Aeration ammendments and ba

First off I didnt click post so title is incorrect.

So Im going organic for about 85% of my plants. I want to use this whole line of House and Garden and compare the organic plants to the synthetics. Questions are...

1. Without having to spend more $, I already have hydroton/red lava rock/vermiculite. **BESIDES THE VERM, CAN RED LAVA ROCK/HYDROTON COMPLETELY REPLACE PERLITE?** I am going to use more variety for the organics, but I just want to transplant my blue dream from their solo cups tonight and dont have any other aeration items.


2. I want to reuse my soil, Ill have (3) 27 gal totes in a space room containing 1bin for my EWC, 1 for Compost, and 1 for recycling soil/root balls. Whats the best way to recycle the root balls. This isnt my situation, but say you had NO SOIL, only used soil. Would it be possible to lightly amend it with kelp etc and reuse it immediately?
If you cant amend it without waiting, couldnt you add a little aeration and just grow it with bottled nutes?


Thanks fellas.

1. If these are for aeration in a soil mix, they can work if you monitor your waterings. Perlite is better though.

2. Just throw the root balls in the compost. They'll get chewed up like the rest.

There's always something around to amend your soil. If you don't have anything for some reason, just get a bag of manure and feed manure teas. It's cheaper and is as organic as organic gets.

Connoisseurus Rex said:

What is it that you're asking?

Click to expand...

Hehe sorry, at work and somehow it got posted before I finished. Thank you.

What is the question?

I quit using vermiculite over 30 years ago. It's good in seed starting mixes and little else IMO.

Hydrotron is a hydro medium, not an aeration amendment.

Red lava rock sounds cool, but most don't crunch it up to small enough and worse, don't use enough. *Chunky* perlite is just as bad. Sounds cool, but actually has less surface area than regular perlite and less aeration benefit.

Regular, plain, perlite is the most used aeration amendment in the horticultural trade for a reason.

Wet

Wetdog said:

What is the question?

I quit using vermiculite over 30 years ago. It's good in seed starting mixes and little else IMO.

Hydrotron is a hydro medium, not an aeration amendment.

Red lava rock sounds cool, but most don't crunch it up to small enough and worse, don't use enough. *Chunky* perlite is just as bad. Sounds cool, but actually has less surface area than regular perlite and less aeration benefit.

Regular, plain, perlite is the most used aeration amendment in the horticultural trade for a reason.

Wet

Click to expand...

I quit using everything but coco. The only reason I use coco is because I grow in a composting soil and it breaks down with the rest while leaving nicely aerated pockets.

I use a shot glass of straight coco for germination surrounded by the soil.

I usually leave about a 1" layer of coco on the top of the soil to retain moisture and keep fungus flies at bay.

Wetdog said:

What is the question?

I quit using vermiculite over 30 years ago. It's good in seed starting mixes and little else IMO.

Hydrotron is a hydro medium, not an aeration amendment.

Red lava rock sounds cool, but most don't crunch it up to small enough and worse, don't use enough. *Chunky* perlite is just as bad. Sounds cool, but actually has less surface area than regular perlite and less aeration benefit.

Regular, plain, perlite is the most used aeration amendment in the horticultural trade for a reason.

Wet

Click to expand...

This is MY situation. I have a small grow, only have (1) 15gal and (2) 5 gal fabrics (so far) in homemade organic soil, and one 5gal is completely buildasoil living soil. (All bigger plants get barley straw for mulch.)

I have 10 smaller plants that need to be transplanted very soon, and financially I cant afford much for the next week so I planned on buying a big bag of roots organic tonight for transplants

Im trying to make a batch of soil tonight, and start cycling immediately but I only have lava rock/hydroton for aeration. I never thought about using hydroton until I read a decent amount of posts where people use it.

Must the Roots have additional aeration? IDK, I have never bought any bagged soil, but have always made from scratch. BTW, it costs me just under $45 to make ~10 CF of base mix, peat, perlite, humus.

It's a good thing to learn aside from not spending big bucks buying pre made stuff like Roots or BAS.

Try lava rock in some and hydrotron in the others? I really have no idea.

Wet

Wetdog said:

Must the Roots have additional aeration? IDK, I have never bought any bagged soil, but have always made from scratch. BTW, it costs me just under $45 to make ~10 CF of base mix, peat, perlite, humus.

It's a good thing to learn aside from not spending big bucks buying pre made stuff like Roots or BAS.

Try lava rock in some and hydrotron in the others? I really have no idea.

Wet

Click to expand...

The lava rock is for my homemade soil, and yes it ends up being much cheaper. Im only buying bagged soil as Im in a time crunch to transplant, Ill be using pumice\rice hulls for my homemade soil in a week or two, just trying to get buy with what I have.

I agree prebagged is not sought after, and can be pricey but I cant complain about roots organic soil as of yet.