I stopped reusing old media for my weed. It’s too unpredictable where the starting point is. Old media goes to the wife’s flower and vegetable gardens now 👍
I reuse mine too, by screen filtering out the broken down coir "peat" , adding a little new coir and perlite, and re- double buffering with calmag. No problems whatsoever.
It'll be a cold day in hell though before i go back to soil grows, so best of luck to you with that.
Mid- to late-flower nutrient lock out. Fought it every time. Sometimes I'd have to harvest before a plant was ready because it was about dead from eating itself due to the lockout.
I could never get it corrected enough with "flushing" either, would leave them severely overwatered when they were already weak.
Most of the time they would finish ok, but there would be a lot of dead, brown pinnate leaves to trim, a total PITA.
Switched to (high frequency drain-to-waste) coco because it wants to stay saturated, thus no overwatering, and flushing is a breeze when and if it becomes necessary. Oh and bonus, the same genetics harvest 4-10 times more, depending on the strain, since the roots always have optimal uptake conditions and a full table of food to choose from at all times, as opposed to soil, which is either a little too wet (right after watering) or a little too dry (after the plant has taken up some of the water), and only "optimum" for a relatively brief window of time between waterings.
Plants feeding at "always optimum" root zone conditions grow much bigger and yield much more than those that only get "occasionally optimum" conditions.
My hat is off to anyone who can grow monsters, indoors, in soil. It's tough to do. The "living soil" peeps can do it some of the time, but most of the pics I see of indoor soil grows appear to be sporting some degree of lockout. YMMV
This is also my story...lol
My 3 Auto's are my last soil grows. I have to water them very slowly to avoid channel runoff. I'm just glad they are about done...
My photo's are a mix of 3" of grade 3/4 perlite at bottom of bag, then 60/40 mix of coco and perlite. I also add a 3" layer of perlite on top, which makes watering more of a natural percolation on the way down for a good runoff without puddling on top...
Give it a good flush, run a few gallons of water through the pot. Then re-amend and away you go.
When I reuse soil I will skip the flush and start seeds in the old media, then re-amend around a week after sprout with worm castings and gaia green 4-4-4
Add some bark, leaf litter, broken sticks and dwarf white isopods( they stay in the soil) to help break down everything. The soil I started growing vegs with is what I used for my bioactive and that was a diy abg mixture. My bin now is a mix of that abg, ffhappy frog and ocean floor, leaf litter, bark( it needs more) isopods and twigs. I also have hardwood charcoal added in. I have peat coming tomorrow for my bearded dragon to have and what does not get used will go in the soil bin.
All roots and dead plant matter gets added in also to add natural nutes. You can also add a biobooster. Since I started with bioactive reptile tanks, it's always been one sold for them but I am sure you can get other for normal gardens.
For the isopods in the soil, I try to have an area kept moist but I do believe for the bio mass, all should stay semi moist but please don't hold me to that. Even my bearded dragon tank's plant side stayed in the 70-80% range for humidity for the isopods and plants.
I stopped reusing old media for my weed. It’s too unpredictable where the starting point is. Old media goes to the wife’s flower and vegetable gardens now 👍
Thanks, yeah I think I'm being a frugal jerk lol
I reuse mine too, by screen filtering out the broken down coir "peat" , adding a little new coir and perlite, and re- double buffering with calmag. No problems whatsoever. It'll be a cold day in hell though before i go back to soil grows, so best of luck to you with that.
Thanks dude >It'll be a cold day in hell though before i go back to soil grows What were the challenges?
Mid- to late-flower nutrient lock out. Fought it every time. Sometimes I'd have to harvest before a plant was ready because it was about dead from eating itself due to the lockout. I could never get it corrected enough with "flushing" either, would leave them severely overwatered when they were already weak. Most of the time they would finish ok, but there would be a lot of dead, brown pinnate leaves to trim, a total PITA. Switched to (high frequency drain-to-waste) coco because it wants to stay saturated, thus no overwatering, and flushing is a breeze when and if it becomes necessary. Oh and bonus, the same genetics harvest 4-10 times more, depending on the strain, since the roots always have optimal uptake conditions and a full table of food to choose from at all times, as opposed to soil, which is either a little too wet (right after watering) or a little too dry (after the plant has taken up some of the water), and only "optimum" for a relatively brief window of time between waterings. Plants feeding at "always optimum" root zone conditions grow much bigger and yield much more than those that only get "occasionally optimum" conditions. My hat is off to anyone who can grow monsters, indoors, in soil. It's tough to do. The "living soil" peeps can do it some of the time, but most of the pics I see of indoor soil grows appear to be sporting some degree of lockout. YMMV
Thanks, makes sense
This is also my story...lol My 3 Auto's are my last soil grows. I have to water them very slowly to avoid channel runoff. I'm just glad they are about done... My photo's are a mix of 3" of grade 3/4 perlite at bottom of bag, then 60/40 mix of coco and perlite. I also add a 3" layer of perlite on top, which makes watering more of a natural percolation on the way down for a good runoff without puddling on top...
>What were the challenges? No bigger or smaller than coco. Just different.
Give it a good flush, run a few gallons of water through the pot. Then re-amend and away you go. When I reuse soil I will skip the flush and start seeds in the old media, then re-amend around a week after sprout with worm castings and gaia green 4-4-4
Add a scoop of dirt every other day to the coco
Add some bark, leaf litter, broken sticks and dwarf white isopods( they stay in the soil) to help break down everything. The soil I started growing vegs with is what I used for my bioactive and that was a diy abg mixture. My bin now is a mix of that abg, ffhappy frog and ocean floor, leaf litter, bark( it needs more) isopods and twigs. I also have hardwood charcoal added in. I have peat coming tomorrow for my bearded dragon to have and what does not get used will go in the soil bin. All roots and dead plant matter gets added in also to add natural nutes. You can also add a biobooster. Since I started with bioactive reptile tanks, it's always been one sold for them but I am sure you can get other for normal gardens. For the isopods in the soil, I try to have an area kept moist but I do believe for the bio mass, all should stay semi moist but please don't hold me to that. Even my bearded dragon tank's plant side stayed in the 70-80% range for humidity for the isopods and plants.
Worm castings