Cooking supersoil when its cold out

I live in an area where it's winter 6 months of the year, problematic when trying to cook soil for one month. Tried to set it above heat register and that didn't work. What does work is a large rubber bin to hold your soil, a metal 3 gallon pail and an agricultural deicer in the metal pail. Fill 3 gallon pail with water, plug it in and there you have a method to cook your soil when you can't do it outside.


I need to play with wattage to see what the soil and soil volume needs to get to a decent temp so i will post results when i get there.

Try some form of insulative layer under the rubber bin as well. At the very least, get it off the floor. Floors act as a huge heat sink, concrete being the worse...

This goes for potted plants as well.

I had it perched above vent and wrapped in a plastic dome, never got very warm

When you say cook soil you mean an organic soil blend correct? Although people use the term "cook" this doesn't actually have to do with the temperature of the soil. The cooking part is letting all your amendments break down and compost. All this requires is for the soil to be moistened and allowed to air out every now and then.

Often times your soil will actually heat up while cooking but this is because the bacteria,fungi, etc.. are breaking nutrients down and a byproduct is heat.

When you say it didn't work before what do you exactly mean? I cook my soil in giant plastic totes, watering occasionally and turning/mixing it around every week or so.

I make my own soil from scratch every summer, it sits in the garage all winter until I need it and its fine, like dudewhereami said, the amendments and compost keep it warm

Yes organic, I don't actually mean cook like an oven, my temps don't get above 21c and with a low temp like that comes low microbial / compost rate. Compared to under a tarp in the summer this doesn't come close.

I've got 2 trash cans full "cooking" right next to my furnace in my basement, because I'm in the frigid north east!! And another 2 cans out in my cold garage that will be for later on. I have read freezing won't kill beneficials, and places like Pro-Mix store their products outdoors, but the cold probably does slow down the process I would guess.

brew a compost tea at planting and transplanting. add mycorhizae fungi to your pots when planting and transplanting if you dont already. give them a week or two if they get funky, theyll pull out of it fine. chicago area

Hey guys sorry about posting this here but i can't seem to find the answer anywhere. So it's very difficult and expensive to acquire bottled nutrients where i live all i could find is this organic fertilizer mix my question is the fertilizer has a bunch of stats but i don't have the knowledge to understand it. I've uploaded a pic hope someone could help me out?

Ideally a container of cooking super soil sits between 60-70F for about 2 months. The heat comes from the metabolic activity of the micro life forms in the soil, like your body makes heat due to metabolic activity. In cold areas, it might be wise to bring the soil indoors if possible.
megrowweed, you really should google search those terms if you want to learn them.

megrowweed said:

Hey guys sorry about posting this here but i can't seem to find the answer anywhere. So it's very difficult and expensive to acquire bottled nutrients where i live all i could find is this organic fertilizer mix my question is the fertilizer has a bunch of stats but i don't have the knowledge to understand it. I've uploaded a pic hope someone could help me out?

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Divide the 14560 mg by 1000 mg/g divide again by 1000 g/kg x 100, so 14560 mg / 1000 = 14.56 g / 1000 = 0.01456 kg x 100 = 1.456% N, do the same for all the rest to get your typical NPK and mineral concentrations.

Bignutes said:

Divide the 14560 mg by 1000 mg/g divide again by 1000 g/kg x 100, so 14560 mg / 1000 = 14.56 g / 1000 = 0.01456 kg x 100 = 1.456% N, do the same for all the rest to get your typical NPK and mineral concentrations.

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Thank you so much. Just a quick question this percentage is per kg right and do you think if mixed in the right ratio i could pull off a complete grow?

14560 mg / 1000 = 14.56 g / 10 = 1.456N

polishpollack said:

14560 mg / 1000 = 14.56 g / 10 = 1.456N

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What i'm unable to understand is that how much of this should i mix in let's say a 5 gallon pot and will this be enough for the whole cycle?

Ah, well, yes. So there's no instructions on how to use? Your answer depends on what kind of soil you use and what you NPK numbers are like. Right now it's hard to say.

Given there's no application rate and don't know your starter mix I'd go with 1.25 liters per 19 liter if you used say 33% aeration, 33% peat, 33% worm castings. Any other even moderately warm soil go with half strength of 0.63 liters per 19 liter.

At 1.25 per 19 this will be moderately warm soil given the numbers. (About 1/2 strength of subs supersoil).

I'd concentrate more of it in the bottom half.

Don't know if it would be enough for whole cycle, you'd have to try it. If it starts to run out of gas then use alfalfa tea to carry you thru till the end.

Or just buy ocean forest and put that in the bottom half. Sub's method worked good, but if you need soil right now, buying it in a ready state is necessary. Just make sure that whatever soil you choose, that you use a lot of it because it will have to last the entire grow. This means large containers. I'm not sure 5 gallons is enough. Maybe. Sub was using containers much bigger for his indoor grow.

I think hes from Australia so its probably really expensive if they even have it

Yeah i agree, he had the best results in a 10 gallon, 7 is doable but I'd also go with 10 gallon. You could do 7 if you wanted to cut off 10 to 14 days off of veg but that's going to hurt your yields.

megrowweed said:

What i'm unable to understand is that how much of this should i mix in let's say a 5 gallon pot and will this be enough for the whole cycle?

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Try the calculator app at the bottom of this page:

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