Organic Soil building: Sourcing base materials in Europe

The Zientist

The Zientist

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Hey AFN,

I got inspired by a few members in here and decided to get back into building a soil from scratch.

I've delved on this matter a handful of years ago, having had tried a few recipes based on what was available at the time. My earlier iterations of a living soil all performed better than every pre-made I've had (eg. Biocanna, Biobizz, Plagron). Only for more equatorial plants I've experienced it to be a tad on the heavy side.

Timeshifting to present day, I'm using mostly Biobizz light and allmix. Although they are nice, the soil I was having prior was way lower maintenance and I was basically doing water only for most of the time. On top of that, the soil food web was way more evident (springtails, predatory mites, fungal hypha, mushrooms and so on) before and I was enjoying the more wholesome approach and the plentiful, higher grade results. As I kept recycling it, the better it got.

This was all before the current indoor no-till/living soil trend started. I've seen great things people are doing and businesses surging around it.

I've seen in the US BuildASoil have tons of info around this subject. I'd like to source many of these ingredients in Europe. Despite a few attempts to locate sources for these materials, I'm a bit lost and can't seem to find that much offer, at all. Things like:
-Kelp meal
-Fish meal
-Gypsum
-Crustacean meal
-Rock dust
-Fishbone meal
-Neem cake
-EM1 and other inoculants that you might recommend for microbial life


Look forward to hear what you have to say. Please post pics of your attempts and results, if you'd like. I'd be thrilled to go through them.

Kind regards
tZ
 
Hi hecno,

Thanks for chiming in. I do have access to the country side. What's on your mind? :pass:
 
I realise this is a year later but did you have any success with your fully organic grow? I did my first earlier this year but messed up the calcium inputs and had a few issues. Still got sensational Strawberry Nuggets and Forum stomper from Mephisto as well as a Blacklights CBD 1:1 from Sensi. Not huge yields but great flowers. I'm preparing for my next grow in Aug and have come up with the following recipe which I've converted from an excellent US source to materials available in the UK. (An amazing thread and all there are super helpful old school organic growers, not a bottle in sight: https://forum.grasscity.com/threads/automatics-make-good-organic-sinse.1477069/ I've not put this together yet but all of it is available online in the UK.

My recipe:
Organic Sinse’s Soil Mix Fall 2021 10.5 gallons
  • 2 gal of Leaf mould, add 1 litre or less of rice hulls, 1/4 cup each of: bone meal, crab shell meal, kelp meal, neem seed meal and malted barley powder. 2 tablespoons of oyster shell flour and gypsum. Leave a little time to cook.

  • 2 gal (9 litres) each- compost, perlite and EWC

  • 2 gal re-amended recycled soil (dump used soil in a tote and add 2 tablespoons fish meal and kelp. A little time to break down is beneficial)

  • 1/2 gallon (2.3 litres) bio char (cowboy lump charcoal run thru a hand crank meat grinder) not charged

  • 1/2 cup each- bone meal, kelp meal, crab shell meal, neem seed meal, and Malted barley powder

  • 1/4 cup each- Dolomite lime, oyster shell flour, and gypsum (calcium sulfate)

  • 1-2 cups volcanic rock dust

  • 1 cup New Jersey greensand

  • Optional but beneficial: 3 Tablespoons each- Fish meal, alfalfa meal,
    • 2 tablespoons Langebenite (Sul-Po-Mag or sulfate of potash magnesia)
    • 1 cup of chicken manure.
  • For happy Autos, use a starter plug of Old Timers or Light Mix with added perlite or rice hulls for aeration.

  • Shopping list per 10.5 gallons
  • 2 gallons (9 litres) Leaf Mould
  • 2 gallons compost (Old Timers)
  • 2 gallons perlite
  • 2 gallons EWC
  • 2 gallons slightly re-amended recycled soil
  • 1/2 gallon (2.3 litres) bio char
  • 1-2 cups volcanic rock dust
  • 1 cup green sand
  • 1 cup chicken manure
  • 1 cup kelp meal
  • 3/4 cup bone meal
  • 3/4 cup crab shell meal
  • 3/4 cup neem seed meal
  • 3/4 cup Malted barley powder
  • 1 litre rice hulls
  • 5 tablespoons fish blood and bone meal
  • 3 tablespoons alfalfa meal
  • 2 tablespoons oyster shell flour
  • 2 tablespoons gypsum
  • 2 tablespoons langebenite (sulfate of potash magnesia)
 
yes worth it for me - im a former non-gardener - so all I know about soil is just learned from using a tent for two or three years

I've heard/read that if you want to keep recycling your soil over time it must stay reasonably balanced
so for me to avoid mistakes it's worth it to get the mixes - and it's still pretty inexpensive overall

I get live worms in my pots at the end so that makes me happy
 
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