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SOIL Organic soil mixure with me!....

S

Superstrainpot

New member
I need help with making a soil mixture if anyone could lend someone with special needs a hand. I've read a couple of books, and wanted to do a TLO (true living organics) grow with these ingredients;

Worm compost or fish enzymes
Rice hulls
Dolomite lime
Mycorrhizal fungi
Alfalfa
Dried kelp
Oyster shells
Azomite and humic acid

I need help with understanding what measurements I need to make this work. I could be reached on Discord as Flipfloptothetop#3206 (cap sensitive). I appreciate all the help!
 
Welcome to the forum and GWE! You are on the right track with what you have listed. It's called the Coots recipe and you can find a lot more info at the Build A Soil site naming those ingredients plus a couple. Don't forget perlite or pumice for drainage. 1/3 each of your base being compost or worm castings, perlite and compost. A few of us are doing this so you won't be alone!
 
All of those things will make a great soil but it's really important to let all those ingredients "develop" together for a couple months. I swear by using coarse sand in the mix as well. It can add a substantial amount of mica and other minerals that Azomite alone can not. Like TOKABIGONE mentioned, a high quality compost is essential or you'll end up with a thick muddy mess. Best of luck.
 
Superstrainpot where did you go? If still interested here goes the mix I use. For soil base i use sphagnum peat moss comes in bales preferably because it’s alive cut straight from the source to you. That’s one part then I use pumice/rice hulls for aeration, that’s the second part. And the 3rd part is if you can preferably use worm castings made at home or someone you know the bagged castings you can buy at a store are not equal, if not a good quality compost. I use Malibu blends. Been tested for heavy metals and it’s good quality. Mix those and that makes your soil. To that I add one cup of amendments per cubic feet of soil. The amendments are, Karanja/Neem meal, kelp meal, and crustacean meal. That’s it for nutrients. For my minerals I use basalt use 2 cups of this one, gypsum, and oyster shell flour. Mix those and you are done. Forget about the azomite and dolomite lime those are not quality inputs and also make sure you source out quality inputs. Look up how azomite dolomite and any other amendments with mite in the end came about and what it’s used for and you won’t want it in your soil. Best thing with this mix you can go straight to growing no need to wait for it to cook or nothing. Mix, throw seed in or clone, water properly and you will harvest quality medicine. To make it easy I use 5 gallon buckets. One for pest loss one for pumice and one for compost then you have 15 gallons worth of soil about 2cf now you know easily the amount of amendments to use. Hope I didn’t waste my time. You are a 1 time post. Hope that helps others.
 
Thanks for that info Cali, I will keep it for reference as I continue my own journey into living soil mysteries. Growing soil is the only true way to farm. Funny how natures way got overwhelmed with the advent of hydro and the chemical fertilizer manufacturers jumped on that bandwagon immediately with giant profits to be made with no regard to the ill effects. $20 bucks a quart for 99% water is a pretty nice profit!
 
I'm curious about you're comment on Azomite. Just because it ends in "ite" doesn't make it a bentonite associate. It is listed for certified organic agriculture use by the Organic Materials Review Institute. I use it in my benign seedling soil so that new plants have access to trace minerals without the need for high levels of nutrients. Your comment was pretty vague so I'm interested in why you don't like it.
 
Yeah that one gave me pause because I have seen azomite and dolomite lime as well as langbeonite recommended as pretty necessary in almost all the recipes I researched so I will probably study it more going forward. Don't really matter now as the die is cast for me. My new batch was mixed with all of them and has been cooking for a week now. I'm not manic about truly organic as i think the word is over used. More hype from the tree hugging crowd! (that one will get me hate mail!) If I see the results I expect I will continue to use the "ites"!
 
I am not using it in cooking although that might not be a bad Idea to keep the colonies happy. Pretty easy to start watering it in even before the plants arrive. I usually start about a week after transplant with a tablespoon per gallon once a week.
 
Wow I lost all that I was writing. Anyways. Azomite , bentonite, zeallite they are the same thing but cheaper you ain’t paying for the brand Azomite. Azomite is used to make clay ovens. Don’t need it since he already has oyster shell flour. I say quality inputs not all are made the same. Some Organic labels are there just to make the product look good, example bone meal bloodmeal I don’t want that in my soil either. Bat guano. Maybe I’m wrong? Toker you said Azomite dolomite langbeonite are necessary? I would like to know why they say that? The inputs I use are very minimal so far all I need. I do add fish bone meal. I would like to know how much better or not it is without or with all those extras? I pulled 12 oz dry quality nugs in a 2x4 tent last grow. Not bad with just a Mars hydro sp3000 and no training maybe a bit of lst. I had written down a better paragraph explaining why but it erased so I did my best I’m on my phone.
 
Hey, I never claim to be an expert for sure but what I'm reading is that all of these "ites" as we call them are naturally occurring mined rock minerals from volcanic rock. No heavy minerals or other harmful elements but they do hold many minerals in a soluable ready to use form. Are they absolutely necessary? No, I used none of them in my last grow and it was all vigorous and healthy. These minerals are necessary to plant health but most are available from other amendments so it's all debatable if there really is a cost benefit to it or if the plants produce more and better bud.
 
I like growing in soil. I've been to the Buid a soil site and read about Clackamus Coots soil. I'd like to try my hand at growing a living soil. The idea of just adding water I like. I have an auto grow going with FFOF amended with Bio Tabs. How much space does it take to build this soil? Container size, storage, etc. I have limited space and I'm concerned about that while it cooks.
 
Good morning golfnrl you need about a 6 by 6 space on the floor to mix up but it can then be potted up to "cook" in them so you get your floor back to clean up. Do more research and you will find that all these recipes are pretty flexible while similar so it's hard to screw it up. Some want to mix in the kitchen sink but that's fine tho not necessary. C'mon back and we'll figure it out together!
 
TOKABIGONE i didn’t mean to come off like that. I was just wondering how I would benefit from those because you said you read somewhere they are pretty necessary. So I’m wondering now, if I would benefit from it, or someone using it does it really make a difference? I just like to keep it simple. That’s why I like this “coots mix” because it is minimal inputs and the results are good. I know there are others doing better yields I was just saying that for the minimal effort I put in the results are not bad. But not the best some growers here do a pound a plant I think?
 
I mix and keep my soil in large black plastic tubs with lids. I just find it simple this way to mix up coco coir, perilite, vermiculite, worm casings and older soil from previous grows. I keep refreshing it with good organic bags of composted soil. I do measure and mostly feel and look at it, i like sticking my hands in it feeling the texture and my hands no gloves!! ;)
 
Good morning SoOrbudgal! Yep, I see your successes all over that statement. I know you're still using chemical nutes in flower so I'm wondering if you still always check your pH inputs? I like a cooler soil to start then I can supplement with teas such as castings, guano, humic acid powder and Alaska Salmon fish emulsion which I found to give explosive growth in the stretch
 
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Well that link is one I've been directed to before which talks about using barley malt as an amendment not the actual recipe. i've not been successful trying to find his recipe in his own words so I dunno.
 
Scroll to the top, you should find a tab that takes you to the rest of the blog post. One explains his recipe. Another talks about anzymes and other about myco remediation. Things like that.
 
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