Getting Started w/ living soil

dreadlock said:

any idea why rancho took down all the info... ?? what's the story, i'm confused, did i miss something..

Need the recipe for cooks soil if you have it please.

i've also come across compost, one is a pile lying in someones garden the other about a tonne removed beneath paving after a driveway was dug up, this is also closer to where i live.. does it make a difference?

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dreadlock said:

yup got it & much more! wish it didn't have to be such a painful experience for my fingers tho.. just about made it to page 105 lol great thread none the less..

guys any advantages too cooking a soil mix for more then 7 weeks? do you have a specific time frame? or can you go as long as you want..

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xmobotx said:

it can be a bit un-nerving ~not knowing what to expect from a new mix {did i make a mistake measuring/forget something/let it cook long enough?} there's been times i just needed the soil and everything went in it & i thought, 'well, if it's all dead tomorrow; it's all dead'

hasn't happened yet but starting over isn't that big a deal

i made this thread because i had to start over and figured it would be a good time to post what i was actually doing

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The basic recipe is to mix sphagnum peat moss (or leaf mold and/or coco coir), aeration bits (pummice, turface, scoria, perlite, vermiculite, rice hulls, calcined clay...a mix of different sized material is best), and compost (usually thermophilic compost and worm castings). Most run something like 25-33% compost, 25-35% aeration and the rest is peat. You would be just fine running equal parts peat, compost, and aeration. Use whatever you can get your grubby little hands on. This is your base. Diversity is the best, but don't bother having a bag of expensive rock dust mailed to you. The idea is to use the recipe as a formula to utilize what you can get.

Now it can be a little confusing for the uninitiated---we're going to have to amend.

I use 3 mixes to keep things straight in my old brain. They are as follows:

1. Food Mix
2. Fix-It Mix
3. Mineral Mix

Food Mix
You want about 2 cups of your food mix - however you get there. You're going to use (he was responding to a guys question about how to mix everything he already purchased -ed.) alfalfa meal, fish meal and bone meal. Mix up a large amount with equal parts (by volume and not by weight) and add 2 cups of this mix to your soil.
If you were to decide that you wanted to add canola meal (aka rape seed meal), flax seed meal (aka linseed meal), et al. then add the same volume of this to your mix but you're still only going to use 2 cups of the final mix. That total amount that you want to use does not increase - you're simply making your Food Mix more diverse( a worthy goal, IMHO)

Fix-It Mix

You're using kelp meal and a combination of neem and karanja meals. Again mix these in equal parts (by volume) and add 1-1.5 cups of this mix to your potting soil. If you were to add crab meal (another good Fix-It component) you would still add the same amount even with the addition of another agent, i.e. 1-1.5 cups.

Mineral Mix

You're using azomite and green sand - mix these together like the other mixes and of this mix you'd want to add about 1 cup to your potting soil. If you were to add limestone (or Oyster Shell Powder) and agricultural Gypsum (both available at Home Depot, BTW) you'd add these minerals by the same volume but you'd still only use 1 cup of however a diverse mix you might come up with.
Glacial Rock Dust is different and its application rate is ? cups to 1 c.f. of potting soil irrespective of the other minerals you decide to go with.

All the amounts above on all of the mixes are for 1 c.f. of potting soil or 7.5 gallons (allegedly).

all credit for these mixes and thier ratios go to Clackamass Cootz as he posted in the ´Living soil thread´

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xmobotx said:

have a seedling mix ~esp just getting a mix going

a seedling mix can be planted straight in to and top-dress later if you happen to want to use that container to finish

1 pt EWC; 1 pt drainage {perlite, rice hulls or pumice;} 2 pt peat
{i like the 3 part lime mix *dolo lime/oyster flour/gypsum* ~but some Ca amendment @2TBS/gal of peat}

crab meal can be a good stand alone Ca amendment providing Ca as well as some slow release N & P {don't worry so much about K ~it's likely plentiful anyway}

i suppose 1 TBS/gal of soil each of the 3 part lime mixed above & of crab meal wouldn't be too scary

{@/after 4 nodes}for your 1st run; top-dress some neem seed meal @1tsp to 1TBS/gal of soil/mulch that w/ EWC in veg then; when you flip*; top dress w/ kelp meal and/or fish bone meal ~mulching a little more EWC on that {as an alternative you could just mulch w/ some of your potting soil mix}

* "the flip" switching from a longer light cycle than dark cycle to 12 hours on 12 hours off to induce flowering

see FTI's potting soil 101 thread for soil mixes **dead link** try this

basically; you should start composting. Similarly; get a worm bin going.
your own EWC & compost is un-beatable ~it exceeds every commercial product {mostly because it is fresh~ alive!

w/ compost; bigger is better ~you can do whatever suits your situation ~i have a monster pile near as tall as me outside but; this spring i brought a 5 gal bucket in and mixed some yarrow dandelion and alfalfa {for enzymes and biology} in a small batch of 'finished' compost to 'wake it up' for teas

the 'trick' w/ compost is to get your C:N ratio somewhere between 25 and 30 {which is to say 25 to 30 parts C to 1 part N}~thx RD

make your own 'compost starter' by harvesting some chamomile/yarrow/dandelion/dock/alfalfa/valerian/comfrey ~basically any and all you can get a hold of

i like to stack up some dead weeds from last fall and start pouring green cut 'weeds' on top of that 'framework' ~once it starts to slough down pretty good it gets to where you have to turn it ~aerating the pile is important

always good to put finished compost through your worm bin and let them really finish it up

nutrient cycling is almost like a 'secret weapon' ~that's composting your amendments right along w/ the other goodies {then you dont add amendments when you do your soil mix months later}

a good next step is a compost tea brewer

to get started i just used a manifold to mix the air from 3 aquarium pumps into 1 hose and ran that into an 'L' shape peice of PVC {a chunk of straight and an elbow} i just slung that in a bucket so the straight end pointed down and the elbow burbled out onto the surface of the water in the bucket ~that isn't optimum {but it works}

a good brewer will break surface tension/aerating the water ~when it's well aerated you will see the foamy quality to the water {sometimes it might foam up at the surface ~thats not what i mean and may or may not indicate it went well} it just isn't clear, glassy water ~it's bubbly

there's a whole article on brewing compost tea and microbeman has a ton of info and recipes on his site; microbeorganics.com

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