Store Bought Organic

[mcsamuels]

Hey y'all,

I've been looking into making a nice organic mix for a first grow but unfortunately its quite hard for me to get a lot of the individual ingredients where I am. Bat guano is illegal here, for example (don't ask) and I haven't been able to find worm castings anywhere.


Aaaanyways, I went out and got a big ol' bag of "certified organic" potting soil mix the other day and I'm wondering what you guys think of it.

Here is whats in it (with no mention of ratios):

Coco coir
Composted organics
horticultural sand
loam
organic fertilizer

I guess its tough to know without exact ratios but does it sound good as a base? Anything I should add in to the basic mix (perlite, for example)?

 

[indianajones]

sounds pretty good as a base, but you should probably add some perlite and vermiculite to start. then some bone meal, alfalfa, kelp,
greensand, and seed meals would really round it out. there are a lot of things that make great additives that have good npk values
like guano but help to nourish the soil more than guano.

 

[soursmoker]

More compost too and like he said ^^ more aeration/drainage...

I would choose lava rock and pumice over perlite tho

 

[indianajones]

More compost too and like he said ^^ more aeration/drainage...

I would choose lava rock and pumice over perlite tho

I 100% agree with lava rock and pumice > perlite. I can't get 'em locally so I usually don't mention those because they aren't on my mind.

 

[soursmoker]

Same here man, just recently ordered 5 gals of Pumice from Amazon and recently found a site for a nice deal on Lava rock I think though.

 

[mcsamuels]

awesome guys, thanks a lot.

I'll look for some pumice locally, otherwise I'll go with perlite and add in some more compost.

I forgot to mention I have a little bit of tri kelp (soluble powder) but apart from that its been tough to find organic ferts and additives!

 

[indianajones]

you might be looking in the wrong places. try looking at feed stores for alfalfa. any garden supply store should have bone meal, it is a
byproduct of the fish and cow meat industry. greensand might be hard to source, but you can substitute coconut meat (not coir, the
actual food coconut, sweetened and unsweetened work, pick it up in the baking supplies isle in your local grocery) and a bit of blood meal for greensand.

 

[mcsamuels]

Excellent info @ indiana. I haven't seen ANY bone/fish meals around which seems odd, but I'll keep looking. Fortunately coco meat will be very easy to find locally!

 

[indianajones]

if you are somewhere that has coconuts, you are somewhere that has a fish market. ask them for fish bones and grind then steam
'em yourself. it doesn't take much (cup per 7 gallons of soil) to get a good effect.

 

[mcsamuels]

Thanks guys. Another question I guess I should have asked earlier...when you say more pumice/lava rock/perlite what are we talking here...%40? Less?

 

[soursmoker]

Depends really... anywhere from 10-40% could work... I would go with something like 30% or so... A third of the mix... if you don't have problems over watering tho you could go lower without many problems MicrobeMan actually prefers soil mixes with lower aeration %

 

[dickcorn]

I've been experimenting with different ratios in my rols, 20-30% seems ideal. Higher had it drying out to quick and killing microlife. Around 10% is to hard for my roots to penetrate as fast and my plants are slightly stunted because of it.
For store bought organically you can't beat dr earth. It's a little pricey initially but it has tons of stuff you'd normally have to buy separately, and reamends very easily. A little biotone at transplant and teas will take you through till the end.

 

[Marco61]

If you have a home depot or lowes near you they do sell lava rock. Sometimes they include it in the garden center, but if not check out the grilling / BBQ area. I also noticed they recently started selling expanded clay pebbles which are excellent for soil aeration. It is under the brand of Viastone and is available in 10Lt or 50Lt bags.

 

[mcsamuels]

Alright cool. I just did a quick mix with 40% perlite (will try and find some lava rock this week) and the soil seems REALLY airy. The water just goes right through. I think I'll drop it down to 20/25 and see how that is. The mix already has some horticultural sand and coco coir mixed in so maybe thats why it seems so airy?

 

[VerdantGreen]

if the mix already has sand for drainage then i would have thought 10-20% perlite or pumice would be plenty.

perlite works just fine btw so i wouldnt sweat it if you cant get pumice easily.

VG

 

[soursmoker]

yes sorry missed the sand part... if it is already airy then you should be good with lower amounts of perlite.. and perlite does work.. It's just I have had bad experiences with getting very dusty perlite...

 

[mcsamuels]

I just remixed adding more of the original soil mix...probably around %15 perlite now which from my mostly uneducated opinion seems ok

 

[mcsamuels]

and @soursmoker just out of curiosity what have your bad experiences with dusty perlite been? as in the perlite just crumbles far too easily?

 

[Granger2]

Tip: Just before I use perlite- Mine is in a 3 cu ft bag made of woven plastic. I use a watering can with a rose [shower head] on it, and water the top layer of the perlite. It doesn't clump or anything. Then when I use the perlite, no dust at all. Good luck. -granger

 

[soursmoker]

My bag was pretty much straight dust, which is HORRIBLE for your lungs and respiratory system... The Chunky stuff ACTUALLY aerates and helps with drainage... the dusty stuff doesn't really help in any way at all...