Nature’s living soil

[Tom Bombadil]

.And you dont really need airtight containers. The micro life is life.needs air too.Nor stake air.

i dont fill my containers to the top..only about 2/3 of the way ..so i can turn the soil occasionally without makin a mess! the top 1/3 should retain enough o2 dont you think? or is there a specific amount of o2 required that im not aware of? thanks!

 

[ChefB202]

the auto specific blend ? hmmm why not just use the photo blend and use less?

Yes the auto blend, because the person who gave me the advice uses that ratio with great results. But again, you have to keep the herd happy and feed the soil. I’m 3 weeks in and didn’t layer it, so my plants have been into the “hot soil” for at least 1.5 weeks and are going great. The picture is from a few days ago

 

[Eyes on Fire]

Yeah,Im right here n there. but only twice a leap year..soooo,ya know. Not often LOL but the container is fine sealed if you burp say every few days or week or whatever your soil is doing will tell you. but every 4-5 days should be fine imo. Balance between all these antiquated things is what every person is looking for and you cant toss numbers at it all day long either.

 

[cryogenicman]

I use natures living soil and here is what I have found. I did not like the super soil mix with the bottom 3rd being natures living soil mixed in the bottom third and the rest happy frog to the top. It works ok, but might be too hot for some autos. I prefer to use the living soil mix by mixing the natures living soil with all the happy frog in a 5 gallon pot. Then I use a 4" jiffy peat cup burried in the middle with only a 1/2" sticking up. I fill the jiffy cup with happy frog or biobizz light mix and plant my cracked seed in there and cover it with a dome till its a 1" high. The jiffy cup allows a root ball to form before busting though to the natures living soil mix. You still need to add calmag if your using LEDs. I use roots elements to top dress but my next trial will be to mix the roots elements in to the living soil mix from the beginning. I water with recharge and so far things look great. If you go lower than a 5 gallon pot you need to scale down the natures living soil for the pot size. So you would tale 16oz divide by 5 and it gives you 3.2 oz of natures living soil per a gallon of soil. So a 3 gallon pot would use 9.6 oz of natures living soil mixed in with all your soil.

 

[cryogenicman]

NYC diesel using peat cup method.

 

[DTOM420]

I have used it as a repair item for a photo I was doing.It did alright.Cant comment on auto performance however.But,no not use layer.first mistake most people make.I have seen very few fully layered systems work like unlayered ones.also like someone said already,AACTs and Teas will help along with a top coating for bloom. both those things will help achieve a better first grow.Happy harvesting

X2!

I’m not familiar with the soil you mentioned. I prefer using KIS or BuildASoil’s soil - either their bagged soil or (my preference) their soil building kits to mix my own water-only soil. Then, I feed teas and too dress with terrific results. For autos I pop seeds in Root Riot cubes. That way I can inoculate the early Roots directly with a strong spore count endo mycorrhizae. Next, I use AutoBeast’s ‘instatransplant’ pots that I make with 6” plastic pots. These innovative DIY pots give you a way to up-pot autos without any shock AND it gives you a second opportunity to inoculate the roots directly with Myco. This is important because myco ONLY works if a root comes into direct contact with a spore; and if this isn’t achieved EARLY in the plant’s life, the myco won’t have the time needed to grow a large enough hyphael network to improve P uptake significantly. Also, up-potting allows me to tone back the nutrition level in the soil some in the early stage and plant an auto into a strong soil for the last 50%-70% of the grow.
IMO it’s the biology that you add that’s the real key because all the post-grow soil I’ve had tested HAS still had more nutrition left in it. So, any shortcoming in terms of nutrition wasn’t the fault of the soil but, rather, a lack of biology sufficient to UNLOCK that nutrition and deliver it to the plant. That’s why Eyes’ suggestion of teas and top dress is so damn on the spot. Happy growing

 

[Red64]

I am in the last days before harvest using their auto blend and Fox Farm HF. Layered it per their instruction. Water only. Northern lights/Mazar. I may be just lucky but two plants are beautiful with very nice buds. Only problem has been small amount of powder mildew treated with milk/water spray. This has been such an easy stress free grow.