Super Soil Went Anaerobic

I added bokashi to my super soil 2 weeks ago. So I went to go mix it up today, and it smelt like straight manure. doing some research, i came to find out i added to much water and that its anaerobic.

So im letting the soil mix sit out overnight to dry/air out. I'll put it back in the bin tomorrow and mix it next week. Do you think it should be ok? I guess time will tell...

Also, since I'm using fabric pots, in 2 weeks I figure i can put the soil in the pots to air out and water as needed.
That will give it another 2 weeks before I plan on starting seeds.

Sorry if this post is confusing.

Are you adding water to your soil often after initial mix or during 30 day cook time?

T macc said:

I added bokashi to my super soil 2 weeks ago. So I went to go mix it up today, and it smelt like straight manure. doing some research, i came to find out i added to much water and that its anaerobic.

So im letting the soil mix sit out overnight to dry/air out. I'll put it back in the bin tomorrow and mix it next week. Do you think it should be ok? I guess time will tell...

Also, since I'm using fabric pots, in 2 weeks I figure i can put the soil in the pots to air out and water as needed.
That will give it another 2 weeks before I plan on starting seeds.

Sorry if this post is confusing.

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you can save yourself some time and effort as well as taking any guesswork out of all of this if you fill your pots up with your soil now and plant a cover crop of legumes on it, you will visually see when the soil is "ready" when your legumes take off, also will guarantee you won't fry your plants with all that soluble nitrogen that supersoil has, also builds a soil web as well as establishing microbe populations.
What I would do is get plant containers that match your existing pots and keep an "imprint" of that container in your final pot, that way at the end, when you transplant, the imprint of the container is already there, so you do NOTHING to the existing soilweb, other than sprinkle mychorrizhae on it, and you are golden, leave the legumes in the container or chop them down, they won't hurt your plants, they supply more nitrogen to your soil than they use..

greasemonkeymann said:

you can save yourself some time and effort as well as taking any guesswork out of all of this if you fill your pots up with your soil now and plant a cover crop of legumes on it, you will visually see when the soil is "ready" when your legumes take off, also will guarantee you won't fry your plants with all that soluble nitrogen that supersoil has, also builds a soil web as well as establishing microbe populations.
What I would do is get plant containers that match your existing pots and keep an "imprint" of that container in your final pot, that way at the end, when you transplant, the imprint of the container is already there, so you do NOTHING to the existing soilweb, other than sprinkle mychorrizhae on it, and you are golden, leave the legumes in the container or chop them down, they won't hurt your plants, they supply more nitrogen to your soil than they use..

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Good stuff

greasemonkeymann said:

you can save yourself some time and effort as well as taking any guesswork out of all of this if you fill your pots up with your soil now and plant a cover crop of legumes on it, you will visually see when the soil is "ready" when your legumes take off, also will guarantee you won't fry your plants with all that soluble nitrogen that supersoil has, also builds a soil web as well as establishing microbe populations.
What I would do is get plant containers that match your existing pots and keep an "imprint" of that container in your final pot, that way at the end, when you transplant, the imprint of the container is already there, so you do NOTHING to the existing soilweb, other than sprinkle mychorrizhae on it, and you are golden, leave the legumes in the container or chop them down, they won't hurt your plants, they supply more nitrogen to your soil than they use..

Click to expand...

The only I would add to this would be to water your soil after its dried out with a good compost tea. Going anaerobic can affect your micro heard. Just don't panic, I did the same thing during the "cooking" of my last batch of super soil.

Midwest Weedist said:

The only I would add to this would be to water your soil after its dried out with a good compost tea. Going anaerobic can affect your micro heard. Just don't panic, I did the same thing during the "cooking" of my last batch of super soil.

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good advice there.

greasemonkeymann said:

you can save yourself some time and effort as well as taking any guesswork out of all of this if you fill your pots up with your soil now and plant a cover crop of legumes on it, you will visually see when the soil is "ready" when your legumes take off, also will guarantee you won't fry your plants with all that soluble nitrogen that supersoil has, also builds a soil web as well as establishing microbe populations.
What I would do is get plant containers that match your existing pots and keep an "imprint" of that container in your final pot, that way at the end, when you transplant, the imprint of the container is already there, so you do NOTHING to the existing soilweb, other than sprinkle mychorrizhae on it, and you are golden, leave the legumes in the container or chop them down, they won't hurt your plants, they supply more nitrogen to your soil than they use..

Click to expand...

So you keep the cover crop throughout plant life? And the imprint thing. Is this done jus to make transplant less stressful or are you saying put 2g (veg)size container into final flower and then let soil age in this final pot with "dummy" container. ? And is this when you would putLegumes in as well? Great info. I always learn something new reading your post greasemonkeyman !

green_machine_two9er said:

So you keep the cover crop throughout plant life? And the imprint thing. Is this done jus to make transplant less stressful or are you saying put 2g (veg)size container into final flower and then let soil age in this final pot with "dummy" container. ? And is this when you would putLegumes in as well? Great info. I always learn something new reading your post greasemonkeyman !

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I keep my cover crop going always. But I resow them every time I top dress with vermicompost or anything else that will cause a die off.
The imprint, to my knowledge, is mainly about not destroying the soil food web that's established in your planter. That's one of the main concepts to notill; not destroying the soil food web. The rhizosphere (the top 2 - 8 inches of soil) is essentially where most of the life of your soil is. When you tear apart your soil to put a new plant in, you destroy the very complex Web of life that was established (if you set up your soil in your planter prior to transplant that is).

Midwest Weedist said:

I keep my cover crop going always. But I resow them every time I top dress with vermicompost or anything else that will cause a die off.
The imprint, to my knowledge, is mainly about not destroying the soil food web that's established in your planter. That's one of the main concepts to notill; not destroying the soil food web. The rhizosphere (the top 2 - 8 inches of soil) is essentially where most of the life of your soil is. When you tear apart your soil to put a new plant in, you destroy the very complex Web of life that was established (if you set up your soil in your planter prior to transplant that is).

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So in a recycled soil setting is there much use or mainly for no-till. Both cover crops and imprinting.

green_machine_two9er said:

So you keep the cover crop throughout plant life? And the imprint thing. Is this done jus to make transplant less stressful or are you saying put 2g (veg)size container into final flower and then let soil age in this final pot with "dummy" container. ? And is this when you would putLegumes in as well? Great info. I always learn something new reading your post greasemonkeyman !

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I'm flattered you find my posts informative, I only try to help, and I am always learning myself, even after more than a couple decades of doing this.

Midwest Weedist said:

I keep my cover crop going always. But I resow them every time I top dress with vermicompost or anything else that will cause a die off.
The imprint, to my knowledge, is mainly about not destroying the soil food web that's established in your planter. That's one of the main concepts to notill; not destroying the soil food web. The rhizosphere (the top 2 - 8 inches of soil) is essentially where most of the life of your soil is. When you tear apart your soil to put a new plant in, you destroy the very complex Web of life that was established (if you set up your soil in your planter prior to transplant that is).

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Yes, you got it exactly, the imprint is to simply make the transplant 100% shock free, assuming you don't mongo the roots in the process.
And I also keep my cover crop going, in fact I have some flowering legumes that are going right now, next to my mango kush, all in one happy smartpot.
notice one of my redwood trees behind it.
Another advantage of using legumes to establish a good soil is when you freshly transplant (in a smartpot) the roots don't give the soil enough tension or sturdiness so when you move around the smarpots you are likely to disturb the soil, the roots from the legumes act like a "binder" so to speak, and therefore the smartpot has some sort of "structure" as is, and you are less likely to disturb the soilweb, yet another advantage of that is you are WAY less likely to ever overwater, which is a common mistake for beginners, because the legumes have an established root system already.
I added a couple pics too, the first is a legume that actually will go on for two harvests.
the second is merely a pic of the old cannabis stump behind the legume.
I'll take a pic of the flowering room and all the legumes in there, it's a jungle

green_machine_two9er said:

So in a recycled soil setting is there much use or mainly for no-till. Both cover crops and imprinting.

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I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than I can chime in, but to me I see a benefit to both in both situations, just exponentially more for the notill style. If you're not going to go notill then maybe a mulch would be easier. But I still would use a cover crop at least for keeping a more even moisture content throughout your soil

Midwest Weedist said:

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than I can chime in, but to me I see a benefit to both in both situations, just exponentially more for the notill style. If you're not going to go notill then maybe a mulch would be easier. But I still would use a cover crop at least for keeping a more even moisture content throughout your soil

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mulches are great, but it all depends on your growing circumstances, in other words, and an example, I don't mulch at all during the humid cooler harvest ( my autumn, winter and early spring harvests) when it gets hotter/more dry that's when I bust out my compost to add a mulch on my plants.
Humid times you don't want mulch, at least I don't like to.. Seems to contribute to powder mold problems.
When it is dry though, a topdress of leaf compost, fresh EWC, a dash of neem meal, and cut up comfrey... best damn mulch you can get

Thank you, everyone, for the replies!

green_machine_two9er said:

Are you adding water to your soil often after initial mix or during 30 day cook time?

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I added water at the initial mixing of the soil, but when I added the bokashi, I felt it was a little too dry. which was a mistake.

greasemonkeymann said:

you can save yourself some time and effort as well as taking any guesswork out of all of this if you fill your pots up with your soil now and plant a cover crop of legumes on it, you will visually see when the soil is "ready" when your legumes take off, also will guarantee you won't fry your plants with all that soluble nitrogen that supersoil has, also builds a soil web as well as establishing microbe populations...

Click to expand...

So do you suggest putting the cover crop directly on the super soil? or lay a small barrier of "base" soil? almost like you would normaly do, but just a lot smaller layer of base?

T macc said:

Thank you, everyone, for the replies!




I added water at the initial mixing of the soil, but when I added the bokashi, I felt it was a little too dry. which was a mistake.



So do you suggest putting the cover crop directly on the super soil? or lay a small barrier of "base" soil? almost like you would normaly do, but just a lot smaller layer of base?

Click to expand...

I usually drop my cover crop seed directly on my super soil and cover with a mulch or a soil I have lying around that'll stay moist enough to germ the cover crop. Which if you want to get it to germinate fast, cover it with vermicompost and water with an aloe vera mix, I get clovers covering my containers in 36 hours or less we I do this.

Midwest Weedist said:

I usually drop my cover crop seed directly on my super soil and cover with a mulch or a soil I have lying around that'll stay moist enough to germ the cover crop. Which if you want to get it to germinate fast, cover it with vermicompost and water with an aloe vera mix, I get clovers covering my containers in 36 hours or less we I do this.

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I might add some alfalfa seeds come planting time. im only doing autos this year. I'm on a REAL tight time constraint. (moving out by the end of July)

Which brings up another question. Since I have to plant soon, I was thinking of using plastic mulch to bring my soil temperature up. After 4/20 my night time temps should be around 50 degrees F. I was wondering if i could tightly wrap and secure clear garbage bags around my smart pots to help raise temps? I could warm my soil for about a week, (preferably) but 2 weeks MAX. After I plant, can I leave the plastic on to further warm the soil until its at a more desirable temperature?

Midwest Weedist said:

I usually drop my cover crop seed directly on my super soil and cover with a mulch or a soil I have lying around that'll stay moist enough to germ the cover crop. Which if you want to get it to germinate fast, cover it with vermicompost and water with an aloe vera mix, I get clovers covering my containers in 36 hours or less we I do this.

Click to expand...

Another way to do that, and to get a lil extra kick for your ladies, is to make a SST with some legumes, and then instead of puree'ing them at the end, just plant them.
I imagine the SST is a lil weak, but hey, why not?

T macc said:

I might add some alfalfa seeds come planting time. im only doing autos this year. I'm on a REAL tight time constraint. (moving out by the end of July)

Which brings up another question. Since I have to plant soon, I was thinking of using plastic mulch to bring my soil temperature up. After 4/20 my night time temps should be around 50 degrees F. I was wondering if i could tightly wrap and secure clear garbage bags around my smart pots to help raise temps? I could warm my soil for about a week, (preferably) but 2 weeks MAX. After I plant, can I leave the plastic on to further warm the soil until its at a more desirable temperature?

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this may be sort of controversial, but I don't see any issues with your plants getting down to 50 at night, it regularly gets that cold here and I don't have any issues, I suppose certain sativas may get a lil butthurt at those temps, but I've never seen any problems in the 50s, under 45? yeah, sure, but not 50s. Even at 45, it only slows them a lil... gotta remember most indicas are from the afghan mountains.. and damn near most varieties nowdays have a good amount of indica in them.
Like anything though, your experience may differ, to be certain i'd watch them closely.
shit.... I just saw that you are doing AUTOs....
I have ZERO experience with those dirty ruderalis..sorry man... disregard all I said, for all I know if autos go under 50 they may spontaneously poof into leprechauns that shit crispy-crème donuts.

Ok, so I was a little off on the temperature, by a month . The night temps wont be consistently 50° until mid May. So I put the plastic around my fabric pots last thursday (4/16) and today (4/20) I checked the soil temps for some of my pots, and my soil is sitting at 56 - 58 degrees F. Im planning on starting my seeds on 4/28, during a rainfall / thunder storm.

Or, unless its ok, do you guys think the soil temperature is warm enough right now to go ahead and start?

Happy 420!!!

Disregard about the rain and thunderstorm. The just changed the forecast as I was typing this. But the weather here is kinda unpredictable that far ahead anyways. So if its ok to start now with soil temps at 56 - 58 degrees (and rising) I'll go ahead and start this week. If you guys think its ok.

Thanks.