First outdoor grow IN THE GROUND...My soil mix??

[Greenpassion]

Hey all, I may of begun posting about this a while ago, but here I go again. I want to know if I'm on the right track. I have put 3 of my photos in the ground and would like feedback on my soil mix. I first dug HUGE holes for each plant, (which are about 3 months old grown in 5 gallon cloth pots) and on a huge tarp I made up a soil mix consisting of: 2 cubic ft of Coast of Maine garden soil, added about 5 cups of perlite, added 1 cubic ft of composted cow manure, 1 cubic ft of lobster compost, 2 cubic ft ( brick ) of Coast of Maine enriching mulch with kelp, worm castings, bat guano. I mixed it all up and planted the girls into this. So far they look fine. it's been about 10 days. I have never grown out in the ground before, and had hoped to not have to lug gallons of ph's water with nutes out to them all summer. Should I still ph water and water them by hand same as I do for my indoor grows? Hopefully one of you guys will chime in who's done this in the ground, not pots. PS. My soil on my property is literally sand. Millions of years ago apparently where I live was under water....

[9fingerleafs]

I have never grown in the ground but my understanding is that with organic soils like yours you’re supposed to give just water. Now if your soil mix turns out to be too acidic or alkaline or if your water is too acidic or too alkaline you may have to do some intervention in the ph department. For example with a too acidic soil you could either rise the ph of the water you using or you can add something to buffer to the soil mix. The hard part of this is that is trial and error. If you are already planning to do teas or if you already own a barrel for water and a pump you could take some soil in a cup, add water until it’s slurry enough to get your ph meter in there to see how the soil and water ph interact. If you need to adjust ph you can fill up a barrel, add some cheap acid to lower ph or sodium bicarbonate to rise it and then use it to water. Idk just throwing out ideas

[Greenpassion]

That barrel idea is a good idea.

[Rwise]

Perlite can/will kill your earthworms as it cuts them, maybe clay beads..
All those packages sound nice, I know nothing! I build my own soil, and ya just water it as needed.

[Cali]

Not familiar with your soil mix but didn’t see any mentioning of minerals? Gypsum or basalt rock dust are good. They also help with buffering your soil ph. Keeping it where you want it. Just use water but I would use a filter. I use the boogie blue +. It supposed to clean your water of heavy metals chlorine and chloramines and other bad shit. What are your plans for IPM? Neem foliage sprayed with Aloe and soap nuts does nothing but good things. Malted barley top dressed once a week for chitin will help break down everything making what the plants love available In the roots. Just some ideas.

[Greenpassion]

I should mention that my soil mix came from nothing more than an idea of what might be good. Not a mix recipe...😳

[Cali]

Cool. Well good luck with your idea.

[Greenpassion]

Yeah. I hope it was a good idea...

[Rwise]

I remember some of my early failures, the soil I built would not grow anything. Took in a sample for testing to find it made a good fertilizer, yep it was way to hot.
As long as you get everything in there the plants need they should do fine.