My question on storage:
I have read good things about the reuse of organic living soil. My question here is, how best to store it between growing seasons? I have read postings by some who prefer to tip it all out, re-amend, and use it to fill containers for the next year, sometimes letting it dry off and rewetting upon re-use. I am probably going to try a no-till or 'light surface till' approach, where I will lightly, finger rake in re-amendments, and leave them to cook/settle in, until I re-use those containers in about 6 months or so. I only harvested my last grow 2 weeks ago and had let the soil dry out a lot over the plant's last week. I wondered what is the considered approach to keeping such a container of living organic soil, is it best left outside to receive natural rainfall to keep it moist so the soil biology can keep developing, or better to keep it under cover to manage and regulate watering of it? Or, is it preferable to let it dry out a bit like a bought bag of soil would be and re-wet only upon re-use? My containers are home made airpots (drilled out) so if in heavy rain they will not stay water logged but would nonetheless receive some sort of soil flush if left/kept in the open outside.
Re-amendments to last years super soil:
I am wondering what are other people's guidelines for re-amending organic soil for re-use next season. What last year's grow I took an organic super soil approach, I couldn't find the exact ingredients of other super soil recipes so ended up buying a bunch of similar stuff and putting it together somewhat conservatively (approx 1/2 cup of each amendment per cubic foot whereas some recipes had upwards of 2 cups of each/most amendments), I was conservative with the view it is easier to add more later than take away excess.
The one ingredient that almost all recipes had was the inclusion of a lime component, in my mix I had also included bio-char and neem meal, both of which were said to have a 'liming' effect, I decided rather than risk the pH going up too much that I would not include lime. Long story short, my last grow started flowering looking really good, only to then get into possible nute lockout, yellowing and slow growth. So for my next grow I am planning on adding 1/2 - 1 cup lime for each of my 50liter/13 gallon containers, and also perhaps a small amount of gypsum. I like what I have read about the no-till approach, and I plan on adding lime and maybe gypsum this week by shallowly 'finger raking' the soil and mixing it in to roughly the top 3 inches, with the view to not overly disturb the existing soil biology. I plan on putting the lime in first, then in perhaps a month adding about 1/2 cup per cubic foot of re-amendments for those ingredients I judge to have been used up by the previous year's grow. I wont be re-using the containers for another 6 months so that should give a good amount of time for the soil to settle/cook before re-use.
For those folks who already re-use their organic living soil from previous grows, does the above sound a reasonable approach to take, is there anything usefully different that I should consider? I am happy and appreciate any thoughts on this whether similar or different - it's all good!
I have read good things about the reuse of organic living soil. My question here is, how best to store it between growing seasons? I have read postings by some who prefer to tip it all out, re-amend, and use it to fill containers for the next year, sometimes letting it dry off and rewetting upon re-use. I am probably going to try a no-till or 'light surface till' approach, where I will lightly, finger rake in re-amendments, and leave them to cook/settle in, until I re-use those containers in about 6 months or so. I only harvested my last grow 2 weeks ago and had let the soil dry out a lot over the plant's last week. I wondered what is the considered approach to keeping such a container of living organic soil, is it best left outside to receive natural rainfall to keep it moist so the soil biology can keep developing, or better to keep it under cover to manage and regulate watering of it? Or, is it preferable to let it dry out a bit like a bought bag of soil would be and re-wet only upon re-use? My containers are home made airpots (drilled out) so if in heavy rain they will not stay water logged but would nonetheless receive some sort of soil flush if left/kept in the open outside.
Re-amendments to last years super soil:
I am wondering what are other people's guidelines for re-amending organic soil for re-use next season. What last year's grow I took an organic super soil approach, I couldn't find the exact ingredients of other super soil recipes so ended up buying a bunch of similar stuff and putting it together somewhat conservatively (approx 1/2 cup of each amendment per cubic foot whereas some recipes had upwards of 2 cups of each/most amendments), I was conservative with the view it is easier to add more later than take away excess.
The one ingredient that almost all recipes had was the inclusion of a lime component, in my mix I had also included bio-char and neem meal, both of which were said to have a 'liming' effect, I decided rather than risk the pH going up too much that I would not include lime. Long story short, my last grow started flowering looking really good, only to then get into possible nute lockout, yellowing and slow growth. So for my next grow I am planning on adding 1/2 - 1 cup lime for each of my 50liter/13 gallon containers, and also perhaps a small amount of gypsum. I like what I have read about the no-till approach, and I plan on adding lime and maybe gypsum this week by shallowly 'finger raking' the soil and mixing it in to roughly the top 3 inches, with the view to not overly disturb the existing soil biology. I plan on putting the lime in first, then in perhaps a month adding about 1/2 cup per cubic foot of re-amendments for those ingredients I judge to have been used up by the previous year's grow. I wont be re-using the containers for another 6 months so that should give a good amount of time for the soil to settle/cook before re-use.
For those folks who already re-use their organic living soil from previous grows, does the above sound a reasonable approach to take, is there anything usefully different that I should consider? I am happy and appreciate any thoughts on this whether similar or different - it's all good!
