[CaliCoast]

Originally Posted by Alistair Young

Thanks Caligrow. I'm getting advise from different forums and I intend to use the information to come up with a plan that will work fine for my needs.

I've never grown organic before because to me it seems hard to get the required amounts of N. P. K, , micro nutrients, and trace elements from organic sources. Man-made fertilizers have high N. P. K values such as 30, 10, 10, for example, and it seems impossible to get those high numbers from organic ferts. That's why I wanted to use bloodmeal and bone meal because these are organic with rather high percentages such as 15 for bloodmeal and 13 for bone meal. Some organic fertilizers are rated with small percentages of N, P, and K, such as 1.5, 1, and 5 ( I just made these numbers up, but you get the point) for example, and that hardly seems as though it would work, but many people use them and they claim that they work well. Do you or anyone else here understand how fertilizers with such low percentages of these elements work and provide enough of everything that the plants need?

Thanks again,

Alistair

Originally Posted by Alistair Young

For various reasons I'm going to transplant from the 20 ounce cups into 3 or 4 gallon pots for the remainder of the grow ( I know that transplanting planting is usually done in smaller increments, but I'm doing this way for this gow anyway.). Is it ok to layer the soil? The top could be pure FF soil and then maybe a few inches deeper a mix of FF soil and bone meal for example. My reasoning is because 3 weeks after transplanting into the bigger pots I plan on puttting them into flowering when they will need extra phoshorus. At first they won't need the extra phosphorus because they will still be vegging, then 3 weeks later they're put into flowering. So, pure FF soil on top and the bone meal-FF mix for the remainder of grow.

Also, what do others do for K? Do they blend it into the soil when the plants get big? At what point of the grow must K be introduced into the fertlizer routine? Should potash be mixed into the soil, or can it be dissolved in water and useed as a liquid fertilizer.

And finally, Shouldn't nitrogen be introduced into the soil after the plants are a few weeks old? I know that FF has nitrogen in it, but I understnad that plants love lot's of N.

Caligrower gave me his 2 cents. Does anybody else have expeience with FF soil and growing organic, that might be give me more ideas?

All help is greatly appreciated,

Alistair

Yeah like CG said FFOF is good to use straight out of the bag. I add extra perlite for drainage but some don't and have no issues. But don't add anything to FFOF especially blood meal, you would probably run into a N toxicity situation if you did add it. I've done that with blood meal before.

As far as nutrients go synthetic nutes are designed for speed and power while organic ferts tend to meld into the soil and provide long term nutrients as well as short term nutrients. That is why organic growers swear by recycling their soil while replenishing it with amendments such as bat guano, worm castings, myco among other things. Organic nutrients such as green sand don't release to their full potential in one season hence soil recycling. So you can definitely provide the necessary nutrients at the right amounts at the right time with organic nutrients but it's more of a balancing act imo.

Layering is another advanced technique based on the fact that in nature, soil is not one consistency(like in most pots) but rather formed in layers based on the layout of the natural terrain. I have never layered but it's always sparked interest so if you do experiment with it that'd be cool. I have some basic layering models I can dig up.