Ok I just went to a local nursery for some soil, they had some organic soil, a blend from a local corn farmer. So I decided to use this soil for my current grow which i started on on 11/6/10. I was reading a few threads and people were saying, if you use organic soil, you need to add nutes earlier due to the fact organic soils don't have many nutrients in it and the plant will grow slower. Is this the case? I don't know what to really do because this is my first complete organic grow. When should I add nutes to organic soil?
organic soil from local farm.
- Thread starter ooh shit
- Start date
Nullis
Moderator
Are you talking soil as in directly from the GROUND? Or a soil-mix that has been amended and designated for container gardening?
A hell of a lot goes on within soil indoors and out, but soil from the outdoors typically isn't suitable for container gardening for various reasons. Among these is a potential for poor drainage and the soil becoming waterlogged; but there are also various species of micro-organisms dwelling in the soil (bacteria, fungi, protozoa), along with microscopic worm-like creatures known as nematodes, as well as a plethora of insects and bugs (arthropods)-most of which you'd have to focus on carefully to see with the naked eye.
In nature everything happening among these living organisms typically boils down to an equilibrium: a distinct balance. Many species of bacteria, fungi and protozoans are strictly beneficial. We really want them to be in our soil because they do good things for it and for the plant. Even many nematodes and arthropods are beneficial and desirable as they not only consume pest eggs, larvae and bad fungus and bacteria- but also excrete wastes that fertilize the plant and continuously mix and aerate the soil. When you take soil from the outdoors and put it into a container- aside from having no idea which kinds of detrimental microbes and other pests might be present, you can't be sure the good ones are there in healthy populations either. The favor tilts in the direction of the 'bad', detrimental microbes and organisms. You could bake your soil to sterilize it, which would kill everything in it but that still leaves the other issues to consider.
As for nutrients, organic soils may be loaded with amendments that fertilize. It is nice to know exactly what is in your soil so you know if you need to add anything immediately or not. You can always do a soil test (with the colored capsules) to at least check the NPK levels. You can amend your soil with things like earthworm castings, steamed bone meal, guano, kelp etc. before you plant into it. Certain organic fertilizers may become available to the plant over the course of several months, even years, while others are quite available immediately. Organics depends on microbes and organisms to decompose organic matter into humus, fix and mineralize nutrients. This doesn't always take ages, as bacteria can work quite quickly and efficiently.
You can do a simple test to check the drainage of the soil you acquired: put enough of it into a pot with drainage holes, pack it firmly and water it. Note what happens; if it becomes muddy/mucky, compressed or if the water puddles and doesn't drain promptly (within a minute) I definitely wouldn't use it. Amendments like coco coir, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, pumice, humus, and vermiculite are used to improve soil structure and drainage.
This is an awesome overview of the soil food web that will allow you to become familiar with what goes on within living soil: http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html
A hell of a lot goes on within soil indoors and out, but soil from the outdoors typically isn't suitable for container gardening for various reasons. Among these is a potential for poor drainage and the soil becoming waterlogged; but there are also various species of micro-organisms dwelling in the soil (bacteria, fungi, protozoa), along with microscopic worm-like creatures known as nematodes, as well as a plethora of insects and bugs (arthropods)-most of which you'd have to focus on carefully to see with the naked eye.
In nature everything happening among these living organisms typically boils down to an equilibrium: a distinct balance. Many species of bacteria, fungi and protozoans are strictly beneficial. We really want them to be in our soil because they do good things for it and for the plant. Even many nematodes and arthropods are beneficial and desirable as they not only consume pest eggs, larvae and bad fungus and bacteria- but also excrete wastes that fertilize the plant and continuously mix and aerate the soil. When you take soil from the outdoors and put it into a container- aside from having no idea which kinds of detrimental microbes and other pests might be present, you can't be sure the good ones are there in healthy populations either. The favor tilts in the direction of the 'bad', detrimental microbes and organisms. You could bake your soil to sterilize it, which would kill everything in it but that still leaves the other issues to consider.
As for nutrients, organic soils may be loaded with amendments that fertilize. It is nice to know exactly what is in your soil so you know if you need to add anything immediately or not. You can always do a soil test (with the colored capsules) to at least check the NPK levels. You can amend your soil with things like earthworm castings, steamed bone meal, guano, kelp etc. before you plant into it. Certain organic fertilizers may become available to the plant over the course of several months, even years, while others are quite available immediately. Organics depends on microbes and organisms to decompose organic matter into humus, fix and mineralize nutrients. This doesn't always take ages, as bacteria can work quite quickly and efficiently.
You can do a simple test to check the drainage of the soil you acquired: put enough of it into a pot with drainage holes, pack it firmly and water it. Note what happens; if it becomes muddy/mucky, compressed or if the water puddles and doesn't drain promptly (within a minute) I definitely wouldn't use it. Amendments like coco coir, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, pumice, humus, and vermiculite are used to improve soil structure and drainage.
This is an awesome overview of the soil food web that will allow you to become familiar with what goes on within living soil: http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html
Before you put the seeds into the soil. You need to make sure the soil or soilmix is completely sustainable for you plant or plants. Fungi and earthworms are your friend in this type of grow. Basically the soil should have and be able to sustain microlife, such as nematodes, fungi, earthworms and the like with you adding only chlorine-free water when needed and that's it. I have an organic soilmix cooking right now in my back driveway. Cooking is allowing the amendments time to equalize after mixing. One month or so. I've amended it with bat guano, greensand, worm castings, perlite for drainage, vermiculite for water retention, blood meal, bone meal, dolomite lime to buffer the bloodmeal and provide calcuim and magnesium, don't buy hydrated lime, I also used a personal compost recipe. And mycorrhizal fungi and fish emulsion fert for teas. You get a superior tasting product to hydroponically grown goode. But be careful, because adding synthetics at anytime will kill the microherd of fungi and so forth and cause the plant to have to suddenly start processing its own nutrients. Synthetics being miracle grow with fertilizer of some sort. Do your research first. Skunk magazine has a series on organics called True living organics, (TLO) meaning the soil is alive and the fungi are processing the nutrients for the plant allowing it to chill and make lovely resinous bud for you. Good growing fellow gardener. Almost forgot the PH. It isn't a concern with organic growing as the microbes will automatically balance the soil after everything cooked, so to speak. check it after a while and something is amiss add the apropriate amendment then germinate the seeds and water when needed with chorine-free water. Chorine in non-filtered water will immediately kill the microlife in the soil that's why municipal water districts use it. That's why we don't have cholera in the water and things like that. Choramine is also use for this reason, it being a more stabilized form of chlorine and ammonia mix.