Source: this article summarises, in our own words, the simplified entry mix described by The Rev in True Living Organics (Green Candy Press; 1st edition 2012, 2nd edition 2016, 3rd “Druid’s Edition” 2024). Quantities may differ between editions, so check the one you own. Figures marked “our working estimate” are ours, not the book’s.
The full True Living Organics (TLO) system uses a long amendment list, a month of curing, a worm bin and a compost tumbler. That is a reasonable investment once you are committed to the method. It is a strange first step if you only want to find out whether the method suits you. The book also gives a simplified entry recipe: four ingredients, mixed and used the same day, with no curing and no special equipment. It yields less than the full system and needs bigger pots to make up for it. It is still the right place to start.
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1. Who this is for
The minimal recipe is the right choice, not a compromise, in three situations:
- You are trying living soil for the first time and do not want to buy a long list of amendments and wait a month before you can plant.
- You are working in a small indoor space with no room for a curing bin, a tumbler or a worm farm.
- You want to compare living soil with your current method without changing everything at once.
The author is clear about what you give up. This mix does not produce huge yields, but it gives good quality and reasonable yields, provided you use larger pots than the full recipe needs. A less concentrated soil needs more volume to hold the same total fertility.
2. The recipe
| Ingredient | Parts | Approximate volume |
|---|---|---|
| High-quality organic bagged soil | 3 | ~85 L |
| High-quality worm castings | 1 | ~28 L |
| Perlite (50/50 perlite/vermiculite recommended) | 2 | ~57 L |
| Coco coir, soaked and rinsed | 1 | ~28 L |
| Total | 7 | ~198 L |
Here 1 part is about 28 L. For a smaller batch, keep the ratios and use a smaller part. At 5 L per part, for example, the batch is 35 L.
Substitution: if you cannot get coco coir, use one more part of organic soil. In Southeast Asia you will rarely need to, because coir is cheap and widely produced.
Optional addition: a small amount of greensand (about 240 mL in the book’s version), added without curing.
Preparation: mix thoroughly and moisten evenly to moderate dampness. No curing is needed. Use the mix the same day.
3. Why these four ingredients
Bagged organic soil is the base: a pre-composted medium with stable pH and some fertility already in it. Because the manufacturer has already composted it, you can skip curing.
Worm castings bring the biology, and this is the ingredient everything else depends on. Castings carry the bacteria, fungi, protozoa and beneficial nematodes that make soil “living” rather than just organic. Buy fresh castings and avoid anything sterilised. The 3:1 ratio of soil to castings matches the book’s usual bulk ratio.
Perlite, or perlite/vermiculite, provides aeration. At 2 parts in 7 the mix is about 28% aeration material, a little above the book’s usual 20–25%. The extra is deliberate: an uncured mix compacts and goes anaerobic more easily.
Coco coir buffers pH, holds water and releases potassium as it breaks down. It also breaks down into finer particles over time, which is one reason this mix is not meant for long-term recycling.
Greensand, if you use it, releases its potassium very slowly. Treat it as a trace-mineral top-up rather than a potassium source. It is truly optional.
4. Simplified core feeds
Nitrogen core feed: 1 part blood meal + 2 parts kelp meal.
Flowering core feed (either version): 1 part bone meal + 1 part kelp meal, or 1 part high-P bat/bird guano + 2 parts kelp meal.
Add one general-purpose dry organic fertiliser for the layering step.
The technique is the same as in the full method. Dust the pot floor with the nitrogen-rich material, fill with soil and transplant. Near the pot wall, punch 2 or 4 holes about three-quarters of the soil depth deep and wide enough to take the dry mix easily. Fill each hole half with the N mix and half with the bloom mix, then cap the holes, dust the surface, mulch and water thoroughly. Teas also work with this mix, and they are worth using because the pot holds less total fertility.
5. Sourcing in Thailand and Southeast Asia
- Worm castings: buy from a local worm farm. Many farms in the region raise tropical species such as Eudrilus eugeniae or Perionyx excavatus. Ask for a recent harvest that is still moist, not product that has sat dry in bags for months.
- Coir: local coir is usually sold unwashed, so always rinse it (see section 8).
- Greensand: it is an expensive import and it is optional. Leave it out, or use a small amount of rice husk ash or biochar as a local mineral and structure addition. Rice husk ash is alkaline, so use it sparingly.
- Blood meal: if you cannot find it, use fish meal in the core feed or water in fish emulsion where the plant needs extra nitrogen.
- Kelp meal and high-P guano: both are usually imported and costly. Bat guano is sold locally, but its analysis varies, so check the label. Choose whichever flowering version you can buy fresh.
6. Pot size: the variable that makes up for the weaker soil
People skip this requirement more than any other, and skipping it is why some conclude the minimal recipe does not work. Use bigger pots than you would with the full recipe.
For a first grow with the full recipe, the book’s rule is about 3.8 L of pot volume per 30 cm of final plant height (the US “1 gallon per foot” rule). The book’s other pot sizes are tied to HID lamp wattages, so we leave them out: with LED, wattage no longer predicts plant size well. Size pots by expected final height and by how many plants share each square metre of canopy. Fewer plants per m² grow bigger and need bigger pots.
Our working estimate, not from the book: with the minimal mix, plan on about 1.5× the book’s figure, roughly 5.5–6 L per 30 cm of final height.
| Expected final height | Book’s rule (full recipe) | Our working estimate (minimal mix) |
|---|---|---|
| ~60 cm | ~7.6 L | 11–15 L fabric pot |
| ~90 cm | ~11.4 L | 15–20 L fabric pot |
| ~120 cm | ~15 L | 20–25 L fabric pot |
The trade-off is that bigger pots take more floor space, which is exactly what a small indoor space lacks. You save on preparation and pay in footprint.
7. Improvising the rest of the setup
Containers. Plastic tubs, paddling pools and tarpaulins cover mixing and storage. None of it needs to be purpose-made.
Light-proofing. Keep tents light-tight during the dark period, and check seam and vent tape regularly because tape wears out. Light leaks are a commonly reported trigger for hermaphrodite flowers.
Storage. Never seal a container that holds living soil or castings. Do not pre-mix castings into stored soil. Add them about a day before planting.
8. What you cannot do with this mix
It is not designed for long-term recycling. It lacks the full recipe’s mineral load. You can recycle it, but at that point you will be adding the full amendment list, which in practice means moving to the full system. That is a natural next step.
Watch the peat content if you plan to recycle. The author reports that high-peat bagged mixes drifted down in pH when recycled and cost him crops. This is a field observation, not research, but acting on it is cheap: choose a lower-peat base.
Rinse your coir. Raw coir arrives with sodium and potassium on its exchange sites. When calcium and magnesium arrive, they push that sodium into the root zone and get held on the coir themselves. The result is a sodium release and a calcium/magnesium shortfall at the same time. Buy washed and buffered coir, and rinse it anyway.
Avoid soluble mineral fertilisers. Soluble mineral fertilisers can suppress parts of the soil biology and undercut the point of a living-soil mix. The biology is the reason to use this recipe, so keep conventional salt-based nutrients out of these pots.
9. Mycorrhizae
The book recommends a mycorrhizal inoculant, applied once and early (at germination or at rooting) in non-chlorinated water. Avoid soluble phosphorus fertiliser afterwards, because it suppresses colonisation. Product quality varies, and heat and age reduce viability, which matters for products shipped across the tropics. Buy fresh, buy small, and store the product sealed and cool.
10. Where to go next
If this mix works for you, you can progress in these steps:
- Add a worm bin for fresh castings from trim and kitchen waste. Use tropical species, because temperate worms often struggle in the heat.
- Start recycling the soil with the full amendment list.
- Move to the full core-feed recipes, which spread nitrogen and calcium across more sources with different release rates.
- Add teas on a regular schedule.
You can take each step on its own. That is the real argument for starting minimal: it is not a weaker version of the method but its first step.
If you started with this recipe, what pot size did you end up needing? The book’s “use bigger pots” comes with no number, and the table above is only our estimate. Real data points would make this article much more useful to the next person: your mix, pot volume, LED wattage, plant height, and whether the plants ran out of fertility before harvest.
This article is technical horticultural information for readers operating legally in their jurisdiction. Cannabis cultivation is regulated differently in every country and is illegal in several Southeast Asian countries. In Thailand, cannabis flower is a controlled herb under the Notification of the Ministry of Public Health Re: Controlled Herbs (Cannabis) B.E. 2568. Cultivation requires the applicable licence, flower may not be sold or advertised online, and recreational use is not permitted. Check your local law before growing. Nothing here is legal advice.