Question about SubCools super soil and liquid nutrients??

Caperfarmer902

Caperfarmer902

Member
So I know a few people who are wondering the same thing here, I got messages after messages about this question and could never answer it I could only answer the regular questions about deficiencies in a certain macronutrients and how to treat the problems along with toxicity treatments of certain macronutrients along with early symptoms of a deficiency or toxicity of a certain trace element,

So, Just wondering here if I was to use sub cools super soil recipe down to a T, for both my indoor and outdoor grow, would I be able to use store bought liquid nutrients and additives along with the super soil or will this be to much for the plants or could this cause burn to the plants, or maby even just the super soil outside with a organic yea feeding every so many days or find a schedule for both and use the super soil indoors with organic store bought nutes and additives, there's so many ways to go about this so I'm wondering if anyone tryed this super soil by TGA sub cools and also using compost tea liquid feeding or store bought nutes?

I want a soil mix that will feed the plants as they grow along with being able to add that extra boost to get the best results yield, potency, taste, smell, everything for both my indoor and outdoor grows, if anyone has a mix they use that feeds the plants along with any other methods you use to add to your grow I'd love to know!!

Please post away with how you grow your plants and what you feed with and also your tips & tricks to your best or favourite results!!

Thank you,
Caper
 
Dr. Who

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Sub's soil is sub par!
layering? WTFF?
To many parts and you don't need to do that - Just like The REV too!

Check this out for a basic water only soil build - Read the whole thread!!!

http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1116550-easy-organic-soil-mix-beginners.html

See how easy that is?
I run a simple Veg soil and then at the last up pot to the finishing pot size, is when they go in a bloom soil,,,7-10 days more of veg and they get flipped.
Hints for that are to be sure to use a source of Si that is available at veg to mid bloom. Make a mineral mix and include med to slow release P minerals - like soft rock phosphate. Include 4 cups of Garden Gypsum.
I use a more in depth Bloom soil.....If the plant has coloring potential. I up the K..
Heavy feeders get an Organic liquid mix once a week to support the heavy feed needs.

Don't rely on Sub's or the Rev's soil ! I've tried them and I don't like them at all.....I do a simple variation of each with far less repeating nutrients

Good luck
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Before you dive in too deep you should read up on organic growing. Maintaining a living soil mix is very different than force feeding woth bottled nutrients. Synthetic nutrients are detrimental to a living or "super" soil as they contain dissolved salts that dry out the microbial life. If you want to use nutrients that's fine but you are defeating the purpose of super soil which is to feed the plants naturally through fungal and microbial activity which consumes the amendments in the soil making them available to your plants in the rhizosphere.
A lot of noobs start out with a good active soil mix & then kill every living thing in it by using nutes and/or chlorinated water. Once the soil is semi sterile only bottled nutes can feed your plants which is ok if that's ok with you. Organic growers know that all they need is clean water & the occasional organic tea to keep their plants healthy. No flushing or bothering with PH issues or chemical tastes; just pure natural representation of your chosen genetics. Plants don't much care if their next meal is natural or synthetic but think about it if you were to survive on nothing but vitamins you would not be as healthy as if you had gotten balanced nutrition from ingesting actual food.
You do not have to buy a soil brand either it is just as easy to make your own. I started out with FFOF soil & then added fresh worm castings and other amendments to recycle my soil; it seems to get even better with each run.
Never used Revs soil either but I do recommend his book called True living Organics; it's a good primer into organic methods meant for those with a bottled nute mentality. Good luck happy growing
 
Dr. Who

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Richard Drysift said:
Before you dive in too deep you should read up on organic growing. Maintaining a living soil mix is very different than force feeding woth bottled nutrients. Synthetic nutrients are detrimental to a living or "super" soil as they contain dissolved salts that dry out the microbial life. If you want to use nutrients that's fine but you are defeating the purpose of super soil which is to feed the plants naturally through fungal and microbial activity which consumes the amendments in the soil making them available to your plants in the rhizosphere.
A lot of noobs start out with a good active soil mix & then kill every living thing in it by using nutes and/or chlorinated water. Once the soil is semi sterile only bottled nutes can feed your plants which is ok if that's ok with you. Organic growers know that all they need is clean water & the occasional organic tea to keep their plants healthy. No flushing or bothering with PH issues or chemical tastes; just pure natural representation of your chosen genetics. Plants don't much care if their next meal is natural or synthetic but think about it if you were to survive on nothing but vitamins you would not be as healthy as if you had gotten balanced nutrition from ingesting actual food.
You do not have to buy a soil brand either it is just as easy to make your own. I started out with FFOF soil & then added fresh worm castings and other amendments to recycle my soil; it seems to get even better with each run.
Never used Revs soil either but I do recommend his book called True living Organics; it's a good primer into organic methods meant for those with a bottled nute mentality. Good luck happy growing
Click to expand...
Nicely put RD!
I would recommend Teaming with Microbes and Teaming with Nutrients before the REV's book. I do have Revs book too...
and Soma's is out of print but here's a link to it in pdf.

https://www.kiwiland.com/pdf/19884/book-organic-marijuana-soma-style.pdf

Doc
 
CBDbudMan

CBDbudMan

Member
Richard Drysift said:
Before you dive in too deep you should read up on organic growing. Maintaining a living soil mix is very different than force feeding woth bottled nutrients. Synthetic nutrients are detrimental to a living or "super" soil as they contain dissolved salts that dry out the microbial life. If you want to use nutrients that's fine but you are defeating the purpose of super soil which is to feed the plants naturally through fungal and microbial activity which consumes the amendments in the soil making them available to your plants in the rhizosphere.
A lot of noobs start out with a good active soil mix & then kill every living thing in it by using nutes and/or chlorinated water. Once the soil is semi sterile only bottled nutes can feed your plants which is ok if that's ok with you. Organic growers know that all they need is clean water & the occasional organic tea to keep their plants healthy. No flushing or bothering with PH issues or chemical tastes; just pure natural representation of your chosen genetics. Plants don't much care if their next meal is natural or synthetic but think about it if you were to survive on nothing but vitamins you would not be as healthy as if you had gotten balanced nutrition from ingesting actual food.
You do not have to buy a soil brand either it is just as easy to make your own. I started out with FFOF soil & then added fresh worm castings and other amendments to recycle my soil; it seems to get even better with each run.
Never used Revs soil either but I do recommend his book called True living Organics; it's a good primer into organic methods meant for those with a bottled nute mentality. Good luck happy growing
Click to expand...
Hello RD,

I have an outdoor grow using Sub Cool's Super Soil and I have some questions:
How do I get to the place that I don't have to PH the water going in and out of my pots? I wasn't PHing and ran blindly into an alkaline wall without knowing it. My PPM where literally off the scale too. I didn't know any of this until I brought pics into my local hydroponics store and was recommended test equipment, RO filter and flushed. The "green girls", as I call them, bounced back rather well, but it sounds like you don't have this issue. Can you tell me why I did?

How long is the soil supposed to last? Because I'm at 33.75 northern latitude and growing outdoors in my backyard, I chose the final "up-pot" to happen on July 1st, from 5 gal pots into 20 gal pots. I'm now noticing what appears to me like my green girls are running low on food. Could this be from two months of growing in the same soil? What's the best way to give them what they need withOUT resorting to bottled nutes? Yesterday I purchased Nature's Pride Bloom 2 - 5.5 - 5.5 . Ingredients are: Crab Meal, Seabird Guanos,Oyster Shell, Alfalfa Meal, Volcanic Ash, Rock Phosphate, Fish Bone Meal, Glacial Rock Dust, Sulfate of Potash, Langbeinite, Kelp Meal.

Thank you for reading this and for any help that you may offer. :weed:
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
CBDbudMan said:
Hello RD,

I have an outdoor grow using Sub Cool's Super Soil and I have some questions:
How do I get to the place that I don't have to PH the water going in and out of my pots? I wasn't PHing and ran blindly into an alkaline wall without knowing it. My PPM where literally off the scale too. I didn't know any of this until I brought pics into my local hydroponics store and was recommended test equipment, RO filter and flushed. The "green girls", as I call them, bounced back rather well, but it sounds like you don't have this issue. Can you tell me why I did?

How long is the soil supposed to last? Because I'm at 33.75 northern latitude and growing outdoors in my backyard, I chose the final "up-pot" to happen on July 1st, from 5 gal pots into 20 gal pots. I'm now noticing what appears to me like my green girls are running low on food. Could this be from two months of growing in the same soil? What's the best way to give them what they need withOUT resorting to bottled nutes? Yesterday I purchased Nature's Pride Bloom 2 - 5.5 - 5.5 . Ingredients are: Crab Meal, Seabird Guanos,Oyster Shell, Alfalfa Meal, Volcanic Ash, Rock Phosphate, Fish Bone Meal, Glacial Rock Dust, Sulfate of Potash, Langbeinite, Kelp Meal.

Thank you for reading this and for any help that you may offer. :weed:
Click to expand...
These are some in depth questions so prepare yourself for a longass response ....
You should never have to adjust the ph of your water in organic soil because the soil itself sets the ph. You need to add soil amendments to buffer the ph way before you actually put the plants in it and then just add water; nothing else, with the exception of the occasional compost tea. Sounds like you were using tap water and were correctly advised to switch to RO. They probably sold you a bunch of other stuff too....anyway read up on recycling and preparing soil for no till outdoor grows in the organic section and/or go get this book that explains everything:
"True Living Organics" by The Rev...
There's a bit too much to this to say in a post but generally before the start each season you should amend and properly lime the soil plus top dress with fresh compost and/or add compost teas periodically to keep the soil active through the whole summer into fall.
You need a clean (non chlorinated) water source in order to maintain a living soil grow for any length of time. I use water collected from a dehumidifier and augment it with collected rain and/or natural sprung water. Water is the most important input in a living soil grow but that doesn't matter as much if you use nutrients.
Soil literally lasts forever but over time and especially in containers it becomes inactive microbially. Some people might say it's "depleted" after 60 days when in fact the soil may still contain plenty of untapped NPK value but is now bereft of microbial populations. Microbes consume what is in the soil and make it available to the fungi attached to the plants root system which in turn absorbs it and exchanges whatever the plants need through cations. Plants exchange one molecule of water for one molecule of nutrient. It is the symbiotic relationship that feeds the plants and keeps them healthy but the main source of the microbes is compost. That's the one thing I see lacking in all the amendments you list and hands down the most important.
So to get to the burning question of how to feed them without bottled nutes. That dry bloom fertilizer may help if you top dress it along with some EWC mixed in but it needs some time to break down and become available to your plants. I would also add in a handful of composted chicken manure to the dry fertilizer which goes to work pretty fast once hydrated; great source of N too. I use Charlie's compost brand; good shit. What they probably also need is something that will provide soluble Nitrogen right away like maybe some liquid fish along with a compost tea to get the party rocking again. Another trick that could help but will take a few weeks to show result is to push in a Jobes AP organic spike or make up your own spikes from blood, bone, and feather meal. Each Jobes spike feeds for 8 weeks; use one or two per plant. Push them in around the outside perimeter of the root ball so roots can find them but it's better to add spikes before they start to bloom rather than later.
 
CBDbudMan

CBDbudMan

Member
Richard Drysift said:
These are some in depth questions so prepare yourself for a longass response ....
You should never have to adjust the ph of your water in organic soil because the soil itself sets the ph. You need to add soil amendments to buffer the ph way before you actually put the plants in it and then just add water; nothing else, with the exception of the occasional compost tea. Sounds like you were using tap water and were correctly advised to switch to RO. They probably sold you a bunch of other stuff too....anyway read up on recycling and preparing soil for no till outdoor grows in the organic section and/or go get this book that explains everything:
"True Living Organics" by The Rev...
There's a bit too much to this to say in a post but generally before the start each season you should amend and properly lime the soil plus top dress with fresh compost and/or add compost teas periodically to keep the soil active through the whole summer into fall.
You need a clean (non chlorinated) water source in order to maintain a living soil grow for any length of time. I use water collected from a dehumidifier and augment it with collected rain and/or natural sprung water. Water is the most important input in a living soil grow but that doesn't matter as much if you use nutrients.
Soil literally lasts forever but over time and especially in containers it becomes inactive microbially. Some people might say it's "depleted" after 60 days when in fact the soil may still contain plenty of untapped NPK value but is now bereft of microbial populations. Microbes consume what is in the soil and make it available to the fungi attached to the plants root system which in turn absorbs it and exchanges whatever the plants need through cations. Plants exchange one molecule of water for one molecule of nutrient. It is the symbiotic relationship that feeds the plants and keeps them healthy but the main source of the microbes is compost. That's the one thing I see lacking in all the amendments you list and hands down the most important.
So to get to the burning question of how to feed them without bottled nutes. That dry bloom fertilizer may help if you top dress it along with some EWC mixed in but it needs some time to break down and become available to your plants. I would also add in a handful of composted chicken manure to the dry fertilizer which goes to work pretty fast once hydrated; great source of N too. I use Charlie's compost brand; good shit. What they probably also need is something that will provide soluble Nitrogen right away like maybe some liquid fish along with a compost tea to get the party rocking again. Another trick that could help but will take a few weeks to show result is to push in a Jobes AP organic spike or make up your own spikes from blood, bone, and feather meal. Each Jobes spike feeds for 8 weeks; use one or two per plant. Push them in around the outside perimeter of the root ball so roots can find them but it's better to add spikes before they start to bloom rather than later.
Click to expand...
Wow! Thank you RD, this is great!

So, does this book (and/or others?) state how much of each of the soil amendments needed to properly set, or buffer, the ph of the soil, or is this won by trial and error? Reason I'm asking is because I mixed my Sub Cool's Super Soil based on established amounts of each ingredient with the absolute assurance that this soil would NOT go above 7.0 ph. And, of course it did go above, way above. My source for the recipe of the Super Soil only used tap water throughout his grow, chlorine and all. I knew enough to use a good filter to remove 99.9% of the chlorine.

My RO water is consistently 8.3 ph and 6 ppm total dissolved solids. The ph of my filtered tap water (not RO) is also about 8.3 ph, but has a higher total dissolved solids of 184 ppm (That's no typo, water here is known for these ppm numbers). Is there such a thing as anticipating how much of whatever kinds of amendments/ingredients are needed to properly "set the ph"? If so, how do I go about formulating this? I'm assuming that knowing the ph of the water going in determines what the soil ph balancing abilities need to be and the recipe would be changed accordingly. Are my assumptions in error?

I realize that I'm throwing a lot of Q's at you; please forgive me for this. I have many more, of course. I've given these Q's so that you have an idea of what I'm looking for in a book or books. If these Q's are too numerous, could you please stear me to the best book(s) that would have the kinds of answers that I'm looking for?

Again, thank YOU so very much for all of your help. You seem to be very wise in this area, and I appreciate you taking the time in helping me.
 
CBDbudMan

CBDbudMan

Member
Hello RD and to anyone else that's listening,

After doing more research online, I just discovered I doubled (maybe tripled) the dolomite lime in my mix of Sub Cool's Super Soil. Could this be, at least part of, the reason why I had such high ph in my soil? Sorry for the continued Q's... I'm just trying to do everything that I can to NOT repeat next year what happened to me this year.

Thank you RD and to all that make this possible.
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
CBDbudMan said:
Hello RD and to anyone else that's listening,

After doing more research online, I just discovered I doubled (maybe tripled) the dolomite lime in my mix of Sub Cool's Super Soil. Could this be, at least part of, the reason why I had such high ph in my soil? Sorry for the continued Q's... I'm just trying to do everything that I can to NOT repeat next year what happened to me this year.

Thank you RD and to all that make this possible.
Click to expand...
Yes dolomite lime will raise the pH.
 
nl5xsk1

nl5xsk1

Well-Known Member
CBDbudMan said:
Hello RD,

I have an outdoor grow using Sub Cool's Super Soil and I have some questions:
How do I get to the place that I don't have to PH the water going in and out of my pots? I wasn't PHing and ran blindly into an alkaline wall without knowing it. My PPM where literally off the scale too. I didn't know any of this until I brought pics into my local hydroponics store and was recommended test equipment, RO filter and flushed. The "green girls", as I call them, bounced back rather well, but it sounds like you don't have this issue. Can you tell me why I did?

How long is the soil supposed to last? Because I'm at 33.75 northern latitude and growing outdoors in my backyard, I chose the final "up-pot" to happen on July 1st, from 5 gal pots into 20 gal pots. I'm now noticing what appears to me like my green girls are running low on food. Could this be from two months of growing in the same soil? What's the best way to give them what they need withOUT resorting to bottled nutes? Yesterday I purchased Nature's Pride Bloom 2 - 5.5 - 5.5 . Ingredients are: Crab Meal, Seabird Guanos,Oyster Shell, Alfalfa Meal, Volcanic Ash, Rock Phosphate, Fish Bone Meal, Glacial Rock Dust, Sulfate of Potash, Langbeinite, Kelp Meal.

Thank you for reading this and for any help that you may offer. :weed:
Click to expand...
Top dress with more ss
 
CBDbudMan

CBDbudMan

Member
nl5xsk1 said:
Top dress with more ss
Click to expand...
Thank you Nl5xsk1,

Yes, I'm hearing this from others too. Problem is I don't have any more. Even if I whipped up a new batch, don't I have to let it "bake" in a trash can or something for 30 days first? I will remember this for next year though. :weed:
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
CBDbudMan said:
Hello RD and to anyone else that's listening,

After doing more research online, I just discovered I doubled (maybe tripled) the dolomite lime in my mix of Sub Cool's Super Soil. Could this be, at least part of, the reason why I had such high ph in my soil? Sorry for the continued Q's... I'm just trying to do everything that I can to NOT repeat next year what happened to me this year.

Thank you RD and to all that make this possible.
Click to expand...
Yes the lime will change the ph and could be the root of your ph issues although your water source should not be that high either. Be sure you are checking the ph with a soil probe; runoff ph tells you nothing useful except the ph of the water. You can cut down your mix by adding more coco and perlite; maybe even more base soil if needed.
The Rev suggests using a soil probe to check the actual ph in the root zone after adding in all your amendments and letting it set for 30 days. Ph should normalize in this amount of time provided you are adding everything in the correct ratios. Even just loosely adhering to the quantities suggested in the book should get your ph inside the proper range.
 
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