Bananas super soil mix

Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
I recently mixed up a big batch of super soil and why not share my latest recipe, it is my most complete soil to date and plan to use water only, and one or two ewc aact teas.
This is based off subs soil but no blood meal and more plant based ingredients and a couple homemade.
Heres the mix (yields over 240gallons)
6 bales promix (expands to 4cuft)
50#wiggleworm castings
30#homemade worm castings
30#compost from compost pile
5# neem seed meal
5# fishbone meal
5# steamed bone meal
5c alfalfa meal
7# kelp meal
7# crab meal
6# rock phosphate
5# sea bird guano
5c oyster shell flour
2c epsom salts
4#glacial rock dust
2c humic acid
1c garden lime
2 bags perlite
5gal bucket of hydroton

This mix yields a good amount of soil, i filled 15 large totes of varying size. Mix on a tarp for about an hour, break it up into 4 15 min mixes to make it a little less arduous. Water and let cook for a month then use full strength for final pot flowering and water only or cut with base soil for vegging. Guano does not need to be used in this mix. Also i tend not to use miragle grow products, but was what i had on hand. I am really liking more hydroton in my peat mix to aid drainage vs perlite.
 

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anzohaze

Well-Known Member
I would loose the lime. Crab meal oyster shell flour will do all the buffering your soil needs as well as give way more then lime ever could. Add some gypsum for added minerals and buffering.
I would also loose the perlite as it adds nothin to the soil. Get red lava rock pumice composted or rotted wood chunks (preferably hard woods as most has a high ph then say pine trees etc) and biochar ( cowboy charcoal) and let.it ferment in a 5 gal bucket befoe adding to soil. As all or most of above allows a chill out spot for microbes
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
Forgot to write that, i added 1/2c gypsum and red lava rock always makes its way into the mix since i resuse soil (although most of this mix was new), i use a layer of lava rock on the bottom of veg pots (3-5gal plastic planters). And then transplant to 7-15gal of super soil.
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
yellowsunday said:
Sucks i can't find most of these things in australia
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Half the stuff you could make yourself, it would just be a little work, and time to compost the igredients. Base soil could be collected from a couple different forest locations. You can start a worm bin for worm castings. Go fishing and save the fish bones to make fish bone meal (i always compost my fish remnants in my compost pile). Save animal bones and grind them up for bone meal. It appears alfalfa can and is grown in australia. Kelp, not sure if it washes up on your beaches like in california, but if it does, there ya go. Crab meal, start eating more king crab legs and save the shells. Oystershell flour, just collect sea shells or clams and grind the shells to a powder. Epsom salts are at every drug store. Glacial rock dust can be made by getting a diamond blade wet saw and cutting a bunch of basalt or granite rock, after a while cutting, let the sediment in the water settle, drain off the top and let dry, collect rock dust.
 
yellowsunday

yellowsunday

Well-Known Member
Banana444 said:
Half the stuff you could make yourself, it would just be a little work, and time to compost the igredients. Base soil could be collected from a couple different forest locations. You can start a worm bin for worm castings. Go fishing and save the fish bones to make fish bone meal (i always compost my fish remnants in my compost pile). Save animal bones and grind them up for bone meal. It appears alfalfa can and is grown in australia. Kelp, not sure if it washes up on your beaches like in california, but if it does, there ya go. Crab meal, start eating more king crab legs and save the shells. Oystershell flour, just collect sea shells or clams and grind the shells to a powder. Epsom salts are at every drug store. Glacial rock dust can be made by getting a diamond blade wet saw and cutting a bunch of basalt or granite rock, after a while cutting, let the sediment in the water settle, drain off the top and let dry, collect rock dust.
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thanks for your awesome advice mate i am starting slowly,i dont have much time i can devote to my garden unfortunately.
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
Im getting down to the last few tubs of supersoil. What should i reammend this mix with? I did a soil test for npk and it showed an abundance of nitrogen, and lower amounts of phosphorus and potassium.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Banana444 said:
Im getting down to the last few tubs of supersoil. What should i reammend this mix with? I did a soil test for npk and it showed an abundance of nitrogen, and lower amounts of phosphorus and potassium.
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depends.. cannabis typically likes a NPK that you are describing.
They like abundant nitrogen and lower amounts of phosphorus and potassium.
I reamend the second run with just comfrey, kelp and leafcompost
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
So i finished out the one plant with reused soil and it turned out really well, healthy as hell but yielded slightly less than those in fresh mix, probably needed to top dress more with bone meal, the flowers were not quite as large as those in fresh super soil. I conclude that i did not add back enough bone meal...and should have gone a little heavier on the top dressing. I might try another reuse of soil, go heavy on the top dressing and turn the sressing into the top 6" or so of soil and water and let "cook" for at least a few weeks before reuseing. Its just as easy to mix up a whole new batch of super soil, imo, and the used soil makes for great garden soil for vegetables. This last batch of soil ~24cuft has lasted over a year growing full time in 2 4x8s and a veg and clone area. I cant recommend super soil enough, whether your starting out or not, to see a cannabis plant grow at a rate close to what you can do in hydro, if you know what you are doing, does a lot to teach you how this plant can grow. On another note, i reordered all the ammendments and it cost ~150$ for enough stuff to mix up well over a years worth of soil with lots of ammendments left over, for teas and such, would have been even cheaper if i have my own castings.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Banana444 said:
So i finished out the one plant with reused soil and it turned out really well, healthy as hell but yielded slightly less than those in fresh mix, probably needed to top dress more with bone meal, the flowers were not quite as large as those in fresh super soil. I conclude that i did not add back enough bone meal...and should have gone a little heavier on the top dressing. I might try another reuse of soil, go heavy on the top dressing and turn the sressing into the top 6" or so of soil and water and let "cook" for at least a few weeks before reuseing. Its just as easy to mix up a whole new batch of super soil, imo, and the used soil makes for great garden soil for vegetables. This last batch of soil ~24cuft has lasted over a year growing full time in 2 4x8s and a veg and clone area. I cant recommend super soil enough, whether your starting out or not, to see a cannabis plant grow at a rate close to what you can do in hydro, if you know what you are doing, does a lot to teach you how this plant can grow. On another note, i reordered all the ammendments and it cost ~150$ for enough stuff to mix up well over a years worth of soil with lots of ammendments left over, for teas and such, would have been even cheaper if i have my own castings.
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interesting, i'm glad you gave us an update.
if anything i'd think it probably ran a lil dry on calcium and nitrogen, the bone meal is SO slowly released and used in relatively small amounts.
if it makes you feel better, topdressing with bonemeal wouldn't have helped, it takes SO long to break down, and also needs acidic conditions to even be bioavailable. One of the many reason I prefer fishbone meal, and crab/shrimp meals, amongst others, as my sources of non mineral phosphorus.
I reaaaaally think that comfrey and compost is almost a MUST have for re-using soils, the plants seem to consume humus over time, and the mix benefits greatly from that, in my opinion.
but you guys know me, I think a good compost cures EVERYTHING
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
A good compost is the shit, well sometimes. As far as calcium, i add some organic calmag to my ro water @5-10ml per gal. And i did one of those soil tests for NPK on a batch of used soil, it came up really high in nitrogen still, moderate in phosphorus, and low in Potassium. If i remember correctly, it could have been low in phosphorus and moderate in potassium. I will have to look into getting some comfrey planted in my garden. Wondering about using just soil from my compost on a plant, i had tomatoes come up on thier own next to my compost pile and they went absolutely crazy.
 
greasemonkeymann

greasemonkeymann

Well-Known Member
Banana444 said:
A good compost is the shit, well sometimes. Wondering about using just soil from my compost on a plant, i had tomatoes come up on thier own next to my compost pile and they went absolutely crazy.
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that's like saying blowjobs are great, "well sometimes"
compost is great ALWAYS man!
well assumed it's made right, but that sorta goes without saying..
like blowjobs done with emphatic teeth-action are the exception to my aforementioned blowjob analogy..
goes without saying..
and pure compost can grown damn near anything man, that stuff is pure magic
 
Banana444

Banana444

Well-Known Member
Lol bad pun...twas stoned...sometimes compost is the shit sometimes its just broken down leaves and other organic matter, but its always the shit.
 
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