Good soil mix?

[crunkinshoe]

20% perlite
10% mexican bat guano (10-2-0)
10% coconut fiber
10% organic fish pellets (7-7-2)
40% good soil
10% worm castings (1-0-0)

 

[TheBudWhisperer]

Is this a soil mix for flowering? If so there's way too much N. There's also too much fertilizer in general. Having 20% of your substrate as concentrated fertilizer is quite alot. I suggest increasing your coco fiber and good soil percentages, decrease perlite, getting ahold of more potassium supplements like kelp meal and/or greensand, and if this is for flowering getting some new high phosphorus/low nitrogen food.

 

[crunkinshoe]

This is for seedling/veg and I also have epsom salt I was going to add. Maybe Ill use the fish pellets in tea instead of in the soil....

10% perlite
10% mexican bat guano
15% coco fiber
10% worm castings
50% good soil
5% epsom

 

[TheBudWhisperer]

Worm castings contain enough magnesium and trace minerals for at least a good month or more of growing. I would hold off on the epsom salt till the soil starts to become depleted or untill you notice a problem.

For vegging, the bat guano is just a tad short on phosphorus but I'd bet you wouldn't see a problem with it in the first month or so. Maybe try mixing the guano and fish pellets half&half- giving em a little variety. I think bone meal would be great for you to have on hand even if it's not in the initial soil mix. It's available everywhere, is mostly phosphorus, and will bring a little calcium to your plants. It's also a very slow-release fert when not made into a tea.

Alot of people like to use more perlite than I do. That said, my usual advice on adding extra perlite is to mix up the worm castings, hydrated coco and whatever substrate you have that doesn't already have perlite. Then add perlite untill the mixture has a similar percentage of it that your bag of soil mix has.

Plant your seedlings in little cups of plain potting soil with no ferts, at least untill after they shed their shells then switch to the full-on veg mix.

FYI: non-organic potting soils, not counting seed-starter soils, often have enough chemical ferts to harm seedlings.

FYI: greensand makes soil soft and loamy, feels real nice; and kelp meal has antifungal properties.

 

[sproutco]

Plant your seedlings in little cups of plain potting soil with no ferts

This thread may answer your basic soil questions. http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=32499

 

[Verite]

Keep it simple is the golden rule. None of those mixes are simple. Whats so wrong with adding ferts later when needed?

btw 5% epsom? not unless you want to kill them.

 

[crunkinshoe]

I ended up doing something like this...

65% organic soil
15% perlite
5% mexican bat guano
5% worm castings
10% coconut fiber
little bit magnesium sulfate

 

[Verite]

Whats organic soil?

 

[crunkinshoe]

Whats organic soil?

It's called Earth Gro Potting Soil, I googled it and see it's made by Scotts...
Ingredients include: hypnum peat, compost, forest materials, aged pine bark, sand, and perlite
It's basically a nice dark looking "all natural" no chemicals soil.