I grow strictly in a tent. For years I used 5 gallon soft pots. But this last grow I switched to 10 gallon soft pots, and was really impressed with my results.
I attribute it to the plants ability to grow larger root systems due to all the extra room.
In the past I always chucked the old soil in my vegetable garden. But now it’s getting a bit expensive since I’m using 10 gallon pots. That’s 30-40 gallons of expensive soil per grow!
So, is there a protocol to amend this soil so I can reuse it? Add quality bagged compost, myco, worm castings, bone meal? Or is it not worth the time and expense?
I grow all my tomatoes in 10 gallon soft pots, and reuse my soil year after year with great success. I’m wondering if the same applies to marijuana?
I prepared an outside bed for my summer grow. Reused lots of soil from inside termed plants. Experienced brown spots on leaves. Never really determined if it was leaf septoria, but did learn it is from reusing soil.
Was only about a couple hundred leaves out of thousand. Plants did their thing just dandy. But I will not reuse soil as I have seen it could get really bad.
I reused Happy frog soil after thoroughly cleaning out all of the roots that were dried up inside the soil.
You got to replace the microbial life. I had no issue. I was going to use it for the third time on my current grow but I fell short of soil in my outdoor garden and ended up using it
I grow full sun outdoors. All organic. We re-use the soil year after year. To be honest it gets better over time. That is if you take the proper steps during the off season.
Think of Mother Nature. Out in the wild. Some of those old growth forests contain some of the world best humus layers. Black earth that is packed with nutrients.
Along reusing soil. When farmers rotate crops they do that for soil preservation. Has anyone heard of planting clover in the used soil and rotating back into the weed grow?
It’s a little bit of work but it works fantastic and the soil returns to above standards in microbial life.
I recycle Fox farm Happy frog. After my grow and harvest is done I let the pots dry for 2 weeks. By then all the microbial life is pretty much dead. I sift all the root material from the old soil into a giant tote. Once all the root material is removed I’m left with clean Happy frog and perlite. (Normally it’s about 1-1/2 bags of 2 cubic foot bags of Happy frog in the tote)
I have the following products always available.
Dynomyco (mycorrhizal Fungi) Myco Supreme(mycorrhizal Fungi) Voodoo Juice (fresh microbial life) Bud Candy (microbial food) Photosynthesis Plus (beneficial fungi) Vegetable and fruit yield enhancer
(Live microbs and humic acid)
Two days before transferring my seedlings from Solo cups to their final home I mix 1 pack of 3.5oz Dynonyco and 2oz Myco Supreme into the tote of soil and mix thoroughly.
The morning before I transplant I fill up my 3 gallon bags with the soil that I just treated.
I mix up a batch of microbial feed in a 1 gal of tap water.
I mix up 3ml of each product above into my tap water and pour it into the three gallon pot.
Congratulations You have just restored your microbial life in your soil.
It’s important to utilize the products once a week throughout the grow to maintain healthy and happy microbial life.
A little bit of work yet simple. Extremely effective! This ain’t bro science or something I copied and pasted from Reddit. I’ve done this many times.
So you don’t run them through a washing machine(?) Do you dry them outdoors so the UV helps disinfect them?
Why do you use 2 different myco products?
Have you found it’s more effective to distribute myco throughout the soil, as opposed to putting a good dose in the hole before transplanting? Or maybe coating the exterior of the soil cube with myco before transplanting?
Hmmm. I’m funny about stuff like that. If the plant contained a disease or infection I would probably discontinue the soil and put it in a compost pile out back and use it outside for my vegetable garden.
If it came down to a financial difficulty and I absolutely had to have that soil I would potentially investigate a good cleanup method to reuse it. I know hydrogen peroxide kills a lot of stuff in the soil.
But like I said, I’m very funny when it comes to stuff like that. We spend all the time getting the seeds germinated and started to a happy healthy beginning I would not risk putting it in previously contaminated soil. ,(just me)
I was asking if you’d do anything special with the grow bag.
As for the soil that was in it, I too would be inclined to toss it if there was a disease. If the problem was insects, it would depend on what they were. Soil gnats, for example, should be eliminated if the soil is dry for a week or two. Others, maybe not – don’t know.
Oh my bad. I think I understand now. I hand wash them in the sink with a mild soap detergent (Dawn) using a scrub brush. I rinse them free of soap when I’m done and throw them in the shower stall to dry.
I get a lot of build up of salt sometimes and the detergent and scrub brush removes it all.
I do believe tossing them in the washing machine could be beneficial but I prefer a good old-fashioned hand wash