[kalahari kid]

I live bang in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, about to start my first grow here, so just looking for a few pointers before I launch.
First, my growing medium is going to have to be soil, in bags, grown outside. Planting in the ground won’t work, it’s just rock hard compacted sand. Hydroponics gear is too prohibitive to ship in, though a future option. So I’m stuck with bags & home brew soil, which I could use some advice on. Being so remote, ingredient availability is very poor, but I can get enough interesting things to make a mix. I just need to know the proportions. The ingredients I have to work with are:
Well, sand.
‘Potting soil’ from what passes as a garden centre. No idea of nutrient breakdown, but at least it’s a soil consistency.
‘Potting compost’ from said garden centre, which just seems to be small, semi-composted bark chips, which could replace vermiculite / perlite for aeration.
2 wheelbarrows full of top quality compost I’ve been home brewing for the last 18 months.
Coco bricks.
Possible some small bags worm castings, but they sell out fast & don’t restock for months. Unreliable, but I can grab what they have.
Various bags outdoor fertiliser eg, roses / fruit & veg / lawn. Some more N based, others more P&K.
Epsom salts.
Any ideas on how to mix this lot up?

[Douglas.Curtis]

No idea on your mix, though I have some advice on growing in the desert.

Keep the root zone cool. Small pots, exposed to the sun, will heat up quickly so you'll want them in some sort of shade. The cooler you can keep the root zone, the better the plants will deal with the heat. Evaporation provides cooling, at the expense of additional water.

Shade at the hottest time of the day will also help. Even just a strip which provides shade from the top 2-3 heat hours of the day will help.

[Swamp Thang]

You ain't lyin' about the Kalahari Desert being a remote location, Kalahari man. Your closest human neighbors are the San Bush Men, some of the most skilled game trackers in the world, and the weather is so hot it makes California's Death Valley seem like a cool alpine report, in comparison.

Unless you are lucky enough to reside near an oasis, I would expect that finding water to irrigate your plants may be one of the major logistical challenges you will need to overcome, in your holy quest to produce some killer Kalahari-grown desert bud.

You are one bad hombre, El Kalahari, just for living where you do, and I will be keeping an eye out for any updates you are able to share here.

[Swamp Thang]

Double Post

[Zitz]

You seem to know what your doing Kalahari, only advice I can think of is to cover the soil bags with mulch, use trees for partial shade during peak sun, maybe set up a drip irrigation of some kind if pos...

Do you have local strains down there? There was a Namibian sativa grow on the forum somewhere.

I think the kalahari sun will produce better bud than any indoor hydro set up.

[kalahari kid]

Thanks! I have 20L bags, which I'll put in holes I've dug to keep temps & evaporation down. Bark chips for mulch. I've constructed a shade netting flap to use 'as & when'. There is the occasional cloud in the sky, seen 'em twice this year!
Seed-wise, I've managed to get Critical Jack Herer, Nicole Kush x Morrocan & Ahherst Sour Diesel females, plus some Heavyweight Fast & Vast autofems. Got some Swazi Gold & Durban Poison landrace seeds to put in once I've got my eye in. Cloning is the way forward, getting pedigree seeds here is a quest!
Still looking for soil mix advice, every recipe I see uses ingredients I just can't get...