What's Your Soil Mix These Days?

Done FFHF for a while, looking to change it up. Seen all sorts of arguments online about what's best-interested in hearing folks and their DIY soil mixes-stuff you could grab at the local gardening store and mix yourself. about to start some froot by the foot so doing my homework. hope everyone is having a chill saturday

With the limited veg time of autos quick rooting is super important.

Airy, low EC media is perfect to promote rooting.

Was thinking this:

Ingredients (for 5 gallons of soil):



Base Soil:

• Coco Coir or Peat Moss: 3 gallons (lightweight and airy for root health).

• Perlite: 1 gallon (improves drainage and aeration).

• Organic Compost or Worm Castings: 1 gallon (provides nutrients and beneficial microbes).



Nutrient Amendments:

• Bone Meal: 2 cups (for phosphorus and calcium).

• Blood Meal: 1 cup (for nitrogen).

• Kelp Meal: 1 cup (for potassium, trace minerals, and plant hormones).

• Dolomite Lime: 1 cup (balances pH and adds calcium/magnesium).

• Azomite or Rock Dust: ½ cup (adds trace minerals and micronutrients).

Nutty sKunK said:

With the limited veg time of autos quick rooting is super important.

Airy, low EC media is perfect to promote rooting.

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Pro Mix HP is some fluffy stuff.. you can dump a 50/50 ratio of compost and it's still airy as fuk.. don't know how they do it but I'm a convert, been using Fox Farm soil for years but the Pro Mix is insanely fluff as they come.

Coco coir, pith, fiber and chip. To that, I add leaf mold, worm castings and compost (all homemade) Afterwards, I add cocao bean shells, cypress fines and granulated or crushed quartz and granite and some greensand or playground sand if I'm feeling cheap.
This is my base substrate and can be amended with anything you like. Meals, flours, micronized azomite, insect frass, guano, gypsum, ect... I've even used a basic granulated 5-5-5 dr earth with great results.
Add in your microbial innoculants and let that cook for 30+ days and your off to the races.

Haven't had a pH issue or deficiency/lock out. Light feeders, heavy feeders, mag whores, all grow perfect. Multi strain all day and none of them need special treatment. I grow in fabric raised beds. 4'x8'x22" I much them with either cypress, or straw. Lately I've been doing a mix of both, but the cypress fines are always the top layer.

For my irrigation, I run a double ended manifold style blumat blusoak on a pump system with 2 gallon accumulator. That's connected to my 350gpd RO+DI.

Week4@inCharge said:

Pro Mix HP is some fluffy stuff.. you can dump a 50/50 ratio of compost and it's still airy as fuk.. don't know how they do it but I'm a convert, been using Fox Farm soil for years but the Pro Mix is insanely fluff as they come.

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If you were going to do pro mix in a three gallon, thoughts on one gallon pro mix, one gallon perlite, and a gallon of peat?

OrionTheHunter said:

If you were going to do pro mix in a three gallon, thoughts on one gallon pro mix, one gallon perlite, and a gallon of peat?

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Promix HP is peat dominant, I would not add more peat. Personally I'd take HP and CX mix at a 1:1
If that were to be to fast drainage, add EWC

GreenGenez421 said:

Promix HP is peat dominant, I would not add more peat. Personally I'd take HP and CX mix at a 1:1
If that were to be to fast drainage, add EWC

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Dumb questions continue: What's CX and EWC, not up to speed on all the acronyms

OrionTheHunter said:

Dumb questions continue: What's CX and EWC, not up to speed on all the acronyms

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Promix CX is 100% coco
Ewc is worm castings

OrionTheHunter said:

If you were going to do pro mix in a three gallon, thoughts on one gallon pro mix, one gallon perlite, and a gallon of peat?

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Don't need to mix anything in the Pro Mix if your doing bottle feed. And only a 1/3 compost if your trying organic. Highly suggest 7g and up if your doing organic for better experience.

OrionTheHunter said:

Was thinking this:

Ingredients (for 5 gallons of soil):



Base Soil:

• Coco Coir or Peat Moss: 3 gallons (lightweight and airy for root health).

• Perlite: 1 gallon (improves drainage and aeration).

• Organic Compost or Worm Castings: 1 gallon (provides nutrients and beneficial microbes).



Nutrient Amendments:

• Bone Meal: 2 cups (for phosphorus and calcium).

• Blood Meal: 1 cup (for nitrogen).

• Kelp Meal: 1 cup (for potassium, trace minerals, and plant hormones).

• Dolomite Lime: 1 cup (balances pH and adds calcium/magnesium).

• Azomite or Rock Dust: ½ cup (adds trace minerals and micronutrients).

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5.5 cups of amendments per 5 gallons sounds like way too much.

For your first time, I would use the peat/perlite/compost base you described, and fertilize with one of the many all-purpose organic blends like Espoma, Dr Earth, Down-to-Earth, etc, following the directions on the package for container plants

weedstoner420 said:

5.5 cups of amendments per 5 gallons sounds like way too much.

For your first time, I would use the peat/perlite/compost base you described, and fertilize with one of the many all-purpose organic blends like Espoma, Dr Earth, Down-to-Earth, etc, following the directions on the package for container plants

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This is the way.

Week4@inCharge said:

This is the way.

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Thanks. I always get worried about over fertilizing and burning-would you start low and slow? I've got some Espoma from my veggie garden

OrionTheHunter said:

Thanks. I always get worried about over fertilizing and burning-would you start low and slow? I've got some Espoma from my veggie garden

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I think the recommendation from Espoma is 2 cups per cubic foot (7.5 gallons) for most of their products. So for 5 gallons that's like 1+1/3 cups. You can always start with less and top-dress more/more often as they grow.

weedstoner420 said:

I think the recommendation from Espoma is 2 cups per cubic foot (7.5 gallons) for most of their products. So for 5 gallons that's like 1+1/3 cups. You can always start with less and top-dress more/more often as they grow.

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Agree, I usually top dress one cup for 10g pots and add as needed afterwards. That 2 cups recommendation might be for that initial mix when you let them sit for a cook.

Week4@inCharge said:

Agree, I usually top dress one cup for 10g pots and add as needed afterwards. That 2 cups recommendation might be for that initial mix when you let them sit for a cook.

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Yup it is, I just checked my trusty bag of tomato-tone

Thanks guys. Gonna go with the peat/perlite/compost mix and roll with Espoma. Do you tend to Espoma from day 1 or wait until it's out of seedling stage? Figured 1/3 of compost would have enough N in it to get things cooking at least

OrionTheHunter said:

Thanks guys. Gonna go with the peat/perlite/compost mix and roll with Espoma. Do you tend to Espoma from day 1 or wait until it's out of seedling stage? Figured 1/3 of compost would have enough N in it to get things cooking at least

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Do your seedling in party cups and transplant when the leaves past the outer rim. Lot easier to manage watering. And yes Espoma from 30 days before use. (Might get away with 2 weeks) So while your soil is cooking you can get the seeds going in party cups..

OrionTheHunter said:

Was thinking this:

Ingredients (for 5 gallons of soil):



Base Soil:

• Coco Coir or Peat Moss: 3 gallons (lightweight and airy for root health).

• Perlite: 1 gallon (improves drainage and aeration).

• Organic Compost or Worm Castings: 1 gallon (provides nutrients and beneficial microbes).



Nutrient Amendments:

• Bone Meal: 2 cups (for phosphorus and calcium).

• Blood Meal: 1 cup (for nitrogen).

• Kelp Meal: 1 cup (for potassium, trace minerals, and plant hormones).

• Dolomite Lime: 1 cup (balances pH and adds calcium/magnesium).

• Azomite or Rock Dust: ½ cup (adds trace minerals and micronutrients).

Click to expand...

Coco coir tends to have fungus gnat eggs embedded, just waiting for someone to wake them up unless you get a super high quality, I wouldn’t risk it.

I've always incorporated FFOF and FFHF or Roots Organic (sometimes)....I recently used something with "420" in the name (lol!)...I can't remember what it was....Typically, I mix a BUNCH of perlite, coarse vermiculite, rice hulls and coco coire....add a TBSP of dolomite lime for every gallon of soil mix.....add a small bag of bio-char and a jab or two of worm castings if I have some lying around....mix it all up until it feels right and then I let it "cook" for the summer inside a black trash bag put inside a metal trash can. It is an extremely open mix and it can't hold a lot of water for very long, so it's a higher-maintenance kind of watering schedule. The nutrients that come in the bagged mixes will feed the seedlings/young plants for about a month and then I handle it as if I am growing hydroponically and the substrate is the soil-less mix. I don't bother with any organic-type "soil" fertilizers because there's nothing in the soil-less mixes to break any of it down. I use synthetic fertilizers....typically, Jack's 3-2-1 and/or Master Blend. I grow in plastic garden pots -anywhere from as small as 2-gallon size and as big as 7-gallon size depending on the strain and how much of it I want. My watering schedule is determined by the weight of the pots and how much the plants are drinking.