New to Organic, working out soil composition.

Hello.

New to Organics, I have found quite a few very useful threads in regards to soil. It seems that everyone has a recipe that works best for them. So, seeing as I'm an indoor grower, I'm going to have to supplement with tea.

I was hoping I could get help with my mix. My 5 year goal is to have a solid established Recycled organic living soil.

Currently what I have.

Organic potting soil = 80L
Organic fish soil = 50L
Peat moss = 3 cu ft
Gaia Green blood meal 14-0-0
Gaia Green bone meal 2-16-0
Gaia Green Glacial Rock dust
Gaia Green Kelp meal 1-0-3
Dutch treat liquid seaweed fertilizer 0.1-0.1-0.5

I guess my question are how do I figure out the ratios to mix my soil (should I just fallow the instructions on the package)? I should probably do a 2 part soil? One high in Nitrogen for veg and one high in phos and potas for flowering? Can anyone recommend a book or two worth reading on soil composition, composting, and soil microbiome not specific to marijuana?

Ideally in the future everything will be locally sourced. I've got a vermiculture started but not producing enough to use it yet, I'm going to build a compost, and I've approached a farmer about emptying their chicken coop but that won't be until next year since someone already beat me to it.

Thank you for your time.

I'm currently reading teaming with microbes it's a great book. And I plan on reading teaming with nutrients as well. On the side I've also started reading true living organics: the ultimate guide to growing all natural organic cannabis indoors. That's also a great book lots of stuff to learn from both of the two books I've read so far can't wait to read the 3rd one.

I don't like using potting mix at all...put that base together yourself with peat or coco, aeration rocks, and castings/compost. Alfalfa, lime, gypsum, and azomite are all really important as well.

Well. Mixed up my soil. Going to let it sit in a black Garbage can for 30+ days, hopefully it will work out alright and whatever issue that springs up I'll be able to correct with tea.

Pseudobotany said:

Well. Mixed up my soil. Going to let it sit in a black Garbage can for 30+ days, hopefully it will work out alright and whatever issue that springs up I'll be able to correct with tea.

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Unless you're brewing a tea with compost or worm castings, teas are not only superfluous but can and will cause problems. Making a tea out of guano, alfalfa meal, or any other organic amendments like that is essentially turning things into a pseudo hydro grow.

Compost/EWC teas won't cause harm and are useful for "jump starting" the composting process of a new soil, or bringing new life into used soil.

In an organic soil, your roots communicate with the microbes in your soil when they need something. When your plant needs nitrogen, the roots exude specific terpenes to specific microbes to ensure the microbes will munch on something with nitrogen and then defecate the nitrogen to the roots for the plant to absorb it. If the plant needs Phosphorus, same thing. The roots exude terpenes to the microbes based on whatever the plant needs at the time.

The problem with guano/etc teas is that you are making the NPK of the organic amendment readily available as opposed to available over time. With these teas, you are putting yourself in charge of the plant instead of allowing the soil to do it's job. If you make the guano tea too strong, you WILL burn your plants and throw the soil out of balance. This is because the plant's roots aren't signalling to the microbes that it needs something, you are essentially dumping it into the soil yourself and not allowing the microbes to do their job.

I'd recommend a product called "Recharge". Unless you make your own EWC/compost, most compost/EWC that you buy is mediocre at best. Recharge is great because it has a host of bacteria and fungi in it and you simply water it in, no need to make a tea at all.

You have a good looking soil mix. Just use the Recharge product if you have any issues, which you likely will not run into.

The only issues you'll face in the "cooking" process is not giving it enough air by not turning it enough. You'll know if that happens because the ammonia smell is pretty obnoxious and will let you know when you need to turn the soil more. Should this happen to you, simply dump the soil out and turn it constantly. Anaerobic bacteria will die in short order if you expose enough oxygen to it. Aside from that, you shouldn't face any problems.

Make sure you don't get impatient and let it sit for 30 days, if not a little longer. Bone/Blood meals are pretty hot, and if you don't let those ingredients decompose enough they'll burn the shit out of your roots.

Those should be the only issues you run into, if even at all.

HTH

@kratos015
Thanks a lot for the reply! The only other concern I have is my pot size. I have 6 or 7 gallon pots, which what I have read ideally I'd want 15 gallon pot. 10 gallon being the recommended minimum. I don't have the room to increase the size of my pots.

I should have enough worm casting to start making tea by the time I start my next grow. I will look into recharge as a precaution, thanks you for the suggestion.

Pseudobotany said:

@kratos015
Thanks a lot for the reply! The only other concern I have is my pot size. I have 6 or 7 gallon pots, which what I have read ideally I'd want 15 gallon pot. 10 gallon being the recommended minimum. I don't have the room to increase the size of my pots.

I should have enough worm casting to start making tea by the time I start my next grow. I will look into recharge as a precaution, thanks you for the suggestion.

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7g pots will work just fine, you get better results in larger pots but 7g will do just fine. Certain microbes only colonize past 1ft deep which is why you hear growers recommending pots/holes that are ~1.5ft deep like the 25-30g pots.

The only "consequences" of 7g pots will be that you just won't have those microbes that colonize past 1ft deep and you'll need to top dress more often. A 7g pot worth of soil will decompose at a faster rate than a 20g+ pot due to the size, but you will be totally fine. Just means you'll need to top dress more often than someone in larger pots.