Soil mix for outdoor plants

Best soil mixture to start off with for outdoor grow to ensure a happy healthy plant.

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This guy can help @garrigan62

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@mp420

First …Welcome to ILGM
I got some soil you can use. I’ll need to jump on my computer. It’s 4:20 am how about that perfect timing…lol
But ya I’ll post here in a little bit…what you can use.

Will

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@mp420

I’, very sorry i’m late with this . I got to busy yesterday with my band saw mill. Anyway here’s a start and I am going to post soil mix for you also , But read this first it’s very important OK?

⦁ What is the Best Soil for Growing Marijuana?
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⦁ By Robert Bergman
⦁ What Is The Best Soil For Growing Cannabis?
Indoor growers need to choose whether to use soil or a hydroponics system for their indoor setup. In case you haven’t used hydroponics before and are willing to dedicate the money to it, it can be a very practical option to choose for the best marijuana soil.
Generally speaking, newer growers decide to grow their plants in soil at first. Taking this step allows them to get a feel for the undertaking of growing marijuana plants without risking huge amounts of money and extra time spent researching. Either route can be useful, but in this article we will cover information for people who want to grow their marijuana plants in a soil-based system.
Growing marijuana in soil
Marijuana roots extend deeply into the soil as they hunt for the best sources of water and nutrients. This is why indoor growing requires a different technique that will compensate for this lack of space. To put it simply, the root systems of indoor marijuana plants need to be smaller. The water and nutrients come from the grower rather than natural sources in wild soil, so root systems should be able to thrive without extending out too far.
The main thing you need to worry about with root systems is that the temperature stays relatively warm – around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. You will also want to check that there is plenty of water and oxygen throughout the soil. Make sure to download my free marijuana grow bible at this link here for more growing tips.

Pros and cons of soil growing
Irrigation is more easily done in soil because mistakes are more easily made with hydroponic systems. Fertilization is also simpler, if only because people have been growing plants in soil for thousands of years, meaning there is tons of information and advice out there. Soil types can make a big difference in the taste of the resulting marijuana, which is an added bonus.
Soil isn’t perfect, however. It requires lots of space and weighs a lot, making things rather difficult for people growing indoors. Pests and insects are more likely to be found in soil as well, not to mention the fact that some people simply don’t have the “feel” required for growing any plants in soil. Read the article ‘if you don’t want to grow in soil.


Marijuana soil container size
The size of your plants’ containers will alter the size of your plant’s root system. If the roots have more space, they will fill out their space even more quickly – making growth easier. Problems occur when the plant outgrows its container.
Regular sized marijuana seedlings do well in a container that is 10x10x10 centimeters until it reaches the height of between 25 and 35 centimeters. At that point, you will need to transplant it to a container that is two times the size of the first one (15x15x20 centimeters). When the plant surpasses the 80-centimeter mark, you will need to transplant it to a container that holds 10-12 liters. The container size keeps increasing as the plant exceeds the 1-meter mark, and so on.

Marijuana soil nutrients
Soil already has lots of nutrients naturally, since it is made up of organic materials. Materials like rotting vegetables and animal manure cannot be placed directly on your plants as fertilizers – they need to be broken down additionally before they are able to be absorbed by the plants’ roots. Worms and insects are useful “tools” when breaking down these materials, as is rain. Water dissolves these and other materials allowing them to be absorbed by the marijuana roots.
While these things happen easily and naturally in the wild, it is not so in indoor growing systems. That is why beginning with soil that is rich in nutrients (as well as sterilizing it before planting) is so important for indoor growers. The best way to sterilize soil is to use heat, which is not 100% effective but will help ensure the safety of your plants nonetheless.
Nutrient-rich potting soil mix can be found at your local garden center, and it can also be made on your own. Oxygen, a lukewarm environment (approximately 20 degrees Celsius), plenty of water, a balanced pH value, and lots of nutrients will create an environment that encourages healthy growth in any marijuana plants.
As an indoor grower, you will have to be especially aware of what your soil needs to contain. The pH value, humidity, and nutrients will make a bigger difference than you might expect, so keep tabs on these things. Additionally, if your soil doesn’t retain water well, plants won’t have time to “drink” as much as they need to. Too much water retention, however, can encourage fungal growth, which would lead to devastating root damage. Use vermiculite, sphagnum moss, turf, or perlite to alter the retention of your soil.

Make marijuana soil yourself
Soil is pretty easy to mix, as long as you pay attention to the ratios. These ratios also will change according to which stage of life your marijuana plants are in. Early stages of life, for instance, require balanced amounts of turf, perlite, and worm meal. Vegetative and flowering stages need balanced amounts of turf, worm meal, and compost instead.
To decrease a too-high level of compost, simply add chalk. You can also use liquid fertilizers as a way to add nutrients to your soil, and they can be made yourself. Just be sure that the liquid is homogenous and has equally balanced nutrients, thus preventing it from “burning” your plants. For nervous beginners, a store-bought option is probably your safest choice.
Watering marijuana soil
Watering in soil can be difficult because it varies according to the soil type and environment. Hot environments need more water while cool environments require less. Water works to move necessary nutrients and minerals to the roots, where they are then transported to the rest of the plant. Water also works to cool down plants when they are too warm and to keep the structure in line. Perhaps most important of all, water is a necessary ingredient for the process of photosynthesis to successfully be carried out. As a general rule of thumb, simply water until the soil is moist but not wet to the touch, unless you want fungi to grow and harm your marijuana plant’s roots.

BY ROBERT BERGMAN
POSTED BY
GARRIGAN65

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@mp420

ARE YOU READY CAUSE HERE YOU GO, iT’S KINDA LONG SO YOU MITE WANT TO SAVE BOTH FILES THE FIRST ONE I SENT YOU AND THIS ONE SAVE BOTH TO YOUR FILES FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

SORRY ABOUT THE CAP’S I FORGOT THE DAM THING WAS ON…LOL

I was bored and decided to do the break down for the smaller batches of this mix (listed at the bottom of the post) I looked around and did not see this on the site nor did I see the break out and decided to post… if this is found elsewhere feel free to move or remove.

You know how we look for stuff when we are stoned.

There’s nothing that compares to the flavor of properly grown organic pot: The subtle tastes and aromas created by using only “Mother Earth” are overwhelming to the senses when it’s done properly. As with vegetables, a rich organic soil can bring out the best in cannabis.

Over the past 20 years, I have tried almost every possible way to cultivate our favorite plant. And while hydro is certainly faster and the yields blow soil away, I’ve developed an organic-soil mix that consistently performs extremely well, with very little guesswork involved (i.e., I don’t have to worry about pH or ppms ever).

I spent a few years developing the recipe for this Super Soil mix, and using it in 7-gallon nursery pots, I can run from start to finish adding only plain water. Other than a bit of sweat equity every 90 days or so, using this soil takes a huge amount of the science out of gardening and puts nature back in charge. Also, the recipe is always changing in slight ways as I continue to fine-tune it in my efforts to achieve perfection.

The Base

Start with at least six to eight large bags of high-quality organic soil. This is your base soil—i.e., your regular potting soil without the additives. The selection of your base soil is very important, so don’t cut corners here. I can’t begin to discuss all the different products out there, but I will mention a few in this article. A good organic soil should cost you from $8 to $10 per 30-pound bag. Since I want to give you a very specific idea of what I consider to be a balanced soil, take a look at the ingredients in a product called Roots Organic:
Lignite, coco fiber, perlite, pumice, compost, peat moss, bone meal, bat guano, kelp meal, greensand, soybean meal, leonardite, k-mag, glacial rock dust, alfalfa meal, oyster shell flour, earthworm castings and mycorrhizae.

Another local product we’re trying out now, Harvest Moon, has the following ingredients:
Washed coco fibers, Alaskan peat moss, perlite, yucca, pumice, diatoms, worm castings, feather meal, fishmeal, kelp meal, limestone, gypsum, soybean meal, alfalfa meal, rock dust, yucca meal and mycorrhizae fungi.

So far we’ve found that Roots Organic produces a more floral smell in the finished buds, while Harvest Moon generates larger yields.

If you have access to a good local mix like these, then I highly recommend starting with a product of this type. We’ve also had decent results using commercial brands, but never “as is.” The best results we’ve had to date using a well-known commercial soil has been with Fox Farms’ Ocean Forest soil combined in a 2-to-1 ratio with Light Warrior. Used on its own, Ocean Forest is known for burning plants and having the wrong ratio of nutrients, but when cut with Light Warrior, it makes a pretty good base-soil mix.

You can also just use two bales of Sunshine Mix #4, but this would be my last choice, since plants grown in this mix may not respond well to my “just add water” method of growing.

After choosing your base soil, the Super Soil concentrate is placed in the bottom one-third to one-half of the container and blended with the base soil. (With strains that require high levels of nutrients, we’ll go so far as to fill ¾ of the container with Super Soil, but this is necessary only with a small percentage of strains.) This allows the plants to grow into the concentrated Super Soil layer, which means that in the right size container, they’ll need nothing but water throughout their full cycle. One of the things I like best about this soil mix is that I can drop off plants with patients, and all they have to do is water them when the soil dries out.

Stir It Up

There are several ways to mix these ingredients well. You can sweep up a patio or garage and work there on a tarp, or you can use a plastic wading pool for kids. (These cost about 10 bucks apiece and work really well for a few seasons.) Some growers have been known to rent a cement mixer to cut down on the physical labor. Whatever method you use, all that matters in the end is that you get the ingredients mixed properly.

This can be a lot of work, so be careful not to pull a muscle if you’re not used to strenuous activity. On the other hand, the physical effort involved is good for mind and body, and working with soil has kept me in pretty good shape. But if you have physical limitations, you can simply have someone mix it up for you while you supervise. As far as the proper steps go: Pour a few bags of base soil into your mixing container first, making a mound. Then pour the powdered nutrients in a circle around the mound and cover everything with another bag of base soil. In goes the bat poop and then more base soil. I continue this process of layering soil and additives until everything has been added to the pile.

Now I put on my muck boots, which help me kick the soil around and get it mixed up well using my larger and stronger leg muscles instead of my arms. The rest is simple; as my skipper used to say, “Put your back into it.” This is hard work that I obsess over, even breaking up all the soil clods by hand. I work on the pile for at least 15 minutes, turning the soil over and over until it’s thoroughly mixed.

Then I store my Super Soil in large garbage cans. (And before using any of it, I pour the entire load out and mix it well once more.) Once it’s placed in the cans, I water it slightly—adding three gallons of water to each large garbage can’s worth. Though it makes stirring the soil harder, adding water will activate the mycorrhizae and help all the powders dissolve.

Before Planting

So we’ve added the water, and now we let it cook in the sunshine—30 days is best for this concentrate. Do not put seeds or clones directly into this Super Soil mix or they will burn. This is an advanced recipe to be used in conjunction with base soil. First you place a layer of Super Soil at the bottom of each finishing container; then you layer a bed of base soil on top of the Super Soil concentrate; and then you transplant your fully rooted, established clones into the bed of base soil. As the plants grow, they’ll slowly push their roots through the base soil and into the Super Soil, drawing up all the nutrients they need for a full life cycle. The Super Soil can be also be used to top-dress plants that take longer to mature. I’ll use this mix for a full year.

Buds grown with this method finish with a fade and a smoother, fruitier flavor. The plants aren’t green at harvest time, but rather purple, red, orange, even black—plus the resin content is heavier, and the terpenes always seem more pungent. This method is now being used by medical growers all over the world, and with amazing results. The feedback I’ve received is really positive, including reports of hydro-like growth and novice growers producing buds of the same high quality as lifelong cultivators. So give it a try! You won’t be disappointed.

The Mix

Here are the amounts we’ve found will produce the best-tasting buds and strongest medicines:

8 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
25 to 50 lbs of organic worm castings
5 lbs steamed bone meal
5 lbs Bloom bat guano
5 lbs blood meal
3 lbs rock phosphate
¾ cup Epson salts
½ cup sweet lime (dolomite)
½ cup azomite (trace elements)
2 tbsp powdered humic acid

This is the same basic recipe I’ve been using for the past 15 years. The hardest ingredient to acquire are the worm castings (especially since many people don’t even know what they are. FYI: worm poop). But don’t decide to just skip them: Be resourceful. After all, worms comprise up to ¾ of the living organisms found underground, and they’re crucial to holding our planet together. Also, don’t waste money on a “soil conditioner” with worm castings; source out some local pure worm poop with no added mulch.

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN THE MARCH 2009 ISSUE OF HIGH TIMES


Now for the break out of this recipe for those that do not need a mix on this massive scale.

Full Recipe
8 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
25 to 50 lbs of organic worm castings
5 lbs steamed bone meal
5 lbs bloom bat guano
5 lbs blood meal
3 lbs rock phosphate
¾ cup Epson salts
½ cup sweet lime (dolomite)
½ cup azomite (trace elements)
2 tablespoons powdered humic acid

1/2 Recipe
4 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
12.5 to 25 lbs of organic worm castings
2.5lbs steamed bone meal
2.5lbs bloom bat guano
2.5lbs blood meal
1.5lbs rock phosphate
3/8 cup or 6 tablespoons Epsom Salts
1/4 cup or 4 tablespoon sweet lime (dolomite)
1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons azomite (trace elements)
1 tablespoon powdered humic acid

1/4 Recipe
2 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
6.25 to 12.5 lbs of organic worm castings
1.25lbs or 20 ounces steamed bone meal
1.25lbs or 20 ounces bloom bat guano
1.25lbs or 20 ounces blood meal
3/4 lbs rock phosphate
3/16 cup or 3 tablespoons Epsom Salts
1/8 cup or 2 tablespoons sweet lime (dolomite)
1/8 cup or 2 tablespoons azomite (trace elements)
1.5 teaspoons powdered humic acid

1/8 Recipe
1 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
3.125 to 6.25 lbs of organic worm castings
.625 lbs or 5/8 lbs or 10 ounces steamed bone meal
.625 lbs or 5/8 lbs or 10 ounces bloom bat guano
.625 lbs or 5/8 lbs or 10 ounces blood meal
3/8 lbs or 6 ounces rock phosphate
3/32 cup or 1.5 tablespoons Epsom Salts
1/16 cup or 1 tablespoon sweet lime (dolomite)
1/16 cup or 1 tablespoon azomite (trace elements)
3/4 teaspoon powdered humic acid

I have found myself in the Organic section of GC a lot lately and have learned a lot from the great group hanging out here.

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I think that it would be helpful to define “large” bags, ie, 28 quarts, etc. :blush:

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@SmoknGranny,

Thank you Granny. I will update this to say just that and if there is anything else you can think of please let me know. Input is everything.

Will

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No problem. I’m going to be mixing it up this weekend and will add comments on my topic. :+1:

Thank you so much garrigan65 I’ve learnt a lot reading your replys I’ll be following every step you have sent me and I’ll let you know the outcome I’ll be starting in August

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Please tag me in when you do. Just put @SmoknGranny & @garrigan62 :slightly_smiling_face: when you start your grow journal

Will do SmoknGranny I’ll be growing amnesia haze and chocolope in 5gallon pots

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Thank You Granny. !

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Trying this next grow in august. Grow 4 at this me so eighth recipe should be good. After mixing & putting in cans theres no need to bake soil, right?

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@Laurap

Right you are…no need to… I don’t any way…you can but I don’t see why you would have to…

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I just picked up another 3 cu ft of soil base and will make up some seedling soil with part of it. What’s left over on that & my super soil mix will be stored in airtight containers for next spring Grow.
@garrigan62 has a recipe for that also :grin:

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Im coming onboard next grow! So, ill be hitting you up for info :smile:

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I’m keeping notes. First tip is build a pocket of your nonsuper soil around the sides and bottom over your layer of super soil. My understanding is so your plants roots will be getting the higher p&k at the proper time. :blush:

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@SmoknGranny

You got it sweetheart…

I’m trying to get straight A’s from the Garrigan School for Great Growy :grin:
Hey, when do I start teas & @Laurap will need to know also