Re-amending growing soil such as FF Ocean Forest

[UberMensch]

Ever since Nebula posted her article on "How to Grow Organic Weed" in late July, I have been pondering the subject.

I am preparing for my next grow using soil, however before I jump into something I like to understand as much as possible beforehand. On this first grow, I intend to keep it simple and follow the guidance given in one of the articles on GWE for assembling an Organic growing medium; in my case Fox Farms Ocean Forest (since it was easily available) and Super Soil Organic Concentrate from Nature's Living Soil.

Hopefully, my first grow will not need any suppliments.

I would like to reuse the soil, and there seems to be plenty written on this subject of re-amending organic soil. By "Googling" the topic several products are mentioned for re-amending soil (ie. worm castings, guano, trichoderma, mycorrhizae, azomite, bone meal...and several other components). What I can't seem to find anywhere are the volumes (i.e. amount of each amendment/gallon of base soil) these amendments should be added to prepare the soil for the next growing cycle. I suspect the reason I haven't seen this is because the amount of these amendments depends on the state of depletion of the base soil.

That said, if anyone has any suggestions on this...I would love to hear how you are doing this!

 

[Going2fast]

What I do is similar to the article but I use compost out of my garden bin on the bottom third and miracle grow organics potting soil on the top two thirds. It does not have their fertilizer in it. For a five gallon pot I will add 2/3 cup of dolomite lime to it. This helps buffer the soil and eliminates the need for cal mag. I still try to keep my water pH at 6 to 7 as my well water is 5.5 and on a 5 gallon pot I have had issues with lockout late flowering on larger plants. Mind I have only grown autos with this method but I usually get 3 to 8 ounces a plant this way.
I will compost the used soil after the grow and let the worms and bugs and bacteria recharge it. My compost consists of grass clippings, crab and fish scraps, non meat kitchen scraps, leaves and soil and a healthy population of earthworms.

 

[UberMensch]

What I do is similar to the article but I use compost out of my garden bin on the bottom third and miracle grow organics potting soil on the top two thirds. It does not have their fertilizer in it. For a five gallon pot I will add 2/3 cup of dolomite lime to it. This helps buffer the soil and eliminates the need for cal mag. I still try to keep my water pH at 6 to 7 as my well water is 5.5 and on a 5 gallon pot I have had issues with lockout late flowering on larger plants. Mind I have only grown autos with this method but I usually get 3 to 8 ounces a plant this way.
I will compost the used soil after the grow and let the worms and bugs and bacteria recharge it. My compost consists of grass clippings, crab and fish scraps, non meat kitchen scraps, leaves and soil and a healthy population of earthworms.

Sounds like you have built a perpetual compost factory...well done!

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Yes i do similar i will reuse my flushed mixture and recharge with worm casing an composted lawn clippings more coco peat an bat quano, fish meal let it cook in a sealed tote.

 

[UberMensch]

@SoOrbudgal​ - Excellent! When you recharge with worm castings and guano, is there any danger of making the soil "too hot"?