Made my own soil

[Rickster]

I made up some soil 1/2 compost, 1/4 coco coir , 1/4 vermiculite and a cup of worm castings. It’s been 2 weeks Sunday and my seedlings are doing really well well, there are two of them.
my question is that I have been reading that if you grow in coco , you have to buffer it, I didn’t ibuffer it and it didn’t say on the block it had been pre buffered will it cause me problems

[Ckbrew]

If the coco was from a block, it should be washed to remove salt, then buffered with calmag. Coco will bind ca and mg. Soaking in calmag will saturate the binding sites.

[Rickster]

Is it going mess up may grow by not buffering the coco the coco

[Ckbrew]

It might. I don't use soil, only coco perlite. I will defer to the soil growers for a better answer.

[Rickster]

By not buffering the coco is it going to mess up my grow

[dirtymike]

Magnesium deficiency is what I experienced and then toxicity soon after.

[Bluey]

It might. Mixing in a bit of dolomite lime might be a good idea but I'd watch them closely first to see where things are at. The lime will also raise the pH.

[Rwise]

One can use gypsum and not effect the PH.

[MrKush42069]

What's the goal of using coco coir in this mix? Is it for water retention? Does the vermiculite not accomplish that without the calMag deficiency risk?

Seems to me that coco coir has a lot of drawbacks. I don't use much, if any, coco coir except for especially finicky plants, like celery germination. I do a similar mix but without coco, and quite a bit more worm castings. They are expensive but worm shit is THE shit.

[Rickster]

I found the recipe on a site Online , they didn’t say the coco had to
be buffered, me being a newbie, I just carried on
l just wanna know how I can put it right

[dirtymike]

Sit it in the rain for a flush or ph water and flush it.