So I have ~45 gallons of soil leftover from my indoor grow last summer, I want to be outdoors this year in Vermont, but my soil is very sandy. What are your recommendations for growing in the soil here?
I'm planning on digging holes and filling them with my soil mix, should I combine the local sand into the mix to stretch it out further? how much soil is needed per plant for an outdoor grow?
Mixing it is a good idea — especially at the interface between your soil mix and the native soil. If you dig a hole and fill it with soil mix, the surrounding soil and the soil mix in the hole will not freely exchange water/soil solution — the mix will kind of be an isolated system. Roots will grow out, but only if the surrounding soil is wetter than the mix, which won't necessarily be the case.
This happens whenever there is an abrupt change in soil texture, so you want that change in materials to be gradual.
I don't know how much you should use. Whenever I grew outdoors, I just amended the native soil with compost and organic nutes.
Mixing it is a good idea — especially at the interface between your soil mix and the native soil. If you dig a hole and fill it with soil mix, the surrounding soil and the soil mix in the hole will not freely exchange water/soil solution — the mix will kind of be an isolated system. Roots will grow out, but only if the surrounding soil is wetter than the mix, which won't necessarily be the case.
This happens whenever there is an abrupt change in soil texture, so you want that change in materials to be gradual.
I don't know how much you should use. Whenever I grew outdoors, I just amended the native soil with compost and organic nutes.