Making soil, building beds, mulch, living soil, no-till philosophy
149 terms
A 10-gallon fabric or plastic pot used in quadrant three filled with one cubic foot of soil recipe variants.
AJ says quadrant three is all 10 gallon containers with different soil recipes and only one cubic foot per container.
ep 025
A large fabric or plastic container used to hand-mix living soil in bulk before transferring to a bed.
Jeremy scoops soil directly from it into the 3x3 bed
ep 004
A 10-foot by 10-foot indoor grow space, in this case a Gorilla Grow Tent that serves as the entire testbed for BuildASoil Season 1.
Jeremy frames the 10x10 as the physical stage for the whole series, chosen because it gives room to instruct while showing an entire ecosystem under one roof.
ep 001
The BAS twelve-species cover crop blend used as the standard cover crop for living soil beds.
Jeremy pre-inoculates the bag with Rootwise by shaking a tablespoon in and says the mix switches from single-species clover used in smaller pots.
ep 007
A recycled no-till soil generation — a box that has been run through one or more previous cycles and re-amended rather than built fresh.
Jeremy identifies one quadrant 1 plant as being 'the 3.0' — the one they ran cover crop in, top-dressed with Craft Blend and worm castings, then left alone until later top dressing.
ep 031
A BuildASoil soil recipe tier — Jeremy's Earth Box and a 10-gallon use the 3.0 soil, which he notes is following suit with the other strong performers.
The 3.0 Earth Box had slightly less soil but was fresh and wicked water faster than the recycled-soil box.
ep 014, ep 018
A 30-gallon volume fabric or rigid pot used as a large single-plant no-till home.
Season 2 replaces the 10-gallon quadrant with three 30-gallon containers to make the case for 'bigger containers win'.
ep 042
Jeremy's framing — the seed is a 3D-printed blueprint of DNA and the soil is the printer cartridge stack. Missing any nutrient makes the printed plant come out wrong.
He uses this analogy while sowing carrots to impress on viewers that complete soil nutrition is non-negotiable.
ep 030
Jeremy's baseline watering rate for living soil: fresh soil gets approximately 5% of its volume in water, and established soil with plants in it never gets more than 5–10% at once. For 70 gallons of soil that's 3.5 gallons of water.
'With watering with living soil we're typically trying to stay in the 5 to 10 by volume range.'
ep 003
The non-compostable, structural portion of a potting soil mix — the material that creates air pockets and prevents compaction. In BAS's recipe, aeration is a blend of pumice (permanent) and rice hulls (breaks down over time).
Target roughly 30% of the mix by volume.
ep 003
Soil that has been overwatered to the point that oxygen is excluded, encouraging the wrong kinds of organisms and making the soil go 'like mud' or 'make a soup'. Jeremy identifies this as the single worst failure mode for living soil.
'Don't drown your soil don't make a soup.'
ep 003
A waterlogged soil state with no oxygen where beneficial aerobic biology dies off and fungus gnats and other problems thrive.
Jeremy warns this is what happens if you keep a bed too wet or keep an Earth Box reservoir full with living soil — he refuses to water when the mulch is already moist.
ep 011
Running multiple grow cycles in the same container without dumping or fully rebuilding the soil — re-amending in place.
Jeremy has run up to three Earthbox cycles back-to-back before needing to dump, clean, and reuse the soil elsewhere
ep 004
Jeremy's preferred ratios for the Take-and-Bake recipe: approximately 50% peat moss, 25% compost, 30% aeration (pumice + rice hulls). He notes this differs from the common baseline of 33/33/33 peat/compost/aeration — the ratios don't need to be exact.
'This recipe is closer to 50 percent peat 25 percent compost and 30 percent aeration. Those numbers don't matter I just want to give you some ballparks.'
ep 003
Wood (beetle-kill in BAS's case) that has been pyrolyzed — burned in the absence of oxygen — so that it turns into high-carbon charcoal with a porous structure that can hold nutrients and microbes. Raw biochar will steal nutrients from soil like a sponge; it must be pre-inoculated before use.
Jeremy adds 2–10% by volume; 2 gallons in a 70-gallon mix is about 3%.
ep 003
The microbial activity that mediates nutrient release from soil particles into a form the plant can uptake.
Jeremy says this interface requires moisture and warmth — without those, nutrients stay locked in the soil no matter how well-built it is.
ep 008
A US-sourced peat from a saltier crop with lower nutrition than Canadian sphagnum, which Jeremy does not recommend.
Jeremy calls it out as an inferior alternative: 'not as full of nutrition so I wouldn't recommend that'.
ep 009
BuildASoil's heavier fully-amended living soil blend — denser nutrient load than the Light mix. Used in the 3.0 recycled quadrant of the 10x10.
Jeremy says the 3.0 was stacked with cover crop running through it when recycled, so it was even more fertile than start, and the Halitosis #4 in it yielded lighter partly because of that nutrient profile and partly because of genetics.
ep 010, ep 030, ep 041
A lighter living soil recipe from BuildASoil designed for seedlings and young plants, used in plugs and small containers before up-potting into heavier mixes.
Jeremy scoops Light Mix into the one-gallon containers so the seedlings move into more of the same medium they rooted in rather than a richer blend.
ep 002, ep 021
BuildASoil's lighter mix — less loaded with nutrients than the 3.0 — used in one of the 10x10 quadrants and top dressed through the run.
Branson's #12 in the Light mix with top dress produced the biggest single-plant yield of the grow, and Jeremy imagines it would stack even more in other soils or with heavier feeding.
ep 041
A pre-measured living soil kit from BuildASoil — approximately 70 gallons / 9 cubic feet of finished soil — that contains every ingredient needed to make Jeremy's living soil recipe from scratch: peat moss, Earthy Mountain fish compost, pumice, rice hulls, biochar, worm castings, a pre-measured mineral kit, a pre-measured nutrient kit, Saponaria wetting agent, and Kashi blend.
Jeremy: 'everything that we put in here like literally everything the wetting agent the biochar it's all comes in the taken bait kit there's not one piece you're missing it's all properly weighed and measured.'
ep 003
Jeremy's preferred peat moss for his living soil recipe — sustainably and responsibly harvested from Canadian peat bogs but still earth-mined.
Considered premium over Pittmoss despite the sustainability tradeoff
ep 004
Jeremy's term for chopped-up cannabis fan leaves used as a mulch top layer on his own living soil — a home-made analogue of alfalfa meal made from the very plant being grown.
He chops defoliated leaves small so they break down faster and throws them straight into the Earth Box. He explicitly contradicts the old gardening-book warning that mulching a plant with its own leaves will carry disease — in his experience it is not an issue because it mirrors how nature recycles biomass.
ep 012
The balance between brown carbon material and green nitrogen material needed to drive compost formation.
Jeremy explains when the green cover crop is chopped it falls into the brown straw mulch and creates an on-top composting layer in place.
ep 007
The balance of carbon-rich to nitrogen-rich material in a compost pile. If the C:N ratio is right, the pile will go thermal even if moisture is slightly off.
Jeremy treats C:N as the primary driver of thermal activity, with moisture secondary.
ep 005
The nutrient absorption mechanism where positively-charged ions bind to negatively-charged clay and organic matter particles and exchange with plant roots.
Jeremy uses this to explain why watering in living soil is fundamentally different from hydro — nutrients must be biologically released, not just delivered in solution.
ep 008, ep 029
A class of LED grow light that packages one large LED emitter per fixture instead of hundreds of small diodes, producing intense point-source light.
Jeremy uses a 12-fixture 50W COB setup from Timber totaling 600W (rating over 700W) as the light in the EarthBox quadrant.
ep 001
A no-till technique where you cut plant material (cover crop, kale, spent flowers) with scissors and let it fall to the soil surface where it decomposes into the mulch layer.
Jeremy chop-and-drops the cover crop in Quadrant 4 around the kale and plans the same chop-and-drop for ending cover crops on the big beds before transplanting clones.
ep 007, ep 026, ep 029, ep 030, ep 031
A farmed grow medium made from coconut husk waste that must be rinsed for years to remove sodium before being graded, packed and shipped worldwide.
Jeremy argues coco is actually less sustainable than peat because it is farmed (possibly chemically), rinsed with fuel-intensive processing, and shipped halfway around the world.
ep 009
The principle that in a small pot, soil volume caps microbial capacity and therefore cannabis growth rate — microbes cannot keep pace with a fast-growing plant.
Core lesson in Brett's FAQ answer on growing in 3 to 5 gallon pots — soil functions have to keep up with cannabis and cannot in small pots.
ep 027
After mixing fresh soil, wait days to weeks then reach into the middle with your hand or a thermometer. If the middle is hot (above ~90F), the composting process is still active — don't plant in it yet. Mix the cool outer material into the hot middle and let it cool again. Below ~1 cubic yard the risk is low; above that or combining multiple kits makes hot spots more likely.
'If it's hot to the touch with your hand in the middle you probably don't want to use it yet.'
ep 003
The period after mixing fresh soil when the combined organic materials (peat + compost + amendments) host a responsive biology that breaks down carbon and nitrogen and can physically heat the pile. The mix is typically left to 'cook' for 1–2 weeks before planting.
Jeremy leaves this batch for 6 days before checking, notes you can let it go 2 weeks.
ep 003
A seed mix planted on the soil surface to put living roots in the ground, add nitrogen, shade the soil and provide chop-and-drop biomass for continual fertility.
Jeremy announces that in the next episode he'll sow cover crop into the 3x3 bed alongside installing the mulch layer so that the bed develops into a working ecosystem.
ep 002, ep 006, ep 007, ep 014, ep 025, ep 030
Growing a cover crop on spent soil between rounds, then cutting it down and leaving the residue in place to decompose and feed the soil biology.
Jeremy shows a used EarthBox with a chopped cover crop decomposing in the dark, loaded with mycelium and kept warm at the base to stimulate biological activity.
ep 001
Growing a cover crop in used soil, chopping it down when lush, then mixing it with dry amendments (Craft Blend, Kashi Blend) so worms and microbes decompose the green material into fresh castings in situ.
Jeremy says it took less than two weeks for the chopped cover crop plus amendments to turn back into soil in the used Earthbox
ep 004
The first green shoots of a cover crop breaking through the straw mulch layer on top of a living soil bed after seeding.
Jeremy is excited to see green popping through the straw only days after seeding and says 'in the next couple days this is going to start to turn green in here'.
ep 009
A low-growing cover crop (white dutch clover etc.) left in place under a cannabis canopy as a living mulch layer that shades the soil.
Jeremy says once the cannabis canopy fills out the cover crop won't stand a chance for light and will just become a living mulch. He is fine with that.
ep 010
The ideal structural texture of cooked living soil — chunks hold together like brownie pieces rather than falling apart like sand. Indicates correct moisture level and thriving biological activity. Jeremy uses crusting on the surface as a visual signal.
'It's creating like a crumb texture almost like a brownie... a chunk that stays together.'
ep 003
The volume of compost (3x3x3 feet, 27 cubic feet, about 200 gallons) at which you get enough microbial energy concentrated in one place for the pile to go thermal. Below this, piles do not go hot.
Jeremy's rule of thumb for whether a mix can go thermal.
ep 005
An eight-bar LED strip-style grow light that Jeremy describes as one of his favorites and runs over two quadrants of the tent.
Jeremy calls the Cypress 8 one of his favorite grow lights and uses it for both the 3x3 living soil bed and the 10-gallon recipe comparison.
ep 001
A no-fertilizer gardening approach popularised by Ruth Stout where thick layers of mulch constantly decay into the soil, providing all the fertility the plants need.
Jeremy references Ruth Stout's No Work Gardening book. She uses a soy meal feed but mainly relies on the mulch layer for fertility, the same way BuildASoil uses the decaying canopy leaves.
ep 010
A sub-irrigated planter with a water reservoir beneath the soil, where water wicks up to the root zone and the soil surface stays drier than the reservoir.
Jeremy points out that the soil in the earth box never really gets dry because the reservoir is open to the air and the plants are drinking from below, so it acts differently than the other containers and can confuse you if you are comparing plant drink rates.
ep 010, ep 014, ep 018, ep 022, ep 025, ep 026
A self-watering sub-irrigation container repurposed for no-till living soil cannabis growing.
Jeremy runs two Earth Boxes — one recycled no-till, one fresh — and is top dressing them with mounded Build-A-Flower on one side since feeder roots spread throughout.
ep 017
A sub-irrigated container growing system Jeremy plans to set up from scratch in quadrant one of the tent in an upcoming episode.
Jeremy teases 'how to set up your Earth Box from scratch' as an upcoming video and says logistics need sorting first.
ep 009
An Earth Box is effectively a hybrid of hydro and living soil: nutrients ride on top where feeder roots and worms work, while clean water lives in the reservoir below where water roots drink unforced.
Jeremy contrasts this with a normal living soil bed where watering through a top-dress forces plants to drink nutrient-laden runoff. In an Earth Box the water and nutrient zones are physically separated so the plant controls uptake.
ep 012
The bottom reservoir of a sub-irrigated earth box planter that holds water for the plants to wick up, typically refilled through a fill tube.
Jeremy shows the lettuce earth box whose reservoir he has only refilled twice in fourteen days, with the lettuce heads now almost growing over it.
ep 002
A failure mode where the capillary wicking in an EarthBox is disrupted and the top layer no longer receives moisture from the reservoir.
Jeremy diagnoses the recycled box as having broken its wick and plans to top water to reconnect it.
ep 030
A self-watering container with a bottom reservoir, a wicking system, a fill tube, and a plastic cover with a mulch strip. The plant feeds from the top layer and drinks water from below via capillary action.
Jeremy uses EarthBoxes throughout the 10x10 for lettuce and cannabis, calls them 'so easy' for home vegetable production, and mentions he will set up a brand-new EarthBox from scratch in a coming episode.
ep 001, ep 004, ep 006, ep 029
The wicking column in an EarthBox that moves water from the reservoir up to the root zone. If it breaks, the top can stay drier than the bottom.
Jeremy notes the recycled box lost its wicking connection and that he needs to top water to restore it.
ep 030
The dark, humic-rich hardwood compost used as the compost component of the BAS Take-and-Bake recipe. Made by a hardwood milling company as a by-product; hardwood takes years to break down, so whole fish from Alaska and some yard waste are added to accelerate decomposition.
Jeremy: 'it'll stain your hands black it's so rich in humic acid.'
ep 003
Two functional classes of roots Jeremy invokes for the Earth Box system — feeder roots explore the nutrient-rich top layer of castings and amendments, while water roots live deeper in the reservoir to pull clean water.
This separation is why Jeremy says an Earth Box lets you 'go wild' on top-dressing fertility without burning the plant — the plant can drink unforced from the reservoir.
ep 001, ep 010, ep 012
The vertical pipe on the corner of an EarthBox that delivers water directly to the bottom reservoir.
Jeremy says he could gamble and pour liquid fish straight in the fill tube but does not because fish could stagnate and go bacterially weird in the reservoir.
ep 029
Jeremy's nickname for quadrant 4 of the 10x10, planted with continuous-harvest edibles rather than cannabis.
Quadrant 4 houses tomatoes, kale, claytonia, and other salad crops — an ongoing food supply separate from the cannabis trial.
ep 006
The interconnected system of microbes, worms, predators, and prey in a living soil where no single species dominates because they are all eating and feeding each other.
The key Jeremy gives for preventing pest outbreaks
ep 004
Dividing the 10x10 tent into four distinct test areas so that containers, soil recipes, and techniques can be run side by side under the same environment.
Jeremy structures the whole season around four quadrants: two EarthBoxes, a 3x3 Grassroots bed, a 10-gallon recipe comparison, and an indoor food area.
ep 001
When a soil recipe has too much nitrogen or too much reactive carbon/decomposing material, creating a nutrient imbalance that can burn or lock out plants.
Jeremy says the Pittmoss Koots mix went hot due to extra carbon in recycled paper stealing nitrogen
ep 004
A fabric raised bed from Grassroots Fabric Pots measuring 3 feet by 3 feet and 1.5 feet deep, holding approximately 11 cubic feet of soil.
Jeremy unfolds a Grassroots 3x3 bed to host the no-till living soil experiment in Quadrant 2.
ep 001
A class of dark-colored, carbon-rich organic compounds produced by the decomposition of organic matter. Humic-rich composts (like Earthy Mountain fish compost) stain hands black and are prized for their ability to hold and deliver nutrients to plants.
Jeremy uses 'humic rich' repeatedly as a quality marker for both compost and worm castings.
ep 003
Hydroponics force-feeds specific nutrient solutions to produce maximum yield in minimum container size; living soil instead steers the environment and lets the biology feed the plant at its own rate.
Jeremy contrasts the two throughout the episode — in hydro you force-feed, in living soil you have to 'ask' the biology and steward the environment.
ep 011
Expanded clay pebbles used as an inert, free-draining hydroponic growing medium.
Named as the media in AJ's old hydrofarm drip buckets.
ep 025
A programmable, networked power strip capable of switching individual outlets on schedules or via app control, used to automate lights, humidifier and fans.
Jeremy points out the small intelligent power strip at the top of the tent running the lights, humidifier and fans, and previews automation content using timers, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi products.
ep 001
A mixing technique where each ingredient is dumped as a layer (like a lasagna or seven-layer dip) in the mixing vessel before any stirring, so when you finally mix everything with your hands, the trace ingredients (minerals, nutrients) are already distributed across the whole volume and fold in evenly.
Jeremy's signature hand-mixing technique for the Take-and-Bake recipe.
ep 003
A no-till surface rebuild technique where you continuously stack fresh top dress layers (amendment, mulch, castings) on top of the existing mulch layer without mixing anything in.
Jeremy uses the term for the Quadrant 3 top dress — keeping the lasagna stacking going even after the previous mulch layer has been eaten by worms and feeder roots.
ep 029
A peat moss alternative made by bagging or piling up browned fallen tree leaves for around two years until they turn into black humic material.
Jeremy says it is common in Europe but unavailable in the US as a commercial product, and his tests of the few available sources were 'not very good'.
ep 009
Jeremy's core watering philosophy: it is always possible to come back tomorrow and add more water, but you cannot un-water an overwatered soil. Overwatering drowns the biology, removes oxygen, and can turn the mix anaerobic. Always err on the dry side.
'With moistening the rule is less is more. I can always come back tomorrow and add a little more water; what I can't do is come squeeze this like a sponge if I over water it.'
ep 003
A BuildASoil soil recipe tier — their lowest-nutrition but most-balanced mix, used in Jeremy's 10-gallon containers.
He says the plants like the light recipe but it will run out of food in only 7.5 gallons of soil, which is why he is top-dressing Craft Blend before flower.
ep 014
A layer of organic material such as spent mushroom block straw placed on top of the soil to retain moisture, shelter beneficial predators and feed soil biology.
Jeremy uses Pohu blue oyster mushroom blocks that are already pasteurized and full of white mycelium, which adds fungal diversity, stays moist and is not dusty in the grow room.
ep 002
The water/nutrient reservoir beneath the Earthbox soil that eventually accumulates dead roots and spent soil after multiple cycles.
Cleanable with EM-1 after many cycles
ep 004
A soil medium kept alive by biology (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worm castings, pre-inoculated biochar) rather than by chemical inputs. The key to keeping living soil alive is growing plants in it continually.
Jeremy contrasts living soil with hydro throughout this episode to explain why flushing is a hydro-only concept. In living soil the plant stops demanding nutrients on its own accord when it begins senescing.
ep 001, ep 003, ep 007, ep 008, ep 025, ep 037
A BuildASoil soil recipe described as the highest water-holding mix, containing 33 percent compost, some of which includes hardwood.
Jeremy's overwatered problem plant is in a Lo Ali container — he cautions that with a 33% compost mix containing hardwood you really cannot overwater.
ep 017
A BuildASoil recipe built around Malibu compost and Oldy Mountain fish compost; darker and more humic rich.
Jeremy notes it is darker in color from the fish and hardwood, making it more humic rich 'right away' — the compost takes two years to make.
ep 010
A variant of no-till where you still dig a small hole to plant a new clone next to the old stalk, so there is some minor disturbance but no re-mixing of the root zone.
Jeremy says some people call his method low till because he still digs a beer-cup-sized hole to transplant the next clone.
ep 029
Purpose-built eyewear that filters the intense broad spectrum light of LED fixtures so growers can see natural colors and work safely under the canopy.
Jeremy puts on the most affordable Method Seven LED full-spectrum pair to inspect the lights and says they really make a difference on the eyes.
ep 001
A protective top layer of carbon-rich organic material (straw, wood chips, leaves, spent mushroom substrate) laid on the living soil surface to insulate soil, retain moisture, house beneficial biology and slowly decompose into new compost.
Jeremy describes the mulch layer as doing three jobs at once: protecting the soil surface from powerful lights and wind, providing a protected home for predator mites, rove beetles, and red wigglers, and decomposing into future compost. It's the final step in finishing a living-soil bed.
ep 006, ep 007, ep 008, ep 015, ep 017, ep 020
The plastic cover over the top of an EarthBox with a hole cut for the plant — acts as a mulch layer and prevents evaporation.
Jeremy lifts the plastic mulch strip back to top-water and top-dress, then covers it again.
ep 029
Soaking an already-harvested mushroom log in water to trigger another fruiting flush.
Jeremy points at a mushroom log in quadrant two that has already produced one harvest and says he will soak it to chase another flush.
ep 012
A dedicated tent for growing mushrooms alongside cannabis production, cycling organic matter and expanding the farm's biology.
Floated as a deep-rabbit-hole side project potentially funded by the YouTube membership tier — better suited to winter because of the heat.
ep 042
The web of fungal hyphae running through soil, connecting plants and moving nutrients and signals across the root zone.
Moocow asks if it is worth establishing one in no-till — host says yes, it is the whole point, and lists biological inputs that help.
ep 027
The thread-like vegetative body of fungi. White mycelium fuzz visible on the soil surface during the cook period is a strong indicator that beneficials from inoculants and quality compost are alive and breaking down amendments. Jeremy uses it as a visual readiness signal.
'When the moisture is right you see this growth on here even in the daylight normally this white growth only occurs like in the shade.'
ep 003
Networks of fungi that form symbiotic relationships with plant roots, exchanging nutrients and water for sugars.
Host says preserving these is the core reason for no-till and that disrupting soil wrecks them.
ep 027
The living soil practice of always keeping the soil surface covered with mulch, cover crop or living plants to protect biology from light and wind.
Jeremy says light and wind eat bare soil up and make it devoid of biology. He mulches the neglected quadrant four on camera to walk the walk.
ep 002
A cultivation philosophy where soil structure and the soil food web are preserved by not tilling between plantings, reusing the same bed round after round with cover crops, top dressing, and chop-and-drop regeneration.
Jeremy calls a 3x3 Grassroots fabric bed with 11 cubic feet of soil the end goal of no-till, while acknowledging it is not feasible for renters or apartment dwellers.
ep 001, ep 007, ep 024, ep 027, ep 029
A permanent soil container where the soil is not turned or remixed between cycles — you plant directly into the living soil, mulch the top, and let biology cycle nutrients. The context for all of Jeremy's answers about worms, flushing, and bed sizing.
Assumed background for every answer in this FAQ.
ep 005
The principle that each grow cycle should use only about 50 percent of the soil's total nutrient energy, leaving the rest as baseline so you never have to restart from zero.
Jeremy says keeping no-till going back to back in small 5-gallon containers is hard specifically because you deplete toward zero.
ep 020
A growing style in which the same soil bed is reused cycle after cycle without disturbance, fed via top dresses, mulch, and cover crops so the biology stays alive between grows.
Jeremy contrasts no-till living soil with hydro, pointing out you can leave town with living soil because there is no pH and no feed adjustment, while in hydro a sitter will get it wrong.
ep 015, ep 018, ep 019, ep 020, ep 022
The second-cycle process of taking a soil test on a used no-till bed and re-applying amendments as a top dress to restore it for another cycle without disturbing the soil.
The Season 2 3x3 Branson's Royal Revenge bed will be the teaching vehicle for this — full soil test then top re-amend.
ep 042
Straw heated to a temperature that kills weed seed and pathogens without sterilizing the beneficial biology.
Jeremy says you don't strictly need pasteurized straw but it prevents seed germination inside your indoor mulch and eliminates potential pests.
ep 007
The primary base of the BAS living soil recipe — approximately 50% by volume. Sourced fresh from Canada, pre-fluffed through BAS's peat-fluffing machine. Jeremy prefers peat over coco coir for multiple sustainability and shipping reasons.
Jeremy describes it as 'basically like a fossilized forest' and defends its sustainability using Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association data of less than two percent mined over decades.
ep 003, ep 009
Seed coated in a soil or clay pellet to increase size, improve handling and make it easier to spread evenly, especially on farm scale.
Jeremy notes the white dutch clover is pelleted, which is why it is easier to sprinkle with his fingers onto the one-gallon pots.
ep 002
An industrially-puffed volcanic glass commonly used as aeration in potting mixes; lightweight and cheap to ship but floats and breaks down over time.
Jeremy rejects perlite for no-till because it floats to the top of the bed and breaks down, so it is not a permanent solution for reused soil.
ep 007
A design rule from permaculture — here, the principle that nature fills empty niches — applied to indoor living soil ecosystems.
Jeremy invokes this to justify applying beneficials even though they'd eventually show up on their own.
ep 019
The pH inside the growing medium, which is set by the soil recipe and the order of nutrients, not primarily by the pH of the water going in. Microbiology also drives it.
Jeremy: soil pH is what matters, not water pH; a good recipe sets it correctly.
ep 005
A recycled-paper-based peat moss alternative that Jeremy first saw on Shark Tank and later tested in a side-by-side Koots mix 4x4 grow.
Went hot in Jeremy's normal recipe because recycled paper carbon stole nitrogen; also contains soy ink from GMO farms
ep 004
The reusable food-grade plastic sheet that comes with each Earth Box and bungees over the top to lock in moisture and stop evaporation.
Jeremy was initially put off by 'plastic mulch' but says his years-old covers hold up to Colorado altitude UV and allow him to mound compost and nutrients high underneath the cover.
ep 010
Small white enchytraeid worms common in living soil — a sign of biological activity.
Jeremy sees pot worms under the Kashi layer from last time, confirming the soil is alive.
ep 017
A nutrient imbalance in small living soil containers where heavy compost use pushes the NPK ratio toward potassium, potentially shortchanging calcium and phosphorus demand in flower.
Jeremy explains this as the reason BuildABloom exists — to hit calcium and phosphorus in smaller containers where compost can skew things to potassium.
ep 024
Biochar that has been pre-loaded with microbes (BAS uses Roots Organics Microbe Complete / 'root wise microbe complete'), organic amino acids, and nitrogen so that when added to soil it donates nutrients to the plant instead of absorbing them.
Critical warning: raw biochar in soil will absorb nutrients away from plants.
ep 003
Natural volcanic rock used as the primary long-term aeration amendment in BAS living soil. BAS uses a 3/8-by-1/4 grade (clean, without sand fines), sourced from New Mexico, food/beauty industry grade, heavy-metal tested. Unlike perlite, pumice does not float to the top and stays in the soil forever.
Jeremy shows the pumice in the mix and calls out it's 'real soil' — a rock, not obsidian popped like popcorn.
ep 003, ep 007
The process of heating wood without the presence of oxygen to produce biochar. The absence of oxygen means the wood doesn't combust; instead it converts to high-carbon charcoal.
Jeremy: 'they basically burn it but without the presence of air and so it pyrolysizes it turns it into like a charcoal.'
ep 003
One of four sections of the 10x10 tent, each hosting a different container format (3x3 fabric bed, Earthboxes, 10 gallon pots, vegetable racks) to demonstrate different living soil approaches side by side.
Jeremy walks the viewer through each quadrant in turn — quadrant one hosts the Earth Boxes and seedling racks, quadrant three has the one-cubic-foot bags, quadrant four hosts tomatoes and peppers.
ep 004, ep 011, ep 022, ep 026, ep 027, ep 042
One of four sections the 10x10 tent is divided into — Jeremy has quadrant one and quadrant two for cannabis beds in this project.
Jeremy walks through quadrant one (overgrown with males, cucumbers, seed starts) and quadrant two (cover crop emerging).
ep 009
The 10x10 setup divides the tent into four quadrants with different soil/container strategies for side-by-side learning.
AJ walks quadrant one (earth boxes), quadrant three (10 gallon containers), and quadrant four (vegetables and companions).
ep 025
The 10x10 tent is divided into four grow sections — quadrant one and two are Earth Boxes, quadrant three is the three-by-three flowering bed, quadrant four is the companion vegetable area.
Q1 earth boxes, Q2 10-gallon fabric containers, Q3 3x3 take-and-bake bed, Q4 vegetables. Jeremy walks each in sequence.
ep 014, ep 028, ep 035
BuildASoil's layout convention for the 10x10 tent, dividing it into four quadrants each with its own container type and purpose.
Jeremy references Q1 (two EarthBoxes, two females), Q2 (3x3 Grassroots bed, four females), Q3 (10-gallon containers, one plant per recipe), Q4 (food jungle — tomatoes, kale, claytonia, lettuce).
ep 006
The process of adding fresh amendments to used living soil between grow cycles to replenish nutrients without rebuilding the entire soil.
Kelp top-dress is one example of a re-amend step
ep 004
An Earth Box that was previously run (here with a Max Stomper cycle), cover cropped, rebuilt, and returned to service rather than loaded with fresh mix.
Jeremy points out that the recycled Earth Box is already alive with worms, castings and moisture, and needs nothing done to it today, while the new 3.0 box needs to be fed and watered up for the first time.
ep 012, ep 020
An EarthBox that has had its soil reused from a prior grow rather than filled with a fresh batch. Often does better in the long run if correctly amended.
Jeremy compares a recycled Halitosis EarthBox to a fresh 3.0 box. The recycled box was slower early because its moisture connection was broken but has more nutrition and darker leaves later in flower.
ep 030
The original ICMag-era practice of dumping used soil out onto a tarp, re-amending it with new inputs, and putting it back into containers — starting from square one every cycle.
Jeremy contrasts this with no-till, which does not dump and re-mix — the community evolved away from recycled toward true no-till.
ep 014, ep 025, ep 029
Eisenia fetida — composting worms used in vermiculture and in living-soil beds to process organic matter and amendments in place.
Jeremy plans to transfer red wigglers from the store's worm bin into the 3x3 bed so they can process top-dressed amendments and feed the plants from beneath the mulch.
ep 006
The bottom water-holding chamber of an EarthBox, filled through a fill tube, from which water wicks up into the soil.
Jeremy's big plants are going through the full reservoir every day like clockwork — that's the signal that he can safely top-water food without over-watering.
ep 029
Letting the sub-irrigation reservoir of an Earth Box run completely dry before refilling.
Jeremy intentionally let the reservoir drain Saturday-to-Monday after seeing irregular growth — the new growth improved so he plans to refill tomorrow.
ep 017
The seed shells of rice — parboiled so nothing germinates, organic certified, heavy-metal tested. Made mostly of silica, so they behave more like glass/rock than organic matter. Used as a secondary aeration amendment that also supplies silica, which the plant needs for good yield and trichome production. Rice hulls eventually break down (pumice does not).
Kit provides 1 cubic foot.
ep 003
A spun basalt fibre inert substrate commonly used as starter cubes and slab medium in hydroponic and drip systems.
Listed among AJ's past hydro experiences alongside coco and drip.
ep 025
The process of running a no-till living-soil bed through a second grow cycle using soil testing and top-dress re-amends instead of replacing medium.
The 3x3 bed's Season 2 storyline — teaching viewers exactly how to approach the second cycle of a living-soil bed.
ep 042
A container like the EarthBox that holds a water reservoir under a tray of soil, allowing moisture to wick up through the root zone while the grower waters only through a fill tube.
Jeremy calls the EarthBox a powerhouse because deep water roots drink pure water while feeder roots at the top eat the compost and organic amendments, and the wicking takes the hardest part of gardening out of the grower's hands.
ep 001
The glass-like mineral that rice hulls are made almost entirely of. Provides both aeration and a silica source that cannabis plants need for good yield and trichome ('trico') production.
'These are made mostly from silica so it's not like straw it's actually like glass almost... we also need silica in our soil for good yield and to make trico all the stuff we want.'
ep 003
The ground-temperature threshold Jeremy waits for before putting tomatoes and other long-season crops out into the greenhouse beds.
Mentioned in the greenhouse intro as the reason tomatoes are only now going out.
ep 012
A lab analysis of a used living-soil bed to measure remaining nutrients and guide the re-amend for the next cycle.
Jeremy commits to taking a soil test on the 3x3 bed and sharing the actual data with viewers.
ep 042
Sourdough bread baking used as a hands-on analogue for cultivating microbial life — same fermentation, same observation skills.
Jeremy recommends sourdough to soil growers because it teaches the biology of fermentation and microbial culture.
ep 007
Certified-organic straw that has been pre-pasteurized and then used to grow gourmet mushrooms — sold on after harvest as a mycelium-rich mulch material.
This is the BAS-preferred indoor mulch: grown on an organic mushroom farm, the waste block becomes the mulch and kills pathogens and weed seed during pasteurization.
ep 007
A simple moisture check: wait ~30 minutes after watering, reach into the soil, grab a handful, and squeeze. You should get at most a drop of water. If it gushes like a wet towel, it's too wet.
'30 minutes later you should be able to squeeze it and almost barely get a drop of water to come out.'
ep 003
Framing the grower as a gardener-in-partnership with soil biology (worms doing the work) rather than a lab-coat controller of every variable.
Jeremy offers this as the mental-model contrast to the hydroponic 'playing god' approach.
ep 008
Long-term storage technique for unused living soil: keep out of direct sun, don't let it go bone dry, don't seal airtight (put it in a tub with holes in the lid, a loose lid, or the fabric pot itself). To revive after storage, re-moisten, grow plants in it, and re-inoculate with Kashi blend and Roots Organics Microbe Complete.
'Don't seal it up tight it'd be better if it breathed — poke some holes in the lid leave the lid cockeyed.'
ep 003
A layer of straw over the soil surface that protects moisture, provides habitat for worms, and slowly decays into organic matter.
Jeremy pulls straw back to dig the transplant hole and replaces it afterwards. It doubles as a humidity trap around fresh transplants.
ep 010
A straw layer placed on top of a living soil bed after cover crop seeding to retain moisture, buffer humidity and protect the soil life.
Jeremy planted the cover crop and mulched in the last episode and now sees cover crop popping through the straw.
ep 009
BuildASoil's beginner-friendly soil kit — a bagged mix delivered complete so the grower just adds water. Jeremy plans to re-amend it as a no-till bed for Season Two.
Jeremy ran Take and Bake in the 3x3 quadrant for Season One and notes that initial soil testing and stem colour suggested he can add one ingredient to soup it up slightly without changing the cost.
ep 007, ep 010, ep 017, ep 028, ep 029, ep 041
A BuildASoil soil recipe tier — Jeremy mentions one of his plants 'loves the take and bake recipe' as its growing medium.
Jeremy calls out that the soil in the 3x3 bed is the Take and Bake recipe, made from scratch in a 100-gallon pot and carried into the tent by hand in the previous episode.
ep 006, ep 014
BuildASoil's ready-to-use living soil blend used as the base for the 10x10 beds (implied context across the series).
Implied context — Jeremy's beds are filled with the living soil ecosystem he built in earlier episodes.
ep 009
A BuildASoil soil kit designed to be assembled and cooked before use. One kit is about 9 cubic feet (below the 1 cubic yard thermal threshold), so it will not go hot on you regardless of moisture.
Jeremy recommends it as the perfect soil for small spaces and autoflowers, and explicitly says three kits combined (27 cubic feet / 1 yard) could go thermal.
ep 004, ep 005
BuildASoil's super easy-to-steer starter soil blend — worm castings and compost with no heavy nutrient loading, designed to be topped up as needed.
Jeremy says it was not heavy on phosphorus and they deliberately did not load anything up because they wanted it 'super easy to steer' — so he plans to add Koboko for P and K in late flower.
ep 031
Hot-composted material that has reached high enough temperatures to break down inputs thoroughly, used as a feedstock for the worm bin.
Jeremy describes Colorado Worm Company's process: 'they make thermal compost they take that thermal compost they feed it to the worms the worms work it'.
ep 031
A compost pile that generates enough internal heat from microbial activity to rise well above ambient temperature. Requires proper C:N ratio and, critically, enough material in one place — about 1 cubic yard.
Jeremy's threshold: 1 cubic yard = 3x3x3 ft = about 200 gallons = 27 cubic feet.
ep 005
A 3-foot by 3-foot raised fabric grow bed, typically from Grassroots Fabric Pots, sized to fit inside a 3x3 tent.
Jeremy cautions that a 3x3 fabric bed is not actually 36 inches — like lumber, the nominal size is not the actual measurement. Grassroots sizes it slightly shorter so it fits inside a 3x3 tent.
ep 006
A 3ft x 3ft bed section inside the 10x10 — one of the room's four growing quadrants.
Jeremy refers to Halitosis number 8 as 'up front in the three by three' and number 2 as 'the back halitosis in the back of the three by three.'
ep 035
Cutting off a cover crop or finished vegetable plant and dropping the biomass in place as mulch, then replanting into the same bed without remixing soil.
Host checks a section topped and dropped 8 days ago (mostly lettuce) and says it is safe to replant today because the biomass is small enough not to heat up.
ep 027
Rule of thumb for pre-moistening living soil before transplant — add roughly 5% of the soil volume as water.
Jeremy says 7.5 gallons of soil times 10% is about 3/4 gallon, so 5% is about a third of a gallon — his target for each 7.5 gallon container.
ep 010
A specific family of high-powered chip-on-board LEDs (Bridgelux Vero series) used in DIY grow light builds.
Jeremy describes a DIY 100W Vero COB fixture he built for his garage and brought into the food quadrant of the 10x10.
ep 001
A hand-mixing technique where you mound soil from the container sides toward the middle like a volcano, which drops material through the center and exposes new pockets for mixing. Jeremy alternates this with reaching all the way to the bottom to make a central hole.
How Jeremy hand-mixes 70 gallons in a 100-gallon fabric pot.
ep 003
The amount of soil supporting each square foot of canopy — larger volumes buffer watering mistakes and produce better no-till results.
Jeremy says for every 4x4 or 5x5 area, the most soil in that area will do better than the least, and is easier to grow in.
ep 030
The vertical fill tube on an EarthBox that lets you add water directly to the sub-irrigation reservoir.
Jeremy notes the lettuce overgrew so much that the water fill tubes became hard to access, which contributed to the EarthBox running out of water while he was away for the weekend.
ep 006
A no-till living-soil setup where only water is added throughout the grow — no additional liquid feeds or supplements.
Host says this is only realistic in a 30 gallon or similar large container; a 5 gallon will not have the reserves and will require liquid supplements like Blue Gold or Organics Alive.
ep 027
A soil recipe so fully amended that the grower only adds water for the life of the plant, with no supplemental bottled nutrients.
AJ says believe it or not his very first grow ever was in soil and it was water only.
ep 025
Straw marketed as containing no viable weed seed — typically achieved by spraying the source crop with glyphosate (Roundup).
Jeremy explicitly warns against this product — the absence of weeds is a red flag for Roundup contamination.
ep 007
The ability of a dry organic medium to re-absorb water and cycle nutrients — when wetability breaks, water runs through without rehydrating the soil or moving nutrients to roots.
Jeremy says this EarthBox's wetability broke from drinking water too fast, which is why the top of the plant is going slightly yellow — top-watering with a food solution rescues it.
ep 029
A low-growing nitrogen-fixing clover commonly used as a living cover crop in no-till and living soil systems because it stays short and does not shade out the main crop.
Jeremy praises it for one-gallons because it stays small and does not compete with the cannabis plant. The seed is pelleted for easier handling and if overdone it turns into a seed meal that fertilises the soil.
ep 002, ep 010
The two corner cutouts in the Earth Box screen where packed soil contacts the reservoir water directly, drawing moisture up into the root zone by capillary action.
Jeremy packs both wick corners tightly by hand with 3.0 soil and pre-moistens them so the capillary connection survives first watering.
ep 010
A container or system that houses composting worms to convert organic matter into worm castings — Jeremy uses a basic fabric pot setup in his garage.
Jeremy mentions the worm bin in the BuildASoil store is what they use to recycle organic waste — including harvest trim from the EarthBox lettuces — and it also supplies the red wigglers going into the 3x3 bed.
ep 006, ep 014
Earthworm colony that builds up naturally in recycled no-till soil, visible as fast-moving worms in the top layer.
Jeremy points out a building worm population in his recycled Earthbox soil as one of the payoffs of going no-till.
ep 019
The principle of adding a small handful of worms to a bed and letting them multiply to the population the bed can support, rather than adding pounds of worms and creating an over-populated worm bin.
Jeremy's preferred approach over the 'pounds of worms' method he has heard others recommend.
ep 005