Living Soil KIS MIX

If you have listened to any of the podcasts on our website, you will have learned of Tad Hussey from KIS organics. Tad is based in the Seattle area, where he runs KIS Organics, a company that sells soil mixes, amendments and compost tea brewers to Washington State. Tad has grown up pursuing and studying the science and practice behind a living soil approach to regenerative gardening and has an exceptional understanding and depth of experience which becomes apparent through his podcasts.

Tad has been working with us to develop a new mix that we wanted to add to our line up. Our new KIS mix differs from our current Black Swallow mix in that it was designed to have a greater overall nutritional content. The Black Swallow mix was designed with a slightly lessor nutrient base allowing the gardener to have greater flexibility to customize or ‘spoon feed’ the nutritional requirements of the specific the genetics they are growing. We have upped the nutritional ‘punch’ with our KIS mix.

Consequently, this is a mix for someone who is new to growing in a living soil, or who is not yet confident of using the teas, foliars and drenches their plants might require. With Tad’s guidance, we have worked up a mix that will allow a new gardener to achieve a successful harvest without the addition of too many other inputs.

This powerhouse of a mix is a blend of sphagnum peat, perlite, fish compost, leaf compost, worm castings, biochar, blood meal, kelp meal, crab meal, feather meal, Dead Soldier fly frass, fish bone meal, gypsum, soft rock phosphate, alfalfa meal, oyster shell flour, Wollastonite rock dust, Volcanophos rock dust, and Huplaso basalt.

This product is sold by the cubic foot, in a bag. It does not come as a 'baled' product like peat moss. This is because a true, living soil has a significant compost content in order to contribute the diverse biology that, by definition, it contains. Consequently, the KIS mix cannot be compressed, but is bagged loose- as opposed to a heavily peated product which does not contain compost of any measurable amount. Compressing and baling a compost mix quickly leads to anaerobic conditions.