I have had issues with just throwing my plants into newly mixed soils. I have found deficiencies arise in the first week or so, the plants stunt and then after me adding certain beneficial and the soil "cooks" the plants begin to recover. In comparison, when I put clones into pots that have had a cycle done with them, they explode with growth.
So it is literally the difference between thriving plants and stunted, deficient plants. If I could adjust my approach, I would do 2-3 weeks with a cover crop of some beneficial and then chop them to form a mulch. Then throw the plant in there. If you want to speed up this process I would look at including a conditional process in that 2-3 weeks with at least one compost tea and different types of probiotics & beneficial bacteria & mycelium inoculants to get the biology thriving.
I would do this alongside whatever compost you have just to create some diversity. Lastly, you want to add springtail (anthropods) and earth worms to just keep the soil food web thriving. All of these will make a difference to the length it is going to take your soil to get to the point where you plants are boosting with growth.
Cheers, appreciate the thorough information. Hopefully won't have too many issues with the soil...it's been the only thing that has given no problems when growing outdoors, well, after killing many plants figuring it out that is. I was mainly just looking at how others go about watering frequency and amounts when inside in living soil, but probably a silly question. Certainly need to look into teas more, previously only ever used a splash of fish shit, molasses or blend jell from aloe leaf in the garden but I swear things were actually better just using the hose with only straight water as even the slightest bit of those ingredients would burn the tips.
I've put a lot of work into this batch so with any luck it'll be perfect in 3½ months time. We'll see I guess.
We have a good idea on the soil from trial and error over the last few years growing around the house. Initially we started with hard red clay around our house which takes a long time for things to grow, which prompted us to learn about farming from the locals and online etc.
We have been growing our own veggies and many other fruits and flowers successfully by making our own compost, fertiliser and using our chickens egg shells & poo, the elephants poo, buffalo poo, worm poo and a few other ingredients and what not but this new batch has everything plus the kitchen sink added pretty much, which I'm hopeful turns out a good thing.
Prior to living off the grid for a few years I hadn't grown a whole lot of anything but this is a rough list of what we managed to grow after failing many times before haha
Asparagus, Tomato, Different types of Chili, Different types of Basil, Capsicum, Cabbage, Rosemary, Lemon grass, Mint, Pumpkin, Carrot, Lettuce, Apple tree, Lime tree, Orange tree, Avocado trees, Mulberry trees, Mango tree, Pomello, Jack fruit tree, Mangosteen tree, Passionfruit vines, Banana trees, Papaya tree And about 20 other different varieties of trees, ferns and flowers around the place. My guess is I left about 300 trees behind where there previously was none.
Anyway, here's a rough outline of the process that soil has gone through up to this point;
First I started with all the soil from my previous grow, I added that to our own compost mix with our worm castings and then spread it out in the chickens house. The chooks had at it for a week. Then it got put in drums and had a couple sprays with neem etc. Everything then layed out on tarp in sun for a few days. Then mixed in store bought amendments, worm castings, bat poo, bone meal, mycorrhizae, neem cake and seed meal, tricoderma, seaweed extract, crab and oyster shell, rock dust, magnesium, spagmoss, rice husk and put into tote. Given light spray with fish shit and Molasses then mulched with rice husk. May have forgotten something but that's about it. Time will tell how it comes together I guess. It's providing it's own water from the condensation on the lids but I've also added a wick line which appears to be working great. With any luck everything will still be happy once we return. How many springtails? I know there were plenty in our own compost but definitely depleted after going through chickens house etc. So sounds like I may need to throw some in before taking off.
