless your source can get really detailed about its components.

In the absence of a soil test, I would just stick to like Clackamas Cootz' soil mix recipes (or Tom Hill's, over at the Outdoor Grow thread), and pray...

3 - in order to see how much food is still in it, should i just water it until i see a deficiency ?

Without a soil test, that's as good a method as any.
I wouldn't be afraid of using, kelp meal, in a drench.

4 - what , if any , should i use for a top dressing?

Aged cedar & pine bark mulch (insulation, moisture retention). Diatomaceous earth (natural insecticide... the sharp exoskeletons of the diatoms shred insect carapace). Small herbal cover crops like comfrey, etc.

5 - what, if any, should i use as a tea?

That's a big topic. Couldn't possibly summarize it in a single post... and I suspect you'll get as many different recipes as there are lurkers here.
Read up on compost teas (AACTs) and sprouted seed enzyme teas (SSTs). They're all good...
Compost, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, unsufured/blackstrap molasses, yadda, yadda, yadda...

6 - what should i get first? bat poo ? kelp ? barley seeds ?

Yes.
lol

I'm a fan of kelp (auxins, cytokinins, tons o trace mins, alginates, saccharides & so much more), alfalfa (decent N, triacontanol), neem/karanja (pest resistance), crab meal/shrimp meal (chitin/chitosan)... sometimes also fish bone meal and feather meal, too.

Don't forget to re-mineralize (roughly, a total of, say, 6 cups per cu ft of soil mix):
Granite meals, rock dusts (basalt, glacial), greensand/gluaconite, azomite, leonardite & lignite (humate ores), carbonatite, clays (montmorillonite, bentonite, zeolite, arcillite), gypsum, langbeinite...

I will be starting a worm bin soon and probably a new compost pile, but assume I have to start from scratch here.

Big thumb's up on starting a vermicompost farm.

[stoned-trout]

not much to add they covered it mostly... I add wormcastings to all my soil.. I make my own but you can buy some ok store stuff , adding some lime/oyster shell/gypsum wouldn't hurt either depending on soil needs/ ph...yeehaw...kelp too is in all my mixes or watered in..

[Boyd Crowder]

hits, bozat & fi5hY - thanks a million for your input, hopefully we get a few more insights before the day is up .
then i can make a small shopping list and head to the shop for my first foray into organics

I suppose Ill need some ewc, a bat guano (any tips on which one?) & kelp. thats probably gonna run me 30-50$ and deplete this weeks budget. batpoo is like 16$ a bag in one shop and ewc is about ~20$. so to me hydro is cheaper in initial setup but more expensive in the long run.

IDK , maybe its apples n oranges, you folks would know better than I.

Ive done some research so far on making my own soils, but I just cant afford 15+ bags of stuff in one go atm. I really like my dwc system and plan to build a rdwc as i get the strains I like picked out.

But the organic method looks so damn delicious and the idea of no till is very intersting to my nature. dirt n bugs n worms n fungi n bacteria , o and dirt = more fun shit to geek out on.

Im currently reading Teaming with Microbes (Lowenfels & Lewis) and just finished Somas lil ebook in one sitting. If theres any more resources in ebook form you can recommend , please do so.