Reamending measurements

I plan on building a water only soil soon .. I will be growing outdoors and plan on reamending after each season ..I wanted to do a no till kinda deal but i figured it would be best to reamend the soil since it will be an outdoor grow...maybe I'm wrong if so please correct me ...but I kinda thought there would be a good measurement for most amendments .. like half or 1/4 of what I added at the initial mix...I'm sure some amendments will be more or less than others and if so could someone post the amount and the reason for them adding more or less of that specific amendmen and or mineral...if anyone has time or would like to share what amendments and minerals they use, how much (specify by cf or something), and how much you reamend with I would appreciate that greatly... I would love to see some test done on an outdoor..or indoor ..grow after being used for the same amount of time as an outdoor grow without a complete reamendment..top dressing is fine but please tell what and how often it was added or anything that was added..soil test of any kind would be great from after a grow... A before and after test would really be neat for me to look at as well...I plan on sending some of my compost and my soil away later on just to see what's going in it...I love that sorta thing... thanks for reading and all the help

if you are growing big plants... you'll be topdressing monthly with kelp, neem, and crab shell. you won't be able to go a whole season with just the initial soil mix alone if you're using the power of the sun. plants will burn through nutrients quickly because they are photosynthesizing at a higher rate/efficiency.

check out mendo dope on youtube. those guys run no-till, like 500 or 1000 gal pots... growing monster trees. i remember them talking about topdressing monthly.

ShLUbY said:

if you are growing big plants... you'll be topdressing monthly with kelp, neem, and crab shell. you won't be able to go a whole season with just the initial soil mix alone if you're using the power of the sun. plants will burn through nutrients quickly because they are photosynthesizing at a higher rate/efficiency.

check out mendo dope on youtube. those guys run no-till, like 500 or 1000 gal pots... growing monster trees. i remember them talking about topdressing monthly.

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Yeah with my mix in the past I still always top dressed..I kinda knew I would have to top dress my soil I just want to put as much in it as I can and top dress less..and iv checked out mendo ..they know what's up for sure...with my mix last grow I still fed nute teas quite often and aacts ..I mean probably more than I needed but they plants kept exploding and they were super healthy so I kept adding...I just want to know how much amendments I need to add . including minerals..to a soil after I use it for a season...and I know it depends on what amendments we are taking about but I just wanted to know how much of whatever people are adding to the soil compared to what they are reamending with..I really didn't think I could push a plant to the max outdoors without top dressing it..I just want to do it as little as possible ..not from being lazy just because I want everything in my soil before hand....I won't be growing in really large pots this year the biggest will only be 45 gal..I may put one in the ground if I think my spot will be OK...but that depends..so what is the amount of everything you add after 6/7 Mo..I'm just wondering if I add too much of something it might cause problems because my soil may still have an abundance of something left...idk I'm just curious

GoRealUhGro said:

Yeah with my mix in the past I still always top dressed..I kinda knew I would have to top dress my soil I just want to put as much in it as I can and top dress less..and iv checked out mendo ..they know what's up for sure...with my mix last grow I still fed nute teas quite often and aacts ..I mean probably more than I needed but they plants kept exploding and they were super healthy so I kept adding...I just want to know how much amendments I need to add . including minerals..to a soil after I use it for a season...and I know it depends on what amendments we are taking about but I just wanted to know how much of whatever people are adding to the soil compared to what they are reamending with..I really didn't think I could push a plant to the max outdoors without top dressing it..I just want to do it as little as possible ..not from being lazy just because I want everything in my soil before hand....I won't be growing in really large pots this year the biggest will only be 45 gal..I may put one in the ground if I think my spot will be OK...but that depends..so what is the amount of everything you add after 6/7 Mo..I'm just wondering if I add too much of something it might cause problems because my soil may still have an abundance of something left...idk I'm just curious

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for larger plants like that, i would fully amend that soil again. just the same as i do for my indoor soils. once that medium is run through once, it gets fully amended and recycled. i wait several runs before adding any rock dusts back to it though. just the easier to break down amendments get added back to the mix.

OK so the only thing you skip on is rock dust..good to know..I thought it would be OK to fully reamend w the same amount but I just wanted to ask or see ..its just a lot of good growers have always told me I didn't need to add as much as I added ..kinda less is more...I didn't want to basically waste anything or add too much and cause more harm than good...iv never REALLY recycled my soil the way I want to..I would do a no till but I don't have anyway of storing my soil through the winter or keeping up with it the way I would want..so I assume it would be best to reamend it after my grow

Reamending and top dressing are pretty much the flip sides of the same coin.

I'll reamend mix in my 'dump tote', where smaller containers get dumped. Larger containers and notills get top dressed and only reamended after ~3 years when the mix starts getting tired.

I reamend at ~3/4 strength of the original mix, Rock dusts at about 1/2 at 3 years+. I'll do a soil solution pH test before adding any lime, cause that really fluctuates.

The older the soil, the less seems to be needed.

Wet

Wetdog said:

Reamending and top dressing are pretty much the flip sides of the same coin.

I'll reamend mix in my 'dump tote', where smaller containers get dumped. Larger containers and notills get top dressed and only reamended after ~3 years when the mix starts getting tired.

I reamend at ~3/4 strength of the original mix, Rock dusts at about 1/2 at 3 years+. I'll do a soil solution pH test before adding any lime, cause that really fluctuates.

The older the soil, the less seems to be needed.

Wet

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Does this apply to outdoor grows too.

I used the same soil for my Spring crop as last year's full seasons. To five gallon pots, I added half a cup each of Epson salts, lime and Holly-tone Organic ferts {I can't remember the numbers}. Also added 2 cups of coffee ground compost, and 4 cups mushroom compost. It seems like there was more, but that is all I can remember.

Since the cold killed all the plants in my Spring crop, I'm going to re-re-amend the soil and use it again this summer.

GoRealUhGro said:

Does this apply to outdoor grows too.

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Over 90% of what I grow is outside.

I swear, growing outdoors is like cooking with a crock pot. Add everything, water, then let nature do the rest. I even prefer to pop seeds outside once it's warm enough. Just seems to give plants a better start in life, a few hours of direct, early AM sun (dawn to ~10 or 11 AM), works a treat.

Wet

Wetdog said:

Over 90% of what I grow is outside.

I swear, growing outdoors is like cooking with a crock pot. Add everything, water, then let nature do the rest. I even prefer to pop seeds outside once it's warm enough. Just seems to give plants a better start in life, a few hours of direct, early AM sun (dawn to ~10 or 11 AM), works a treat.

Wet

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I agree 200%...I have noticed and even said this before..cause this issue comes up a lot...but I have had sooooo much more luck popping seeds outdoors...like absolutely no comparison really...I usually already have my seeds popped and going but after I switched to organics and read up on things I won't be popping any seeds this early unless I have 300+ gal pots to plant in...it just doesn't work ...my 100gal sp was so root bound from a seed start at the beginning of March ...I only have 45 gal pots this year and I honestly think I could start in may...which just seems crazy as hell to me cause I always start now...and be fine....I'll probably start at the end of this month if it warms up enough..some assshole stole my lights I had in my house I'm fixing... But thanks wet I appreciate the info buddy..what all amendments and minerals go in your mix if you don't mind me asking

GoRealUhGro said:

I agree 200%...I have noticed and even said this before..cause this issue comes up a lot...but I have had sooooo much more luck popping seeds outdoors...like absolutely no comparison really...I usually already have my seeds popped and going but after I switched to organics and read up on things I won't be popping any seeds this early unless I have 300+ gal pots to plant in...it just doesn't work ...my 100gal sp was so root bound from a seed start at the beginning of March ...I only have 45 gal pots this year and I honestly think I could start in may...which just seems crazy as hell to me cause I always start now...and be fine....I'll probably start at the end of this month if it warms up enough..some assshole stole my lights I had in my house I'm fixing... But thanks wet I appreciate the info buddy..what's all amendments and miners go in your mix if you don't mind me asking

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I try for smaller plants. Last year I planted late May to early June. Didn't work out great because of weather, but I liked the size most of the plants were. Everything was waist to chest high.

I'm dropping seeds on March 24th for a buddy. Will do a few for myself, but plan on waiting another month for most of my crop. Only vegging for 3-4 weeks.

Yeah, if you got rootbound in a 100g pot from seed, you just may want to start a little later. LOL

My usual reamends are bone meal anf kelp meal at 1/2 to 3/4 strength for the P and K.

For N it's 1/2 cup neem meal PLUS 1/2 cup of alfalfa (if it's going to cook for a bit), or some other N source that you may prefer. For me, this all depends on just how soon I'm going to need the mix and what I plan to go in it. I do way more container veggies than mj, so this varies.

For minerals, I don't add any if it's been less than 3 years. Plus the kelp meal provides minerals and trace, so you're covered in any event.

This year will be a little different since I just got a 44lb bag of crustacean meal and a 50lb bag of Greensand is on backorder. I've never used the crustacean meal before, but I use greensand in every fresh mix. However, it's been over 5 years for the soil gardens and over 3 years for most of my notills since any was added, so the greensand will be going in those places. Not sure yet just how I'm going to work the crustacean meal, I got it mainly for the worm bins/'fix it' mix.

For lime, I take several soil samples and do a soil solution pH test to get a rough idea of where I'm at pH wise and then add accordingly. It really varies quite a bit from notill to notill depending a lot on what was grown in it. Ca gobbling plants really deplete the lime and the pH drops. Others, the pH stays fine. I just shoot for a ballpark range rather than a specific pH. Like, over 6.3 and under 7.0 works for me, but being in that range is very important.

Wet