Best make your own soil recipe?

[Red Fang]

I did not see any threads on this or if there are, I can't find them.
Any recipes for making your own soilless mix? I am talking using perlite, vermiculite, and sphagnum peat moss as your core ingredients and adding whatever else on top of that. I am looking for this many percent peat moss, that many percent perlite and so on but any recipe is fine. Also what are the advantages/disadvantages of using this mix over coco coir (I never tried that yet but have decent luck with soil mixes). thanks

 

[Weird]

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=53792


organic soil sticky organics for beginners

 

[Red Fang]

thanks but I am aware of that thread and it lists how to make a mix USING COMMERCIAL SOIL MIXES and NOT FROM SCRATCH (as far as I can see anyway). Sorry for the big type but I wanted to make sure I stressed the difference. Any other feedback?

 

[Weird]

first mix on that link is "from scratch" just add the correlating recipe and its a from scratch mix

LC’s Soiless Mix #1:

5 parts Canadian Sphagnum Peat or Coir or Pro-Moss
3 parts perlite
2 parts worm castings or mushroom compost or home made compost
Powdered (NOT PELLETED) dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix.

+

1 tablespoon Blood meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix
2 tablespoons Bone meal per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of soil mix
1-tablespoon kelp meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix
or Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract as directed
(OPTIONAL) 1 tablespoon per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of Jersey Greensand to supplement the K (potasium) in the Kelp Meal and seaweed extract.

or

RECIPE #4
Three Little Birds Method
40 gallons used soil
4 cups alfalfa meal
4 cups bone meal
4 cups kelp meal
4 cups powdered dolomite lime
30 pound bag of earthworm castings . . .
That’s the basic recipe . . .
However we also like to use
4 cups of Greensand
4 cups of Rock Phosphate
4 cups of diatomaceous earth

 

[joe fresh]

right at the top of the page where you posted this thread...just gotta look in the stickies sometimes....

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=228020


and if you dont find something in that thread i really dont know what to say....lol

 

[magiccannabus]

It's not a surprise that people get confused by the sticky threads about soil. There's just so many different options and it gets you wondering what would and would not be "best". Thing is, there's just no such thing. One mix may have greensand, but another might not, which one is better for potassium? The other mix might have some other source of K, and maybe even a source that is more available, but that may come at the cost of the textural advantages of greensand. So there's always trade-offs. All that matters is really that at least enough of every needed nutrient is in the mix or can be added, and that the roots get enough oxygen/CO2, and water. This is why you can grow in damn near anything that isn't reactive(clay pellets, broken glass, sand, perlite, a tube filled with mist, etc). So figure out which of these mixes is acceptable and made up of things you can afford/find, and then go with that. I just eyeball my mix, and I do not pH test, but I am growing organic and you can get away with stuff like that.

 

[stak]

.

 

[Red Fang]

Wierd and Joe fresh, thanks but no need to be smug. And weird, that recipe does not include vermiculite. I took courses on soils and vermiculite was part of every commercial mix at that point, and I must admit I am after some specific recipe before this site even existed or maybe before the internet even existed, maybe a recipe from someone from High times? So that recipe you list, vermiculite is not necessary, worm castings instead?
Nothing seems to work for me, everything I try seems just a bit off so forgive me if I want an exact answer.

 

[Red Fang]

It's not a surprise that people get confused by the sticky threads about soil. There's just so many different options and it gets you wondering what would and would not be "best". Thing is, there's just no such thing. One mix may have greensand, but another might not, which one is better for potassium? The other mix might have some other source of K, and maybe even a source that is more available, but that may come at the cost of the textural advantages of greensand. So there's always trade-offs. All that matters is really that at least enough of every needed nutrient is in the mix or can be added, and that the roots get enough oxygen/CO2, and water. This is why you can grow in damn near anything that isn't reactive(clay pellets, broken glass, sand, perlite, a tube filled with mist, etc). So figure out which of these mixes is acceptable and made up of things you can afford/find, and then go with that. I just eyeball my mix, and I do not pH test, but I am growing organic and you can get away with stuff like that.

thanks man I feel you went out of your way to be helpful so k+ for that and you are right on. My plants seem to take way too long in veg, way too long to flower, and way less yield and wey less dense buds than expected. They start strong, stagnate, then take off again, then stagnate. Then they look good early in flower but fail to meet expectations to say the least. I think I use LC #2 mix but without all that organic material I cannot afford, and therefore the pH may be too high given that formula. I can't figure it out beyond that.

 

[Red Fang]

yeah, like Weird mentioned LC's mix can definitely be made from scratch. I use LC's #1 w/ recipe #1 and it's damn sure from scratch. I like it that way. I know what's in it and what's not.

I also use coco instead of peat in the mix. The thing I love about using coco instead is that it's pretty much impossible for me to overwater the plants.

Does coco require other adjustments like ph (in other words, is it naturally more acidic than other media)?

 

[Toes.]

Red Fang... you may be able to find what your looking for here... Potting Mixes for Certified Organic Production https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=47#appendix3

 

[magiccannabus]

thanks man I feel you went out of your way to be helpful so k+ for that and you are right on. My plants seem to take way too long in veg, way too long to flower, and way less yield and wey less dense buds than expected. They start strong, stagnate, then take off again, then stagnate. Then they look good early in flower but fail to meet expectations to say the least. I think I use LC #2 mix but without all that organic material I cannot afford, and therefore the pH may be too high given that formula. I can't figure it out beyond that.

Don't let the "organic" companies fool you, real organics is mostly about keeping enough air and water in your substrate and regular use of aerobic tea. I've had problems, and I still do sometimes, but mostly it's things I can't control. The other day we had a freakish heat spike around here and I didn't expect it, so I almost lost plants. Gave them aerated compost tea and now they're recovering. No checking pH, rarely do you need to flush in organics, and the ingredients do not need to be fancy. I purchased coir, verm, and perlite, but most of my other additives are things I have found or had left over from other stuff. I could make 100 gallons of my mix for under 50-60 dollars no problem.

That said, commercial beneficial cultures can be really handy to have access to. They have some beneficials that are custom-bred, or at least packaged in a fairly stable manner. I use Espoma's Bio-Tone StarterPlus, and Jobes Organic tomato fertilizer. These both have beneficials, though there are definitely other sources out there that have much larger amounts of beneficials. Still, I can buy these at any of the major hardware stores(Lowes, Home DePOT, Ace Hardware, etc.).

I also hiked way out into the middle of an old forest and dug down for some soil samples to add to my brews. Didn't cost anything really, but it was a fair amount of hiking to get to there.

Those liquid organic fertilizers and over-priced "miracle" products don't really do organic justice. They're also a total waste of money in most cases(some liquid kelp additives can be good, and maybe a few other things). The single most important thing you can possibly do for organic is keep the chlorine out of your water. If you don't regularly kill the microbes with chlorine, the plant feeds itself through the soil food web.

 

[Weird]

trust me the mixes i linked are proven in commercial cropping

cant get a better testimony than that

the commercial mixes were generalized agriculture mixes as well

add to that the fact vermiculite has asbestos is another reason to consider losing the use of it altogether


Vermiculite and Asbestos

During the summer of 2000, reports began to surface warning of asbestos contamination in vermiculite. Most of the nation's vermiculite originates from a mine near Libby, Montana, where the ore naturally contains about 2 to 3% asbestos fibers. Apparently, all sources of natural vermiculite contain some level of asbestos (24). The principal danger comes from inhaling the asbestos fibers, which are known carcinogens.

As of July 2001, there has been no action by the federal government to recall, regulate, or enforce safety labeling on vermiculite products. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, has advised commercial growers to find substitutes for vermiculite in potting media (25).

If vermiculite must be used, work with it only in well-ventilated areas, wet the material as soon as possible, and blend it with materials that help reduce dust levels. Wear a dust mask and gloves as added protection.

Asbestos contamination has not yet made vermiculite a prohibited substance in organic production, but that is a possibility in the future. Until that time, each producer should weigh the risks before using this material.

 

[magiccannabus]

Good that you mentioned that. No one should mix dry substrates without breathing filtration.

 

[magiccannabus]

Does coco require other adjustments like ph (in other words, is it naturally more acidic than other media)?

Part of why coco coir was not used traditionally is because it needs to be cured a while, and is most useful in a certain stage of decay, too fresh and it's full of salt and it is almost inert, too old(10+ years), and it becomes acidic like bio-mass typically does when it rots. The coir you purchase should be at most slightly acidic. Any reputable source of coir should be stable for years. It decays MUCH more slowly than peat, and it contains an incredible amount of bound potassium.