Grow Medium Review

SmokingWings

SmokingWings

Well-Known Member
Member of the Month
August 2023
SmokingWings said:
In the thread the https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/adjusting-soil-ph.515297/post-5545050 Fuzzy asks:


I had been thinking about the "hows and whys" of such a review.

What sort of info would people want to see in a review of growing medium?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure how much use that would be as there are so many variables
If it was a simple as 'this is the best', we'd all be using it
I use Bio LiteMix for seedlings, coco for growing; it works and that's all I need
 
Good morning guys... So excuse me for sounding ignorant but isn't all dirt basically the same? The only thing that sets them apart is how much macro/micro nutrients are added to soil and what microbes it has? I've wondered the same question as to why no dirt reviews....or excuse me not many reviews.
 
HappyHazmat88 said:
...but isn't all dirt basically the same? The only thing that sets them apart is how much macro/micro nutrients are added to soil and what microbes it has? I
Click to expand...
Yes, we could say that all "dirt" is basically the same. It has ground up minerals from millions of years of rocks rolling around and breaking off into small grains of sand and even dust. It has some partly decomposed organic material mixed in.
 
SmokingWings said:
True. Everyone seemed happy with the basic soil until they find out that someone else says that theirs is better.

So what makes one batch of basic soil better than another?
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Hey SW - Pretty much any soil except clay will work if used correctly, surely
Only requirement really is free draining, everything else can be corrected
But as a coco grower, I would say that wouldn't I lol
 
Growings said:
Pretty much any soil except clay will work if used correctly, ...
Click to expand...
I used to think that clay was a miserable soil to grow in until I moved to a house in an area that is known for the clay base. The stuff is hard to work with after the spring and fall rains and needs a jack-hammer when the summer heat has dried it.

Giving this some thought it is the types and amounts of amendments that make one potting soil better than another.
 
SmokingWings said:
I used to think that clay was a miserable soil to grow in until I moved to a house in an area that is known for the clay base. The stuff is hard to work with after the spring and fall rains and needs a jack-hammer when the summer heat has dried it.

Giving this some thought it is the types and amounts of amendments that make one potting soil better than another.
Click to expand...

Well those are out door growing conditions & soil types.

If ya clay with acidic PH value those are a real pain to PH adjust & more likely in professional words we would use the term buffering effects of the amendments.

Perhaps some where along the lines of making your on soil/compost blend you may of heard the term cooking the soil or let rest for a period of time so the ingredients can meld together ! ye that don't happen over night as nature takes a little time...

So out door growing & indoor growing are practical the same as it is just the PH of soil the plant best thrives in which is important.



After all mother nature when she commands the skies to open up & rain, do you you really think that is PH corrected to make nutrients work in what ever form they come in ?
 
I take what ever the local store has coco wise.
Never had any issues.
Unless i buy straight coco and not a 30/70 or 60/40 mix.
Dont have the time to be making/mixing my own to save pennies.
As i dont grow more than 5 ladies not like i would save that much.
Bio lite , canna , Gold label not used anything else over the past 4/5 years.
Love the gold label 60/40 clay pebbles BUT to much watering so back on the
70/30 perlite now.
 
Fuzzy Duck said:
If ya clay with acidic PH value those are a real pain to PH adjust & more likely in professional words we would use the term buffering effects of the amendments.
Click to expand...
Everything I have grown outside in that clay has grown as good or better than expected. Certainly a lot better than at the previous house where the garden soil was a sandy-loam. The #1 thing to do is to add organic material. I mulch in between rows and around plants. Then in the fall it will all get turned over.

Never felt a need to add anything to the soil as far as packaged nutrients. "Never felt the need" is not the same as adding some of the Fox Farm Big 3 just to see what happens or if I will notice a difference.

Fuzzy Duck said:
Perhaps some where along the lines of making your on soil/compost blend you may of heard the term cooking the soil or let rest for a period of time so the ingredients can meld together ! ye that don't happen over night as nature takes a little time...
Click to expand...
Going out of town and one of the first projects when I get back is to pick up a yard of Compost from the local landscaping supply yard. Some will be tossed onto a few flower garden beds and turned in.

However, most of it will be placed in large pots or tote and allowed to cook for at least a month before use. Or, it will be used for a soil mix and get at least a month's worth of cooking.

Compost that has been cooked at least a month and then gets the amendments added will be cooked again for about a month so the microbes can start to do their thing. Any aged compost that does not have nutrients or amendments added I consider ready to go right after being mixed with the basics like the Perlite and Peat Moss.
 
SmokingWings said:
Everything I have grown outside in that clay has grown as good or better than expected. Certainly a lot better than at the previous house where the garden soil was a sandy-loam. The #1 thing to do is to add organic material. I mulch in between rows and around plants. Then in the fall it will all get turned over.

Never felt a need to add anything to the soil as far as packaged nutrients. "Never felt the need" is not the same as adding some of the Fox Farm Big 3 just to see what happens or if I will notice a difference.


Going out of town and one of the first projects when I get back is to pick up a yard of Compost from the local landscaping supply yard. Some will be tossed onto a few flower garden beds and turned in.

However, most of it will be placed in large pots or tote and allowed to cook for at least a month before use. Or, it will be used for a soil mix and get at least a month's worth of cooking.

Compost that has been cooked at least a month and then gets the amendments added will be cooked again for about a month so the microbes can start to do their thing. Any aged compost that does not have nutrients or amendments added I consider ready to go right after being mixed with the basics like the Perlite and Peat Moss.
Click to expand...

Sounds great :green_heart:

I'm reasonable sure clay soil types will hold onto moisture a lot better than a sandy loam & the act of mulching will help keep the moisture where it is needed around the root zone also slowly providing a low ratio NPK value as it decomposes releasing nutrients to the feeder roots near the surface, super cool.

Sandy loams would need a lot compost dug into the area to retain moisture tho !

CEC or Caution Exchange Capabilities or the ability to hold onto nutrients may also differ between soil types.
 
SmokingWings said:
In the thread the https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/adjusting-soil-ph.515297/post-5545050 Fuzzy asks:


I had been thinking about the "hows and whys" of such a review.

What sort of info would people want to see in a review of growing medium?
Click to expand...
I know some topics I would want to know are:
  • Are "free pests" included like fungus gnats and white flys (have had numerous soils include both)
  • How "hot" is the soil and can seedlings survive in it (issues with ocean forest for me with new seeds, seems to be too hot",
  • What additives are included (for instance organic additives pretty much do little for salt fertz growers), so do they increase the cost per cubic yard...
  • Do the soils included large chunks of bark and wood or have they been carefully sifted/screened. *(have had issues with happy frog with this).
  • IF organic "fertz" are added (like alfalfa), have the incredients been tested for pesticides (which would mostly effect those who had to pass lab tests).
  • Do the soils contain mushroom spores or has it been sterilized or treated.... have had issues with those pesky yellow mushrooms "Leucocoprinus birnbaumii" which will take over the soil creating a "block" of fungus and spreads very easily to neighboring plants. (happy frog).
  • What is the average cost per Cubic yard.
 
Icemud said:
Do the soils included large chunks of bark and wood or have they been carefully sifted/screened. *(have had issues with happy frog with this).
Click to expand...
Do not remove those pieces of wood. They actually belong there and are included as part of the soil building recipe that the companies have spent years developing. I leave them when sifting my own compost or commercially prepared compost. At the most, if I think a stick is too long I will break it in half and toss it back in.

From the bit of reading I have done on it, the major soil companies are building huge piles of woody material, adding high nitrogen amendments and then turning the piles for, maybe, two years until the wood decomposes enough to be suitable for adding to their soil mixes.

There is a tremendous amount of slow release nitrogen, and other macro and micro nutrients, locked up in the wood. The major thing some people worry about is that the wood uses a lot of available nitrogen to decompose and it does do that to get started. But, once the decomposition starts the nitrogen in the wood is released. If needed that nitrogen can be used to continue the decomposition and any excess becomes available to the soil microorganisms and then to the plant.

One way of looking at it is that the pieces of wood are an "organic slow release fertilizer" and soil amendment. They certainly are better than the little pellets of so called 'slow release non-organic fertilizer' that some of the chemical companies have added to their mixes of potting soils.

I have already started on making some of my own small test batches of "aged forest products" or "composted forest humus" or whatever the fancy name is.
 
Last couple of replies where of interesting reading material with a brand name which has a had history of ups 'n' downs but still appears popular among the growers in the USA.

How ever regulations will differ between different parts of the world on said products or how it is produced to guide lines of such regulations no matter where you are in the world !!! ye one of those.

In my eyes you should not have little yellow fungus mushrooms growing out of chosen growing medium, this hints to me that the compost/soil blend did not hit ideal decomposing temperatures to eliminate pathogens/disease's or what ever during decomposing.

The act of decomposing generates heat which should normally kill off most nasties & with the act of turning the pile or compost/soil blend at peak temperature helps breaks down or decompose the material even faster :thumb:


But I am a little fuzzy on temperature that is... but I think you use a soil thermometor to gauge that from my own understanding. Ye, ye science stuff for ye all to ponder over :green_heart:



How ever over the sea's & in my own pond we are trying to go peat free or reduced !

Save the the planet stuff & keep Co2 locked up trying not to release it... ya heard the story's of climate doom etc, etc, etc...

But we shall live with that & what people have done before us to cause such damage to our beloved home Plant Earth !



Please think about how you grow & how it may effect the people around you :Namaste:
 
SmokingWings said:
I have read about that. It seems that the UK and Europe is going 100% peat free with some of the changes already taking place. And, it seems that is where the finely shredded coco coir comes into play. It will be the substitute for the peat.
Click to expand...

Yup totally true !

With COP27 aka climate change conference lead by the Unite Nations this coming November & with previous conferences in the past.

We are seeing more products in the UK with coco coir in the compost mix in main domestic outlets or garden centres etc.

As depleting peatlands for a growing medium is causing Co2 release & that is a lot peat people use for growing plants in all around the globe.... billions of tons of Co2 release along with a host of others, I'm reasonable sure most educated folks are seeing climate change in their own neck of the woods.

So in the UK, Europe in the horticultural sector this is our way of reducing our impact on the planet.


On a side note I've used growing mediums which where wood chip based which are total pain in the butt to keep watered so watch out for those.
 
Fuzzy Duck said:
On a side note I've used growing mediums which where wood chip based which are total pain in the butt to keep watered so watch out for those.
Click to expand...
Wood chips do not bother me. Keeping wood chips moist strikes me as being similar to keeping coco coir moist. The wood will not soak up water until it starts to decompose. Up till then the chips shed water like coco does with just the surface of the chip being wet.

Icemud said:
I know some topics I would want to know are:
  • Are "free pests" included like fungus gnats and white flys (have had numerous soils include both)
  • How "hot" is the soil and can seedlings survive in it (issues with ocean forest for me with new seeds, seems to be too hot",
  • What additives are included (for instance organic additives pretty much do little for salt fertz growers), so do they increase the cost per cubic yard...
  • Do the soils included large chunks of bark and wood or have they been carefully sifted/screened. *(have had issues with happy frog with this).
  • IF organic "fertz" are added (like alfalfa), have the incredients been tested for pesticides (which would mostly effect those who had to pass lab tests).
  • Do the soils contain mushroom spores or has it been sterilized or treated.... have had issues with those pesky yellow mushrooms "Leucocoprinus birnbaumii" which will take over the soil creating a "block" of fungus and spreads very easily to neighboring plants. (happy frog).
  • What is the average cost per Cubic yard.
Click to expand...
I do not buy pre-mixed potting soils except for a few times. The latest one was a bag of Fox Farms Happy Frog just so I could find out what all the hoopla was about. I bought that about a year ago. Sometime in 2019 I bought a bag of "compost" that was on a deep discount sale at a local big box home-improvent store for the same reason, just to see what it was. It was a bit rougher than the compost I buy in bulk from local landscape yards. In my life I figure I have bought 5 bags of soils, potting soil mixes or whatever they are called. I usually just mix something up when needed.

What additives are included ...... so do they increase the cost per cubic yard...
Click to expand...
TANSTAAFL Anything that costs the company money, involves human labor or involves machinery is going to add to the end price.;)
 
For years I had my own compost piles but when I moved here 10 years ago I decided to use all raw composting materials as a mulch in the garden areas. The organic material will decompose surprisingly fast just laying on the soil. As long as the micro-organisms can get to the material and there is enough water from nature or the hose works out. For the times when I did need some compost to mix for potting soils I would have some in large containers stored in an out of the way area.

My current soil mix adventure is underway. I picked up a yard of commercial compost and will be using it to mix up potting soil or adding directly to areas in the front or back yard.

Compost-loading up.jpg

Compost-loading up.jpg

at the yard picking up bulk commercial compost (Point & Shoot camera) (some digital darkroom...

Compost-driveway.JPG

Compost-driveway.JPG

compost in back of truck (Point & Shoot camera)
 
ther are many. many soils - many make their own, if you are starting out and want a soil medium - stick to the soil like OceanBlend or Happy frog (fox farms, they even have coco mediums) Roots is another one /Coast of Main is another, ect thre are 100's of soil mixes - one can spend a lot of dollars for soil - need to find one that works for you -happy hunting - Keep it Simple -0 as you experienc grwos so will you soil mix-es
 

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