Need help with my first supersoil for Autoflowers.

Ganjedi

Active Member
Usually try to have one tote full of amended soil that is cooking and leave the other with raw root balls awaiting recycle. They are not always full. For clones and seedlings I use raw spent soil w/ewc added, maybe some perlite & coco added to lighten it up.
Thanks for those nuggets of knowledge !
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
My GSC auto is 4 weeks into flowering and the buds only just started to swell a little , its going pretty slow at like day 70 right now ... can I just top dress with kelp meal and fish bone meal or something like that ? Or is it too late for the amendments to break down and be available to the plant ?
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
Update : Got a few containers (10 gal , 16 gal , 20 gal) ... mixed up 7.5gal of medium (soil/perlite/ewc), added the amendments and mixed it all real nice. Now time to cook the soil for a month. Trying to find info about cooking soil , not sure how much water to add ... dont want it to be too wet or too dry , that might mess up the cooking I guess ? Also I'm supposed to move the soil around once a week right ?
Any tips and advice are more than welcome :bigjoint:
 

myke

Well-Known Member
Update : Got a few containers (10 gal , 16 gal , 20 gal) ... mixed up 7.5gal of medium (soil/perlite/ewc), added the amendments and mixed it all real nice. Now time to cook the soil for a month. Trying to find info about cooking soil , not sure how much water to add ... dont want it to be too wet or too dry , that might mess up the cooking I guess ? Also I'm supposed to move the soil around once a week right ?
Any tips and advice are more than welcome :bigjoint:
I do 15 gallons at a time,takes 3.5 gallons of water.Squeeze a handful really hard,you should just get one drop of water come out.No more.
 

myke

Well-Known Member
I see , and how often do you water ?
I run. Heat mat under a tote. It needs water once a week. After 3-4 weeks I unplug the heater. Gets pretty cold so it doesn’t use up water much.I keep turning it once a week to smell it.lol.If yeah can keep it in the house at room temp that’s best.
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
I run. Heat mat under a tote. It needs water once a week. After 3-4 weeks I unplug the heater. Gets pretty cold so it doesn’t use up water much.I keep turning it once a week to smell it.lol.
Its kinda hot where I am so I guess all I have to do is water the soil and turn it once a week. The chicken manure that I added is kinda stinky and I dont know how long its gonna take for the smell to go away ... Cant wait for some nice fresh earthy smell :wall:
 

myke

Well-Known Member
Its kinda hot where I am so I guess all I have to do is water the soil and turn it once a week. The chicken manure that I added is kinda stinky and I dont know how long its gonna take for the smell to go away ... Cant wait for some nice fresh earthy smell :wall:
Heat and chicken shit lol.Ill remember not to do that haha.
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
Hello everyone , sorry for not updating on my situation soon enough .... I was down with corona for a month and couldnt tend to the soil that was cooking or my plants or anything else ... now after like a month and a half when I opened the lid of cooking soil , it was all rock solid dried which was expected but I also found some white mold on the soil ... I dont think its mycelium because it looked like small THC trichome heads on the soil and not like threads of fungus which mycelium has ... I have taken a few close up pics of the mold hoping someone could chime in and let me where to go from here ... really bummed with the whole situation :/
The soil isnt overwhelmingly covered with the mold , but I can see it visibly with the naked eye as little white clusters in nooks and crannies. I also remember overwatering the soil before keeping it to cook ... so here I am again , looking for your expertise and advice :lol: ... Do I just add some water and mix it all up again and let it cook/use it ? Or is there anything else I should be doing ? Thanks in advance !
 

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osowhom

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone , sorry for not updating on my situation soon enough .... I was down with corona for a month and couldnt tend to the soil that was cooking or my plants or anything else ... now after like a month and a half when I opened the lid of cooking soil , it was all rock solid dried which was expected but I also found some white mold on the soil ... I dont think its mycelium because it looked like small THC trichome heads on the soil and not like threads of fungus which mycelium has ... I have taken a few close up pics of the mold hoping someone could chime in and let me where to go from here ... really bummed with the whole situation :/
The soil isnt overwhelmingly covered with the mold , but I can see it visibly with the naked eye as little white clusters in nooks and crannies. I also remember overwatering the soil before keeping it to cook ... so here I am again , looking for your expertise and advice :lol: ... Do I just add some water and mix it all up again and let it cook/use it ? Or is there anything else I should be doing ? Thanks in advance !
I would get some fresh soil and mix it together with it and try to scrape off the top layer first
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
mine has been sitting about that long too but it isnt hard like yours and it does have some mold
I guess my soil is hard because it was clayish soil to begin with , no coco or peat moss so I'm fine with it being hard ... just bummed about the little white spores ... It shouldnt be that bad that I have to throw it all away right ?
 

insomnia65

Well-Known Member
I deffo would not throw it away, buy more if you need to but I would use this soil whatever happens, even if only to use in a few months or longer adding ammendments getting it right over time.
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
I deffo would not throw it away, buy more if you need to but I would use this soil whatever happens, even if only to use in a few months or longer adding ammendments getting it right over time.
Yup I'm having the same train of thoughts , I guess it wont be that big of a deal to have some mold spores on the soil ... on the other hand I want to know how I can have a healthy mycelium web going hmm ... cant really find any products on local amazon for mycelium inoculation.
Would love to know simple DIY techniques to get healthy mycelium inoculation since I cant find any products for that.
 

loco41

Well-Known Member
Yup I'm having the same train of thoughts , I guess it wont be that big of a deal to have some mold spores on the soil ... on the other hand I want to know how I can have a healthy mycelium web going hmm ... cant really find any products on local amazon for mycelium inoculation.
Would love to know simple DIY techniques to get healthy mycelium inoculation since I cant find any products for that.
I think your best bet for some "inoculation" is going to be just adding some fresh compost/ewc to get some microbial life back in there. You could also look into some em1/bokashi bran/LABS, but I am far from qualified as far as guiding you down those paths. Lots of good info out there on how to make your own LABS from easy household items, but I haven't tried that yet. That said, I'm sure you still have plenty of life in the soil if it's only been a couple of months being neglected, just need to wake everything back up with some moisture first and foremost.

If it were me, I would mix in some compost/ewc and bring everything back up to the correct moisture level first. Maybe add a small amount of molasses to the water to give the microbes a quick food source. If you want to visibly see some mycellium growth and make sure things are alive and working, sprinkle a thin layer of some oats on top of the soil and moisten it to help speed things up.

No expert here, just my two cents. Wish you the best moving forward though.

edit: Also, out of curiosity, what is your base for your soil if you didn't use peat or coco?
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
I think your best bet for some "inoculation" is going to be just adding some fresh compost/ewc to get some microbial life back in there. You could also look into some em1/bokashi bran/LABS, but I am far from qualified as far as guiding you down those paths. Lots of good info out there on how to make your own LABS from easy household items, but I haven't tried that yet. That said, I'm sure you still have plenty of life in the soil if it's only been a couple of months being neglected, just need to wake everything back up with some moisture first and foremost.

If it were me, I would mix in some compost/ewc and bring everything back up to the correct moisture level first. Maybe add a small amount of molasses to the water to give the microbes a quick food source. If you want to visibly see some mycellium growth and make sure things are alive and working, sprinkle a thin layer of some oats on top of the soil and moisten it to help speed things up.

No expert here, just my two cents. Wish you the best moving forward though.

edit: Also, out of curiosity, what is your base for your soil if you didn't use peat or coco?
Hey loco , thx for taking the time to answer ! The base of my soil is 1/1/1 Soil/EWC/Perlite. So there was enough ewc but no visible mycelium and on the other hand I found small mold spores ... so thats what is getting me worried as to why healthy mycelium couldnt out compete the lil mold spores :confused:
 

Ganjedi

Active Member
Update : Not enough replies/help so decided to go ahead and mix it all up and add some water. Happy to find that only the top soil was hard , underneath the soil was still nice and moist ... makes me think how over watered it was :lol:
So things are looking on track , still need help with inoculating it with mycelium if possible so that I can have some peace of mind knowing its got nice healthy stuff going. :bigjoint:
 
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