Here are some tried and true recipes for getting started in organic growing. Pick one of the first two soiless mix recipes for your grow medium. Then, choose a nute recipe that will work best for what you have available. Enjoy... Here are two very good organic soiless mixes... LC's Mix is great for any stage of growth. You can germ seeds in it, grow mothers in it, root clones in it as well as veg and flower in it. LC's Soiless Mix #1: 5 parts Canadian Spaghnam Peat or Coir or Pro-Moss 3 parts perlite 2 parts wormcastings or mushroom compost or home made compost Powdered (NOT PELLETIZED) dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix. ...Wal-Mart now sells worm castings. Or, if you use Pro Mix or Sunshine Mix... LC's Soiless Mix #2: 6 parts Pro Mix BX or HP / Sunshine Mix (any flavor from #1 up) 2 parts perlite 2 parts earthworm castings Powdered (NOT PELLETIZED) dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix. If you use a 3 qt. saucepan as “parts†in the amounts given above, it equals about 1 cu. ft. of soiless mix and you can just dump in a cup of powdered dolomite lime. But, a "part" can be anything from a tablespoon to a five gallon bucket. Just use the same item for all of the "parts". Now for the plants organic food source Choose one of these organic plant food recipes to add to LC's Soiless Mix. RECIPE #1 If you want to use organic nutes like blood, bone and kelp... Dry Ferts: 1 tablespoon blood meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix 2 tablespoons bone meal per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of soil mix 1-tablespoon kelp meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix or Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract as directed 1 tablespoon per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of Jersey Greensand to supplement the K (potasium) in the Kelp Meal and seaweed extract. Mix all the dry ferts into the soiless mix well and wet it, but don't soak it with Liquid Karma and water @ 1 tbs./gal. Stir and mix it a few times a week for a week or two so the bacteria can get oxygen and break down the bone meal and make it available. And don't let the mix dry out, keep it moist and add water as needed. It'll also have time to get the humic acids in the Liquid Karma going and the dolomite lime will be better able to adjust the pH of a peat based mixture too. With this recipe, all you need to do is add plain water until harvest. When I'm working with seeds, I punch a hole in the bottom of 16 ounce cups and fill them with plain LC's Mix. Lightly wet the mix in the cups and germ one seed in each cup. At the same time I mix enough LC's mix along with the blood/bone/kelp to fill all the 3 gallon flower pots I'm going to use for the grow. After about two weeks, the seedlings and the blood/bone/kelp mix are ready. I transplant the seedlings into the 3 gallon pots and just add water until harvest. When you go to flower and pull up the males, save the mix in the pots. It is ready to be used again immediately. Just remove the root ball and transplant another seedling into it. RECIPE #2 If you want to use guano in your soil mix... Bongaloid's Guano Mix. Use all these items combined with one gallon of soil mix. 1/3C hi N Guano (Mexican Bat Guano) 1/2C hi P Guano (Jamaican or Indonesian Bat Guano) 1TBS Jersey Greensand 1TBS Kelp Meal RECIPE #3 (My favorite) If you want to use guano tea and kelp... Guano Tea and Kelp: Seedlings less than 1 month old nute tea mix- Mix 1 cup earthworm castings into 5 gallons of water to make the tea. Add 5 tbs. Black Strap Molasses. Use it to water your seedlings with every 3rd watering. Veg mix- 1/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano (PSG) 1/3 cup High N Bat Guano (Mexican) 1/3 cup Earth Worm Castings (EWC) 5 tsp. Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract (That makes the "dry mix". You can make all you want and save it to use later.) Mix with water @ 1 cup of dry mix into 5 gallons of water to make the tea. To that 5 gallons of tea add: 5 tbs. Liquid Karma 5 tbs. Black Strap Molasses Use it to water with every 3rd watering. Flowering nute tea mix: 2/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano 2/3 cup Earth Worm Castings 2/3 cup High P Guano (Indonesian or Jamaican) 5 tsp. Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract (That makes the "dry mix". You can make all you want and save it to use later.) Mix with water @ 2 cups of dry mix into 5 gallons of water to make the tea. To that 5 gallons of tea add: 5 tbs. Liquid Karma 5 tbs. Black Strap Molasses Use it to water with EVERY watering. You can use queen size knee high nylon stockings for tea bags. 3 pair for a dollar at the dollar store. Tell 'em you use them for paint strainers. Put the recommended tea in the stocking, tie a loop knot in it and hang it in your tea bucket. The tea should look like a mud puddle. Agitate the bag in the water vigorously. An aquarium pump and air stone will dissolve oxygen into the solution and keep the good bacteria (microherd) alive and thriving. Let it bubble a day or two before you use it. If you find you are making too much tea and having to throw it out, use 2 1/2 gallons of water and cut the nute amount by half. RECIPE #4 Three Little Birds Method 40 gallons used soil 4 cups alfalfa meal 4 cups bone meal 4 cups kelp meal 4 cups powdered dolomite lime 30 pound bag of earthworm castings . . . That's the basic recipe . . . However we also like to use 4 cups of Greensand 4 cups of Rock Phosphate 4 cups of diatomaceous earth RECIPE #5 Fish and Seaweed (This is sooo easy) For veg growth… 1 capful 5-1-1 Fish Emulsion 1 capful Neptune's Harvest 0-0-1 Seaweed or Maxicrop liquid 1 gallon H2O For early flowering… 1 tbs. Neptune's Harvest 2-3-1 Fish/Seaweed 1 gallon H2O For mid to late flowering… 1 tbs. Neptune's Harvest 2-4-1 Fish 1 gallon H2O And now for some more good tips... Organic pH issues I hear a lot of people asking or talking about the pH of their organic soil mix or organic nute solution and how they might correct or adjust it. pH in organics is not an issue like it is in synthetic growing. The best place to settle the pH issues in organics is within the grow medium. A medium rich in humates (humus) is the place to start. Humates work to "buffer" the pH of organic mediums and the nutes you pour (or mix) into it. Humates come from compost, worm castings and bottled humus. If you use a peat based medum, use dolomite lime to raise the pH of the acidic peat. Dolomite should be used in any soil or soiless medium to provide magnesium and calcium. But since we are talking about pH here, I'll mention dolomite lime's pH correction benefits. A medium of coir has a pH near neutral (or 7.0). But humates are still neded to allow uptake of organic nutrients that are outside a near neutral pH range. With an active medium rich in humates you can pour in nutes like Pure Blend Pro, Earth Juice and guano teas way outside the optimum pH range without worry. The humus will allow the nutes to be taken up through the roots, even at such an extreme pH reading. So throw those pH meters away folks and enjoy the ease and safety of organic gardening. Chlorine tap water Just a word of caution for you organic heads out there... If you are tapped onto a municipal water supply that uses chlorine to kill bacteria in the water, it'll do the same thing to the bacteria (microherd) in your organic food source. Always bubble your municipal water in an open container (5 gallon bucket) for 24 hours before adding ANYTHING organic to it. Flushing There is absolutely no reason to "flush" organic nute solutions from your soil mix. In an organic grow, the plants don't take up the organic nutes (guano, bone, blood or kelp). The bacteria eat the organic nutes and excrete food that the plant can feed off of. So the organic nutes don't need to be flushed because they never enter the plant. And besides, meals like kelp, bone and blood along with worm castings and dolomite can't be flushed from your soil mix anyway. If you use guano and seaweed, try using plain water or worm casting tea for your last watering or two so the plant can use up what's left in the soil. But drowning your soil with water isn't necessary. Burn1
Great Thread Mels!! I'll have to bookmark this one. I started a grow just a couple of weeks ago after mixing up a big batch of growing medium. Found the recipe somewhere here at GC. I think it was a post by Rumpleforeskin for Vic's Super Soil. Having a slight problem though. I'm growing some Nirvana K2 and also some White Russian from HGS. The K2 just took off balls to the wall and has been under 400W MH for over a week now. The White Russian was much, much slower to get started but has now started to catch up somewhat. I still have it under a few CFL's right now but it probably is ready to be moved. Anyway, the problem I noticed was that there are some dark brown spots on the largest leaves of the White Russian. Other than the spots it looks really healthy. I followed the link from here to the sick plant guide, and figured that this most likely would be due to a pH problem. Sure enough, I tested the soil in the 1-gallon pots that it's in, and the meter is reading pH of about 7.6 which I know is way too high. The only thing that's probably been saving me is that I adjust my water to 6.4 or so before waterings. The sick plant guide also said that you don't want to use dolomite to correct a pH problem when it's too high to start with. One of the suggestions was to use pH-DOWN directly, but there was no info on how to do that. Any idea how to do it? I don't want to burn up my plants with phosphoric acid It's my first grow and I would hate to screw it up now since it's been going relatively good so far. To add something strange to the problem, the K2 is still perfectly fine and it's in the same mix. Maybe it's more resistant than White Russian to pH fluctuations? I haven't checked out those pots with the meter yet, but will do it later tonight.
Bump, no credit goes to me I found this thread while researching for my own organic grow, let me know if you still have those problems man sorry I didn't reply sooner!
Hey mels, this is great! I have a question. Do you water #5 every time, or strait h2O 2/3 of the time? Thanks!
I have a question about: Powdered (NOT PELLETIZED) dolomite lime. I already have pelletized dolomite lime freely avaliable. Is there any way to substitue this for the powdered dolomite? I'm not very clear on the difference between the two.
Hey Brother, The Difference Is Pellets Are Somewhat Time Release while Powder Dissolves Instantaneously, I Am New To All This But I Am 85% Sure Im Correct on This Matter. I Acted Like An Idiot Today and bought Miracle Gro Organic Choice Soil, Ive Been Reading Threads On my Stupidity. It Looks Like I Might Be OK if I Can FInd Some NON Fert Soil For Frist Three Weeks Of Plants Life. Well Hope I Helped Gotta Go Digging IN Town For NON Fert SOil To Start Seeds. Later Man + Rep For Your Asking and Not Assuming Like my Dumbass Does All The Time.
Awesome post. Very helpful! Tell me... what do you do for the last few weeks before harvest? do you switch to plain water and stop organic feeding? AND what do you do with your trimmed leaves? Are they good for any tea or should i just go full circle and put them in my compost? Any suggestions helpful. Im on my first grow, fully organic and they JUST started flowering after a very difficult "up bringing". But ive changed my bad mommy ways and listened to what they needed and they are happy after long last! haha. T
Mels, you should post this up in the new organics section.........I linked someone to this thread already over there..........nice thread BTW
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Nice, I am going to try out some soil myself, I will be using this most definitely, since I am Hydro Grower myself, I want to experiment!
Sorry if this is noobish and misplaced, I hate to offend anyone here by asking this question in here: But if you use the soilless mix in the original post as your base (eg. 50%peat 30%perlite 20%wormcastings, and some lime) can you just substitute those Organic Food sources that you posted after (like the bat guano and bonemeal and all that stuff) with just some good old store bought nutrients like Advanced Nutrients or Fox Farms, etc? Anyone here do this? If so, how much later into the plants life would you start adding them? after 2 weeks from sprouting? 1/4 strength? I'm afraid of burning the plants cause I don't know how much the earthworm castings already adds. I appreciate the feedback from you experienced growers.