Subcools' Super-Soil in the garden

Subcool's soil recipe gets great reviews by those who grow MJ with it. Would it work well with other crops?

Is it good soil for growing tomatoes, potatoes, beats, carrots, and herbs?

Has anyone tried it?

I think it's overkill for outdoor grows.

dannyboy602 said:

I think it's overkill for outdoor grows.

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I'm thinking medium sized containers specifically for tomatoes. I know it would be a bit more pricey than cheap soil, but I don't mind, I just want some good tomatoes

OMG. I had the wrong idea. I was thinking a stoner thought. I thought you wanted to amend your garden soil with it. Duh. I think it's prolly great for CONTAINERS...lol...I'm such a retard. My experience with tomatoes in containers is the container invariably restricts the root run of the plant becoming a limiting factor. So perhaps the largest container you can find. I like those halved whiskey barrels. With the addition of supersoil I bet you could mitigate the limiting factor and hopefully with great results. That's my best educated guess. I hope it helps.

not for root veggies, but heavy feeders would do well in it. pumpkins totally dig super-soil.

Sounds sweet, I have a spot that will get maybe 10 hours a day of direct sun during the peak of summer. I'll be mixing up a big batch of super soil anyways so it'll be on hand. The soil here is quite poor.

Hopefully it ends up freakishly big and healthy

Should I just backfill a big hole in the ground or use a container? I'm thinking 30 gallons or so. Container might be safer from bugs but also limit growth and access to water.

I'm growing Better Boy and Bonny Best Improved, I think those are old strains and may not be very pest resistant

The key with subcools soil is mycorrhizae. Everything will do well in it after cooking and inoculating the supersoil.

Sub has talked about this before, he stated that it kills most things apart from cannabis but if you are reusing an old batch it you should be fine.

fxbane said:

Sub has talked about this before, he stated that it kills most things apart from cannabis but if you are reusing an old batch it you should be fine.

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Yikes! ok time to reconsider that plan... Soil is so tricky... you cannot just pop a pH meter in it or check it with an EC pen... it can have a mind of its own.
I imagine it probably just burns the hell out of most plants. So in that case maybeall that is needed is to dilute it further with more regular cheap potting mix. That'll save me a bunch of money and super soil anyways, the question then is how much should I dilute it? I think I've decided to only grow tomatoes in the super soil. All the other garden veggies will go into a cheaper mix. Maybe tomatoes can handle super-soil? they are supposed to be similar in nutritional needs.

Grow your pot in super soil then reuse it and grow some veggies in it. Sub estimates that the ppms of his soil once a plant is fully rooted is around 2500-3000ppms, which kills almost anything but cannabis. Or you could just dilute is further, use 1/4 of the amendments for 8 bags of roots and you ought to be fine.

If you want, you could just use a good quality bag soil, some worm castings, some chicken shit, some bone meal (steamed), some perlite and some some gypsum and you'll grow some great tomatoes. It's always worked out well for me. That recipe will also grow some great outdoor bud too if you go heavier on the nutrition.

Propagate said:

The key with subcools soil is mycorrhizae. Everything will do well in it after cooking and inoculating the supersoil.

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That's the magic word. Cook. Fresh can burn everyone knows this. So mb lighten it up with some peat and perlite or promix.
I haven't gotten to the point yet where I have time to let my mix cook. It produces excellent results though.

dannyboy602 said:

That's the magic word. Cook. Fresh can burn everyone knows this. So mb lighten it up with some peat and perlite or promix.
I haven't gotten to the point yet where I have time to let my mix cook. It produces excellent results though.

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If you inoculate the soil yourself there is no need to "cook".

Innoculation has to do with the introduction of micos and even that takes time doesn't it? Like weeks?

cooking/composting has to do more with "colonization" than "inoculation"

Mixing the soil is when it is inoculated. The temperature conditions int he garbage can let the myc colonize the mixture.

In order to get 6 inch jalepenos, I have to use supersoil.
Killed the tomatoes tho', so be careful.

PIPBoy2000 said:

In order to get 6 inch jalepenos, I have to use supersoil.
Killed the tomatoes tho', so be careful.

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Did you use diluted super-soil? Did they burn or do you know why they died?

@mcumcumber: That recipe sounds like a very basic version of super soil... why not just use a bit of the super-soil that I will be mixing up anyways diluted into alot of roots organic?

I don't have time to finish a grow in SS and then use that to grow my tomatoes... that would take until spring of 2013. I will keep that in mind for next year though

For the jalepenos, I put in the bottom of the pot and them fill it with mix of half and half - promix/ss and then transplant into that. That killed the tomatoes. I've gone to a 1/4recipe for the tomatoes - 1/2ss/promix in the bottom with 1/4ss/promix on top. Bury them deep.

PIPBoy2000 said:

For the jalepenos, I put in the bottom of the pot and them fill it with mix of half and half - promix/ss and then transplant into that. That killed the tomatoes. I've gone to a 1/4recipe for the tomatoes - 1/2ss/promix in the bottom with 1/4ss/promix on top. Bury them deep.

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Yea that sounds about what I would have tried. Good to know I won't need to use all that much SS either.

Last year I would add a nice top layer around certain plants in the garden and they loved it! I'm not really stingy at all, all of my plants get it in there pots starting out. why not just take the used SS outta the pot and mix it in the garden, surely one plant doesn't use everything.

Once the tomatoes have established and are blooming, I top dress them with the pure ss. Bam!