Building Coots soil mix

I have sourced everything but the crab meal and the neem/karanja cake

I am wondering if I can substitute oyster shell flour for the crab meal

Also is there anything I can use as a substitute for the neem

New to the whole organics growing, I want to get away from liquid nutrients. Any advice would be awesome.

So far I'm planning
1:1:1 EWC / CANADIAN SPHAGNUM/ COARSE PERLITE

KELP MEAL
ROCK DUST

Newcangro said:

I have sourced everything but the crab meal and the neem/karanja cake

I am wondering if I can substitute oyster shell flour for the crab meal

Also is there anything I can use as a substitute for the neem

New to the whole organics growing, I want to get away from liquid nutrients. Any advice would be awesome.

So far I'm planning
1:1:1 EWC / CANADIAN SPHAGNUM/ COARSE PERLITE

KELP MEAL
ROCK DUST

Click to expand...

Tweek just a little and go 20% ewc/compost.40% peat/perlite. It Just breathes a little better.

myke said:

Tweek just a little and go 20% ewc/compost.40% peat/perlite. It Just breathes a little better.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up I'll give that a try

myke said:

Tweek just a little and go 20% ewc/compost.40% peat/perlite. It Just breathes a little better.

Click to expand...

Do you use compost as well as ewc?

No, oyster shell won't work in place of crab meal. You need the Phosphorus (the P of the NPK) from the crab meal. The oyster shell doesn't have it.

If you can't find the crab shell, you could maybe use Bone Meal or Fishbone Meal at like 1/3 of the crab meal dose.

In place of the neem you could look for (non GMO) Soybean meal. It's usually 6-1-1, just like neem.

I guess you could also use something like Fish Meal (8-6-0) in place of the neem and the crab shell. But then we're getting away from Coot's mix.

Also, maybe think about 2 different sizes of aeration. LIke if you're using coarse perlite, also add something small like rice hulls or pine bark fines to get a real nice texture.

Newcangro said:

Do you use compost as well as ewc?

Click to expand...

Yes,good compost mixed say 70/30 with ewc.Save the ewc to top dress with.
Im not a coots guy,not available to me. If you can find good compost locally should be really cheap.

youraveragehorticulturist said:

No, oyster shell won't work in place of crab meal. You need the Phosphorus (the P of the NPK) from the crab meal. The oyster shell doesn't have it.

If you can't find the crab shell, you could maybe use Bone Meal or Fishbone Meal at like 1/3 of the crab meal dose.

In place of the neem you could look for (non GMO) Soybean meal. It's usually 6-1-1, just like neem.

I guess you could also use something like Fish Meal (8-6-0) in place of the neem and the crab shell. But then we're getting away from Coot's mix.

Also, maybe think about 2 different sizes of aeration. LIke if you're using coarse perlite, also add something small like rice hulls or pine bark fines to get a real nice texture.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the very informative answer!

Fishbone meal is available to me so maybe I will try that. I am going to try and get the neem from an online store instead of my grow shop.

I will mix up my aeration sizes as well
Thanks for the tip

myke said:

Yes,good compost mixed say 70/30 with ewc.Save the ewc to top dress with.
Im not a coots guy,not available to me. If you can find good compost locally should be really cheap.

Click to expand...

Yeah I cant get the coots blend trying to make it myself but a couple of things are a bit expensive or tricky to find

Found some compost though thanks for the reaponse

As far as neem - DTE neem meal.

Budzbuddha said:

As far as neem - DTE neem meal.

View attachment 5165767

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Unfortunately I can only find that on Amazon and that box is 90 $ shipped

For neem, you want to buy it through Ahimsa Resources

youraveragehorticulturist said:

No, oyster shell won't work in place of crab meal. You need the Phosphorus (the P of the NPK) from the crab meal. The oyster shell doesn't have it.

Click to expand...

coot specifically suggests using OSF.

“1 cup of limestone or more exactly Calcium Carbonate CaCO3 so Oyster Shell Powder/flour can also be used as it is also a pure Calcium Carbonate material”

Edit: Either or works I guess.
From Coot:
The main straight liming agents, Limestone, Calcite (aka Agricultural Lime), Oyster shell powder and Crab meal are sources for Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). All are pure Calcium Carbonate with the exception of Limestone which can have a Mg level between 2 – 3% depending on the specific mine, country of origin, etc.

I just thought the crab meal was added as a source of chitin for the rhizobacteria to convert to chitinase. Just an fyi, you can sub in shrimp meal for crab meal. The DTE shrimp meal comes from the Oregon shrimp industry and it is a very clean product and even contains less heavy metals than crab or lobster meal.

I was also going to mention that you would lost the chitin if not using crab meal. Also on substituting for the neem you're losing the IPM benefits it provides but you could again work another angle to get pest prevention baked in there. Also there's a crowd out there proclaiming that using neem is bad, but personally I've been using it for a few years now and find that it helps with gnats/etc. and I haven't seen any adverse effects from including it.