Bubba Lou

This organic mix has only proven itself through 2 weeks of flowering, but what the hey...

40% perlite
35% garden soil or topsoil
15% worm castings
10% composted cow manure

Nutes
for each gallon of soil mix:

0.5 tbsp blood meal (12-0-0)
0.5 tbsp desert bat guano (8-4-1)
1 tbsp bone meal (0.5-15-0)
1 tbsp rock phosphate (0-4-0)
2 tbsp kelp meal (1-0-2)
0.25 tbsp sul-po-mag (0-0-22)
0.25 tbsp sulfate of potash (0-0-52)
0.5 tbsp greensand (0-0-0.1)
1 tbsp dolomite lime

I mix 20 or 30 gallons at a time in a 50 gallon container, turning it over with a spade until my arms hurt. I try to mix it about 4-6 weeks or so before using it.

For vegging nutes, I use fish emulsion (5-1-1) and kelp extract (1-0-4), and I've been "brewing" an alfalfa tea. For flowering, I use a tea made from seabird guano (1-10-0) and bat guano (8-4-1), mixed with kelp extract, both watering in and foliar feeding.

I just tested the soil after pulling a male a few days into flowering, using a rapitest kit with a 0-4 scale...

pH - 7.0
N - 4
P - 4+
K - 3

I think in future I will increase the kelp meal to 3 tbsp/gal and decrease the lime to 1/2 tsbp/gal. I might drop the bat guano altogether when I run out, and maybe increase the blood meal. Also, I might add 1-2tbsp/gal fossilized seabird guano (1-10-1) to flowering mixes, which is supposed to be time released over a 3-12 week period.

Bubba Lou

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Growing from Cuttings [ Skunk #1 Blueberry Northern Lights White Widow Kali Mist ]

3rd Grow
2nd Grow
Building Room From Scratch

Fryballs

Since the majority of my activities are done outdoors these days, I try to keep the number of trips and what I haul in to a minimum. Most plants are in-ground and their mix is 40% Perlite, 10% composted steer manure, and 50% ground soil from the site. Hydrosorb crystals are then added at a rate of about 3-3.5 lbs per cubic yard of soil. The steer manure and perlite are loaded into 1 gallon freezer bags and then are brought to the grow site in backpacks. As for other additives and ferts, I tend to eyeball that kind of stuff... and what I use depends on what I think the soil needs.

And if your outside grow is a little more accessible than mine, you can drop the water crystals to about 2 lbs per cubic yard and completely substitute the ground soil for any commercial potting soil or soil-less mix.

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It is better to keep thy mouth closed and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt...

cecil_b

I was looking for soil info, and OP has roped me to post my soil mix , so here goes. Note that this is for outdoor potted vegetables and to mix into planting beds outside.

-1 part clay (very finely smashed up). I can get slabs of dense clean clay from my backyard
-1 part fine sand (screened)
-1 part peat (dry, bagged, from the farm supply store)

That goes in the concrete mixer for an hour or so. Then in go about a gallon pail's worth of worm castings that I've been cultivating all winter, and two or three pitchforkfulls of good cowsh!t. This is essentially Do It Yourself "superloom" - I make about 15 gallons or so at a whack. If I'm laying in new beds, I might do this 2-3 times. The last batch is saved for outdoor pots, to which is added:

-A bag of perlite (note locally I can only source MG laced perlite at the TruValue/Home Cheapo, but I soak it in water overnight and dump their nutes into the yard. All the hicks at the farm stores look at me as if to say "What the hell is perlite?")
-A pint or so of worm tea from the bin

Mix the bejeezus out of that in the mixer. The beds get water right from the hose, because any minerals in the water will get leached out with the rain. The plants seem to handle it fine and I'm too much of a lazy ass to lug around jugs of filtered water to the beds all summer. The potted plants, esp. for indoors, only get water from the filtered part of the plumbing system, so that they don't load up on salts. My well water has a high mineral content, but the filtering seems to tone it down. I haven't tested it in a while, but with the big filter I don't need to do anything. Tomatoes seem to like a neutral to slightly acidic soil, which is exactly what I get with my mix and the filtered water.

For nutes, it's a toss up. There is about as much variation in nutes for tomatoes as there is for MJ - everyone seems to have their own theory. I've tried a bunch of things, but 10-10-10 or thereabouts seems to do me just fine until they flower, and then I find whatever is on sale that has a higher P ratio. I'm not fussy about it and my soil is good enough from the get go to not have to add much for a few weeks. I don't obsess about it - I've got a routine that yields me all the tomatoes I can eat and then some, so I'm happy. Peppers are another story - they like super P from the get go, so all the sweets and hots get 0-20-0 or a more concentrated 2-12-0, depending on what I have around.

I AM picky about what I bring indoors, because I have had massive scale, aphid, and spider mite problems that have turned prize gardenias, indoor herb gardens, and ornamentals to ruin. Let that be a lesson to anyone looking to go out into the back yard and scoop up a pail of soil for their grow. BEWARE. I very strictly sterilize anything I bring indoors from outside in an old cake tin in the oven set on 250 for an hour. (I live alone so I get no guff for baking cowsh!t cookies ) Even the rocks get washed and/or tossed in the oven. It's usually just too much of a PITA to sterilize all the soil for pots, (unless I've mixed an exc. batch for the outdoor pots and have some left over) so I cave and mix a 1:3 ratio of commercial potting soil to perlite, a couple of handfuls of worm castings (def sterlized, because of nematodes) and use plenty of stones at the bottom.

-c-

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"I am kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." - J. D. Salinger

My Grow v1.0 Journal Skunk #1 & DP Blueberry in soil.
My Grower's Dictionary v1.2 Updated 3/14/04... Check it out and comment for the benefit of all.
Also visit the Cultivation Risk Report. Maybe it will put your mind at ease (or maybe not!)
More advanced grower? Check out the CO2 Enrichment Guide.

cecil_b

Stay away from that stuff. If you're watering properly, you don't need them. They take up bulk in the soil, and roots can't penetrate them. They can also suck water away from and damage the roots when they get dry, and can over-aerate the soil to the point of drying out the roots and weakening the entire soil structure.

I had a huge, bulky, horizontally trained jade (that was admittedly a little top heavy but had dozens of branches) that was just starting to blossom (rare). It collapsed and was largely destroyed (and made a huge mess) while I was on a business trip because the dry Soil Moist shrunk and turned the soil into swisscheese. If you're going away for a few days, get a friend to water your plants or set up a drip or blumat system.

-c-

__________________
"I am kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." - J. D. Salinger

My Grow v1.0 Journal Skunk #1 & DP Blueberry in soil.
My Grower's Dictionary v1.2 Updated 3/14/04... Check it out and comment for the benefit of all.
Also visit the Cultivation Risk Report. Maybe it will put your mind at ease (or maybe not!)
More advanced grower? Check out the CO2 Enrichment Guide.

outdoors

Hey Cecil_b...
Glad to see OP rounded you up, thanks for the contribution.
I gotta argue your point on the water "extenders". I've been using "Watersorb" in my garden for over 2 years. I live in an area that gets no rainfall during my growing season. Oh, occassionaly we might get a sprinkle but nothing to count on. Therefore all the water that my entire garden gets is supplied by me either thru drip irrigation or hand watering.
The "Watersorb" has allowed me to extend the amount of water I need to use. I use a very small amount - a teaspoon full in a 5 gal. pot is plenty. It means that I just don't have to worry about potted plants getting watered everyday!.

Peace -
Outdoors
So... there's my

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greenmagic

I use

Gernal Miracle grow potting soil i get from home depot
1 - 1.5 cup perlite per gallon of soil
1/4 - 1/5 cup bone meal per gallon of soil, mixed in throughly

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"when the world ends, well be making love... when the world ends, well be burning one" - Dave Matthews Band

What a wise man.....

Quasi

50% top soil..or schultz professional...not the preferted or water retaining polymer stuff.

25% perlite

25% acrillite...schultz aquatic plant soil

an air/paramagnetic layer of lavarock about 8"-10" down.

8 tabs of mycorrhizal fungii per 5 gal. bucket...3 tabs in veg

rare earth...50% silicate clay, 18% humic acid from leonardite...if I don't mix it into the ferts...I will simply give it a lite sprinkling as a topdressing.. it doen't take much.

occasional fulvic acid feedings...same with the earth juice catalyst

old mj roots to help feed the mycor if I just use top soil opposed to the schultz..since the mycor feeds off organic material.

I use the mycor...altho I use salts to fert..and when I mix the higher ppm in mid to late flowering...I'm not sure if it has a negative effect on the mycor...but I'm almost sure that some remains..since I get better yield with than w/o. It's my opinion that all organic growers should add mycorrhizal fungii to their substrate...and salt peeps should at least try it.

The acrillite I got from Delta...it has excellent water/oxygen retaining properties and ....it doesn't float like perlite....I've experienced anerobic conditions in the lower levels of the bucket reusing them after a long salt flush ...w/o dumping and remixing the soil/perlite mix..(yea-yea, no excuse for laziness....ssssh )....because of the upward perlite drift ....one day my cheap ass will buy some everclear...bla-bla

all I can really point out is that I didn't see mycorrizal being listed...and ..anyone with any info on the effects of salts on mycor...please chime in.

stoney_2769

Guess I'm lucky I have rich, black dirt where I live. I dig a hold about a foot deep and add a couple inches of gravel and top off with any generic top soil, sometimes I mix in a little peat moss in my top soil. The reason I use the gravel is to help drainage. I grow on hillsides and in bottoms and have had problems with waterlogged plants from time to time. Plus the soil here packs pretty hard when overly wet or when it gets too dry. The gravel and top soil gives the plant a fighting chance while it is young and developing. I rarely add much fertizlizer during the year and have used shrubbery spikes to slow feed for the whole season. Occasionally I'll mist the plant with Miracle Gro but havent noticed a whole lot of difference. I 've had good luck in the past with heavy yields and potent smoke from Early Girl, and Afgan strain and seed from good old compressed Mexican. Don't discount the commericial Mexican herb it generally comes from good genes its just poorly cured (Hot Tin Roof) and compressed for shipping. Some of the best homegrown I've smoked was bagseed from some pressed weed that a guy couldnt hardly give away.

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Now where did I lay that shovel???

"Make our own whiskey and our own smoke too, aint to many things us boys can't do"

Seven Year Itch Journal

Split

1/2 potting soil
1/4 perlite
1/8 worm casting
1/8 sand and mulch on the top of everything

_the420guy

35% pro-mix
35% perlite
20% vermiculite
10% worm castings