No Till Soil

[Cali]

Just been interested lately in trying true organic grow. Just not sure what receipt to use for a small scale grow. Any of you organic growers have an idea on where or how I should get started? Planning on trying a plant or 2 to start. I want to mix my own soil. What is the smallest amount I can mix? If there is a minimum amount.. Any recipes you guys can share with me or share a link that would help me out. I have been searching but not sure they seem to be recipes for larger grows..

 

[Rwise]

Read these, they should get you started, good luck!
https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...own-super-soil

https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum/growing-community/266493-sohum-soil

 

[Schwaggy]

I'm doing a kind of super soil.... I guess. The soil recipe that I modeled my recipe after was the coots mix, which is 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat , and 1/3 aeration.

i amended the 2.2 cubic feet of peat with 2 cups of kelp, neem, alfalfa, crab, 1 cup of azomite and 4 cups of oyster shell meal and 1 cup of gypsum (the last 2 amendments to balance out ph). Peat of naturally really acidic, like in the 4s for ph. Let this mix sit moist for 6-8 weeks and if you really want to speed this process up then put a couple ounces of powdered malted barley. It should only take a day for the peat to heat up and you'll see a white fuzz on top. That's good and I do mix it again after a week or so...

i make my own worm castings so I used that instead of straight up compost.

and for aeration I used the product "rocks" from sun leaves.com and rice hulls.

And finally i always water with RECHARGE from real growers.com

im still learning too!

 

[Schwaggy]

Here is a photo of my current grow... the middle 2 plants are autos in 5 gal fabric pot. The big auto in the back clearly nitrogen deficient so I added another 2 inches of castings on top, I'm lettting it ride. Another note on that deficiency is that soil I used from my last grow and maybe I didn't reapply enough on it.

On both sides of the autos are 15 gal smart pot and the one on th far left is a 7 gal smart pot.

The bigger the pot the better!

 

[GreenhouseEffect]

Good stuff Rwise and Schwaggy posted. Definitely start a worm bin, to, it's easy. Uncle Jims worm farm has good info on taking care of worms, they basically eat garbage and turn it into the best fertilizer in the world, I check mine once a week. You can make a bin real easy, just needs to have good airflow, like a tote drilled full of holes.
Welcome to the light side of the force!

 

[9fingerleafs]

Check herbin farmer on youtube. He uses a no till 200 litter bed I think, with built in irrigation pipes and grows worms(Jim’s) for worm castings too. He grows top quality ocean grown seeds genetics. Freaking beautiful

 

[Crow]

I agree that most of the organic soil recipes offered are too many tubs of soil for 1 or 2 pots of plants. I decide to use some store bought organic. As I live in Maine it was easy enough to use Coast Of Maine organic soil - Stonington Blend. Another organic ready mix is by Fox Farm. I'm pretty certain that there are others and likely some sources in your own home state.

The twist I introduced for my 5 - 7 gallon smart pots of Northern Lights - is that I added some red wiggler worms directly to my pots. I bought a bag of 100 composting red wigglers and divided them up between my 5 pots. I'm about to harvest in the next week and the plants and the worms seem to be thriving. Occasionally I'll find a worm has escaped to the tray under my plants and those little guys live up to their names as trying to grab one of those wiggly things is a comedy scene. They are plenty wriggly and active.

After I harvest my plants I intend to THEN start a worm bin. The idea is to recycle and renew the expensive potting soil and continue the worm activity through to next season, at which time I can use this year's soil all over again. I will likely add some more worms to the bin. All through the grow, the only provision I have made for making certain that the worms have shelter and extra food is: I have mulched the top of my soil with some decayed grass and leaves, cut offs from my plants (which I chopped up into small pieces) and an occasional sprinkle of corn meal, coffee grinds, thoroughly dry and broken up egg shells, and a few times I've added some thoroughly dry and chopped up wild mushrooms. Raining too hard to take photos today (they are in a shed but the photo shoot requires I leave the door open as my shed is that small ) but here for your edification and inspiration is one of my beauties as of this past Saturday.

Good luck with whatever you attempt. All worth the effort.

Crow


BUD CANDY

 

[freddyyola]

i think if you wanted to you could swap coco coir for peat.. i use recharge too! and i have a few worm bins going that i feed bone meal bamboo mulch coco coir fruits and veggie waste silica kelp pretty much all the good stuff for plants that are also good for worms i feed it to them because everything that goes through a worm becomes better for plants.. and not all vermicastings are the same it depends on what you put in is what you get out..

 

[freddyyola]

on top of all that you could toss down a cover crop.. it helps keep the soil in place when you water and dont worry about if the cover crop is taking up nutrients because eventually u smash them down and reamend/mix in more kelp,bone,meal,banana peels, rock dust, etc..

i just made a post on this with pics if you wanna check it out.. also cover crop seeds are cheap if you want to be cheap just get crimson clovers 2$ worth is enough to cover about a 10x10 feet area.. i did this at first but now i have a mixture of a bunch of different seeds for certain things that they do.. like some make nitrogen some make the soil soft, itll become a humus layer when crushed down, your worms can feed on it and break it down for your plants..

 

[freddyyola]

ive used foxfarm ocean grown as a base and added perlite, coco coir, kelp, my worm castings, and pretty much all the good meals that go into super soil.. its ok if you dont have much to add since it already has most of the good stuff needed.. if you cant afford alot just get the foxfarm ocean forest some perlite and mychorrizae... and more worm castingns if you can afford it.. and go from there use it as is or continue adding dry amendments and coco coir..

and that bud is freaking beautiful! amazing!

 

[freddyyola]

i have worms from uncle jims also, i got couple bins goinng.. i add some to my plants too and a plus about cover crops is they are great worm food.. humus layer, full of nutrients.

check mypost on cover crops.

 

[Crow]

Maine Coast Stonington Blend is "designed" as a super soil to have all the nutrients. It incorporates mycorrhizal fungi, kelp, fish bone and alfalfa meal, as well as worm castings, peat, coir and lobster compost. Pretty pricey , even locally, but worse if it needs to be shipped.

Adding the worms was my way to mitigate the price as I intend to use this "same" soil in my next grow. Plus the worms keeping adding to the soil health without my needing to calculate nutritional needs, as Maine Coast recommends that you not add to their Stonington Blend as you will likely over enhance, to the detriments of your plants.

freddyyola - thanks for the high five. Nice bud that happens to be very photogenic.

 

[freddyyola]

yeah if you plan on re using your soil for another grow you should re add the dry amendments you like because most if not all will be used up by the plant that was harvested.. the soil will be healthy with beneficial microbes and possibly fungi and mychorrizae but itd be lacking in everything else for sure..

 

[Crow]

Fortunately for me Maine Coast provides a variety of premixed soil amendments to add all the good stuff back in. I'm not quite ready to become a soil scientist so I'm happy to trust others.

Crow

 

[GreenhouseEffect]

You've got it figured out Crow!
Re-using soil works great, I've been doing that the last couple grows, just adding some good stuff, lots of worms, castings, a little bone meal and guano. Nature has been doing that for the last couple of million years, and growing stuff like the California Red Woods!
Nothing like digging your hands into some Living, Breathing, Organic soil, either. A tiny universe, there in the palms of your hands.

 

[GreenhouseEffect]

Think I already comented on that bud, but man, that is Gorgeous!

 

[GreenhouseEffect]

Try to think about feeding your soil, instead of the plant, that's basically what your doing with actual organic growing. Give all those little budys a good meal, and what they need to be happy
( which is the conditions your plant wants, anyway) and they will feed the plant what it needs, since they all work together in a symbiotic relationship, like they've been doing for ages.
All we really do as organic gardeners, is tip the scales in the favor of what we want, mycorizae, earthworms, big fat juicy buds, and tip it away from stuff like aphids and bud rot.

 

[freddyyola]

oh okay well then they got it all figured out! alot of ppl dont care or want to take the time to learn and figure everything out they just want great soil ready to go and pre mix soil amendments to charge or recharge soil is easy on beginners idk why more companies dont make soil amendment blend for cannabis.. foxfarm actually has great soil amendment mixes they have a veg and a bloom and more..

 

[freddyyola]

i use mega crop for when i feed but in my soil i like to have kelp meal bone meal blood meal feather meal fish meal all that stuff! i have bags of the stuff that i add in separately but these happy frog bags have all this stuff mixed in already and you can just add it to your soil.. when my plant gets close to flowering time i add in the
Happy Frog Fruit and Flower Organic Fertilizer (is pH-balanced with premium organic ingredients like bat guano, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, feather meal and humic acid, a naturally occurring organic material that is formed when organic matter decomposes.)

but each bag is a different mix for different plants and plant life stages.. and they are only about 10$ a bag and goes a long way im sure a bag could re amend all your soil unless you are on a commercial scale lol..
you can get them on amazon i get mine at the local feed n seed..

 

[freddyyola]

but if you already have a mix in mind that you rather use theres nothing wrong with that im just trying to give you more options.. i checked and the soil you are using seems like great stuff..