Hey Jon
.
First I have a question for you. Who won the grow-off?
Ok there are multiple things that could occur here.
One thing is that the crap ingredients may never collectively create a mix that comes into a friendly PH zone. You for the most part need calcium to be a buffer so if the crap mix has adequate calcium it becomes far less crappy.
Another is that whatever the mix is, it requires microbes and fungii to break it down. Plants don't eat ammendments, microbes do (composting), and the plants eat the microbe poo, so if it isn't a good enough mix to create nutritious poo then the plants don't get nutritious food.
Carbs and proteins - humans need approximately 2 carbs to every 1 protein. So do plants. In plants these are called browns and greens.
So to compost you need lots of carbon (browns) compared to your meals (greens) to end up with a mix that will cook properly.
Then there is minerals. You need them for cellular function.
So if you have adequate calcium the electrical charge in the soil becomes conduscive to good microbial life, as calcium is a strong electrolyte and microbes run on electricity. The carbon they eat leaves it's shell of the carbon molecule behind which forms humus aka humate. It's like a microscopic piece of perlite in shape. It has a massive surface area for its size. And it's pure carbon so it conducts electricity.
When calcium is correct the magnetic charge in that piece of humus (think static electricity here) attracts things. It attracts cations. So lets say it has room to hold 100 cations. If about 70 are calcium, and about 20 are magnesium, the static charge remaining in that humate will pull in other cations.
Ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium,sodium, aluminum and hydrogen are your cations.
So now we only have 10 spots left.
Cations are positively charged so every time the humate attracts another the charge becomes more positive on it's way to neutral. At pure neutral it will fall apart.
So a few potassium jump on, some ammonium and a sodium. Now lets say 3 spots are left. Hydrogen jumps on.
Hydrogen is quirky. It is neutral in charge but has the ability to flip from slightly negative to slightly positive any time it wants.
So when the humate is full, all the pieces should be stuck to it but hovering slightly just as 2 magnets will either stick together, or when reversed they will repel.
So if Calcium and magnesium in combination set the base charge of the humate, and a bunch more attract, and they are all stuck by magnetism, lockout has occurred, but if hydrogen hops onto the last few spots and flip-flops it's charge just right, they hover, but don't fall off, and the plant can easily pull them off as needed.
When 1 gets pulled off the charge of the particle changes and another gets pulled on by magnetism.
This is called CEC. Cation exchange capacity.
The hydrogen that regulates and fine tunes the charge IS your PH.
So if the crappy soil never has enough to create this system, you end up with a very low CEC or more to the point, unbalanced and too much hydrogen jumps on giving you a low PH and lockout occurs. So theres that.
Then there is microbe/fungii health. If the crappy soil can't fulfill a healthy diet, and the soil isn't healthily charged with the right amount of electricity, microbes become unhealthy from the poor diet and sluggish from low electricity. Less poop and poor quality.
Crappy soil isn't really crappy, it's unbalanced.
So if you build a balanced soil as far as carbs and proteins are concerned, to properly compost, add the correct amount of calcium and magnesium to fix the CEC platters, and have the correct minerals to flow across the platters (platters=humates, humus), You are off and running.
The carbs and proteins now become vital. They bring in all the minerals and nutrition and such, so crappy carbs and proteins break down into crappy unbalanced soil, and quality carbs and proteins break down into healthy balanced soil ingredients.
That creates the food.
Now if you take some foodless compacted dirt, add some calcium and magnesium to it, it will fluff up by electricicty. That is tilth.
Soil particles are like plates stacked in the cupboard. When stacked, 12 plates may be 12" tall. When calcium/magnesium are correct, the magnetic charge gets just right and like magnets turned over that repel from each other, every 2nd plate will stand on edge. Those 12 plates are now 12 feet tall. All that space created by every second plate standing on edge is tilth. Air and water and microbiology move in it like hallways in a skyscraper. This is called soil conditioning.
So you need soil that supplies good food to run a proper CEC, and provide conditioning to create tilth. Then you add organic matter to be eaten so as the CEC moves supplies to the plant it can be replaced.
So the end result is if crappy soil has some nutrition in it but isn't conditioned to form hallways and a healthy CEC, you get compacted airless soil and lockout, and that limited nutrition can't be properly attached to an oxygen molecule to be recognized as food, and your cations are locked to the platters. Even if there is some food in the crappy soil it is unrecognizable as it isn't attached to oxygen, or it's locked out.
So thats how nutrition works, and how hydrogen effects PH. You need both to be correct. It all runs on electricity, which also conditions the soil.
They look great. You spoiled SoCal folks. We just had a nasty hail storm. I just got my tomatoes inside in the nick of time. I can't wait to see those Gals in September
. Thats why I wanted you to poke in at least 5 spots. 
