@LittleMT , I can never get the soil thing down. Tried it many times with many recipes and can never get it to perform. I'd love to feed the soil instead of the plant be need some instruction on how to build quality stuff. Water only no till is very appealing. Any help appreciated
As I looked into building soil over the years, I always had in mind I want to do what nature does. In nature as you know when these plants grow in the wild, nobody is feeding them nutrients, nobody is PH anything, no such thing as a flush, yet the plants not only live, they thrive, if....the soil is good. And what makes a good soil? The fact that it has life, biology. I personally like some of the mixes found at KIS Organics. They have a water only soil that works. Problem for us is that it isn't very cost effective as I need soil in bulk. So like you I set out on a path of making my own mix, looked into what others do, and as I compiled ingredients I come to realize a combination of Fox Farm Happy Frog and Ocean Forrest was dang close to what I thought was needed. So we started mixing those and using them with success, on several grows we found the soil to get a tad hard and not have the best drainage so we then went with some Coco Loco in the mix, which is now a 3 part mix, 1 part HF, 1 part OF, 1 part CL, mixed in large Walmart bought tubs for around a month prior to use. At this point microbes are watered in, and we are also adding various amendments found at KIS Organics such as alfalfa meal which is a great source of natural triacontanol which is a growth hormone that I believe plays a role in health and maturity of my plants. I also use their Fungal Compost as a top dressing.
The mixture I use works, has worked for years, works on a single plant grow, works in a 250 plant grow, it just works. I am not saying that the Fox Farm mixture is the best or greatest thing out there, I find it very cost effective and once the soil food web is establish, it is a environment that these plants can thrive in. The key are the microbes, the bacteria, the fungi, the nematodes, the protozoa. Once all these guys are in place and happy, THEY feed the plant, and the plant feeds them. This is what makes a soil a soil, otherwise without the life it is just dirt. The microbes make nutrients available to the plants at the root zone. So I feed the soil, which means building these microbe populations, giving them food such as KIS Organics Microbe Catalyst. Some kelp and some molasses via using All Growers Recharge. I use products such as Armory, NITRYX, Megaphos, FORGE, Plant Probiotics, Mammoth P, and as I have some friends that have farms and grow no till relying on the soil biology, I sometimes collect soil samples and mix them in as this ensures I get microbes native to my region.
I rarely feed any of my plants synthetic nutrients, they don't really need it if the soil food web is working because again, whom is feeding these plants in nature? Some person with a complex feed schedule or the soil? Though I do keep nutrients on hand if needed, and will feed when needed but very sparingly. IMO one of biggest soil growing mistakes is people using soil and then being on some kind of feed schedule with synthetic nutrients, and as a result plants getting shocked and PH levels getting wacky and causing all kinds of issues. If your soil food web is right and healthy, they play a role in maintaining soil PH. If one wants to be on a feed schedule and in control of each and every nutrient then IMO they should grow in pure Coco, but I also recognize there are many ways to grow this plant and many have been successful with different methods then I, I respect that but for me I want simplicity at this point in the game. I have been doing this since the early 80's and have gone full circle with growing methods, to sum this up, a mixture of Happy Frog, Ocean Forrest and Coco Loco and building a microbial community has been simple and very successful and has eased what we do.
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