How do I re-amend and reuse my soil?Updated an hour ago
Keep your soil. BuildASoil 3.0 and Light Recipe are built to be re-amended and reused round after round. You have two ways to do it: top dress and keep planting (no-till), or dump the container and mix amendments through the whole volume.
Option 1: Top dress and replant (no-till)
Leave the soil in place, take out the main root crown, and give it a full top dress of Craft Blend and BuildAFlower before the next plant goes in. This gets you to the same place without moving all that soil. Use the full top dress amounts on the Craft Blend page, which are the most to apply at any one time. For example, 1 cup for a 15 gallon pot, 1.25 cups for an EarthBox, 1.75 cups for a Tray2Grow bed, and 8 cups for a 4x4 bed.
Option 2: Dump and remix
- Dump the soil onto a tarp or into a tub.
- Mix in 1 to 2 cups of Craft Blend per cubic foot of soil (1 cubic foot is about 7.5 gallons). That is 25 to 50% of the rate for building new soil. Go low if plants looked happy last run, higher if the soil seemed worn out by the end.
- Mix in some compost or worm castings to bring the biology.
- Moisten until a squeeze holds together without dripping.
- Let it rest a week or two before planting.
Good to know
- Re-amending takes much less than building new soil. Do not use the full soil building rate (4 cups per cubic foot) on used soil.
- Soil that sat dry can be brought back. Rehydrate it slowly over several days, then re-amend as normal.
- EarthBox soil is harder to keep in true no-till. Every other round or so, dump it, mix it back together, and replant with some fresh soil.
Questions about your setup? Reach a grower on our team through the contact page or the chat button.