It’s funny I was just about to make a thread asking people about their soil sustainability setups. I hate the term “super soil” because I think it sets the bar really low. All soil should be like it is in nature — a distinct ecosystem of microbes that work to continue the cycle of decay and growth. Nothing “super” about that. Just Mother Nature at work.
I’m an amateur mycologist as well as an amateur horticulturalist, so I’ve been into soil recycling since before I even knew it was a thing. I don’t flush and I add very little liquid nutes throughout the flowering cycle, because most of the magic happens in the big grey bin next to my grow tent. My process is as follows. For building new soil, I start with a dry mix of peat, perlite, and vermiculite, at about 4:3:3. I hydrate that mix with warm water with epsom salt and blackstrap molasses stirred in. I never precisely measure it out, but it’s always about a tablespoon of epsom salt and 1/4 cup of molasses per gallon for new soil.
Once it’s hydrated, I add in some aged, leached horse manure and this stuff from Lowe’s — Jobe’s organic all purpose granular plant food. It’s loaded with good shit, but its main use is as an inoculant because it’s got a lot of beneficial microbes. I mix about a cup and a half of this stuff into the wet soil, and let it sit in the bin for a couple weeks. It’s ready when it no longer smells like shit.
For recycling soil out of pots it is a much simpler matter. I don’t flush, but I do finish with a product that binds salts and apparently triggers a stress response to pump up resin production at the end. It’s called “signal” from true plant science and it seems to do a great job. I’ve got some phenos that I was sure would take 10 weeks that look like they’ll be done in 8.
Once the plants are chopped down, I just break up the root mass, sift out as much root material as possible, and return the soil to the bin and mix everything really well. I don’t usually re-inoculate the used soil with the Jobe’s granules because I always keep enough leftover soil in the bin to act as a starter culture. If I think the nutes have been used up I’ll hit the soil again with everything. After another two weeks any remaining root mass is decomposed and the soil is ready for another round.
The soil that I’m using for these plants has already been recycled twice, and it really seems to get better with age. At this point I only have to buy an occasional bag of perlite or vermiculite. I bought a bale of peat moss at the beginning of the year and I’ve only used about half of it.
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Does anyone here have any feedback? After reading about my process can anyone think of anything I could be doing better or differently? My method obviously works but just because something works doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. I’m going to start adding supplemental silica into the mix with the next grow. I’m wondering if I should just mix in some DE into the soil and if that will be enough or if I should use the liquid supplement I use for clones in addition.
