Aussie super soil recipe/ The Bunnings blend

I found myself doing something strange and out of character for me. I put 11 seeds straight into soil....not coco, soil from my dead garden beds....and to my astonishment they all grew....Yeah thats cool you'd think except the realization that once these gals had gone from seedling to plant I would need something to plant them in.....ok so lets build a super/living soil for this grow lol....I started crunching the numbers on the cook off times as I'm looking at 11 little green leafed bundles of joy and the horror started to become real on the fact I needed something put together and cooking YESTERDAY lol.

Now like most major centers in Aus we have this wonderful male shopping experience called Bunnings warehouse....A true place for real Alpha's where you can come and eat cooked animal sandwiches while browsing the power tool section for the latest AEC bolt on gadgets, it also has a plant and gardening section, grouse, with everything a Cannabis grower needs to build a super soil...so grab a sausage sanga and lets build this!!!

25ltrs of garden soil (from your own yard)Local biome for microbes)

25ltrs of Seasol premium garden compost

25ltrs mushroom mulch

15ltrs worm castings

12ltrs chicken manure

6 cups dolomite lime

4 cups blood n bone meal

1 cup Epsom salts

1/2 cup of sulphate of potash.

2.5kg red scoria rock

Once you've magic'd all that together you'll need something like a cheap blue plastic tarp or if you can afford too get one of those 210ltr food grade blue plastic drums and mix it together really good. But Ideally if you have a 210ltr compost tumbler like me then you're really cooking with microbes 😆 as you can give the mix a good mixing every couple of days.

So far the only hiccup I've had was going to light on the lime from the start and only adding 3 cups...this resulted in a low pH of 4.0 after a week of cooking. A few days later and still no movement on pH and it was time to consult our own soil guru @terppopotamus on what could be the issue ..... adding more lime was the secret but it needed to be a fine balancing act after adding another 3 cups to the mix within 2 days the pH had shot up to 5.0 ....then stalled....this is normal for the time the mix is cooking but if I had have added the correct amount from the start I might have been able to use the soil a week sooner which is sort of critical for the stage of growth the girls are atm so I'm kicking myself but, we live, we learn.

So if you,ve made it this far we need a couple more things since its all together now and cooking away, one is a pH meter and the other is a thermometer...You're lucky, Bunnings has you covered there too. Brunnings (yes like Bunnings but with the hard R lol) has a 3 in 1 meter that does light/moisture/pH and it's just under $18 and if you wander down to the BBQ section Matador make an awesome lazer thermometer for $30. The meter works best if its left in the mixture all the time for a more accurate pH reading and for the temp just scoop about 10cm down in the pile and get a reading from there.

*This is a hot mix and not suitable for germination*

now to use this mix without blowing the shit out of your root system there are a couple things that need to be done when taking the seedling and repoting it.

Make a hole in the soil to place the seedling.

Using a spray bottle wet the edges of the hole and coat lightly with worm castings, do the same with the seedling

This is the important part - when you go to place the seedling in the new mix Do Not disturb the root ball or soil the seedling is in at all

place it into the hole dusted with the casting and back fill with the super soil being careful to keep the super soil beyond the boundary line of the seedling mix. This will help the root zone in finding the new soil itself as opposed to teasing the root ball and having the roots in direct contact with the soil from the outset...let it do its thing.

I'll be doing the first run in this soil in around   if everything goes to plan so I will update this thread as we go along.

I hope this helps you Aussie growers out when it comes to the sometimes confusing world of super/living soil. I know from my own experience how frustrating it can be to see a really good soil recipe and not be able to build it because we can't get crushed oyster shells here without ordering from overseas or other additives are just totally alien and wouldn't go well in this climate so fingers crossed we can get a good soil going here and from all indications and feedback it's got all the right stuff....so cross your cheeks and hope for the best...LFG!!!!