The ballad of little budha's first organic soil mix

Ok so I tried here's the story:
Ingredients:
1cf steer manure w/compost earth grow brand
1cf perlite
1cf organic forest peat
1cf organic local compost
6 cups earthworm castings
1 cup happy frog fruit and flower
1 cup neptunes harvest crab meal
1 cup blood meal
1 cup bone meal
1 cup Algamin sea kelp meal
1 cup azomite
1 cup granular humid acids
1 cup alfalfa meal.

I introduced fungus gnats somehow using crappy steer manure from home depot probably. The veg went really well, except for the masses of gnats I've since moved back to FFOF until I can pick up a sterile mix I can ammend.

So for the price of about 5 bags of FFOF I made tons and have tons of soil amendments left. I want to try again, any pros got an idea for me?

budhastalin said:

Ok so I tried here's the story:
Ingredients:
1cf steer manure w/compost earth grow brand
1cf perlite
1cf organic forest peat
1cf organic local compost
6 cups earthworm castings
1 cup happy frog fruit and flower
1 cup neptunes harvest crab meal
1 cup blood meal
1 cup bone meal
1 cup Algamin sea kelp meal
1 cup azomite
1 cup granular humid acids
1 cup alfalfa meal.

I introduced fungus gnats somehow using crappy steer manure from home depot probably. The veg went really well, except for the masses of gnats I've since moved back to FFOF until I can pick up a sterile mix I can ammend.

So for the price of about 5 bags of FFOF I made tons and have tons of soil amendments left. I want to try again, any pros got an idea for me?

Click to expand...

hard to say my friend, if you used this recipe and it worked well, I wouldn't change it.
but personally I would leave out the manure, the fruit and flower, the blood meal, bone meal and the alfalfa meal, add neem meal, oyster shell dust, rock phosphates and if the castings are good/fresh, you could probably leave out the humic acid.
I do like greensand, although it takes forever to break down, but I like to add it anyways, doesn't hurt anything.
also your ratios are a bit off, the one cup is for each cubic foot of media, and you'll have 4 cf to start. So that's four cups of each amendment to get to the recommended dosage, assuming you did indeed left out the manure
don't get me wrong, your recipe is probably fine as is, but you asked for advice and that's what i'd do.
I also am a huge fan of rabbit and or alpaca manure as opposed to steer or horse.
if you want to keep the manure, and that recipe, that's cool, but i'd add more minerals and neem meal for sure.