Disclaimer:
This post is about medical/recreational cannabis.
I recommend you don't use it.
It could be illegal in your country.
Be careful!
Living Soil
Especially in the German cannabis community there is a hype around 'living soil'.
There are also brands selling it. (Supersoil (?))
People pay large sums to buy what really is just compost.
Commercial 'living soil' gets inocculated with certain microorganisms and spores and stuff.
Compost
I made my own 'living soil'.
For free.
In my garden, I just throw everything organic onto a pile and eventually, it will break down.
This compostation is slow. It takes years to break down.
But I have time and space and it's no work, at all.
I usually don't achieve a high-temperature bacterial compostation. Maybe in some spots, but the whole pile never gets warm.
My own compost needs no inocculation.
It's basically inocculated with everything under the sun.
There is fungal activity, insects... even mice are helping me to break this stuff down.
Issues
When I first started, I made a major mistake with this, though.
I planted the seeds into compost.
The compost was full of armadillidiidae (rolly pollies) and they ate the seedlings.
That was a disaster and I wasted seeds that were very special to me.
A lesson, I won't forget.
I have a process now, that gets rid of them:
I bag some compost and let it dry out in the bag, to kill all insects.
Then I soak it again.
Then I plant.
Still: this soil is a bit unpredictable.
Fungi
So this morning I found this growth in the pot.
Almost certainly fungal activity.
It almost looks like Lion's Mane (hericium erinaceus). Which is edible and actually delicious.
But it's very soft instead and slimy to the touch.
Whatever it is: I'll leave it.
The plant does not seem affected.
Conclusion
Sorry! This post is not well structured.
All I am trying to get accross: You don't have to buy compost.
You don't have to buy anything, except maybe the seeds.
Shipping compost in the mail is absolutely ridiculous, and yet, some people make bank from it.
I could claim that this compost above was a 'hyper soil' with a certain strain of slimy fungus in it, and some people would probably buy it.
Insane.
Peat
Peat has its place. Not because peat is very fertile, but because it is uniform.
If you grow stuff at scale and want no surprises, then peat is great.
I'll use recycled peat for germination from now on, because I have easy access to it.
Use Compost
Once the plant is established, it goes into compost; Well aged, dried and then rehydrated compost.
It's free. It's organic. It's full of life and colonized by all sorts of fungi.
If your compost runs hot and is fresh, then you might want to add some inert soil, like clay.
Or whatever you have in your surroundings anyways.
Peak retardation was when the most popular German cannabis-youtuber suggested to a commercial grower, who grows directly in soil, to use raise beds and create a 'living soil'. link
Like the soil wasn't already alive. What a clown.
Please don't spend money on something that is available and abundant.
I can't believe some people are so detached from nature, that they buy these products.
If you grow indoors, it might be different. But then you are on the wrong path to be begin with.
I discussed this in an earlier post.
For the record: I grow in 3l pots.
If the pots were larger, the plants would be larger.
I do this intentionally.
TL;DR:
All it takes is water, sunlight, soil. In that order.
Save the money, preserve the planet.