I recycle my Happy frog soil. After harvesting six to seven pots I let the soil and the root ball completely dry in the pot for about 3 weeks.
HOW I SEPARATE SOIL FROM ROOTS
I put on some Ozzy Osbourne, got a 5 gallon bucket and I just put on a pair of rubber gloves and grab a handful of dirt and sift it through my hands.
The dirt and pearlite fall to the bucket and any root material stays in my hand. When the five gallon bucket is full by dump it into a large tote. By letting the soil dry for weeks this task is incredibly simple. I can hand sift 4 cubic feet in about 45 minutes. (That’s two of the big bags)
HOW TO REUSE/REFRESH THE SOIL
It’s very important to understand that all of your microbial/fungi life is dead in the soil and needs to be replaced.
When it comes time for a new grow I go into Solo cups for 10 days. On the 9th day I start to prepare my soil.
1.) I take the old dirt and I dump a bag of worm castings directly into the old soil and mix well. I fill up my pots with the used soil and worm casting mix.
2.) I prepare a couple 5 gallon buckets of R/O water and 300EC of calcium and magnesium and pH the mixture to 6.5
3.) I place each pot on and upside down Pepsi/Coca-Cola crate one at a time with a turkey pan inside of the upside down crate. (I do this with 6 x 3 Gal bag pots.
4.) I pour about 1.5gal - 2.5gal of the water slowly into the pots until the soil is totally saturated and running off into my turkey pan. I dig around the dirt just to make sure everything got wet.
5.) I remove the pot from the crate and pull out the turkey pan and measure my ppms and pH and document it. I repeat step four until all six pots are done.
6.) I prepare 6 gallons of RO water with 300 EC of calcium magnesium, a few shots of B-52 by Advanced Nutrients, few shots of vegetable yield enhancer, a few shots of photosynthesis Plus, a few shots of Voodoo Juice by Advanced Nutrients and a few shots of Bud Candy by advance Nutrients and I ph the water to 6.5. **Every product above is live microbial/fungi life/humic acid & microbial life feed.
7.) I pour 1 gallon of microbial Life feed through each of the 6 pots. And document the runoff of each individual pot.
This simple process above just created the finest live microbial/fungi thriving soil you can find. And you made it yourself!
Each pot measures 6.4 - 6.6ph and has enough nutrients to get you through about 10 days with just watering while you transplant your Solo cups into the soil.
This is called The Lost Girl technique of soil rejuvenation
It’s very important to keep your microbial life alive and feed with your favorite microbial manufactured products throughout the grow. If you’re microbial life is happy your roots are too. This is the stepping stone to an incredible harvest. Happy growing