Do ya’ll’s start with new soil every grow. Kinda stupid but just gotta ask.
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Here is a good shorter thread that goes over this topic in surprising detail.
First Try at Reusing Living Soil
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I always start with a fresh bale for my indoor grows.
Pro mix Sunshine 4. Not pre loaded like fox farms for example.
Depends too on how you want to grow.
Organic , living soil. Or synthetics.
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I always buy new too. It’s not gonna break the bank…at least not yet.
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@noddykitty1 thanks for the nod in my direction. Truth be told the soil I reused was way too hot. I sent a sample in for lab analysis. I ended up diluting it with peat moss. I just now (this morning) cut my three plants so in a few weeks we will see the results.
This might be a lil off topic but I needed a break from my light sensor project I have been working on there an there for the past couple of years. I turned my attention to trying to understand how macro nutrients are measured in a lab and turns out a very common method is using spectrometry,
Long story short I have retasked my light sensor project so that I can measure absorption at various wavelengths of light through fluid extracted from soil and hopefully make absolute measurements in PPM of NPK. I will probably be doing my first experiment in a couple of weeks so fingers crossed! Or on the other hand this could be another complete failed project of mine.
I reammend and reuse my soil. Gets beter every run living soil. The worms from this soil were added at first cook 2 years ago. They still live and thrive. Harder to judge ammendment when recooking it for reuse but I just do about 1/3 the ammendments a new soil would take. I add more perlite and this batch threw all the carbon from a used 6" filter in it. Dark,silky,and smooth now. Biggest issue i had was the soil compacting hence perlite everytime.
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