Recycling soil?

This may come as a no brainer to some but i was recently brought to the idea that i could be recycling my old soil for use in my future grows? Ive been emptying the pots near my home building what seems to be a big pile if money on the ground. Granted i got my use out of it so its not completely wasted, but im trying to cut costs and soil is one of my biggest. I have ran a few big bags of fox farms ocean forest, but mainly its been roots organics. I only fed them nutes when they needed it, and not that much. I used fox farms Bush doctor lineup which is supposedly their organic lineup, with a few sprinkles of their powders towards the end of flower.
Now if i wanted to recycle the old dirt and maybe mix it with some new or even just amend it and replenish everything beneficial in it, where do i start? What do i buy and where?

It really depends on what was in the original soil. I find it much easier to make my own soil rather than buying pre-made bags.

The basic recipe is to mix sphagnum peat moss (or leaf mold and/or coco coir), aeration bits (pummice, turface, scoria, perlite, vermiculite, rice hulls, calcined clay...a mix of different sized material is best), and compost (usually thermophilic compost and worm castings). Most run something like 25-33% compost, 25-35% aeration and the rest is peat. You would be just fine running equal parts peat, compost, and aeration. Use whatever you can get your grubby little hands on. This is your base. Diversity is the best, but don't bother having a bag of expensive rock dust mailed to you. The idea is to use the recipe as a formula to utilize what you can get.



Now it can be a little confusing for the uninitiated---we're going to have to amend. Here is the post from a guy you may know as Clackamas Coot that really got me going in the right direction:



"I use 3 mixes to keep things straight in my old brain. They are as follows:



1. Food Mix

2. Fix-It Mix

3. Mineral Mix



Food Mix

You want about 2 cups of your food mix - however you get there. You're going to use (he was responding to a guys question about how to mix everything he already purchased -ed.) alfalfa meal, fish meal and bone meal. Mix up a large amount with equal parts (by volume and not by weight) and add 2 cups of this mix to your soil.

If you were to decide that you wanted to add canola meal (aka rape seed meal), flax seed meal (aka linseed meal), et al. then add the same volume of this to your mix but you're still only going to use 2 cups of the final mix. That total amount that you want to use does not increase - you're simply making your Food Mix more diverse( a worthy goal, IMHO)



Fix-It Mix

You're using kelp meal and a combination of neem and karanja meals. Again mix these in equal parts (by volume) and add 1-1.5 cups of this mix to your potting soil. If you were to add crab meal (another good Fix-It component) you would still add the same amount even with the addition of another agent, i.e. 1-1.5 cups.



Mineral Mix

You're using azomite and green sand - mix these together like the other mixes and of this mix you'd want to add about 1 cup to your potting soil. If you were to add limestone (or Oyster Shell Powder) and agricultural Gypsum (both available at Home Depot, BTW) you'd add these minerals by the same volume but you'd still only use 1 cup of however a diverse mix you might come up with.

Glacial Rock Dust is different and its application rate is 4 cups to 1 c.f. of potting soil irrespective of the other minerals you decide to go with.



All the amounts above on all of the mixes are for 1 c.f. of potting soil or 7.5 gallons (allegedly)."

Now for the laments term, mixing it all up "by volume" would be referring to measuring out, lets say in a measuring cup, whichever meal i was preparing?

RandomHero8913 said:

Mix up a large amount with equal parts (by volume and not by weight) and add 2 cups of this mix to your soil."

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you can re-use your soil. Thats what i do, saved me a lot of money over the years, also gave my footprint so to speak small as well.

berten-ernie420 said:

Now for the laments term, mixing it all up "by volume" would be referring to measuring out, lets say in a measuring cup, whichever meal i was preparing?

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Yup.

If you're doing large amounts of soil there is a cheat sheet floating around with weight conversions of common amendments so you're not measuring out 200 cups of something.

RandomHero8913 said:

Yup.

If you're doing large amounts of soil there is a cheat sheet floating around with weight conversions of common amendments so you're not measuring out 200 cups of something.

Click to expand...

Well id say i have about 100 gallons of used soil. But id honestly only want to try a small batch at first, id say 15 gallons or so, throw a few plants in and see how they do. I like to learn by doing and if they respond well, ill simply adjust for a larger scale.

Is there any "cook" time i should allow for, all mixed and blended, before using it? Or is this recipe more of the mix and plant, variety?

And one more thing, should i maybe spread all the old dirt out and water it dilligently before using it? And how do i know if im readding nutrients still readily available in the soil leftover, therefore causing an imbalance and possible burning my plants? Is this simple answer, you wont know until it happens or does flushing it really well prior to mixing essentially eliminate that concern?

I tried it w promix hp... regret it... beautiful girl at begining of flower, but just not developing like my others did in past... smaller leaves, less thirsty, more airy and smaller than norm buds... its not a hash pile plant but nothing you wud take to the county fair... idk if actual soil is prob diff... but i wouldnt do it again with promix...

I've got loads of ffof soil in a huge pile on my property .....I've been wanting to reuse it for my greenhouse grows in smart pots and my full outdoor .....but never have just because I have done what works well for so long ....meaning buying new soil I'm afraid to fuck up my plants .......but I'm guna try a recipe on a few girls and just see what happens .....will see

berten-ernie420 said:

And one more thing, should i maybe spread all the old dirt out and water it dilligently before using it? And how do i know if im readding nutrients still readily available in the soil leftover, therefore causing an imbalance and possible burning my plants? Is this simple answer, you wont know until it happens or does flushing it really well prior to mixing essentially eliminate that concern?

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why don't you take an old 50 gal cooler and put some dirt in it. I use a 15 gal styrophome (sp) cooler put dirt that wi would like to use for a grow, mix the organic admendments in it, set it sit till you wanna use it, course mixing it every once in a while

berten-ernie420 said:

Well id say i have about 100 gallons of used soil. But id honestly only want to try a small batch at first, id say 15 gallons or so, throw a few plants in and see how they do. I like to learn by doing and if they respond well, ill simply adjust for a larger scale.

Is there any "cook" time i should allow for, all mixed and blended, before using it? Or is this recipe more of the mix and plant, variety?

Click to expand...

I'd grab some aeration and mix up a test batch and plant some sunflowers to see how they perform. If you don't see any problems go at it. You can alway topdress something later on if they need it.

I think you really only need to give your soil some time to do its thing when adding amendments like alfalfa, neem, and guano in sufficient quantities. Mostly high N stuff. It also will depend on the age of your plant.