What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Organic Soilless Base Mixes

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
I like to mix up a bunch of soil at once so I can have it ready for use for any application. I put together a soilless base mix that can be used for organic or synthetic for whatever style I am doing at the time. The recipe goes as follows:


-15 gallons coco coir peat (75%) as an inert base

-2 gallons earthworm castings (10%) for humus and a mild nutrient charge

-2 gallons parboiled rice hulls (10%) for aeration and silica

-1 gallon fine vermiculite (5%) for water retention


It can be amended how I would like at any given time. Do you have a versatile base mix that you use? What's your recipe?
 

Muleskinner

Active member
Veteran
Cool thread, I am using a similar plan

9 gallons Lambert LM111 organic base (85% coarse peat and chunks, 15% perlite)
3 gallons Coast of Maine Penobscot blend compost
2.5 gallons perlite
1.5 gallons coarse vermiculite

It makes around 16-17 gallons, comes out to about 33% perlite/vermiculite. I also add 2-3 cups of dry nutrients and some minerals. Currently using lobster meal, seabird guano, kelp and alfalfa for nutes, Azomite & dolomite lime for minerals, plus a touch of langbeinite if I still have it!
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
9 gallons Lambert LM111 organic base (85% coarse peat and chunks, 15% perlite)
3 gallons Coast of Maine Penobscot blend compost
2.5 gallons perlite
1.5 gallons coarse vermiculite

I also add 2-3 cups of dry nutrients and some minerals.


My most recent base soil is:
50% peat
25% perlite
20% EWC
5% Coco coir

Doing fine but I think I want less perlite and more Coco.



These sound like great blends that follow the rules of thumb as far as ratios. :tiphat:



@infinitelight5D- I would absolutely substitute coco for peat. It's renewable and doesn't turn into a brick when it dries out!
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
Coot's Mix

Coot's Mix

I used Coot's Mix for a minute. It was great when I cut the minerals in half. Here is the recipe.



Step #1: Design The Base Mix Ratios.

1:1:1

This means that there are 3 main components at 1 part each.

Example: To make 15 gallons of soil. 1 Part would be 5 gallons.

1 Part Sphagnum Peatmoss, Coco Coir, Leaf-mold, Etc.
1 Part Aeration material like lava rock, pumice, perlite, rice hulls etc.
1 Part Vermicompost or plain compost.

Step #2: Adding The Minerals & Nutrients:

1/2 Cup per cubic foot the following:

* Neem Cake and/or Karanja Cake (NPK, Micro Nutrients and reported Bug Defense all in one)
* Kelp Meal (NPK, Micro Nutrients, Growth Hormones and many other benefits)
* Crustacean Meal (Crab and/or Shrimp Meal) (Calcium, Nitrogen and Chitin along with other benefits)

4 Cups per cubic foot of a mineral mix:

1 Cups Glacial Rock Dust (diverse assortment of minerals)
1 Cup Gypsum (Calcium and Sulfur)
1 Cup Oyster Shell Flour (Very available Calcium to help buffer PH of the Peatmoss)
1 Cup Basalt (Paramagnetic Rock Dust from lava flow that is high in micronutrients)
 

Ratzilla

Member
Veteran
My base mix
40% coco coir -Well flushed and charged.
Let me explain coco coir by where it grows is salty in nature so even though they say this coir is flushed,they flush it by leaving it outside during the monsoon so depending on how many times the pile of coir is turned determines how salty it might be.Most coir comes from Sir Lanka.
I have a EC truncheon that reads levels of salt, some of the coir can be high in salt.
By rinsing the coir in fresh water until the EC reads low can save many headaches.
By recharging i mean to replace some of what was rinse out of the coir this is calcium and magnesium,powdered dolomite achieves this nicely.
20% Worm castings IMO anything more then this makes for a soggy ,heavy mix.
25% chunky perlite,I prefer chunky for the space that is created between the larger pieces these voids hold much air.
10% rice hulls Hulls take along time to break down and i like that as well as the shape of the hulls laying up on each other again creates much voids,again more air.
5% dichotomous earth for its drying power.
I reuse this mix over and over .After each grow i add in things that i thought would help it for the next grow.
Was it to weak,to strong,needed this or that?
Hoping to make it better.
I am remembering a little story I had just finish a grow that i thought that the mix preform well with no issues.
I work with a 90 gallon com poster and use about 1/2 of that amount a grow so wifey had bought a few plants and ask if i had any extra soil,thinking i did i said yes.
Can you transplant these 3 plants for me,no problem.
Well i use the soil that i had just finish growing great plants with.
In 3 days these plants died ,the water SUCKED right out of them (osmosis)at work.
It dawn on me how hardy our favorite plants are in comparison to normal house plants.
That and the fact i try and get the plant sucking up all the moisture, making osmosis working for me not against.
You see my medium was salty but not saltier then my favorite plant and as you know osmosis is the medium and the plant coming to equal terms.
Salt always goes towards less salty.
Think of a sponge laid in a puddle of water,where does the water wind up?
Wow where did that come from?
RatZilla :tiphat:
 

Muleskinner

Active member
Veteran
9 gallons Lambert LM111 organic base (85% coarse peat and chunks, 15% perlite)
3 gallons Coast of Maine Penobscot blend compost
2.5 gallons perlite
1.5 gallons coarse vermiculite

I've already changed mine again! It's coming out too heavy and wet this time, going back to this - reducing vermiculite and compost by 1/3rd so the soil dries out faster. I seem to run into trouble with more than 15% compost:

9.5 gallons Lambert LM111
2 gallons compost
2.5 gallons perlite
1 gallon vermiculite
 

FunkBomb

Power Armor rules
Veteran
This is a cool thread so far and some of these mixes sound great. What I've been mixing recently is:

3 cf Vermicrop Vermisoil (2x 1.5 cf bags)
2-3 gallons Mother Earth 70/30 coco-perlite mix
1 cup dolomite lime (powder form)
1/2-1 cup Down To Earth Starter Mix (NPK 3-3-3)

Its a very simple and balanced mix. I never have issues with pH or cal/mag. I use Recharge about once per 7-9 days (half teaspoon per gallon) as well as Mammoth P (1-2 ml per gallon) every watering during flowering. Flowering fertilizer is Roots Organics HPK (NPK 0-4-3 w/ 4% CA and 1% MG).

-Funk
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
I use 30% coco, 30% perlite, 30% compost for starting seeds.



If I was going to amend this for a super soil recipe, I would just add extra coir because of the amendments to the base mix. This would ensure it doesn't get too heavy. I think I am going to do this recipe next round.
 
Last edited:
Top