Good soil from start to finish?????

Hey everyone,

What is a good soil that will work from start to finish? I currently have is 5 gallon buckets, a mostly peat mixed with some mushroom compost, some top soil ( which i forgot earlier in my post ) and some Humus, but mostly peat, and of course i added some Lime, blood meal, bone meal, epsom salt. I tested the PH of the tap water it is 6.3, but after the runoff it is 5.4 and the plants are showing signs of a problem. So, should i just get a new soil and transplant the baby's or adjust the PH with ph up, or add more lime? If adding more lime, how much is too much per 5 gallon bucket?

Sounds like you're using pretty much all organic amendments, and if that is what you were going for then the ideal environment would be one in which the soil supports microscopic life; using chlorinated tap water and pH Up is counter to sustaining that ideal environment. Your plants will grow, but not to the full potential that growing in soil has to offer.

At any rate, I would recommend more lime and it is difficult to over do. You can start with a tablespoon per gallon of water and mix it thoroughly, agitate between each bucket. Water enough for more run-off to sample, try to let it drain through adequately or in other words don't sample immediately.

check out Subcool's supersoil recipe.

I wish could find this soil recipe I mix up one time. I put foot tall plants in an they grew about 2' in lthree weeks. One thing, you can't put seed or clones directly in super soils.

Zcomfort said:

I wish could find this soil recipe I mix up one time. I put foot tall plants in an they grew about 2' in lthree weeks. One thing, you can't put seed or clones directly in super soils.

Click to expand...

I do, just make a layer of regular soil between the new plants roots & the SS

Works very well

fox farms ocean forrest is the bomb