Reusing Soil

Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
KrazyAnneBanks said:
I find it counterproductive, the crops are never the same...

does everyone amend or buy new soil?
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20+ years. The soil is loose, fertile and productive. I get the convenience of discarding soil from indoor grows though that isn't necessary either but why discard good garden soil? Summer is for growing, winter is for replenishing. Spring is for fava beans.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
BcDigger said:
I always buy some new stuff every year to add to the mix though
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I add a layer of compost every year. Along with cover crops that are tilled into the soil in spring. In Oregon, near where I live, there is a composting center that produces the best stuff and they charge about 30 bucks for two yards. I buy it in fall, cover it and let it set for a few months before spreading it. It's composted at the right temperatures to kill weed seeds (I never can get it right in my own pile) so it act both as amendment and mulch. My own compost, I bury in the garden so the seeds don't get a chance.

I spread bone meal and a commercial organic soil amendment to even out the nutrient profile of the soil and that's about it for the year. Just water and weed.
 
ANC

ANC

Well-Known Member
Normal rotting leaves probably have double the nutrients of compost.
Most people go overboard with soil, if it has a functioning living microbiome of fungi, bacteria and insects it can break down and replenish itself each season just from enough crap dropping on it...
I think a light dusting of volcanic rock dust for trace elements, and good liquid kelp watering (the dry shit dissolves way too fast to make it useful in soil). I'd add crab meal, the chitin in it which is similar to insect exoskeletons imbues the plants with a resistance to insect bites. then THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.... COVER your soil use leaves, use straw, use bark or anything, but cover your soil.

My other house is built on sandy soil, I turned that into black soil with just covering it, and haveing my cats shit in it.
 
sandhill larry

sandhill larry

Well-Known Member
I do a 45 gallon mix in kiddie swimming pools. Most of them are something like this.

5 gallons buckets of

1 Mushroom compost
1 Cow manure compost
1/2 Chicken manure compost
1/2 High Cotton compost
2 Peat Moss
2 Sungrow potting soil
1 Jungle Growth potting soil
1 Scott's Moisture Control potting soil


Cups of

2 lime
2 lime, crushed
2 blood meal
2 bone meal
4 Epson Salt
4 Perilite
2 Vermiculite
16 Coffee Ground compost
2 5-2-3 Organic ferts
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
KrazyAnneBanks said:
i like roots organics 707 mix, general hydro nutes, advanced nutes, sometimes use doctor earth and mix it with zen blend
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If you are using salts, maybe different results from organic might explain loss in productivity over time.. From what I've read, salts and microbes aren't compatible. My soil feeds the microbes and the microbes feed my plants. Year-to-year it's consistently good.

A huge, vibrant green pot plant isn't necessarily the most healthy. One tell is if you have problems with insect pests and disease. Healthy plants tend to have fewer bugs and deficiency issues.

Question: how large a harvest per plant do you need? Hands down, @sandhill larry 's mix will beat my garden's production, I'm pretty sure. For myself, a sustainable garden with a low level of effort to keep it that way is more important than an extra pound per four plants. I pulled between 6 and 7 pounds from my Oregon legal four, which is about 60 years-worth of smoking at the rate I use it. But then again, I'm not selling.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
sandhill larry said:
I do a 45 gallon mix in kiddie swimming pools. Most of them are something like this.

5 gallons buckets of

1 Mushroom compost
1 Cow manure compost
1/2 Chicken manure compost
1/2 High Cotton compost
2 Peat Moss
2 Sungrow potting soil
1 Jungle Growth potting soil
1 Scott's Moisture Control potting soil


Cups of

2 lime
2 lime, crushed
2 blood meal
2 bone meal
4 Epson Salt
4 Perilite
2 Vermiculite
16 Coffee Ground compost
2 5-2-3 Organic ferts
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That looks like a really good recipe. Thanks.
 
sandhill larry

sandhill larry

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
@sandhill larry 's mix will beat my garden's production, I'm pretty sure. For myself, a sustainable garden with a low level of effort to keep it that way is more important than an extra pound per four plants. I pulled between 6 and 7 pounds from my Oregon legal four, which is about 60 years-worth of smoking at the rate I use it. But then again, I'm not selling.
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I pulled about a pound and a half off a whole lot more plants than that. But I have to pack my soil into the bush, so each plant gets 5 gallons tops. Would love to do some in the yard, just to see what they do with all the water and food they could use.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
sandhill larry said:
That is my basic Adult Tomato mix. For weed I do add a little more blood, bone and ferts. For the Darwin Dope patches I add time release ferts as well. Not happy using them, but it's tough growing in the bush without them.
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It's a pretty well known fact that conventional farmers have consistent and high production. Every reason to think this would also apply to weed. And I don't think there is necessarily any difference in quality.
 
sandhill larry

sandhill larry

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
It's a pretty well known fact that conventional farmers have consistent and high production. Every reason to think this would also apply to weed. And I don't think there is necessarily any difference in quality.
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If you were growing acres I don't think each plant would look as good, but if the genetics is there, the smoke would still be good. The tomato business would be a good indicator what farmers could do with legal weed. High tech would cut a lot of the labor out. but what was left would be done by migrant labor. Farmers would contract crew bosses to get the job done, and it would be up to the bosses to pay the workers. The costs would be low, but the taste would not be as good as what you grow in your backyard.

More tomatoes are grown in backyards than in all the thousand acre fields put together. I think that would be the case with weed too, even when the big tobacco companies have the lion's share of the taxed market.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
sandhill larry said:
If you were growing acres I don't think each plant would look as good, but if the genetics is there, the smoke would still be good. The tomato business would be a good indicator what farmers could do with legal weed. High tech would cut a lot of the labor out. but what was left would be done by migrant labor. Farmers would contract crew bosses to get the job done, and it would be up to the bosses to pay the workers. The costs would be low, but the taste would not be as good as what you grow in your backyard.

More tomatoes are grown in backyards than in all the thousand acre fields put together. I think that would be the case with weed too, even when the big tobacco companies have the lion's share of the taxed market.
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true this. "not necessarily any difference". I bet I can grow an organically grown tomato every bit as bad as the chain supermarket ones.
 
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