About 17min in "I try to steer away from using synthetics in any type of soil"
You can kill it with the nutes as long as you are on your game constantly or have a good system. But it's more like you are doing hydro with soil as a medium instead of coco or rockwool or something. You aren't counting on the microbes to do much, and they don't. Both systems work. The soil is just going to give you a longer wet period between waterings and wider range of what is acceptable as an input without worrying about pH.
I signed up for some free samples on his website. Lets see if he sends me any of his products.
This. People cant seem to get this through their heads.
Thats because the cannabis industry was/is ignored by the gardening community. You dont see gardeners doing some of this crazy shit. Every time I see some organic grower with their soil bare i just shake my head. Mulch people. Decomposing leaf matter is the missing step. Once I got mulching through my own thick head, the need for all this extra crap went away. Compost teas, sst, top dressings dry amendments, watering in mycos all that. Gone by mulching. This is why organic gardeners are able to plant in raised beds year after year. You wont see some gardener outside dumping bags of worm castings on their beds. Mulching is the way.
The only issue I have with mulching is you need a decent layer of it for it to work properly and the smaller pots we grow in make that harder to accomplish. I should still do a mulch layer to help keep the top of the soil from getting dry though.
There's also less cover crop, and like he said a lot dies off in the shade. I'm not seeing any issues on the second run in any pot, and I have tried a few methods to see what works.
I’ve done cover crop a few times and it does a great job of keeping the top layer loose and from drying out. I grow in 7 or 10 gallon pots and, after each grow, I’ll break them down into a 40 gallon tote, amend and till it all up, get the moisture content to where it needs to be, and then cover it with plastic with holes poked in it and then it sits. I have enough soil to where each batch gets used for every other grow cycle.
The first 4" is the most important part of your food web. I picked up a bale of straw along the side of the road the other day. Woo hoo! I have a huge supply of clean cover for that top layer now. I've used dead pine needles for a cover in the past. Not really any benefit but holds moisture and eventually breaks down.
I water with Blumats so, even with no mulch layer, only about the top 1/4” - 1/2” gets dry.
I have a garden sprayer with RO that I just wet the rice hulls with on no-water days. Not enough to effect the soil, just replacing the evap on top.
Those top layers stay moist and full of life.
For 5-7 gallon pots your right. Dump, amend, and let all the sit together while you grow another round. Then your just swaping batches of soil. All soil gets 2-3 months to sit and charge up. As you add leaf matter from your harvest, top dressings ect, it may not be long and you'll find yourself with enough soil to do 10 gallons and have a little more buffer.
Pine is the worst. Turns soil acidic. The best thing for organic guys is to start an outdoor compost pile and just mix it with your soil. Growing in pots there is not enough time to amend soil in a pot by putting stuff on top.
If it works for 5g, I'm done. No goal of moving up pot sizes. I have a few 7g that I plan to use for 're-runs' of stuff I know I like and want a bigger plant of. Simple fact is that I have grown out 1-month-veg plants in 3 gallons consistently and had no rootbound issues. A 5g in the living soil should be plenty for one grow if I am dumping it after.
Cover crop clippings that are already in the pot are good too.