Ok, I'm reusing my soil from last yr, and mixing it with fresh stuff, and I'd like get a little input. After last season... I mixed in about 5 gal of 6 month old ( 10-15% of total) chicken manure/ sawdust, and left it stew over winter till 3 weeks ago. I then mixed in 3 bags of Ocean forest. 1 - 1 1/2 cups of bonemeal. 1/4 cup of kelp meal, 1 cup of epson salts, 2 cups of ground up egg shells. I also have more perlite, a 1.5 cu ft bag of leafgro soil conditioner, and a bag of black kow manure compost , and i just bought 55 lbs of fresh worm castings. I may add another bag or two of black kow, and another bag of soil conditioner if i need the volume. Also, I have 2 more bags of ocean forest to add in, and i'm planning on using some strawberry fields mixed 25/75 with it in the bottom of my pots. I also plan on up potting into to a mix of 75% strawberry fields and 25% ocean forest in my final 10 and 15 gallon fabric pots. The plan is to up pot into fresh soil atleast once to feed, and then into the strawberry fields heavy mix for flower with just some dry amendments, molasses, and compost tea. How's my thinking?
I think that all looks pretty good except that it's hard to give specific advice because you don't say what size bags of ocean forest you have. You need to figure out how many cubic feet of old and new soil to figure out how many cups of amendments to add to your soil.
1.5 cu ft bags. Realistically my old soil will amount to 30% of the total amount of my planned primary mix this yr as i'm using bigger pots, some twice the size. As I said my plan was to end up in a strawberry fields strong mix in my final pot when possible . I'll probably be adding 1 or 2 cu ft of manure compost, and another 1.5 cu ft bag of leafgro soil conditioner( but open to suggestions). I was thinking of adding some azomite as well.
Read at least the first 2 pages of this thread and you'll hopefully have any questions answered going forward. ITG also talks about re amending old soil which I think you'll find particularly useful. You have to be somewhat careful with ocean forest because it's already a fairly hot soil. Any added amendments will need at least a month to cycle or cook so as not to burn, but it sounds like you've already done that over winter. I think everything I've read from you so far sounds good except for the 1 cup of Epsom salts which seems like a large dose. I don't add Epsom salt because in my soil the source of Mg comes from the ag lime, crab meal, and EWC. Hope this helps!
Thanks. I'm more interested in my specific case, as I am afraid of getting it too hot with these particular ingredients.
I would only add epsom salt if I had an obvious deficiency... Sent from my moto e6 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I can't take it out, so if you guys see a red flag with my choice to add epson... I can only hope adding the rest of the ingredients will "water" the epson effects down. I didn't add lime, and after reading this... i won't. Thx
Just mix in all old soil, all new soil. Add equal parts of your manure and various composts to equal 20% of your total soil volume. Then mix in perlite to equal 1/3 and you should be off to the races. After you're done try growing a plant in your soil before putting all your expensive plants in there if you want to be safe.