Rrog, if I may ......
I found a post by FunTimes very helpful in wrapping my head around building a well balanced soil. This info was posted by FunTimes, but is originally from Coot.
Base: Pretty simple
1 part- sphagum peat moss
1 part- compost/vermicompost (making your own is best)
1 part aeration (pumice, lava rock, perlite, vermiculite, etc). Diversity is good. I even used some old hydroton that I had laying around from my hydro days.
The amendments that are added to the base are broken down in to 3 category's.
Food Mix
Fix-it Mix
Mineral Mix
Food Mix:
Add 2 cups of the following per cubic feet of base. Alfalafa meal, flax seed meal, bone meal, blood meal, fish meal, canola meal, soybean meal, cotton seed meal, etc. It should be pointed out that cottonseed meal is derived from one of the heaviest chemically treated crops so keep that in mind. Also blood meal and bone meal come from a pretty unethical industry, so depending on your idea of "organics", these items may not meet your criteria. Note: This is two cups per cf total of whatever you choose to use.... not two cups per cf of each ingredient. Again, diversity is good.
Fix-it Mix:
You will add 1.5 cups of the following per cubic feet of base. Kelp meal, Neem seed meal, Karanja seed meal, and crab shell meal. I feel that kelp meal, neem seed meal and crab shell meal are essential. Karanja seed meal can be used in place of neem seed meal if you can source it locally.
Mineral Mix:
You will add 1 cup of the following per cubic feet of base. Greensand, Azomite, soft rock phosphate, oyster shell powder, gypsum.
Rock dusts are added in addition to the above ingredients at 2-3 cups per cf of base.
If you can source any of the above ingredients locally, go with those. A lot of this stuff can be picked up at feed stores, garden centers, rock supply companies, etc. You will find better prices that way, avoid shipping costs, and support a local business. If you have a couple other buddies on board with this, you can save quite a bit of money buying larger bags of stuff and splitting it amongst a few growers.
Mix all of your ingredients together (I use a large tarp). Wet this mix down with an aerated compost tea using approximately a half gallon of ACT per cf of soil, and place in to a rubbermaid bin (with aeration holes drilled in to the lid) or other large, breathable container and let sit for AT LEAST 30 days. I shoot for 45-60 days before sticking a cut in there. I also typically dump my mix back out on to a tarp 3-5 days after mixing it to ensure that I have even moisture, and things aren't turning anaerobic on me.
Sorry for the hijack Rrog, but for whatever reason breaking the ammendments down in to categorys seemed to help me figure out a good recipe to go with, and it also helped me understand what each input is bringing to the mix.
