BuildASoil Potting Soil Version 3.0
BuildASoil Potting Soil Version 3.0
- Made with the water-only grower in mind. No bottled liquid nutrients. Give it enough pot and the soil carries the plant.
- Composted 10–30 days and twice-mixed before it's bagged.
- Reusable. Reamend between runs and it gets better every cycle.
Every batch is lab tested and the results are public
Organic inputs fluctuate. No two batches of a real living soil are ever identical, and any company claiming otherwise is not being straight with you. What does not move is the target range we build to, and every batch lands inside it. We send each one to an independent lab and publish the full result, so you never have to take our word for it.
See every 3.0 batch result →26 bagged soils went to the lab. 3.0 came first.
SoiLab, the lab-backed channel run by MySoil, put 26 bagged soils through the same analysis in their Know Before You Grow series. Viewers picked the soils. Nobody sponsored it. They scored each one on smell, look and feel, nutrients and pH, and whether it would actually grow.
- 1 BuildASoil 3.0 9.0
- 2 Fox Farm Ocean Forest 8.6
- 3 Roots Organic Lush 8.4
- 22 more, all the way down to 4.5
We did not pay for this and we did not know the result until they published it. That is the only kind of test worth pointing at.
Not sure how much you need?
Tell the calculator about your pots or beds and it does the rest, including finding you the cheapest way to buy it.
- Containers and raised beds
- Accounts for settling and headspace
- Compares bags, pallets and totes
17 ingredients. No filler, no mystery.
Every one of them is in here for a reason, and there is nothing in the bag doing nothing.
- The biology. Compost, worm castings and charged biochar. The compost and castings bring the life, and the biochar gives it somewhere to live.
- The structure. Canadian sphagnum peat moss, pumice and rice hulls. Holds water without going to mud, and keeps air around the roots. We use pumice instead of perlite on purpose. Perlite crushes to dust and floats to the surface, so a soil built on it has a shelf life. Pumice holds its shape run after run, which is what lets this soil last forever.
- The minerals. Chunky basalt, fine basalt, calcium silicate and BIG 6 trace minerals. Two grinds of basalt because one releases now and one releases for years.
- The food. Fish bone meal, kelp meal, rice bran, mustard seed meal and our Gnarly Barley organic pre-sprouted seed flour blend, which is organic barley, organic lentil and organic corn. This is what carries a plant through a full run.
- The balance. Oyster shell flour and gypsum. Calcium in two forms, so the whole thing stays in the range we build to.
Full ingredient list
Compost, Worm Castings, Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, Pumice, Rice Hulls, Chunky Basalt, Fine Basalt, BIG 6 Trace Minerals, Fish Bone Meal, Rice Bran, Kelp Meal, Mustard Seed Meal, Gnarly Barley Organic Pre-Sprouted Seed Flour Blend (organic barley, organic lentil, organic corn), Gypsum, Oyster Shell Flour, Calcium Silicate, Biochar (charged).
- Volume
- 1 cubic foot
- Dry net weight
- 28 lb
- Fills
- One 7 gal pot
- Feeding
- No bottles
Your soil is alive. We don't sterilize our compost or potting soils. The life in the bag is the entire point.
Is 3.0 the right one for you?
3.0 is our most loaded mix. It's built to carry a plant all the way through flower with nothing but water. That richness is exactly why it isn't right for everything.
Reach for 3.0 if…
You're taking a plant through full term and flowering. You want everything in the bag on day one. No bottles, no feed chart. You're transplanting in from a smaller pot. You've run Super Soil before and liked it.
Consider Light instead if…
You're starting seeds or rooting clones. You can plant them straight into 3.0 and they will be fine, they just grow a little slower at first because the soil is so rich. BuildASoil Light is designed for that stage. Houseplants and tropicals want Perma Soil.
How to run it
We built 3.0 with the water-only grower in mind, and we mean that literally: no bottled liquid nutrients, ever. What it does not mean is that soil volume is free. A big pot holds enough soil to carry a plant all the way through on its own. A small one will run out, and you will want to feed the surface. Here are the two ways people run it.
Big pot, soil, water
Put 3.0 in a large enough container, plant into it, and water. That is genuinely it. The bigger the pot, the further the soil carries the plant on its own. Plenty of people grow beautiful plants this way and never top-dress a thing.
Best for: first-timers, bigger containers, keeping it simple.
Soil, top-dress, mulch
Same soil, same water-only watering. You build a layered surface at planting and feed it again at the flip to flower, so the biology has food exactly where the feeder roots are. This is our system, and it is what we run in our own tents.
Best for: getting everything the soil is capable of, and no-till.
Setting it up, the Classic way
Amounts below are per plant in a 15 gallon pot, which is the size we recommend starting with. Something clicks at 15 gallons: the soil hits enough volume that the biology really takes over.
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1Fill the pot with 3.0. Straight from the bag.
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2Transplant your plant. Settle it in first, before any top-dress.
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3Sprinkle 1/4 cup Craft Blend across the surface around the plant. Do not mix it in. Lay it on top.
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4Add about 1 gallon of BuildAFlower compost on top of the Craft Blend.
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5Cover with 1 to 2 inches of organic straw. This is the living mulch layer. It holds moisture, feeds the soil life, and protects the surface roots.
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6Water it in. Settle everything and wake up the biology. Keep that top layer moist. Never let the top-dress or mulch dry out, because the biology needs moisture to work.
Same amounts again, 1/4 cup Craft Blend and about a gallon of BuildAFlower. Premix them, spread over the straw, wiggle it down through the mulch with your hands, and water in. This feeds the plant through the stretch.
Water no more than 5 to 10 percent of your soil volume at a time. In a 15 gallon pot that is roughly 0.75 to 1.5 gallons. Evenly moist, not drenched, not bone dry.
The top-dress lineup
You do not need any of this to grow a good plant in 3.0. This is what we run ourselves, and what most people add on their second order.
Craft Blend
The workhorse top-dress. Feeds the soil through the whole run.
BuildAFlower
Go on before and during early flower. Replaces bottled bloom products.
Certified Organic Straw Mulch
Protects the surface so the soil life stays where the roots are.
Mulch is not an accessory. A bare soil surface dries out and the biology in that top layer dies off, which is exactly the zone your top-dress is trying to feed. Cover it.
Questions
Do I need to add anything?
Can I plant seedlings and clones straight into it?
How long does a bag last?
