Starting Soil Amendment Question

High Growmies! I'm about to mix a starting soil using 3 parts Sunshine Mix #4 to 1 part earthworm castings and some perlite. Do I mix in the dolomite lime and epsom salt amendments when I'm using the medium to start seeds and root clones? It's been awhile, and I've forgotten... ... ... wonder how that happened? Old age, I guess.

Low nutrient levels for young and tender plants is the way to go. Too much too soon will only slow things down. You can add the correct amount of dolomite to the medium which will help stabilize PH. I’m not sure about epsom salt for young plants

Redskare87 said:

Low nutrient levels for young and tender plants is the way to go. Too much too soon will only slow things down. You can add the correct amount of dolomite to the medium which will help stabilize PH. I’m not sure about epsom salt for young plants

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Thank you!

Heyup .
Ammendments are great! And there are so so many out there. Im interested as to why the 3 you have mentioned? For young plants and seedlings you have already included the best one out there IMO worm casts. Fantastic for microbial life and gets the soil really going, plus its full or nitrogen but never burns your plants. If you want to use any other ammendments to your soil I suggest mixing it in to your potting on compost and give it time to cook for a while

Autofacade said:

Heyup .
Ammendments are great! And there are so so many out there. Im interested as to why the 3 you have mentioned? For young plants and seedlings you have already included the best one out there IMO worm casts. Fantastic for microbial life and gets the soil really going, plus its full or nitrogen but never burns your plants. If you want to use any other ammendments to your soil I suggest mixing it in to your potting on compost and give it time to cook for a while

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I use dolomite lime to help sweeten the soil and to provide an extra boost of calcium and magnesium. The epsom salts are Magnesium sulfate, I add a bit as a natural magnesium supplement. It sounds like you already know why I use worm castings.

CanEhDiana said:

I use dolomite lime to help sweeten the soil and to provide an extra boost of calcium and magnesium. The epsom salts are Magnesium sulfate, I add a bit as a natural magnesium supplement.

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Aahh I see. Is it old re-used soil then? I'd use the Epsom salts as a foliar, im not a fan of adding too much of it to my soil. As for calcium oyster shell and crustacean meal is so much better just takes a while to get going, so have it in early and also helps with drainage

Autofacade said:

Aahh I see. Is it old re-used soil then? I'd use the Epsom salts as a foliar, im not a fan of adding too much of it to my soil. As for calcium oyster shell and crustacean meal is so much better just takes a while to get going, so have it in early and also helps with drainage

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The base I use is Sunshine Mix #4, which is just a basic potting mix without all the extra's one would find in the soil mixes found in the garden centre of a big box store. Why I use the epsom salts? I added them as a magnesium supplement (1 tsp (5 ml)/litre (quart) of potting soil) when I was starting out. I found they worked and kept on doing it. I'm not familiar with foliar feeding, I tried it once and got the timing wrong - Wet Plant + Grow Light = Disaster

I have never herd of the sunshine mix. (UK grower). A safer bet in my experience is to use a cal-mag liquid feed into your watering schedule. Foliar feed is so so useful! Epsom salts can be applied when your plants are showing signs of deficiency to get you out of a tight spot. There are lots to be said about foliar some people believe it to be nonsense but I can hand on heart say its another way of pushing that little more out of your plants. You have 15mins when lights first turn off. The poors of the plants stay open for that time so its perfect to get some goodies in there. I normally apply liquid seaweed and calmag 1ml of each to 1ltr of water during veg once a week. It really gets um going.