I would like to mix up some water only type soil for the bottom of a large pot for an outdoor plant. I already have the pictured ingredients on hand, plus a small bag of seabird guano 0-9-0. I also have an outdoor pile of fireplace hardwood ashes with about 25% hardwood sawdust added in, and this has been outdoors cooking for over two years.
I am thinking of the following ratio and mix.
3 gal Roots original soil
2 gal of the composted ashes
1 gal perlite
2 cup worm castings
1/2 cup bat guano
1/4 cup seabird guano
1/2 cup each uprising foundation, grow, and bloom
1/4 cup elemental cal/mag from dom lime
1/4 cup stump tea, a living soil addive, (not pictured).
Is there anything missing or out of balance?
I need to get moving on this so it can cook a a least a couple weeks.
Thanks @2GreenThumbs
I have read that ashes or sawdust from hardwood make better compost since their ph is much high than from a pine sourced compost. I have mixed a similar recipe but without the ashes for some of my indoor plants, and put it in the bottom of 5gal bag. It works just fine, and allows me to use less liquid nutrients and their salts.
I am just trying to use up some of what I have already bought. Maybe it will be best to drop the ashes or cut back on them.
I took this plant out of a 3gal bag and into a 7gal bag about 28 days ago. I mainly did this to increase time between watering. So we can leave the house for a few days. I filled the bottom of the bag with a similar mix as above, but without the ashes. Since then it just got one liquid fed, and after this just RO with a little cal/mag added. This is the happiest looking plant that I have going now. It is at 4 weeks into bloom, (Bruce Banner).
@2GreenThumbs, In your opinion can rock phosphate be used as a favor enhancement as well as a base nutrient?
You peaked my interest and I took a look at the ingredients of the uprising bloom, and it appears I am already using it without knowing.
Also as a side note, I have noticed that when I scratch guano into the surface of the soil I get burnt leaf tips. But when I mix into the soil I don’t get burnt tips.
Just asking, since we have been having some decisions on another thread. About the effects minerals have on the taste of tomatoes and grapes, and can this be to case with weed as well?
I will have to check out this terpinator you speak of.
Funny that you mentioned Fish Bone Meal, since it is the first ingredient listed in the picture of the back of the red bag. I guess the lesson here is to read the ingredient label, that is if you can understand this clusterf*** of info. I would like to thank the manufacturers that list the derived from: on their ingredients. This seems to help me get my simple mind wrapped around this.
I do not understand why giving your plants the 14 (I think it is), required elements has to be so complex!
The worms. So many benefits: they aerate your soil, help with water uptake, and every thing they eat, is like 3x the NPK coming out the other end. Plus at the end of the run, they’ll compost your roots (which are high in P+K) if you wanted to try going no-till.
I also like to add a scoop of the home soil. Mine has a lot of sand so that’s where I get a lot of my silica. It does also have seeds, so I have to do a tiny amount of weeding, but it’s almost nothing.
I see the roots organic is coco based. I make my own potting mix, with coco as my peat component, but I’m planning to move away from coco; I just can’t seem to load it with enough calcium to get all the way to the finish line without having to supplement cal-mag. Sphagnum peat moss, due to its acidity, is buffered with lime, which is calcium carbonate; so in effect is helping supply more calcium rather than robbing it.
That’s the other thing I would suggest, ingredients with calcium. Crab and lobster meal, especially Neptunes harvest brand, is sold fairly chunky so it also acts as an aerator, in addition to supplying calcium and chitin.
@CurrDogg420 Can one just dump a dozen night crawlers, (fish bait) on the top of an outdoor pot or bag? Or an indoor one as well?
This idea has occurred to me before.
@CurrDogg420 I agree with you about the Roots organic soil with coco.
It starts out strong with water only, but when it starts to run out of gas it does it quite quickly. But this makes it a good soil for beginners, because you can safely do water only for the first 2-3 weeks of seedlings. Before moving into a nutrient schedule. Also some use a super soil in the bottom of their pots and the Roots soil on top for a water only grow.
I also agree about worms or worm castings. Back in the 90s, I had a closet set up following a HighTimes article. They suggested a simple medium of 1/3 worm castings, 1/3 cow manure, and 1/3 perlite. I would add some lime into the base mix to keep the manure’s ph in check. I added epson salts to the somewhat hard well water that was at 6.4ph. This simple recipe that I served into grew the the best tasting and the strongest smelling weed had I ever produced.
I may try this again, but I have just about giving up on the cow manure. Whenever I buy it, they call it composted manure, and it is full of wood chips and small logs. Now I have never raised cattle, but I don’t believe wood is in their diet. I guess, I need to find some of the pure sh*t.
@Ickey fish bait night crawlers will work just fine.
This is done to accelerate the compost process, most dairy farms will have some straw in it. Raw manure is very high in N, too “hot” for the plant. The straw or wood chips supply the carbon component for the compost process. It’s needed to balance the N.
Pure worm castings (“vermicompost” includes some of their bedding coco/peat) is created commercially by feeding the finished manure based compost to the worms. Castings are the “top of the food chain” in terms of compost.
I raise my own composting worms; feed them my old root balls, kitchen compost, (lots of coffee grounds for the N, the roots are the carbon) and organic fertilizers. Takes 2-4 months to turn it all into vermicompost water only super soil.
My previous grow harvested 4/20. Flowered in my vermicompost+worms super soil. They got Fish Sh!t a few times and RO water all thru flower nothing else. Ran out of calcium around week 9.
Very nice buds! Looks like you could win the bud of the month contest. I will check out your journal, thanks.
I think Sears used to sell a small rotating compost drum. Do you have any thoughts on how cook a small amount of compost in a similar way?
Thanks! You can find all shapes and sizes for compost tumblers if you wanted to buy, and also diy plans if you got your hands on some opaque-ish barrels or you just enjoy little projects like that.
You want a ratio of “green” (N) to “brown” (C) inputs, and a dash of the native soil, eg clay, sand from time to time. More “green” in the ratio, generally the faster it goes.
So many benefits: they aerate your soil, help with water uptake, and every thing they eat, is like 3x the NPK coming out the other end. Plus at the end of the run, they’ll compost your roots (which are high in P+K) if you wanted to try going no-till.