Hey folks! So I run my girls in soil - I use RR's soil mix, which has bone, blood, worm castings, etc etc in there. All natural stuff. No added chemical nutes at all, except as needed (molasses) near the end. (does that even count??) I'm in need of cleaning up downstairs, and I realized I have a TON of buckets & pots all over my tool room, like some crazy plant graveyard. While I do have a compost pile, the mix has a hefty amount of perlite in it, so I'm not crazy about putting perlite in a compost pile. Since there's not really anything chemical in there, couldn't I reuse that outside in my raised garden beds? Mix it in with other stuff, and basically treat it as fill/dirt? Is there a reason I shouldn't do this? There haven't been any diseased or sick plants grown, just spent soil....
Yes why not. I reuse my hempys to break up soil in my gardens all the time because we have so much clay in the area. Hell ive even thrown left over coco in there before Evening if using conventional nutes you should be flushing excess salts weekly anyways so you dont burn up your plants so theres really not anything to worry about unless close to water source. Then i would advise against because to many nutes natural or not can kill fish so you gotta be somewhat responsible
To be honest im not a soil guy, i do think some reuse at like 20%. Id imagine it depends on conditions of the soil. But i wouldnt hesitate to add to gardeb
Depending on the soil, I am not hesitant about re-using it for multiple runs. I will occasionally add a few extra bags of fresh soil to the mix, but I have 20 gallon totes that have been re-used for 2 years now. I don't use Salty balls nutes, so it's easy to keep the soil healthy.
Pro mix is more of a medium than soil- mulch and perlite. Main thing I wondered about was salt buildups from the nutes. Just growing in 3 gallon pots and don't go super heavy on nutes and no problems so far. I ditch it on my land when I am done with the second run. It does have the microcorihaze ( sp ? ) added to it as well.
If there's no salt buildup you're good to reuse. Molasses doesn't count Might end up with some weird deficiencies if you mix too heavy spent soil to natural soil. But I've grown a lot of pumpkins and squashes in spent soil, even when I was using chemical nutes on them. They break down and leech out over (a long) time and I got pumpkins out of it. Well, or at least some spectacular cases of powdery mildew. But that's a different story.
Yeah, no nutes here. The mix is use is promix, perlite, blood, bone, & kelp meal, epsom salts, and some little shit like worm castings. I have never had to add anything to it, natural or otherwise. My concern with straight re-use for MJ would be the deficiencies. I know near the end of the grows I'm sure it's depleted the N, and other stuff, I'm sure. Without knowing specifically what or how much, I don't know if I want to reuse it for MJ, since it has specific requirements. Pumpkins, tho? Hellz yeah. I grow pie pumpkins, and I make a mean pumpkin choc chip cookie. I'm actually wanting to go bananas with some houseplant/outdoor plant propagation, and I need quite a bit of soil to do that. Thanks, guys! <3
Your concern is valid. There could be deficiencies with just running re-used soil. I'd look into No-till gardening honestly. They use plants, fungi, and bacteria to help keep the soil alive and full of nutrients.
I tend to not re-use for this very reason. 8 cu/ft of soil mix costs about $30-$35. That grows about 20 plants worth $3000-$4000. Unexpected deficiencies in re-used mix, or toxicities if I add new amendments, can cut that value to under $2500 in a heartbeat. Trying to save $35 in soil mix could end up costing me up to $50 per plant or $500-$1000 in lost quality/yield for every 20 plants. Commercial growing always use fresh mix. Home growing use what you got and don't sweat it. My used soil is generally put into household gardens or potted houseplants.
I'm running the same mix and always use fresh Promix for the just that reason. Promix is relatively inexpensive and generally in stock at my local Southern States farm supply store. That said I do keep a 50gal bin full of used soil for hard times lol. duc
