Good plan.... all you need you can source locally and get the Amendment mix and the mineral mix from BAS/KIS. The only thing you need then is:
CSPM
Per-lite
Humus (compost - lots of good choices in bags locally - Coast of Main on east coast and Malibu compost - west coast). If you have your own compost pile that's the best. Can add all your amendments into the compost bin. When the compost is finished, thats your humus portion. Plants go wild.
Mycos
Hardest part is mixing and the moving containers. Most grow in soft bags with handles for easy move around. I'm still a hold out for hard pots.
Soil grows are kinda boring until they aren't. I'll be flowering till next summer starting here in a few weeks. Once that happens then it gets exciting with lots of eye candy. Wish I had Smell-a-Vision to go with.
It's easy to mix your own there are only a few amendments. I've been mixing my own since we were working on the final mix on another website (GC) way back. Jeremy from BAS was there with us growing just like we were/are.
At BAS he's got a few options. Can get the classic Coots mix or a slightly different mix (amendments are a little bit different). Either will work and it's easy to source everything in 1 place.
BAS has many options with free ship which is nice.
KIS is good, very good actually. You have to specifically know what to look for on that website tho... neither website is actually very intuitive IMHO.
If you need help hit me up... been doing Coots style for a long time.
It's pretty simple really because very few inputs. Emphasis is on quality compost/humus.
I'm actually more interested in the composting we do. Something we work on every day. So it's part of our life, as is growing plants but the composting is where we are doing the most work.
For example, we have a bamboo patch. It needs maintenance every so often. Thin out the patch, make new stakes for plants and put all the bamboo leaves in the compost bins, then the leftover bamboo shoots we cut up and burn, then put those ashes in the compost bin. I actually enjoy doing that and in the spring, when I open the bins - black gold is right there! I can put a price on my weed, but I cant do that with our compost. It's stayin right here.
