Super Soil

Super soil

Aloha friends I am back with some tips about Super Soil and how to mix your own. Some might not have space and time and if that is the case I will suggest Fox Farms Ocean mix or Roots Organics Super mix, but best is to mix your own and I make it fairly easy and this works for me. I usually mix on a tarp.

3 bales base mix like Sunshine mix #4 or Pro mix optional is also local products in the islands like Menehune Magic

2 1/2 lbs earth worm castings

1 bag Roots Organic 707mix
1 cup trace elements
2 1/2 cup rooters mycrrohizae Hydro Organic or plant success is a cheaper than great white
3 1/2 cups bone-meal
3 cup kelp meal
3 cup blood meal
4 cups bat guano
4 cup dolomite garden lime

Optional to add a 2 cup powdered humic acid but is hard to find in the islands, but I just add it in my feed in my hum tea.

Optional to add vermiculite or perlite for better soil drainage, but locally I would recommend black or red cinder or just add earth worms to your pots.

Optional is water crystals for those guerrilla growers who might not be able to water as much.

I mix thoroughly for at least one week everyday and then let sit 1 more week and always is my bottom layer when transplanting or setting up my bucket. My first watering is topped of with conditioning solution when transplanting made of 1-2 ML per gallon 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide 2 ml per gallon Superthrive and 2 ml per gallon Root Accelerator by House an Garden. After 1 week I will give my plant an organic feeding of Humtea to blast my roots.

Here are some other Super Soil mixes but I find tine makes these better it is best to let these sit for at least 30-60 days and beware layer super soils on the bottom when transplanting young plants because some soils might burn, stunt or even kill young plants. Always plant in a base medium and allow the roots to grow into the Super Soil Mix.

I copied subcools article and mix from I believe Hightimes and also the other mixes come from 420 magazine.

Subcool
Start with at least six to eight large bags of high-quality organic soil. This is your base soil—i.e., your regular potting soil without the additives. The selection of your base soil is very important, so don’t cut corners here. I can’t begin to discuss all the different products out there, but I will mention a few in this article. A good organic soil should cost you from $8 to $10 per 30-pound bag. Since I want to give you a very specific idea of what I consider to be a balanced soil, take a look at the ingredients in a product called Roots Organic:
Lignite, coco fiber, perlite, pumice, compost, peat moss, bone meal, bat guano, kelp meal, greensand, soybean meal, leonardite, k-mag, glacial rock dust, alfalfa meal, oyster shell flour, earthworm castings and mycorrhizae.

Another local product we’re trying out now, Harvest Moon, has the following ingredients:
Washed coco fibers, Alaskan peat moss, perlite, yucca, pumice, diatoms, worm castings, feather meal, fishmeal, kelp meal, limestone, gypsum, soybean meal, alfalfa meal, rock dust, yucca meal and mycorrhizae fungi.

So far we’ve found that Roots Organic produces a more floral smell in the finished buds, while Harvest Moon generates larger yields.

If you have access to a good local mix like these, then I highly recommend starting with a product of this type. We’ve also had decent results using commercial brands, but never “as is.” The best results we’ve had to date using a well-known commercial soil has been with Fox Farms’ Ocean Forest soil combined in a 2-to-1 ratio with Light Warrior. Used on its own, Ocean Forest is known for burning plants and having the wrong ratio of nutrients, but when cut with Light Warrior, it makes a pretty good base-soil mix.

You can also just use two bales of Sunshine Mix #4, but this would be my last choice, since plants grown in this mix may not respond well to my “just add water” method of growing.

After choosing your base soil, the Super Soil concentrate is placed in the bottom one-third to one-half of the container and blended with the base soil. (With strains that require high levels of nutrients, we’ll go so far as to fill ¾ of the container with Super Soil, but this is necessary only with a small percentage of strains.) This allows the plants to grow into the concentrated Super Soil layer, which means that in the right size container, they’ll need nothing but water throughout their full cycle. One of the things I like best about this soil mix is that I can drop off plants with patients, and all they have to do is water them when the soil dries out.

Stir It Up

There are several ways to mix these ingredients well. You can sweep up a patio or garage and work there on a tarp, or you can use a plastic wading pool for kids. (These cost about 10 bucks apiece and work really well for a few seasons.) Some growers have been known to rent a cement mixer to cut down on the physical labor. Whatever method you use, all that matters in the end is that you get the ingredients mixed properly.

This can be a lot of work, so be careful not to pull a muscle if you’re not used to strenuous activity. On the other hand, the physical effort involved is good for mind and body, and working with soil has kept me in pretty good shape. But if you have physical limitations, you can simply have someone mix it up for you while you supervise. As far as the proper steps go: Pour a few bags of base soil into your mixing container first, making a mound. Then pour the powdered nutrients in a circle around the mound and cover everything with another bag of base soil. In goes the bat poop and then more base soil. I continue this process of layering soil and additives until everything has been added to the pile.

Now I put on my muck boots, which help me kick the soil around and get it mixed up well using my larger and stronger leg muscles instead of my arms. The rest is simple; as my skipper used to say, “Put your back into it.” This is hard work that I obsess over, even breaking up all the soil clods by hand. I work on the pile for at least 15 minutes, turning the soil over and over until it’s thoroughly mixed.

Then I store my Super Soil in large garbage cans. (And before using any of it, I pour the entire load out and mix it well once more.) Once it’s placed in the cans, I water it slightly—adding three gallons of water to each large garbage can’s worth. Though it makes stirring the soil harder, adding water will activate the mycorrhizae and help all the powders dissolve.

Before Planting

So we’ve added the water, and now we let it cook in the sunshine—30 days is best for this concentrate. Do not put seeds or clones directly into this Super Soil mix or they will burn. This is an advanced recipe to be used in conjunction with base soil. First you place a layer of Super Soil at the bottom of each finishing container; then you layer a bed of base soil on top of the Super Soil concentrate; and then you transplant your fully rooted, established clones into the bed of base soil. As the plants grow, they’ll slowly push their roots through the base soil and into the Super Soil, drawing up all the nutrients they need for a full life cycle. The Super Soil can be also be used to top-dress plants that take longer to mature. I’ll use this mix for a full year.

Buds grown with this method finish with a fade and a smoother, fruitier flavor. The plants aren’t green at harvest time, but rather purple, red, orange, even black—plus the resin content is heavier, and the terpenes always seem more pungent. This method is now being used by medical growers all over the world, and with amazing results. The feedback I’ve received is really positive, including reports of hydro-like growth and novice growers producing buds of the same high quality as lifelong cultivators. So give it a try! You won’t be disappointed.

The Mix

Here are the amounts we’ve found will produce the best-tasting buds and strongest medicines:

8 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
25 to 50 lbs of organic worm castings
5 lbs steamed bone meal
5 lbs Bloom bat guano
5 lbs blood meal
3 lbs rock phosphate
¾ cup Epson salts
½ cup sweet lime (dolomite)
½ cup azomite (trace elements)
2 tbsp powdered humic acid

This is the same basic recipe I’ve been using for the past 15 years. The hardest ingredient to acquire are the worm castings (especially since many people don’t even know what they are. FYI: worm poop). But don’t decide to just skip them: Be resourceful. After all, worms comprise up to ¾ of the living organisms found underground, and they’re crucial to holding our planet together. Also, don’t waste money on a “soil conditioner” with worm castings; source out some local pure worm poop with no added mulch.

420 magazine

Super Soil Mix

Original Recipe, as it was given to me.

1 Bale sunshine mix #2 or promix
2 L Bone Meal - phosphorus source
1 L Blood Meal - nitrogen source
1 1/3 cups Epsom salts - magnesium source
3-4 cups dolmite lime -calcium source & pH buffering
1 tsp fritted trace elements
1/2 - 1 bag chicken manure (steer, mushroom, etc) - nitrogen & trace
elements

- Mix thoroughly, moisten, and let sit 1-2 weeks before use.

Revised Recipe, after several failures due to bad manure sources, I now use the following recipe. Results have been excellent and the clones seem to take off right away instead of having a slow growing settling in period.

1 Bale sunshine mix #2 or promix (3.8 cu ft)
8 cups Bone Meal - phosphorus source
4 cups Blood Meal - nitrogen source
1 1/3 cups Epsom salts - magnesium source
3-4 cups dolomite lime -calcium source & pH buffering
1 tsp fritted trace elements
4 cups kelp meal.
9kg (25 lbs) bag pure worm castings

- Mix thoroughly, moisten, and let sit 1-2 weeks before use.

Substitutions
- The original recipe was a success, but I simply needed to experiment. In addition, sometimes not all ingredients were always available. Therefore, here are some possible additions and/or substitutions:

Blood & Bone Meal - when trying to cut costs
Kelp Meal - contains over 62 trace minerals. Good supplement for reducing the manure content to speed availability of soil.
Worm castings - excellent source of micro nutrients.
Bat guano - excellent for top dressing a week into flowering.
Seabird guano

Bugs
On a couple of occasions, I’ve ended up with fungus gnats with this soil mix. They are more of an irritation than anything but may harm weak or young plants. Some have said that putting a layer of sand on top of the soil in the pots stops the gnats from reproducing. Others can get rid of them by doing a soil drench with gnatrol or vectobac (BTI). Personally, I prefer to simply introduce fungus gnat predators (Hypoaspis miles). Once established, they not only control fungus gnats, but also thrips and mites. When there is no insect food available, they survive on dead plant material, so remain even after pests are gone to prevent future infestations. Actually, since they have been introduced, I’ve had no pest problems in over a year and I don’t filter my intake.

Recycling Soil
Used soil - Reusing soil has a few downsides such as it makes it easier for diseases, viruses, and pathogens from entering your garden. Also peat based soils break down and become acidic. If you fertilize with chemicals you’ll end up with salt buildups that will slow growth. Unless you like to take chances, have a good eye, and a good horticultural understanding, you may be better off with staying with fresh new soils. That said; I grow strictly organic and I’ve always reused my soil. I don’t sterilize the soil between plantings as my soil is full of microbes and predatory bugs that keep the bad bugs under control. After each crop, I chop up the soil and root balls with the leaves, stalks, etc and let compost for about 3 months. I then mix it up and add about 2 - 3 cups of lime for every 50 gallons composted soil. I also add about 1/2 cup epsom salts, 2 liters bone meal, 1 liter blood meal, 1 liter kelp meal, 1 tsp trace elements, and enough perlite to regain the porosity of the original soil. I used to add a bag of manure, but I was getting fertilizer burn and so have stopped now.

As I’ve been fine tuning this, the plants just keep getting healthier and I haven’t had any real pest problems for quite a while. I know this is a controversial approach and maybe even risky, but it allows me to keep my garden pretty much self contained. I don’t attract attention by buying bales of soil every 3 - 4 months year around, or in the disposal of leaves and soil after each crop. It’s definitely not for those who want sterile crops and those that use pesticides and chemical ferts. I believe in working with nature, not against it. After several generations, a nutrient imbalance developed which was only solved by leaching the soil thoroughly. My hunch is that one of the micro-nutrients was building to toxic levels. I guess farmers don’t get this problem because they have the winter rains to leach excess nutrients from their fields.