How do I water and feed a living soil, and do I need a bottled schedule?

GROWER ANSWER

You don't need a bottled schedule. A living soil is built with its food already in it: compost, castings and meals that the soil life breaks down and hands to the roots. Your job is to keep that life working with water, and add food on top when she starts to ask. A mineral bottle chart on top adds salt to a soil that's already fed.

The soil is the schedule.

What makes it different from a bottle-fed pot

A bare peat or coco mix holds almost no food, so you feed the plant at most waterings. In a living soil, you feed the soil instead. The food comes out slowly, the soil buffers its own pH, and you don't steer it by the EC of what you pour in. So the bottle-fed habits, a big runoff and a weekly chart, work against it.

How to water it

1. Lift the pot. Water when it feels noticeably lighter, not on a calendar.

2. Water slowly, in two or three passes, until the soil stops taking it in and the first water shows at the bottom. Then stop. You don't chase runoff here. A bottle-fed pot gets 10 to 20% runoff to carry leftover feed salt out. A living soil isn't fed that way, so a big runoff mostly carries out food you want to keep.

3. Let it dry back, but not to bone dry. The roots need the air a dry-back brings. The soil life slows down when the pot goes bone dry and takes time to get going again.

Coming from coco or hydro, the big change is watering less often.

How to feed it

Start on water. In a big enough pot, a fresh living soil carries her for a good while with nothing added; a small pot runs out sooner. A new mix can start a little slow while its life wakes up, but a plant that stalls still gets the checks below.

When she asks, top dress. Spread a dry amendment, like worm castings or a dry grow or bloom food, on the surface and water it in. It feeds the soil, and the soil feeds her. It's harder to overdo than a strong bottle, but too much of a rich amendment can still burn her, so add it as she asks.

Feed ahead, not in a panic. A top dress works slowly, because the soil life has to break it down first. Put it on before she runs short, such as going into flower.

There's no set number for how often. Watch the plant instead. Newest growth that keeps its color and its pace says the soil is keeping up. Older leaves fading early in veg and climbing, with slow growth in a pot that isn't wet, often means it's time.

She looks hungry. Read it in this order

1. Check the water. A pot that stays heavy, or one that went bone dry, stalls a living soil faster than a shortage does.

2. Check the cold. In winter, a pot on a cold floor slows the roots and the soil life together, so less food comes out. Keep the root zone at 68 to 75°F, with the pot up off the floor.

3. Check the stage. Some fading in the last weeks of flower is her finishing, not hunger.

4. Then top dress and wait. Judge it on the new growth, and give it at least 7 to 10 days before you decide it didn't work.

What not to do

Don't run a mineral bottle chart on top. It's written for a mix that holds no food. On a fed soil it's an easy way to burn tips. If she's truly short and can't wait, one light liquid feed can bridge the gap while the top dress breaks down. That's a rescue, not a schedule.

Don't flush it. A flush rinses out the food you built.

Don't put a rock layer at the bottom. A layer down there holds water higher in the pot. Mix the rock through the soil instead, so there's air everywhere.

Don't pH it like coco. The soil buffers itself, so with ordinary tap water you often don't need to adjust it. Very hard water can still push it up over time, so know your water. If you do check, use the soil lane, 6.2 to 6.8, not a coco number.

When it's something else

• Drooping in a heavy pot: see How often should I water, and why is she drooping?

• A bottle-fed plant that stalled: see How can I tell when my plant wants more food?

• Fading in late flower: see She's fading in late flower. Do I flush, feed or pull the leaves?

On our shelf in Worcester: Living soil mixes, worm castings, meals and dry top dress are in Living soil & amendments, and the maker's recipe card is on our living soil shelf guide. Call (508) 459-9609 or get directions.

Keep going

Feed the soil and let her ask. The whole system for a steady grow is written down in the free Stability Playbook. Get the free Stability Playbook

More answers: all grow guides. Every shelf guide and maker feed chart: Grower Resources.