User Friendly Recipes

I'm on a hunt, a hunt for the simplest/least expensive super soil (or at least supersoil-ish/supersoil-esque) that can be made. I'd like to keep it as close to no-till LOS as possible (though I understand some concessions may need to be made).

I am working my way through the extensive stickies in this subforum, as I have time to, and have spent a fair amount of time in the past reading the LOS stuff on here...and I can say this, super soils are majorly f***ing complex, 20-50 amendments, expensive and/or obscure ingredients...safe to say your average first-timer, or even an experienced grower looking for to go organic might find it too daunting a task to tackle...and I agree, for now it is, until I'm more experienced, I suppose.

So, what I seek is a soil that is close to water-only, though I'm not opposed to top dressing & ACTs, I do want to avoid bottled nutes, organic or not (maybe something very weak from the Suite Leaf or Vegamatrix line if absolutely necessary), to keep the necessary amendments as generic & inexpensive as possible.

Is this something that you guys could help me with? I already have some Peat Moss, Coco, Perlite, Vermiculite, descent organic bagged soil, some microbial/mycorrhizal innoculant & very high quality composted Horse Manure, EWC, Chicken Manure & a giant pile of Mulched Woodchips (we do a lot of permaculture edible gardens here).

Thank you in advance.

And before dank.Frank yells at me, I am aware of the Organic Soil Recipe List and have been digging through it, though it is quite cumbersome.

I like the Coots stuff, SubCool, TLO, etc. but those mixes are very daunting...DJ Short kind of inspired me to make the water-only switch but I have no idea what kind of mixes he's been running.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=258168

The thread title: Basic Organic Soil Mixes - I think this is what you are looking for.



dank.Frank

Thank you, dank.Frank, but here is the problem with that one & the other link I posted (yours being a much better but still quite complex), they seem to be just HUGE compendiums of recipes with barely any information about them, no explanation of feeding, no substitutions suggestions, generic alternatives or inexpensive inputs...and a great many of those recipes have a ton of amendments, a lot of which aren't even easy to come by where I am at...in other I could read that entire thread 10 times over and probably wouldn't be any closer to what I'm trying to find here...but thanks anyway for the suggestion that I've already stated I was utilizing.

I'm just trying to simplify this process a bit, for the layman/novice to get them started on the journey in a healthy way, as opposed to relying on nute bottle & fert companies like an ignoramus.

Not trying to be too much of a pain in the ass here, but I gotta keep costs down, I barely make ends meet here and I have two 100-gallon fabric pots and a ton of 15-gallon nursery pots that I need to fill with some top notch soil...and not a lot of startup funds to work with (my recent seed run pretty much broke my bank).

I also keep seeing this pop up on Amazon Nature's Living Soil: SuperSoil Organic Concentrate it claims to be an amended version of SubCool's mix...but at $45 per 25-gallons of soil that would get very cost prohibitive to mix up 500 gallons or so of soil.

@dank.Frank I keep seeing this NSPB: Full Life Formula being bandied about, but I can't find it anywhere on the web, I see he has a Twitter & his website is down, is this stuff still available? I like the looks of that January 2011 run that Phillthy did, just beautiful.

Idk, maybe I just need to bite the bullet & buy these amendments you listed as the bare minimum, even if it takes me a bit longer to acquire the supplies.

dank.frank said:

1/2c alfalfa meal
1/2c dry molasses
1c kelp meal
1c blood meal
1c bone meal
1/2c seabird guano
2tbsp Sul-Po-Mg
1/2c azomite
1/3c dolomite
1/3c gypsum
2/3c oyster shell flour

1/4 tbsp BioVam
1/4 tbsp BioAg Vam

Click to expand...

I already run a 1:1:1 base mix, with some very top shelf locally source EWC & 6-year composted horse manure.

Now are those the proper amendments for say a 15-gallon batch of base mix or do I need to make some adjustments? Seems like that was for 11-gallons of base mix, pretty close, I might throw a couple extra coots-approved buildasoil amendments to beef it up slightly to cover the extra 4 gallons.

Maybe like:

1/2-1 cup neem/karanja cake
1 cup fresh ground malted barley powder
2-3 cups basalt rock dust (the dust leftover from breaking flowerocks)

alá Clackamas Coots

Idk, what do you think?

ThePhiloStoned said:

I'm just trying to simplify this process a bit, for the layman/novice to get them started on the journey in a healthy way, as opposed to relying on nute bottle & fert companies like an ignoramus.

Click to expand...

Perhaps with you lack of understanding you are not the one best positioned to tackle such a task?

ThePhiloStoned said:

Thank you, dank.Frank, but here is the problem with that one & the other link I posted (yours being a much better but still quite complex), they seem to be just HUGE compendiums of recipes with barely any information about them, no explanation of feeding, no substitutions suggestions, generic alternatives or inexpensive inputs...and a great many of those recipes have a ton of amendments, a lot of which aren't even easy to come by where I am at...in other I could read that entire thread 10 times over and probably wouldn't be any closer to what I'm trying to find here...but thanks anyway for the suggestion that I've already stated I was utilizing.

Click to expand...

Barely any information?

The thread I linked you to literally breaks down, in individual posts, different plants grown under different scenarios, with the progression of the recipe, displaying very clearly the differences produced in the individual mixes.

No explanation of feeding?

It's organic soil. It feeds itself. That link even has a basic bottle feeding outline to use in addition to a water only mix for those who want to try pushing the plants harder.

No substitutions suggestions?

It's a RECIPE. That means to be followed exactly as is. How is someone supposed to tell you what's going to happen or what the end result will be, if you start changing it up and putting your own twist on it?

[No] generic alternatives or inexpensive inputs?

What is the name brand for aragonite? How about Sul-Po-Mag? Not a single "brand" is listed on my amendment recipes. There is no such thing as "generic" amendments. There is small volume and large volume purchase levels however. If you want it to be cheaper, increase the volume in which you buy the individual products.

5lbs Seabird Guano at my nearest retail location is $28. 50lbs from an online retailer is $70 + $35 shipping, so you save a little. However, if you buy 2,000lbs, it's only $1500 and freight shipping is about $200 from one side of the continent to the other.

ThePhiloStoned said:

but thanks anyway for the suggestion that I've already stated I was utilizing.

Click to expand...

ThePhiloStoned said:

I'm just trying to simplify this process a bit, for the layman/novice to get them started on the journey in a healthy way, as opposed to relying on nute bottle & fert companies like an ignoramus.

Click to expand...

Oh. So you're one of those types. I'll just sit back and wait for you make the new ThePhilostoned mix - that is more or less a bastardized pieced together mix created by leeching fragments from the time and work others put in. I get it.

Why don't you actually try making your own mix then?

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=358312


I won't be replying to your thread anymore. Sink or swim with that comment in bold blue. Good luck.



dank.Frank

dank.frank said:

Perhaps with you lack of understanding you are not the one best positioned to tackle such a task?

Click to expand...

I must commend you on your ability to encourage others, I mean you really inspire others to greatness don't you?

(Guess I was under the mistaken impression that this was a place people could seek a better understanding of, and grow better pot, however it seems to be a place to lambast others for having newb questions or attempting to slightly simplify some of these explanations on here)

dank.frank said:

Barely any information?
...
No explanation of feeding?
...
No substitutions suggestions?
...
[No] generic alternatives or inexpensive inputs?

Click to expand...

Every single one of those criticisms were lodged at the link I posted [which you also quoted & paraphrased in your thread] and at the normal SuperSoils you see thrown around like Clackamas Coot's, SubCool's, TLO, etc.

So if the wording implied they were directed at you (even though I said yours was much better, read the whole thing and had questions, that I asked, that you chose to ignore) I apologize ..a simple miscommunication.

dank.frank said:

Oh. So you're one of those types. I'll just sit back and wait for you make the new ThePhilostoned mix - that is more or less a bastardized pieced together mix created by leeching fragments from the time and work others put in. I get it.

Click to expand...

Oh, so you're just an asshole...I get it, I'm one too...if I did post my mix it would only be for posterity alongside a grow diary & I would definitely credit anyone I borrowed ideas from, I don't plagiarize, I'm not that much of an asshole, but I do openly source the knowledge others have attained, you'd be stupid not to.

dank.frank said:

Why don't you actually try making your own mix then?

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm going to do, I just had some relevant opinion-related questions for someone who might know wtf they're talking about before I started buying a bunch of amendments, I guess I get to fend for myself when it comes that, that's fine...but I'm not trying to rob you of your intellectual property or something, I'm just trying to inspire others to grow good pot, even if they are inexperienced.

dank.frank said:

I won't be replying to your thread anymore. Sink or swim with that...

Click to expand...

Good day sir, try not to take sh*t that isn't directed at you so d*mn personally...unless you just enjoy conflict.

P.S.: I still don't know anything about that Full Life Formula you tout, I may even know less at this point...is it available still? Prolly barking up the wrong tree, I doubt you could care less with that tantrum you just threw.

Take count of what plants grow locally.
Google them all.
Look for the qualities in the plant that you want in your grow.
Green nitrogen.
Strong and erect silica.
Fast growing hormones.
Look up nutritional facts.


How's your outdoor soil.
Make dirty water.


Start fermenting.



Imagination is key.
First you gotta know what you got and not worry about what you don't got.


You can grow good plants in basically just horse manure compost with some aeration.
I use Espoma. Cheap.

ROFLMAO. Tantrum? You asked to be spoon fed. Get spoon fed. Then spit peas in peoples face and then giggle like it's cute.

Like I said. You clearly don't understand - you brought my name up in your original post - in a negative context out the gate, and you expect me to what???

All I did was address the content of your response, bit by bit. You're right, you are an asshole. I however, am not, so don't group me with you by default just because you don't like the answer you were given.

Like I said, use the formulas in the link I provided and pick one or two fertilizers from that list, pull an NPK profile out of thin air to try and match and then make yourself a simple, easy, fertilizer mix with what you have available to you.

But to sit there and act like I didn't answer your question or that I haven't provided you with specific answers, and then to insult me for having done so, even further, after I ignored your initial idiotic statement...

I don't even know why I'm wasting my time. I should have never taken the bait in the first place.

ThePhiloStoned said:

@dank.Frank I keep seeing this NSPB: Full Life Formula being bandied about, but I can't find it anywhere on the web, I see he has a Twitter & his website is down, is this stuff still available? I like the looks of that January 2011 run that Phillthy did, just beautiful.

Click to expand...

There was NEVER a twitter account for the NSPB mix. I'm not even sure Twitter existed yet. What website?

See things like this is why I find it hard to take you seriously. If you were in anyway SINCERE about spitting my name around like you know something about me, you would have already found my new thread, where the first nearly 20 pages are nothing but soil talk and building a new mix from scratch, explaining the entire process in fairly decent detail. Believe it or not, it even discusses the NSPB mix, it's fate and how I view that entire bit, in light of the new mix I was making.

Oh. And that thread I linked you to, has that brand new amendment list and a new base soil recipe as well. All improved versions of everything I've ever publicly released.

I'm sorry that wasn't good enough and warranted you running around the room with your cock out and your diaper around your ankles.

No, see....You have some skewed agenda to get me riled up for some reason. Like I said. I should have never taken the bait in the first place. This time, I am done responding. I'll not plod on like this.



dank.Frank

Edited to add that the below post was made before franks response above.

I thought franks reply was polite and reserved considering you want someone to customize a soil for you based on your available ingredients.
“Spoon feed me please”, was how I interpreted your request, there is a lot of that around here. Some are willing to answer some are not when asked that way.
Time to get busy, try things, maybe even fail a bit along the way. That’s how you learn.
Take control of your situation and grow your abilities as you grow your own plants.
Not trying to offend but that’s my take on it.

Trader Joe's Jamaica Jerk + Blush Wine Vinaigrette =

Make you look like you know how to cook.

It's a salad dressing.

Gardening is a lot like algebra, mysterious and hard at first.
If you put in the effort and keep trying eventually it will make sense and get easier.
Shortcuts are only short term help.

St. Phatty said:

Trader Joe's Jamaica Jerk + Blush Wine Vinaigrette =

Make you look like you know how to cook.

It's a salad dressing.

Click to expand...

Smoked paparica and lemon pepper.

The simplest water only recipe proven to grow big healthy heavy yielding plants is the Tom Hill recipe. I used to gather all the items on these super soil recipes and others and in the end, the tastiest , cleanest outdoor pot I've harvested is in the Tom Hill soil. Adding a few bloom feeds in weeks 4,5,6 is optional. If I add bloom it's usually Jacks /gypsum/molasses mixes feeds.

another proven option and probably one of the most affordable.