Here are four detailed recipes for making your own organic living soil, from site members Gascanastan, Vonforne, Scrappy, ClackamasCootz and Cann.
Gascanastan says that these are all excellent soil recipes that can be used and recycled forever. Compost is
superior over ANY commercial brand of soil. Creating your own compost not only gives you a superior end result, you also pick up the local diversity of insects, bacterium, and fungi that are so important to any plant, let alone cannabis.
BurnOne, a moderator at ICMag tells us he likes a
“grow medium rich in humates and hungry bacteria.
Usually supplied by peat and worm castings.” He goes on to say that “drainage is crucial to this plant. I use perlite but also some use rice hulls.” His big reminder is that soil should have a “proper balance of N-P-K supplied by organic nutrients. Some of the best are Alfalfa meal for nitrogen and Kelp meal for potassium.
Guano and bone meal for phosphorous, calcium and magnesium. These are crucial for our plants as well. I like powdered dolomite lime but others use oyster shells and other natural sources. It must be quick release though. And the most important thing...
patience."
Gascanastan’s Recipe
3 to 4 gallons regular peat moss (with no additives) NOTE: if the topsoil,compost, Earth Worm Castings (EWC) being used in your batch look too wet or muddy use 4 gallons)
1 gallon high-quality earthworm castings
1 gallon local high-quality topsoil screened for this potting mix
2 or more gallons small and/or medium sized pumice, perlite, or lava rock
1 gallon vermiculite
2 gallons coco husk fiber, rinsed well and fully hydrated
1 gallon leaf litter or forest duff screened for this potting mix
1 gallon high-quality compost
1/2 gallon screened clay or bentonite 1/2 cup Three-Part lime mix:
1 part powdered dolomite lime 1 part agricultural gypsum 2 parts powdered oyster shell Optional amendments:
2 cups crab shell meal 4 cups Acadian kelp meal 4 cups fish meal or bat guano 4 cups fish bone meal
1 cup sul-po-mag aka langbeinite
2 cups neem seed meal or karanja seed meal 1 cup alfalfa
Mix all ingredients together, then fill your pots with mix.
Now make enough Aerated Compost Tea to saturate the mix in each pot until it is thoroughly moist.
Let this sit undisturbed for at least 3 to 4 weeks before planting. This is important in order to break down the un-composted amendments for use by the plants.
Longer periods of rest are even better, make sure you keep the soil moist, but not wet.
Vonforne's Recipe
My base mix is in 50 gallon lots
Peat, either Premier from Home Depot or Pro mix from Menard´s
Perlite
Pumice (Natures footprint) and Napa 8822
20% EWC (mine)
10% Compost (on the first mix I used Composted Steer Manure from my buddies farm)
Bio-char (Royal Oak or Cowboy brand) Lime mix - Gypsum, Crushed Oyster shell (from feed store used as scratch), Coral calcium and Dolomite lime. Also added were Glacial rock dust and
Azomite. Later when I cycled the soil I added Rock Phosphate.
Dried amendments-when I finish a cycle I re-amend with various mixes
of these based on what I think the soil needs. Usually just by using handfuls. :)
Alfalfa (from feed store) Kelp meal (from feed store)
N guano, fish meal, neem meal and Alfalfa
P guano, fish bone meal
When I used the larger containers I would add handfuls of worms from the bin and place a lid with holes on it. Set it off to the side and let them do their work adding ACT every so often making sure the soil was kept moist. I would also add shrimp and crab meal during this time.
Scrappy4's Recipe
Here is the mix that I’m currently using. I continue to use the same mix and using ‘no till’ recycle I have added comfrey leaves, neem meal, crab meal in small amounts. I feed with mostly botanical based teas, or FPE’s of comfrey, alfalfa meal, nettles, dandelion, borage, mullein, neem meal, kelp meal, and yarrow.
Like Gascanastan said it just keeps getting better.
1 3 cf bag of premier mix ($9 at home depot, it is pro mix without any additives)
1 cf of used pro mix soil
2 cf of homemade thermo compost .5 cf of perlite 2 -.5 cf bags of lava rock 6 cups of espoma's bio tone starter 3 cups alfalfa meal
3 cups kelp meal 3 cups crab meal
2 cups of a 50/50 mix of neem cake and karanja cake For minerals I mix 1 cup of soft rock phosphate, 1 cup of oyster shell, 1 cup gypsum, 3/4 cup of sul po mag, 1 cup of Azomite
ClackamasCootz's Recipe
Equal parts of Sphagnum peat moss, some aeration deal (pumice, rice hulls, lava rock - whatever is sitting in the garage) and finally some mix of humus - my compost, worm castings, and some black leaf mold I bought from the local ‘worm guy.’
To each 1 cubic foot of this mix I add the following:
1/2 cup organic Neem meal 1/2 cup organic Kelp meal
1/2 cup Crab meal (or Crustacean meal when
available - it has Shrimp meal with the Crab meal. It’s a local product from the fisheries on the Oregon &
Washington Coasts)
4 cups of some minerals - rock dust
After the plant is in the final container I top-dress with my worm castings at 2” or so and then I hit it with
Aloe Vera juice and Comfrey extract. Or Borage. Or Stinging Nettle. Or Horsetail ferns. Whatever is ready.
That’s it.
To recycle I’ve just been letting the root ball
breakdown and I remove it. I dump the potting soil into an extra large SmartPot container (50 gallons) and add some new potting soil mix as above. I water it down with Kelp meal and Comfrey tea and let it sit until I need it.
Ain’t rocket science...CC Cann's Method
Roughly following Cootz method combine:
25% Earthworm Castings (EWC) or compost 25% pumice/rice hulls
50% sphagnum (hydrated)
Additives per cu.ft. of base mix:
5 cups rock dust mix (4x glacial, 1x basalt, 1x bentonite, 1x oyster shell)
1/2 cup gypsum
1/2 cup neem/karanja meal 1/2 cup crab shell meal 1/2 cup kelp meal
1 cup biochar Mix and use!