Base mix question

Raven121415

Well-Known Member
I am using "Just Natural Organic Potting Mix" well screened. I ended up with a half a pallet for around $1.25 a cf bag so that is what I will use for a little while. It's ingredients are Canadian sphagnum peat moss, processed pine bark, processed forest products and/or rice hulls, reed-sedge peat, ground dolomitic lime, organic fertilizer, and worm castings 0.04-0.06-0.04. I also have mushroom compost, peat humus, perelite, and ewc and was wondering what ratios of each I should use to build similar to LC mix. I have aditional pulverized dolomitic lime as well. Without the lime added in my 1 gal pots I hit cal def around 2nd-3rd week of true veg.
 

Raven121415

Well-Known Member
Never mind. After opening the bag of peat humus I discovered a bag of clay and wood chunks of varying size made up a large portion of the bag. I went with 1 cf bag soil mix, 2 gal perilite, a little less than 1 1/2 gal mushroom compost and ewc mixed. I also added 1 c Bio-Tone Starter Plus 4-3-3, 3/4 cup pulverized dolomite lime, 1/2 cup oystershell flour, and 1 cup bone meal 6-9-0. Bagged soil was really wet so I mixed everything together and filled the 3 gal pots and left them to sit and see if I can dry them out a bit. I will use Espoma Liquid Organic Grow to feed for the 1st few weeks while the rest becomes available. Is there anyrhing I should add, change/rethink before transplanting into this mix? Any input and advice is greatly appreciated.
 

Wetdog

Well-Known Member
That sounds very similar to my base mix except for the Canadian specific stuff (reed sedge peat).

To save/make money producers will add just enough 'stuff' to list it and sorta make it work and are usually light on the lime (you noticed that), and aeration (perlite). You would have really noticed that later on when you went to larger pots and stuff started breaking down.

I think the easiest thing would be is to give you my gross measurements for my base mix (from scratch), and you could kinda compare it to your bagged stuff by eyeballing.

Base mix for 2cf+
Measures are 5gal buckets.
1cf peat moss (Premier or Lambert), expanded, 1 1/2 buckets (7 1/2 gallons)
Perlite: 1 full bucket (5 gallons)
Pine bark fines: 3 gallons +/- in a 5 gallon bucket
Fresh VC: ~2 gallons to fill out the bucket the pine bark is in
Pulverized Dolomite lime: 1 1/2 cup/cf (3 cups/batch)

This is my basic base mix.

HTH
 
Top