Re-using Soil

whats up every body.

Im starting to get sick of spending around $100 every month on soil. When I need soil is around the time I have to pay the bills. So because of that I lagg on getting soil when I need it.

I decided to try and re-use soil from last sog batch. Originally three 1.5 cu ft bags of roots organic original. About 24 gal of soil. Now I estimate it around 15 gal. I grow 100% organic. I pulled out pretty much all the roots. I put it all in a rubbermaid. I added 1 cup of compost per gal of soil. Turned it ever day. Its been almost a week. Also I when I wet it. I used a compost tea

Am I going about this the right way? How long until the soil will be ready for use? For nutes I figure I would top dress when I replant the soil..

To composts in order to kill bad microbes it has to be at 120-150 degrees. After the initial mixing, compost pile will heat up quickly, staying hot for several weeks or a month. When it stops steaming it is ready.


If you do not have all the materials needed to heat it up to the point of steaming you have not even started.

It is possible to re-use the soil with out composting. However you run the risk of problems being passed on if there were any in the prior grow. If there were no problems then you probably would be fine.


Now let us talk about your buget for soil; stop buying pre-made soil with someones name on it.

I go to my local dirt and gravel store and by their potting soil mix. http://www.acmesand.com/topsoil/ 1/2 a cubic yard is about 100 gallons so that is $32 where I buy it.
Then add worm castings (the most expensive if you do not grow your on)
EWC with the compost is a good enough with teas however you can just top dress like you mentioned also.

Here is a place in california with soil premade in bulk all costs are really cheap.
http://www.kinneynursery.com/landscape-soil.html the Barnyard mix does not look too bad. 100 gallons $21 and your down the road. Get any toppings you want for about another $30 and you should be able to grow 35-45 plants for about $50.

Invest in buying some compost and ewc for teas and you should not even need dressings.

Very well put. Go for it hyroot, a 100% living organic soil will get better with each reuse. I remove as many roots as possible when breaking down the rootball, and again 1-3 days later fluff em out again (10 finger sifter is all I do).
It is up to you whether to reamend and cook/compost it, OR reuse it more as a living soilless, either way as long as the previous plants remained thriving and healthy it should be usable for some time.
Ditch the disposable economy mindset IMO, it is all that needs disposed of in 100% living organic cultivation i.e. the old way before agriculture's green (synth petro death to soils chemical) revolution.
Also, further down this same hole is no-till gardening, look into that too; save on soil AND labor or back pain for me. No one is pulling rootballs in the forest and the plants thrive as the microbes process the decaying plants into sustenance for the next generation.
I have been using both these techniques in my greenhouse and all my plants are thriving in soil reused 4-6 crops/seasons now (with fresh coco mixed in to wetten the indoor mix then just reused repeatedly), some in the same no till beds as last summers crops. I reuse my mix more as a soilless with Age Old Bloom, Kelp, Humic/Fulvic, and fish hydrolysate supplying organic inputs for the bennies to do their good. I know coco is superior to peat for reuse as it breaks into smaller particles slower over time. These are mostly my food production plants but my cannabis loves the reused organic soils too. I will begin reusing my soil indoors soon as the greenhouse is finally almost just add liquids! (theres always a few more transplants to do) I'll let you know how this goes indoor in a few months.

Kalyx no till gardening is very popular. When we till we break up the soil structure and kill benificial microbes that support the soil. It is all about the innoculation at that point the microbes actully replish the soil with what they exude.

Good farmers will tell you they do not grow food instead they grow dirt that makes food.

Again very well put. If I do break up the rootball, I reinoculate gomulus intraradices onto the new tplant rootball and re transplant usually within 3 days so my living soil has little time to go dormant. Agreed we feed the bennies and they feed the plant.

Thanks guys. Thay really helps. Everything I could find on the subject was pretty vague. Pers good lookin on the dirt buy. Im not in humby or mendo so those spots are too far away. Im much further south. I think I may have found some dirt places near by.

Also I was thinking of adding 1 bag of new soil to the old soil once its ready.. Since theres less than I began with. The soil I use is coco based too.

I used to feed with guano teas. Now I just top dress and mix in the guanos and what not and I get much better results. I watched a video of Dr.. Elaine Ingham giving a lecture on guano and compost. She said to only use guano in teas if there is a deficiency,. Plants will absorb it instantly. Mixing in the soil yields better results So I tried it and I liked it. I top dress with compost every 2 weeks too. Then feed a compost tea every other watering and my nutes last 6 months now instead of a month.


Pers , love the quote in your sig

Not being a shit, I am not a troll, but if you are going through 100 bucks in soil a month you must have a pretty good operation and thus why would 100 bucks to be sure to expensive?

chrishydro said:

Not being a shit, I am not a troll, but if you are going through 100 bucks in soil a month you must have a pretty good operation and thus why would 100 bucks to be sure to expensive?

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Not really I have a perpetual, every 3 weeks. I get the roots organic original soil. Its coco based and has alot of chunky perlite in it. . Its very fluffy and lite. So I get about 8.5 gal of soil per bag. 15 3 gals. Is about 5 bags x $14 + tax., sog (no more) was 3 bags every 10 days.

I have lots of bills. Not just my own, I help fam and friends when I can. Im just cutting costs where I can. I even made the switch from hid to par t5 and led to cut electricity costs. I wish I did that much earlier than I did. I went from a $400 electric bill to a $200 bill. I use my a/c much less too. Better yields and quality too

chrishydro

Not being a shit, I am not a troll, but if you are going through 100 bucks in soil a month you must have a pretty good operation and thus why would 100 bucks to be sure to expensive?​

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Hey guy with hydro in his name in the organics section; your starting your post with not one but two qualifying statements makes me wonder about you being a shit and a troll. JK.

Simple one word answer, although hyroot was more than nice with his. BUDGET. Most responsible modern humans have to instate one eventually. Let the man break the cycle of the disposable economy if he sees fit. Ditch the synth mindset, go organic, reuse your soil and be healthier. 100 bucks a month would do wonders added to my budget!

Hyroot - adding in some fresh mix (or something not so broken down) to get it back up to the original volume will ensure a better physical structure to your soil over time. Great idea! I like to add more coco and EWC/compost as the perlite and pumice don't go anywhere unless its really windy!

Hyroot here is BlueJs procedure in detail

https://www.rollitup.org/organics/540537-post-your-soil-less-mix.html#post7689033

I do something very similar except I try my best to get all old roots out when I take the rootballs apart. Also adding more coco and peat may help in addition to perlite to make up any lost volume.

I have literally been reamending and using the same soil for 4 years... and sometimes all I do is rip one plant out and directly stick a new one in the same soil the first came out of... I usually add some worm castings and guano and maybe some compost...but nothing special, and no waiting and I get great results...Every once in awhile I will put a really old pot of dirt out into the garden and then start a new pot of soil inside...but I haven't bought anywhere near the amount of soil I have used...Fox Farms Ocean Forest, and Roots organic are the only ones I have reused as of yet though...although I have added quite a few other bagged ingredients...I even added in a really crappy bag of some 98 cent compost lowe's had just for kicks...Nothing bad has ever happened...Well I take that back...the plants in the reused soil tend to yellow earlier into flower than plants with new soil, but it is worth it to me to save a little money..I mean these are only money trees if you sell what they give you...and I don't...so there is most always a way ti skimp without causing harm...in fact if you figure up any nutes you are using and if you are using them every watering, then use them every other, saves money on nutes, and your plants will be way happier.

Thanks for that. Its good to know more people are doingbit. Adding worm castings (nitrogen/humic) and epsom salt (magnesium) should prevent yellowing

Kalyx said:

Hey guy with hydro in his name in the organics section; your starting your post with not one but two qualifying statements makes me wonder about you being a shit and a troll. JK.

Simple one word answer, although hyroot was more than nice with his. BUDGET. Most responsible modern humans have to instate one eventually. Let the man break the cycle of the disposable economy if he sees fit. Ditch the synth mindset, go organic, reuse your soil and be healthier. 100 bucks a month would do wonders added to my budget!

Hyroot - adding in some fresh mix (or something not so broken down) to get it back up to the original volume will ensure a better physical structure to your soil over time. Great idea! I like to add more coco and EWC/compost as the perlite and pumice don't go anywhere unless its really windy!

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No need to be rude. Chris was just asking a question and meant no disrespect. He is a friend of mine and definitely not a troll. I reuse my soil also. I grow outdoors and originally dug huge holes and filled them with a good soil mix. Now I just amend it with goodies and it seems to be doing great. I think that it will get better each year.

missnu said:

I have literally been reamending and using the same soil for 4 years... and sometimes all I do is rip one plant out and directly stick a new one in the same soil the first came out of... I usually add some worm castings and guano and maybe some compost...but nothing special, and no waiting and I get great results......Nothing bad has ever happened...Well I take that back...the plants in the reused soil tend to yellow earlier into flower than plants with new soil,

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Nice! 4 years is a good run, i'm into my 2nd year of reusing my soil and my plants are greener and greener rather then yellowing early, i do amend the living shit out of it though with many different ingredients thanks Kalyx for puttin' the link up. All i really buy now is a couple bags of castings or compost each month and that also is used for the teas. Soon i will be venturing into my own little worm business and who knows maybe i'll throw live worms into my mix, i liked that idea, someone posted that as an ingredient in their mix, fuckin' awesome!

Here is an old thread I did in 2009 when I first starting thinking about reusing my soil
https://www.rollitup.org/organics/187602-there-way-replenish-reuse-old.html
I can tell you I have been using the 3 little birds soil recipe in that thread and the same soil since then and have had zero food/soil problems since then. I have had bug problems from bringing in clones from outside sources but its never effected the soil to where I couldn't keep using it. The soil you can get in stores isn't a fraction as good as what you can make yourself and it only gets better the longer you use it. Really the only things I have changed in the past few years as far as food/soil goes is now I use compost teas once in a while and add azomite to my mix but other than that all I do is water and up pot as needed.

The only thing I've noticed in years of reusing my container soil mix is that you have to keep an eye on the structure of the soil. It will break down over time into finer particle sizes and can dramatically affect the drainage properties of your mix. But I don't see this as a disadvantage though. Nothing scientific about amending the soil. I just king of eyeball it, since all of my base components are equal amounts. If it looks like I need more of something I just add some back in.

I don't tend to reuse right away.... but I have with no ill effect. My used container soil goes in 40 black pickle shipping drums with 100 1" holes cut in them and then fiberglass window screen guerrilla glue over the holes on the inside. Going in the drums I add base soil components to get the soil back to what looks like equal proportions of base ingredients, toss in half of the nutrients that I used to make the soil, wet with an alfalfa/molasses tea and allowed to cook in the sun. The barrels are tumbled daily by rolling them on their sides. When I am ready to use it I just split the soil into my 2 batch system, amend with the appropriate amount of base nutrients for each batch and use.

After about a dozen or so uses I put the used soil in a pile for use in my raised beds and make new container soil......

Yah I run no-till beds and the most I will do is top dress the beds with amendments and water it in... also when you remove the plants, just cut it at the base and leave the root mass in there, then plant right next to it...

This is second round through this bed amended with some EWC, Kelp, and Alfalfa as a top dress...

I follow the 3lb guide and pretty much stick with an Earth Juice based feeding schedule... the bed has 6 different strains in it and all of them are lush and green at various stages

The huge variance being that I don't till the bed

The plant in the second pic is starting to yellow / purple finally, I could take her now but will let her get more amber trichs first