Soil recipe?

[Autofacade]

Hi everyone gunna be growing 3 photos in 15ltr pots gunna make a nice soil mix ready for my babes to go in just wanted to see what you guys think of It are my quanities right? I'm from the UK so some things are harder to come by. This is my recipe:

50ltrs organic plant magic soil
3.5ltrs worm casts
1.5ltrs bat guano
270g oyster shell powder
240g seaweed
230g epsom salt
2tbls mycorrhizae
2tbls dolomite lime

Gunna leave it just over a month to cook I've added a picture describing my base soil.
View media item 1648454

 

[Oldbear]

Very interested in the responses you get.

 

[Autofacade]

If any lol?

 

[TheFertilizer]

I don't think I would buy that pre-bagged soil and a bunch of ingredients to mix my own. I'd do either one or the other. I don't know anything about that mix, but it seems like it would work fine. However, buying that, and then mixing in your own ingredients won't be very beneficial to you, more just a waste of money and energy. That foaming stuff it's said to have seems interesting, but I would look for reviews from people saying it works well for cannabis before I pulled the trigger on it. Really, I suspect you can accomplish the same thing it does with vermiculite or some other spongy material to hold water.

Try to avoid thinking that "More is better" when choosing ingredients for soil, because you cannot "force feed" the plant to grow more in this fashion. In fact, when you are feeding a a plant with amendments in a soil mix, you're not feeding the plant at all: You are feeding the microorganisms in the soil, which in turn feed the plant. The key to growing in soil is to think about it in terms of symbiosis.

This article is a terrific read and also provides Clackamas Coot's recipe:
7 Important Things When Building a Living Soil

You may not be able to order from this site, but it also has a tremendous amount of information:
Custom Organic Soil and Organic Fertilizers along with free information to have your best harvest yet.

I would suggest starting with Coot's mix. It's simpler, less ingredients, been around longer, and has more international users. All that together means I think you'll have an easier time replicating Coot's mix with your locally available ingredients. Subcool's is also well vetted, but it seems oriented more towards people growing massive plants that really need a lot of extra nutrition, and from what I've seen online, people in the UK have a harder time finding all the ingredients and often have to resort to guessing at substitutions.

There's also a lot of resources here on these forums. This thread in particular was my "gateway" into soil.

Building a Better Soil - Demonstrations & Discussions of Organic Soil Recipes

bobrown14's award -winning journal. Tremendously knowledgeable dude that mentored me through my first mix. You can find a lot of his posts throughout the Organic section.

Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

 

[bobrown14]

I don't think I would buy that pre-bagged soil and a bunch of ingredients to mix my own. I'd do either one or the other. I don't know anything about that mix, but it seems like it would work fine. However, buying that, and then mixing in your own ingredients won't be very beneficial to you, more just a waste of money and energy. That foaming stuff it's said to have seems interesting, but I would look for reviews from people saying it works well for cannabis before I pulled the trigger on it. Really, I suspect you can accomplish the same thing it does with vermiculite or some other spongy material to hold water.

Try to avoid thinking that "More is better" when choosing ingredients for soil, because you cannot "force feed" the plant to grow more in this fashion. In fact, when you are feeding a a plant with amendments in a soil mix, you're not feeding the plant at all: You are feeding the microorganisms in the soil, which in turn feed the plant. The key to growing in soil is to think about it in terms of symbiosis.

This article is a terrific read and also provides Clackamas Coot's recipe:
7 Important Things When Building a Living Soil

You may not be able to order from this site, but it also has a tremendous amount of information:
Custom Organic Soil and Organic Fertilizers along with free information to have your best harvest yet.

I would suggest starting with Coot's mix. It's simpler, less ingredients, been around longer, and has more international users. All that together means I think you'll have an easier time replicating Coot's mix with your locally available ingredients. Subcool's is also well vetted, but it seems oriented more towards people growing massive plants that really need a lot of extra nutrition, and from what I've seen online, people in the UK have a harder time finding all the ingredients and often have to resort to guessing at substitutions.

There's also a lot of resources here on these forums. This thread in particular was my "gateway" into soil.

Building a Better Soil - Demonstrations & Discussions of Organic Soil Recipes

bobrown14's award -winning journal. Tremendously knowledgeable dude that mentored me through my first mix. You can find a lot of his posts throughout the Organic section.

Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

I run Coots no-til been doing it for years.

 

[philthegeek]

At the risk of being branded an OCD fanatic on this topic i'll chuck in my 2c worth.

I do my own mix of coarse sand, cocopeat, pinebark fines, dolomite, CaCo3, a little "growers blue" NPK fertiliser, and a little Osmocote slow release. I do that as its convenient and very cheap given my situation. Then, i "dilute" that to 50% soil / 50% Perlite. Works well with the bottom up watering use as you get good cappiliary action (once the plants establish a root system) but also very good drainage.

I get my seeds germinated then into a jiffy pot. Soon as i see roots coming out, pop them into the pot / soil mix. Have to top down water for a weeek, 10 days while roots establich and get down to the wet parts of the pot.

Good drainage is SUPER CRITICAL to having a nicely aerated root zone, healthy roots and a healthy, resiliant plant. What i have found over a couple of grows is that with 50% perlite, once the pot is at field capacity for water, i get a pot (250mm diam) that is almost dry on top and damp but not wet from 20-30mm below the surface. With that proportion of perlite i reckon its almost impossible to have over / underwatering issues in a soil grow. Top down supplementary watering or top down adding nutes works well. xs just drains to the bin the pots are in and gets sucked up as the plants need it.

And, having a soil / perlite mix, instead of straight perlite give a nute / pH buffer capacity which i think is easier to manage than hydro that needs constant monitoring and maintinence to avoid nute/pH probs that can come on pretty fast.

Note: Vermiculite is NOT a substitute for perlite.

Everybody works out their own thang that works for them in their own situation and thats part of the fun. And, they call it "weed" for a reason. Good luck.

Seeyahs!