Certified Noob Recycled Organic Soil Test Grow A Rama

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 ?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Boyd Crowder said:

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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 ?

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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?

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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?

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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 ?

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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.

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Big thumb's up on starting a vermicompost farm.

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..

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.

organic can be as cheap as you want and as easy...organic is easier by the ocean and away from the city as you can harvest a lot of your inputs free or cheap....I will never grow hydro for my personal smoke again..organic rules.....yeehaw... I have grown every method of hydro at one time or another ..In my jars sits organic goodness ,hydro is for everyone else

my first go at organic + bottles not straight organic. but for the soil base you're gonna plant in my first time was a real basic mix. i think 3little bears or something like that made it.

real cheap too.
1bag (1cuft+) of composted manure - should be less than $5 at casa de pot you can get the cheapest one if you plan on cooking it before you use it. it's prolly gonna be the least composted vs the most expensive one. but even a bag of black kow is at most $7-$8.
1 bag mushroom compost (not much nutrition in it more for aeration) - $3-5 at case de pot
1 bag (1+cuft) of topsoil - they usually weigh in about 40lbs/1cuft shouldn't cost more than $2-3 for the most fancy expensive brand
1-2 bags of perlite (2 small usually 8qt bags or 1 large 20 qt bag) - i find the small bags at the local hardware spot for $8 each, the large bags can be had online or at your local grow shop for the price of the small bag or even less.
1 small bag of play sand (not that fine white shit for ashtrays) - should be like $1 or so.

that base mix has nitrogen and some phosphorous and a little bit of potassium. you need to ammend it with all those bags you couldn't afford at once. you don't need to buy em all right now that's advanced shit. you're a beginner you can do with a basic formula till you get more experience.

to amend i bought
1 qt of alaska brand fish emulsion (that shit lasts a literal lifetime) - like $6
1 small bag of espoma garden lime (dolomite lime). or buy the big ass bag if you like it's actually cheaper. - this will give you calcium and magnesium as well as help balance the ph to mid 6 range. it's prolly got some other trace elements in there somewhere but i don't have a bag in front of me.
1 small bag of bone meal (for the phosphorous) - shouldn't cost much, about $6-7 like the fish. you don't want to use too much, i hear there's a real phosphorous issue in the world a little goes a long way or lasts a long time or something. you could use guano too if you like but i don't know the application rates for it.

anyway the basic recipe is.
1cuft compost
1cuft topsoil
1cuft mushroom compost
about 2x 1gallon bucket fulls (sorry for not having an approximate measure, i got my sand from the beach lol) of sand per cuft of compost. basically you want no more than 10% of your mix to be sand. sand is just to help keep the soil from turning to mud when you wet it. like microscopic perlite.
8-20 quarts of perlite per cuft of total mix this is dependent on taste. do you want a loose mix or do you want it to hold more water. you should mix in the perlite last.
measure out the lime and bone meal according to the package. i added about 20% more bone meal just to be certain when i mix mine.
it's usually 1 cup/8oz per cuft of soil. so for this case 3 cups total since we have 3cuft of "soil"
lime i think is about the same rate, maybe half. make sure to follow the recommended dose closely easier to add more lime later than take away too much lime.

anyway mix all that shit together. and put it in a bin, or cover it with a tarp in the corner of you yard. whatever. but you need to put it in a way that it's covered from light and also has ventilation so that air can exchange freely. this is called cooking it in laymans terms. i forget what they really call it...composting lol? anyway you let that shit sit for minimum 4-6 weeks before you use it. every week or so get out that little thing you have that looks like a mini rake/ wolverine claws and mix the soil around a bit. try and get the middle to the outside and the outside to the middle. keep doing this once a week for a month or so and you'll find that the soil smells like the forest than what it smelled like when you started. you might see bugs and shit in there, but this is organic, it's the territory. cooking it will have killed off all the bad things if you did it right. only thing remaining is maybe some weed seeds that didn't get killed by the heat and whatever beneficial bugs were in there breaking it all down for you.


now you're ready to plant in it, you can use the alaska to add any extra nitrogen you might need in flower. top dress with the lime or mix it in water like you would epsom salts if you need more calcium or mag later. if you need it fast use epsom salt. if it's just coming on you can use the water+lime method. it takes about 2 weeks to start breaking down, but the part that dissolved in the water is just like using epsom, it's readily available.
you can get some ewc or a handful of your composted mix and use it to brew tea. you're supposed to water with the tea all the time. i didn't know that the first time...or the second time either lol. but i know now. anyway between any bottles of organic you choose to you and ewc tea you should be able to get through your first organic grow without spending more than $50.

that's like a cliff notes version at best. if you really wanna do it read through the threads in the organic forum, and search for threads on the topics to see what other people do. to me growing isn't about doing it any one particular way but getting a general knowledge of what growing entails and adapting it to your environment/resources.

you need like a farm to be able to mix up and utilize all that stuff you would buy using one of those advanced mixes. feather meal, crab meal, alfalfa, etc ,etc, etc. most of those things only come in big ass bags. unless you grow large plants outside like those huge plant threads you might never use up your original purchase.

oh yeah azomite. i bought some of that from a local hydro store. i dunno exactly what benefit it has specifically, but it's got "trace minerals" so whatever. it's cheap for a small bag i would add a couple tablespoons for good measure if you can get it.

Boyd Crowder said:

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

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The sticky organic threads are great places for starter shopping lists.
Base soil recipes I can recommend: Clackamas Cootz/Coot's, or Tom Hills. Basic idea is to balance bulk density, air & water holding, drainage, texture/structure, nutrient load, carbon content, soil micro life, etc. Simplest way to do that is:

1 part 'bulk' / base substrate, usually quality sphagnum peat
1 part aeration components
1 part humus/soil organic matter/compost, etc.

The 'bulk' / base substrate could include other things (e.g., coco peat, aged coastal sequoia bark fiber, various other 'fiber'-providing plant materials)... but these are often only specialty materials for particular situations that require them, and often have their own compounding issues. So, let's keep this simple, yes?

The #1 soil building mistake noobs make - myself included - might be overcomplicating things. Keeping it simple is prolly the way to go here, as I can attest from personal experience, lmao

Aeration components can include:
- Parboiled rice hulls (high CEC, high air-filled porosity, modest water-holding)
- Perlite (chemically inert (assuming it was sourced from non-contaminated mines/methods)... if used, get 'chunky' or 'extra chunky' (less dust, bigger particle size
- Buckwheat hulls (no experience, but other I know use)
- Pumice (yellow is best, black meh)
- Crushed lava rock (again yellow best, red alright, black meh)
- Arcillite (fired/ceramic calcined montmorillonite clay granules; sorta like pumice/lava rock)
- Growstone soil aerator (however, I am not recommending & have not used [and have heard of potential issues that I cannot confirm or deny, so just don't recommend])

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.

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EWC is *part* of the humus/organic matter/compost component of the soil mix.
You'll need more...

If you're going to your local friendly hydro/garden store, here's some sh!t I can recommend:
- Ancient Forest Alaska Humus
- Non-GMO Dairy Cow Manure Compost (I'm in the northeast, so Jolly Gardener & Coast of Maine blends are what I get locally)
- Mushroom Compost (Jolly Gardener's Just Natural, again cuz it's local & I know where it's sourced & how it's processed)... YMMV
- Lobster/Lobster Shell Compost (Coast of Maine)
- BioChar (any one of 3 or so available from RockDustLocal.com... IDK what the local store might have, but I've stumbled across local biochar ventures, so keep an eye out... also, Schultz makes an 'Exotic' Orchid Bark mix that has arcillite/pumice and biochar, which is OK [not great])... just make sure that biochar makes up no more than, say, 10% of your total mix (higher could cause early N-fixation issues)
- Non-GMO Rabbit Manure Compost ('tho this won't be in a store... I get this from local rabbit farm that happens to use non-GMO alfalfa feedstock)

Pick up enough of one or another of the above so that:
EWC+{Other Humus} = 1/3rd of the total volume of your soil mix.

There are lots of container amendments that feature, among other things, conifer or hardwood bark (at least aged, preferably composted)... I'm picky about the barks & wood/cellulose 'bulk' that I add to my mix, so I am reluctant to recommend other bark or wood/forest litter products without knowing more about their source, composition, processing.

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.

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If you are reading that, then Teaming with Nutrients will be next, and you will be fully snared, lmao!

Organics is a multi-legged stool...

Beyond the Soil Food Web part of the organic soil movement (the part that Jeff Loewenfells & Elaine Ingham come from), there's the 'Remineralize the Earth' folks:
- Michael Astera: http://www.soilminerals.com/Ideal_Soil_Main_Page.htm
- RockDustLocal.com

... And there's the EcoAgriculture folks, who draw on the works of Albrecht & Cary Reams and some others to use brix and plant sap analysis to manage their soil:
- John Kempf: http://www.advancingecoag.com/about-aea/our-values/ ... there's also an AEA thread over in the Advanced Growing & Botany forum area (good stuff!)
- Bruca Tainio/Tainio Technology: http://www.tainio.com/

Google Albrecht & Reams...
but, fwiw, my 2 cents, Reams (and the other guys in the 'biological field theory' realm; not to mention Rudolph Steiner & the BioDynamics folks) are just a little bit and I don't buy the metaphysical parts.

Some commercial resources... in keeping with TOU, I do not endorse or recommend any of these (nor AEA or Tainio or anybody else!):
KIS Organics: http://www.kisorganics.com/
Build-A-Soil: http://buildasoil.com/

Don't want to get my :banned:

Meanwhile...


We still haven't finished with basic components of your soil mix, e.g., minerals, liming agents & fertilizer components.

For the mineral components, I HIGHLY recommend the RockDustLocal.com site as a place to at least get ideas (they have other stuff, too {e.g., humates/humate ores, biochar, more})... my mineral line-up consists of all of the following at roughly 1/4 ~ 1 cup each per 1 cu ft soil mix:
- Granite Meal/Stone Flour
- Tennessee Brown Rock Dust
- Basalt Grits-to-Fines
- Spanish River Carbonatite
- AZOMITE
- Greensand (glauconite)
- Montmorillonite clay
- Langbeintite (i.e., KMag)
- St. George's Black (carbonaceous/humic shale)

In a store, AZOMITE and greensand are most likely on hand, and maybe some granite dust, volcanic and/or glacial rock dust. Just want enough of whatever you can find to put 4 ~ 6 cups/cu ft of mix.

You may also need to add some Gypsum (up to - pure guess here - 4-6 cups)?

For liming agents... dolomitic lime seems like kinda the go to... but, I only use dol lime if there's an observed need for Mag, which I don't have (due to, among other things, the KMag/langbeinite)... I would instead recommend:
- Oyster Shell Flour
- Wollastonite (rockdustlocal.com or ???)
- regular ag lime

If soil testing (or signs of nute def) demonstrate a need for Mag, then you can think about amending in dolomitic lime...

Lastly, fertilizers... another long topic... maybe I'll save the ifs ands or buts and debates for another post (there should be tons around the Org forums already!)? FWIW, here's my standard line-up:

- Alfalfa meal
- Kelp meal
- Neem/Karanja meal/cake
- Crab meal
- Shrimp meal
- Humic/Fulvic acids
- Unsulfured Molasses (yes, I mix it in with my mycos & benes and let it rest a few weeks)

Depending on what I want to be doing or the stage of growth I'm building it for, I may also amend in:
- Fish bone meal
- Feather meal
- High-N Bat Guano
- High-P Seabird Guano

But, it depends...

PHEW!

stihgnobevoli said:

my first go at organic + bottles not straight organic.

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stihg, feelin the neo-organic karma... gotta luv it!

stihgnobevoli said:

...
1 small bag of play sand (not that fine white shit for ashtrays) - should be like $1 or so.

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Pavers sand would be better (bigger particle sizes)
There are better things than sand, but for budget reasons, OK, I guess...

1 qt of alaska brand fish emulsion (that shit lasts a literal lifetime) - like $6

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I second that motion...

1 small bag of espoma garden lime (dolomite lime). or buy the big ass bag if you like it's actually cheaper. - this will give you calcium and magnesium as well as help balance the ph to mid 6 range. it's prolly got some other trace elements in there somewhere but i don't have a bag in front of me.

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I already had my say about dol lime... YMMV.
Unless you have a Mag need, regular ol ag lime is better (prolly cheaper, too).

But, it certainly won't kill anything if you do use it... plenty of solliess mix makers (including FoxFarm) do...

1 small bag of bone meal (for the phosphorous) - shouldn't cost much, about $6-7 like the fish. you don't want to use too much, i hear there's a real phosphorous issue in the world a little goes a long way or lasts a long time or something.

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Go light. Very high P. Need to keep your NPK balanced (e.g., N > P = K). Steamed bone meal is fine. Really only if your soil needs P. Most soils aren't P-deficient... and you can feed P during the grow.

you could use guano too if you like but i don't know the application rates for it.

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Guanos are all over the place... need to read the rates on the bag and then divide by 4.

oh yeah azomite. i bought some of that from a local hydro store. i dunno exactly what benefit it has specifically, but it's got "trace minerals" so whatever. it's cheap for a small bag i would add a couple tablespoons for good measure if you can get it.

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Grest sh!t! More than just lots o trace minerals. Really, right up there with my other favorites & 'secrets' like alfalfa meal, kelp meals, crab/shrimp shell meal, insect frass (beetle dung), coconut water, yucca, aloe... great stuff.

Hey boyd,

first is get clean water.. RO is best but pur or brita filters are better than nothing.

and BIgBozat just nailed it and put in way more effort and detail than I had planned LOL...

I would say that, top dressing is your friend... kelp meal and K mag then with either sea bird or bat guano depending on stage of growth... and you shouldn't see any issues... there are ways to super charge stuff with the teas and fancy plant extracts and seed enzyme teas etc etc... but just a good organic top dress can get you through and keep your plants happy and healthy.

there are so many options with organics... here are some videos I really liked...


Beyond NPK, How To Grow Your Own
[YOUTUBEIF]rNItE-b6XvE [/YOUTUBEIF]

Advanced Organic Farming Methodology and Cutting Edge Practices
[YOUTUBEIF]z0ZNvJIcRSs [/YOUTUBEIF]

Boyd Crowder said:

...
something called sos in a quart bottle

Click to expand...

Post a pic of the label... it may be a surfactant (used to improve foliar spray) derived from plant extracts (most likely: yucca, aloe, soapworts, soy soaps, ???)
http://www.cleanplantshappyplants.com/products/soilconditioner.html
[IDK for sure what this stuff is (above), cuz they don't seem to show a label or MSDS anywhere (suspicion rising)... but, if its plant-based and not based on synthetic extraction processes, it'd have to be something like yucca or some other saponin...


Then again, it could be... ???... some form of H2O2?
In which case, you definitely don't want to introduce to your soil biota...

ill post that label tomrrow meanwhile...

lemme digest some infooverload

almost forgot
thank you icmag and friends

so today was my day off - i had time to screw around in the garden and , with my mothers begining to show problems with the soil they are in , I decided to investigate.

So , i scooped up 5 gallons of soil and hydrated with tap water and read the runoff
ph. 5.1-5.2 wow - my soil is definitely in need of some help.

So , i grabbed my box of dolomite lime and went to work. I added 1/4 cup to a quart of water and worked it into the soil. because its a peat/perlite/vermiculite blend, its actually easy to reach down in it and mix it by hand, because it a kind of quicksand texture when oversaturated.

I let it sit and drain for 30 minutes. it was still oversaturated so i lifted the pot and drained the thing to take another reading. 5.4-5.5
so i waited and took another reading after about 30 minutes and , well it didnt change
So i added another 1/4 cup , oversaturated and mixed it all up in a big ol messy goop again and let it sit for another 30 minutes to drain.

next reading was 5.7-5.8 ish . i let it sit some more and took another reading. no change, still about 5.8
Soooo, i took another 1/2 cup in a quart of water and mixed that into an ovesaturated goop again. let it sit for a while and checked the runoff
pH 6.3 this time
Woot!

so, i had mixed up some orca,sos and a myco tea into 4 gallons of water with the intention of using it to water this new batch , but changed my mind and dumped it into the tub of soil thats gonna need more lime and worry with it later.
As for the corrected soil, i went and transplanted all my moms into it and now we're fucking GOLDEN!!!

lol no , Im jk.

I left everything alone and have this corrected soil sitting and draining to make sure i dont fuckshitup. tomorrow Ill check some fresh runoff and see where the ph is , and if its actually close to 6.3 , then ill transplant into it. Im really expecting it to be wildly fucked up and worth no more than a garbage bin.

keep expectation levels low so you are never disapointed is my motto

I really shouldnt have been a cheap fuck here, and mixed up something that I knew what was in it to start with, but i guess some things i just gotta learn the hard way.
The bright side is , hey, I know i need about 1 cup of dolomite per 4 gallons of this soil mixture, at least , if the runoff runs stable tomorrow - we will see.

Ill be going to get some prebrewed aact tea at the hydro shop this week to feed these lil hellions along with some dolomite and prolly some compost,ewc and other assorted crap to start my living soil adventure.

I do intend to continue my dwc/rdwc path for flowering , but I think its probably better if I learn rols for my moms and an occasional organic experiment here and there.
who knows, maybe Ill find out I like organic better for its various advantages. It certainly wont hurt me if I decide to get back into an outdoor veggie garden next year.

Just wondering: Whaddya figger is causing the mix to have dropped so acid to begin with?

As an aside:
Dol lime is really best for liming purposes only when you have a mag def, too (otherwise, dol adds lots o mag, which you may not need and/or can lockout other nutes). Regular ag lime may be a better choice for emergency pH rescues (well, if you have it/can get it in time for the emergency). Or oyster shell flour (i.e., oolitic aragonite).