Did I ruin my new soil mix?

OregonBlackBear · Apr 6, 2021

That's a lot of lime.

Proph · Apr 6, 2021

Ravenor said:
I forgot to mention I also used charged bio-char and build-a-soil craft blend in the OP. The soil recipe, to the best of my memory, is at the bottom of this post.

Thanks! I'll get on that. I think the biggiest issue is when I went out of town for the weekend for Easter I turned the AC up to 80. Inside the tote was pretty humid because of that with a bunch of water on the lid. Its good to know its alive though thats what I was going for haha.

So I admit I probably should have looked at a recipe first but I just took my vegetable garden and planter recipe but used more expensive potting soils and the rice hulls and pumice. The neem cake and build-a-soil craft blend are new additions though.

Haha thanks man! The plan is to let it cook for about a month right now. And where I live is so dry and the new tent so big that I was thinking about starting the seeds for a couple weeks in a smaller tent so I'd have more control over the humidity while the plants are just starting out.

I was looking for some worms today actually as well! I may have to order them though. The nurseries I went to were out.

YOLO... but I actually did something similar to this on my first run, so I thought I knew what was going to happen. That was mykos, worm compost, FFOF, peat moss and perlite. I let it sit for a couple weeks to hydrate and cook a bit, but that was a few months ago and up in my cabin where it was probably 50 degrees where I was letting it sit. I also didnt know if it was mycelium or if it was another saprophytic fungi that could be more harmful.

I dont have the exact ratios but it was pretty close to:
1 cu ft rice hulls
1 cu ft pummice
.5 cubic feet build-a-soil charge bio char
~1.5 cu ft FFOF
1 cu ft worm gold compost
4 cups lime
a small packet of mykos
4 big scoops of azos
1 cup azomite
~1 cu ft peat moss
12 quarts malibu potting mix

This was divided pretty equally between 2 27 gallon totes. in one tote I worked in Neem Cake - West Coast Horticulture - 2.5 lb Bag and in the other BuildASoil Craft Blend - Nutrient Pack - 3 lb.

Would you recommend cutting it with something or are those ratios ok?

Yeah.. These ratios are off quite a bit.. Where did this recipe come from? Are you aware that rice hulls, pummice and peat all serve the same aeration purpose right?

So let's do a little math..
That's
3 cu. ft of aeration..
1 cu ft of worm castings (normally about 20% of the total mix. Yours is about 50%)
A whole lot of lime (normal ratio is 1/2 cup per cu ft of soil)
In about 2 cu ft of actual soil..
Not to mention the other stuff...

I'd check the ph of that soil with a soil probe due to the amount of lime.. And I agree with Man-O... It's probably a hot mix at this point.. Not something Is put a seedling in.

Ravenor · Apr 6, 2021

Proph said:
Yeah.. These ratios are off quite a bit.. Where did this recipe come from? Are you aware that rice hulls, pummice and peat all serve the same aeration purpose right?

So let's do a little math..
That's
3 cu. ft of aeration..
1 cu ft of worm castings (normally about 20% of the total mix. Yours is about 50%)
A whole lot of lime (normal ratio is 1/2 cup per cu ft of soil)
In about 2 cu ft of actual soil..
Not to mention the other stuff...

I'd check the ph of that soil with a soil probe due to the amount of lime.. And I agree with Man-O... It's probably a hot mix at this point.. Not something Is put a seedling in.

There really wasn't much of a recipe just trying to translate some of what I've done in the past for vegetables and some of the stuff I've read about into growing weed.

I thought peat moss retained water and nutrients? But yeah I should have about 2.5 ~ 3 cubic feet of drainage in there for about 50/50. I'm going to try these in smart pots and I have had great success outside with tomato plants running roughly 50/50 with drainage. Even big pots need to be watered once a day when I've done this before but the growth is explosive.

I'll definitely get a meter and check the soil before I plant anything. I will admit I didn't understand what ag lime was before I went and did some reading right now. I was under the impression that it was a fairly stable ph buffer at like 7.0 not that it had a dissolved ph value of 12.3. I also calculated the total volume of soil including aeration as the amount I wanted to lime, but that doesn't seem to be the case? Live and learn though.

I'm going to probably double my pot size from 5 to 10 gallons and work in some more peat (which is naturally acidic) and a really mild base soil.

Mañ'O'Green · Apr 6, 2021

Ravenor said:
There really wasn't much of a recipe just trying to translate some of what I've done in the past for vegetables and some of the stuff I've read about into growing weed.

I thought peat moss retained water and nutrients? But yeah I should have about 2.5 ~ 3 cubic feet of drainage in there for about 50/50. I'm going to try these in smart pots and I have had great success outside with tomato plants running roughly 50/50 with drainage. Even big pots need to be watered once a day when I've done this before but the growth is explosive.

I'll definitely get a meter and check the soil before I plant anything. I will admit I didn't understand what ag lime was before I went and did some reading right now. I was under the impression that it was a fairly stable ph buffer at like 7.0 not that it had a dissolved ph value of 12.3. I also calculated the total volume of soil including aeration as the amount I wanted to lime, but that doesn't seem to be the case? Live and learn though.

I'm going to probably double my pot size from 5 to 10 gallons and work in some more peat (which is naturally acidic) and a really mild base soil.

Let that first batch cook just like it is as long as you can. If you have the space one of these would work a trick.

Then after that mix composts add it 2 parts good peat to one part your mix. use the mix for top dressing. You may have a problem with the lime? You just need to make a blend up and test it.

Did I ruin my new soil mix?

OregonBlackBear

Fussy Bumble Bear

Proph

Regenerative Organic Grower

Ravenor

Ravenor

Mañ'O'Green

Kia ora. Retired to watch the grass grow.

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