Are these good ingredients to mix my own live soil with? Plan on doing them in solo cups for veg, feeding fox farms, transferring 10 outdoors with the live soil mixture I plan on doing and using fox farms and the same soil I’ve used since day 1, black gold, on my indoors while outdoors just get pH balanced water with live soil in 5 gallons.
Wondering if these are good ingredients Amazon.com (Not buying this on amazon can buy the manure at at my work)
Plan on doing the cow manure, probably in a 10 gallon container, earth worm castings gonna mix in until I see enough evenly mixed into the manure, dolomite like will do the same but a bit less, with the brand fertilizer i dunno exactly as I wanna make sure they’re a good brand first before using them for living soil, and the rest is the same plan of evenly mix in, except for the fertilizer brand still wanna figure out what to buy from them besides that seagull guano
I feel like you’re still missing a lot in your recipe (based on my experience with living soil), though you may be just fine with what you’re planning.
Personally, I’m partial to Coots Mix (with a few possible minor variations):
As for dry amendments, I have had good results with Down to Earth’s dry amendment line. Kelp meal, neem meal, crab meal, powdered oyster shells, feather meal, guano, and may more are all available through them at reasonable prices.
I have heard of people having mixed results with cow and horse manure (not to say that they aren’t great for building soil). Using it as the bulk of your substrate seems like a bad time, though. Peat moss, pumice, and vermicompost seem a better fit for keeping the plants happy and healthy.
Keep us updated on how it goes! Best of luck in this endeavor!
Yes peat moss and pumice were on my list too forgot to mention those lol. Gonna add LOT of those 2 into my manure mixture, enough to get dozens of peat moss pellets per handful, same with the pumice.
I’ll check out exactly what they have as well on down to earth and give 3-4 bags a try of different things
If you haven’t checked out Coots’ recipe before, I highly suggest reading up on it a bit. It is a tried and true recipe for building living soil.
That being said, you probably don’t want the manure to make up more than 1/3 of the mix. 1:1:1 with peat, pumice, and manure (replacing vermicompost) should work, though to what degree I cannot say, as I’ve never used that blend. Just make sure to ammend with plenty of earthworm castings.
Another key piece will be ensuring there is adequate material being continuously being composted on the soil’s surface. Really important to feed the soil the right kind of composting materials, too. Avoid oak leaves, for example. Way too acidic!
Ok, so good to start with 1 gallon of manure, 1 gal pumice and 1 gal of peat, then add castings, dolomite, guano and more as pleased after that until she looks like your average $30 bag of premix?
Also I’ll look at that recipe right now. Did not know oak leaves were acidic but makes sense too lol
Remember that cannabis feeds heavy on calcium. Make sure you have a good, organic source like crab meal and/or oyster shells. Neem meal is another important component I use in my soils as well.
You’ll be surprised when you read about Coot’s recipe how many amendments are added to each cubic foot of soil. Biggest redeeming factor is that once your soil is built, it shouldn’t take too much to maintain.
Teas are important for keeping the soil healthy, too. Not sure if you were planning on using bottled nutes to feed, but if you are, be aware some of those can be detrimental to your soil.
I’m not the world’s best grower or claim to be any kind of resounding authority on the matter, so make sure you do some more research and listen to some of the real experts here (like I see @AgTonik typing now…).
50% coco coir, 20% worm castings, 30% rice hulls. Add a tablespoon of DTE Bio Live per gallon for a solid base soil.
If you want to convert it to super soil, add 1 lb. Bio Live to 2 gallons of soil. This ratio goes in the bottom 1/3 of the pot and is topped up with base soil. This method feeds the plant it’s entire life.
To recharge the soil after use, shake off the root balls. Add 20% rice hulls and this is your new base soil.
Haven’t tried it in a living soil mix, but have been using roughly 50/50 coco/peat mix in some outdoor pots lately as an experiment. It holds water better than straight coco, but is easier to over water. It’s less hydrophobic than straight peat when dry, making it easier to rehydrate.
I find that it holds water almost too well, which is super advantageous when I have to hand water about 1500 plants. It makes it so I have to water heavy every 3 days or so with spot treating the thirsty ones. It will have saved me hundreds of hours in watering time over the season.
I find it super important to never let it dry all the way out. It becomes problematcally hydrophobic! Next year I may amend this prebought soil with a heavy dose of coco to find that happy medium.
IMO Down to Earth not only offers just about everything you need in the way of soil amendments they are also fairly priced (at least at my local store)
I use their:
Biolive
Oyster Shell
Feather Meal
Kelp Meal
Alfalfa Meal
Langbenite
Azomite
the only thing I don’t use of theirs is super phos bat guano
Their Biolive also makes a great addition to micro teas and as a top dressing it is 100%
@AgTonik thats exactly how I mix my soil, Works like a charm. I can def say bio live from down to earth is a great well balanced product.
I Dip the roots in a little agt50, azos and mycos plus some water concentrate right before transplanting oh boy the girls blow up so fast throwing huge fan leaves.
@Akoyeh We have peat reserves here locally, but it isn’t sustainable. Getting the correct amount of lime is difficult to get the pH correct. I also don’t like the contraction/crusting after a dry down.
You only have to rinse and charge coir, which isn’t hard. The range of gypsum for calcium supplementation is huge and forgiving with no pH’ing. It’s sustainable and compacts nicely as a block until needed.
I’m looking for higher phosphorus and potassium as well, first indoor run had some issues with those on one plant specifically, so I’m gonna use high phosphorus and potassium mix with the rest of my mixture + nitrogen, gonna try and balance them all out.
