How's This for a Soil Mix?

[flytier]

Hey everybody. I'm a very new grower and I've massacred a number of seedlings by using nutrient-enriched potting soil before finding out what was wrong. I'm in the process of making up my own organic mix now and I'd like to get some opinions on it before I potentially fuck up more expensive plants.

I brought home some fish compost from work (I'm a salmon hatchery technician and we have an inexhaustible supply of it), and I put it together with peat moss, perlite and black soil from Walmart. I also have some scallop shells that I can crush up and add. Oh yeah, and I picked up some molasses for the soil tonight too.

Does this sound like anything that anybody out there has tried? If not, does anyone have an opinion on the sound of it? I'm really getting tired of killing plants and I don't want to off some more by playing mad scientist.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Jackf21792]

If you can id make a worm casting tea using that molasses. The reason being is that would want the beneficial microbes to break down the soil and make it easier for your plant to absorb the nutes. All you use is phd water, molasses, and worm castings (aka worm poop). There are many different recipes you can mix so id look around and see what amounts work best for you. You will mix all of these ingredients into a bucket, btw it help if you use hot water to disolve the molasses before mixing. You want to let the tea steep for 2-3 days, some say to put the castings into a nylon stocking like a tea bag, but it works just fine if you mix it right in; its all aboit the amount of surface area. Once mixed you can either stir a few time a day or if you have the funds buy an aquarium bubbler to provide oxygen. The mix will start to get a film over the top, this is good as long as it doesnt have a foul smell, it means the aerobic microbes are reproducing. Once its steeped you can use it in place of your phd water and it will pro

[Jackf21792]

and it will provides nutes without fear of nite burn. Whatever tea you dont use you can seal and store in a refrigerator for up to 3 days. Good luck man!

[Jackf21792]

Had one of my little girls get nuted burned from my soil that had been mixed with a hot top soil. Luckily she has pulled through, but no one wants the sliw groeth of a fried plant. This is her btw

[Jackf21792]

Instead of scallop shells id use an inch of perlite at the bottom of your pot in addition to mixing it into your growth medium

[flytier]

Thanks Jack. I was actually considering finding a worm or two and putting it right in the pot to get the added benefit of soil aeration. As for nutrient burn, I have an auto in enriched soil. The poor bugger almost didn't make it past the seedling stage, and when it went into flower, the reduced nitrogen need put the amount in the soil way over the top and now just I'm hoping it's going to pull through, although I kind of have my doubts. At least that's the only thing I can figure.

The perlite at the bottom is something I never thought of. I'm assuming that would be for drainage purposes? If so, I'd just go with crushed gravel or something to save on my perlite.

Here's a pic of my White Widow right after I put it in the same soil. Fortunately, I caught it in time and amended the soil for transplant. One of them is going good and the other one is growing considerably slower. That crap is what made me decide on the organic mix. Just one of the many aspects of learning by trial and error, and the reason why I Joined a couple of forums. I love this site, because it has many excellent tutorials.

[Minoo96]

Happy to see you took some of my advice and made your own soup with it
trial and error, yes its the only way to learn ^^ "No one ever gets a perfect grow" (Nebula on one of her tuto)
The seedling definitely looks burn, but seems healthy enough.

[BuddMarsh]

I use the muck from the bottom of our fish pond mixed with coco coir, perlite and other stuff to make a super soil and put that in the bottom 1/3 of my pot. The rest of the pot I fill up (all but the last 2 inches) with just soil made from the muck, coco coir and perlite all in equal amounts. The last 2 inches is filled with a very mild organic soil (Ecoscrape found at Lowes) so the seedling does not get nute burn. If the plant ever needs more nutes I top dress with the muck.

[flytier]

It does seem that natural is the way to go, as people here seem to agree on. Of course, the plants themselves didn't evolve with Miracle-Gro. I'm getting quite a few different recipes which can be adjusted to make use of the supplies that I have on hand. Mostly just different amounts of ingredients and the differences in ingredients can be easily compensated for. Thanks for your input Budd.