critique this soil mix, please

[Guest]

-3 parts compost/soil
-1 part perlite
-1 part verm
-1 part worm castings

per gallon:
-1 tbs blood meal
-1 tbs high P bat guano
-2/3 tbs lime


How's that sound to y'all?

 

[sproutco]

Sounds too heavy. All that compost,vermiculite, and worm castings are not fluffy enough. I would add more perlite and leave out the vermiculite. Why the blood meal and guano? Are you trying not to add fertilizer for a while to your water? To make it more complete, you should add potassium such as using seaweed like kelp. This would also give you some micronutrients. Liquid seaweed could be added to your water also for potassium and micros. You might add 3/4 teaspoon powdered gypsum to a gallon of soil to add sulfur.

I am not real fond of adding nutrients like bone meal to the soil before planting. I only add gypsum and dolomite lime. Then, add the nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and micros) to the water. This gives you more control of what the plant is gettting fed.

 

[Guest]

So nix the guano and blood meal, and add a little gypsum?

And 2 parts perlite, and NO verm?


Sidenote: Probably end up getting-

Grow Big for veg
Beastie Bloomz for flowering, plus I have bat guano already


And also molasses and maxicrop to the nute water

 

[sproutco]

Plants require nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, and molybdenum to grow. What you add to the soil you probably don't need in your liquid fert. and vice versa. If you add dolomite lime, this would be your source of calcium and magnesium. If you have sulfur in your liquid fert then you don't need to add gypsum. Check the fertilizer label for ingredients to see what it contains and if you will be giving the plants complete nutrition. You will have to experiment with how much perlite to add. Just so its fluffy. Probably can not overdo it...you would only have to water more if it is really fluffy. Too little perlite could be bad because you don't want your plants sitting in mud.

 

[Guest]

Can't find worm castings.

 

[Guest]

Updated mix

2 parts Miracle Gro organic
1 parts black kow/fox farm (3/4 black kow,1/4 fox farm reg soil)
2 parts perlite
1 part verm
epsom's "garden lime"

Thinking of also adding powdered sea kelp, and some blood meal.

water feed fxfrm "grow big", then high p guano and beastie bloomz in flowering.

Oh and blackstrap molasses of course.

 

[bostrom155]

Updated mix
2 parts Miracle Gro organic
1 parts black kow/fox farm (3/4 black kow,1/4 fox farm reg soil)
2 parts perlite
1 part verm
epsom's "garden lime"
Thinking of also adding powdered sea kelp, and some blood meal.
water feed fxfrm "grow big", then high p guano and beastie bloomz in flowering.
Oh and blackstrap molasses of course.

Leave out the verm. Also the Epsoma garden lime will take awhile to break down, give it at least 2 or more weeks.

 

[3BM]

Hey Gray:

Just like Sproutco I would urge you to create a balanced soil mix. Good soil is good soil, indoor or out. The best soil is called loam. Loams contain a balance of differently sized particles (sand, clay, silt, pebbles, etc) and organic matter. Clay and silt are tiny particle sizes, sand is larger, pebbles larger still etc. A good loam soil contains representatives from each category, in roughly equal measure. When building a soil, aim for this sort of balance among textural elements.
Try this Per 50gal:
- Sand 3-4 gals
- Perlite 10-15 gals
- Peat/org. mat. 20-30 gals
- Grit 2-3 gals

To test for good soil texture combine these elements and wet to field capacity. Take a good handful of the dirt and squeeze as hard as you can. No water should come out, but it should form a clump shaped by the ridges of your fingers. Now prod the clump lightly with your thumb (or some other finger), it should fall apart easily. If the soil resists clumping it is too loose and needs more organic matter to bind it together. If the soil resists breaking apart once clumped it is too dense and needs more perlite to prevent compaction. Remember roots want both air and water, thats why this balance is so important.

Now the fun part: enriching the soil. Each component of the mix has an opportunity to enrich the soil as well as build texture. For instance, instead of 4 gal of inert playground sand we could add greensand, gypsum, and ground lime for K, S, Mg, Ca, trace minerals, and pH buffering. Instead of straight peat moss we could add mush. compost, worm cast, composted manure, garden compost, etc for bacterial and mycelial colonies as well as balanced slow release nutrients. Instead of granite grit we might add kelp meal, rock phosphate, and alfalfa meal for N,P,K, trace min, growth hormones, enzymes, etc.

So now the soil mix looks something like this:
Per 50 gal
- 3-4 gal Sand (2gal green sand, .5gal gypsum, .5gal ground dolomitic lime)
- 20-30 gal Org. Matt. (4gal Mush Comp, 4gal worm cast, 17gal peat)
- 2-3 gal Grit (1gal kelp meal, 1gal rock phosphate, 1gal alfalfa meal)
- 10-15 gal Perlite

Green sand: K, trace minerals, pH buffering (Espoma sells this)
Gypsum: S, Ca (Espoma sells this also, avoid if using hard water)
Dolomitic Lime: Primary pH UP, Mg, Ca (ground or pelletized)
Mush Comp: N, P, K, trace min, bioactivity (composted manure works)
Worm Cast: N, trace min, bioactivity (composted manure works)
Kelp meal: N, K, 60 trace minerals, enzymes, hormones (order this one!)
Rock Phosph: P, trace minerals (Espoma sell this)
Alfalfa meal: N, P, K, 30 trace minerals, hormones, B-vitamins (feed stores)

Home-made compost is the best form of organic matter, hands down. Household waste provides a rich and balanced nutrient base when properly composted, as well as rich biodiversity of microorganisms. All forms of organic matter contribute humic acid as they break down. If you dont have compost, get worm cast, if not get mush compost, if not get composted cow manure. Peat is cheapest so use it at about 2:1 Peat to compost to make the compost/manure go further.

Lets assume you want to quickly put together a balanced soil mix based on these principles, but you dont have access to all the ingredients. Each of the N,P,K sources are simply suggestions. Lets look at other possibilities:

Per 50gal
- 2 bags potting soil (quality organic soil like FF, Garden Magic, Shultz's, etc)
- 2 bags Mush Comp. (or if not, black kow manure is fine)
- 10 gal Peat (about 1/3 of a bale, I recommend ProMix BX)
- 15 gal Perlite (lots and lots, wear a mask and wet to reduce dust)
- 6 cups N source (Mex. guano, Alf meal, Blood meal)
- 6 cups P source (Indon. guano, Jam. guano, Bone meal, Rock Phosphate)
- 6 cups K source (Kelp meal, Green sand, Molasses meal, Oak ash - if using oak ash half the dose!)

Water this mix and let sit 2-4 weeks, then test the pH. Add more lime to raise the pH, and Black peat (a composted form of peat) to lower it. This concentation of nutes in the dirt will provide a balanced base of slow release nutrients to the plants, while still allowing soluble nutrients to supplement as needed. Do not feed every watering, instead feed once a week or during heavy growth. Feed at transplant, then not again for 2 weeks.

I hope this sheds some light on a complicated subject. Good luck putting it all together!

3_Blind_Mice

 

[vonforne]

Can't find worm castings.

If you are getting the Fox Farm liquid nutes at the Hydro store, you should be able to get the castings also. If not, they could order them for you. There are numerous posts here at the forums for web addresses to order off the internet also. Recently, I have increased the organic matter of my soil mixture and have had great results. I have also added gypsum as Sproutco suggests. You can get it at Lowes. Also I believe they carry the mushroom compost for 3.95 a bag, which is a great deal. If you are unable to find the castings, post up and I will
help you with the search. There is someone here who has a link in their web page for cheap worm castings but I do not have time this morning to do a search.

And Sproutco, what happened to the links on your page? They were very informative.

 

[Smoky_Mcpot]

Use mushroom compost as apposed to homemade compost. Add about half a 50 lb bag of sand in there. Would recommend using Pro Mix, make sure you add lime. I use hydrated lime from Espoma. Lots of micro elements. Add green sand, Espoma also makes great products called, Plant and Flower Tone. They contain most meals, (kelp, alfalfa, cottenseed, crab, and many more) Very good products.

 

[bostrom155]

wow that epsoma makes some good stuff, never really looked into it.

 

[vonforne]

Yes, I did not know that either. I was just looking as I walked by and it said it was 100% Organic. So, I stopped and started reading the labels. Actually, I was looking for rock Phosphate but they carry triple phosphate but they had some other things that are usable. I never checked the Flower Tone though...thanks Mcpot..I will check that out next time I'm in there.