Hole(with conditioned soil)vs Hole(without conditioning)

Basically im trying to look for what the main difference is between the two, Conditioning being adding of a 100% mix or a mix of preexisting soil and you own mix of soil.

Right now im just trying to gorilla plant about 60 plants in small patches of no more then 6-7. I have 6x 18 inch plants which are thicker then a Arabian mans bush that have been vegging for about 2 months now. and the rest are clones off the same mother which are all rooted in beer cups and ready to plant. What ive done for a few of them is just stuck a spade in the ground and made a beer cup or bigger sized hole and mixed the soil around a little bit. Then put the plant in and water. All of the plants ive done already which were just the small clones seem to have taken the transplant well.

What im wondering now is if i should maybe look into bringing a mix of my own or a store bought soil? Im trying to get the most out of this and could spend the money if i had to. Im still planning on watering them with nutes ive been using on my indoor soil.

IF i should be adding a better soil into the holes how big of a hole do i need to make? also does any1 know of a good mix that works well for outdoors?

I'm right there w/ ya, Ive got about 20 to do this year and I'm debating the same thing, I'm probable going to do 60% store bought and 40% natural soil. As far as soil mix goes all i ever do to store bought is add perlite for better drainage, but thats just me.

Cheers

hmm sounds like your gonna be doing the same thing as me, i might add some munure into it for the extra bit of nutes. Not to sure about adding in the perlite because the soil really dosent need good drainage unless its very clay rich soil. The process of digging up the dirt and mixing it up with storebought should give your stuff a loomy enought texture to avoid the perlite but thats just my opinion, if it works for u go for it. I just use it for indoor

The type of native soil makes a lot of difference.

Where I was raised, the soil is riverbottom loam, and FULL of worms. It needs nothing but nutrients.

Where I live now, I built raised beds because more than 25% native soil is enough.

If you have relatively good soil, I'd add about 25% potting mix to your hole, and then once planted, mulch heavily, sprinkling nutes onto the mulch, outside the root ball, to encourage root growth.

Water the nutes in.

JMHO

Bigol'Bong said:

hmm sounds like your gonna be doing the same thing as me, i might add some munure into it for the extra bit of nutes. Not to sure about adding in the perlite because the soil really dosent need good drainage unless its very clay rich soil. The process of digging up the dirt and mixing it up with storebought should give your stuff a loomy enought texture to avoid the perlite but thats just my opinion, if it works for u go for it. I just use it for indoor

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Agreed. In an outdoor, in-the-ground grow, perlite is all down side. Compost works better as an aid to both drainage and water retention.

Also, if this is a stealth situation, shiny white perlite is an eye catcher, even if the eye belongs to someone who can't recognize a pot plant. ("Hmmm.... What's THAT?)

My area is basically a lightly forested area that by the end of summer has a 7 foot tall floor canopy of many different kinda of plants, im growing the plants in an area where nothing tall grows but the soil is pretty dense with small plants roots. Should i try and remove these from the soil or will it not make much of a difference? And what exactly do u mean by the mulch, i know what it is but are u saying to put it ontop of the hole after the plants in it already? if so what are the advantages of this as its a practice i haven't heard much about

its just off a soybean field

mulch cuts down on watering by 25% man... or so im told...'

im going to be using a heavy mulch to try an minimize watering trips.

GOOD LUCK!

My grow site is completely made out of clay... Should I just use compost mixed in with store bought soil? I have the Miracle Gro Moisture Control soil that helps not to over or underwater your plants. Should I mix the clay in with it? Thanks in advance!

Hey, last season, I transplanted a handful of plants into a logged area...I dug large enough holes to accomidate the root wad and then deepened and widened them enough to add an additional 2 gallons of soil consisting or 50% Pro Mix (soiless mix) and 50% store bought compost (I think it was Coast of Maine brand w/ lobster and shellfish in it). Anyways I had great results. Once I planted in a clearing where I only dug a hole large enough to accomidate the plant's root wad. I think the soil was pretty sandy and most likely low in nutrients. <--these plants did very poorly and I learned my lesson. That said, my plants were not as big or as healthy as yours (nice work, by the way). It seems like you've already invested a lot of time and effort. Hopefully you can continue with that energy and I'm sure you'll come out a winner!

I perhaps went to the extreme in hole conditioning. I live in Colorado, am med certified, have a privacy fence all around my property, so I don't have to be sneaky. The soil here is really shit, so I excavated ( by hand, what a chore ) a hole two feet deep and 10'X10'. at the very bottom I put a layer of straw to help provide drainage covered this with about three inches of existing soil. Next I threw in some of last years compost, some chicken manure, and another 4-5 inches of soil and tilled the crap out of it. Like building a soil lasagna I repeated these steps until I reached the surface. Plants have been in ground since April 16 and I covered them at night with five gallon buckets until night temps were no longer freezing. And here they are now for your viewing pleasure.


Not a bad start considering they will enjoy 5-6 months of growing season yet. Bricks in pictures were used to hold down buckets as it gets really windy here. If you look close you will see that the stems are about as big around as pencils from being in the wind. They have become very strong and even a 50MPH wind only ruffles the leaves a bit. Good luck with your endeavors, and I would say the deeper you condition the soil, the less your roots will have to struggle with firmly packed soil.

Im using Mg moisture control, it just has coco husks in it to hold water, its safe.
ZEBA starch based water absorbing gel.
Mulching the hell out of the top.
and deep root watering

This should cut watering 50%-75 % (2-3 weeks between water, unless it rains, i hope.)

I had 2 mo plant out for 2 weeks in 80 degree weather with out water tell some dam gopher got her. So now im going with chicken wire in the hole before I add the soil to protect most of the roots.

so ive run into a bit of a problem, planted 7 of them in this patch near somewhat if a feild/swamp area, i planted them closer to a steam where the water was pretty high up in the soil, only a few inches down. dug up a small hole for each and planted with no extra soil just the stuff in the ground. Those plants arent doing so hot, all the leaves are starting to curl and the plants dont look nearly as healthy as they were when i planted them. It has been raining alot lately so im assuming thats why. Ive got 5 more ive already planted in another area im going to check up on tonight and make sure the same isnt happening, I really hope its not or my plans might be dramatically stalled for the next little while