Hello friends. I was given a grape God and a ghost train haze clone from a trusted friend of mine. I had my room geared toward DWC but the the plants I received are happily rooted in a soil mix. Any suggestions on an inexpensive soil mix that's mostly ready to go? I was looking at happy frog. Money's tight as I spent a lot on getting my buckets ready for plants I thought were rooted in Rockwoll. I have my 1000w MH running 24/7 right now hoping to avoid shock from the move. I was thinking about doing the entire veg cycle that way, any pros and cons? The plants appear healthy and as far as I can see they are bug free. I also purchased GH nutes for DWC. Just basic three part, can these be used in soil as well? Sorry for all the questions just didn't do the research for soil like I did for DWC. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. Sorry the pictures are bad!
24/7 in the organics section is a no no ? as all plants are sentient beings like you, need a rest, with very little gain to be had other than noobie Ego? chill and go 18/6, as you would have had, should you ever had a cat, dog even pet fish? look to updating your pots to my blog: http://forum.grasscity.com/blog/1093/entry-12822-1...
Thought I would throw out a little update. I'm almost three weeks in and contemplating starting to flower soon as the GHT is already showing its sex and ready to start the process. Anyone think otherwise based on my pics? Snapped a few pics during my 6 hours of lights out. They seem to be very healthy and happy after I transplanted last weekend. No shock or anything so I was happy with that for my first time around. Haven't added any nutes for a couple days as I'm not sure if I should start flowering or not so I figured I would flush the girls out before adding flower nutes. Any and all advise or criticism or compliments are greatly appreciated. Thanks friends.
hello! first, let me properly welcome you to grasscity. i'm appalled at your welcome to this forum; especially from someone who doesn't post over here. so are you just using your three part GH nutes with the happy frog? if so, i'm not sure i can be of much help. Using synthetic nutes isn't organic; even if you're in soil. i'm not sure if the folks who frequent this forum would be of much help because that's not how we grow. there is however an indoor growers forum which has a variety of growers who use soil and different kinds of nutes who will be familiar with your GH line up. http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-medical-marijuan... BTW your plants look good! maybe you'll keep up on the soil. its much easier than the hydro. i speak from experience too on that.
The fact they're in soil is actually probably going to work out better for you unless you have some growing experience with the DWC. Generally, soil is much friendlier to those just starting their grows and much easier to manage than hydro. The same nutes can be used in soil just at half strength. You'll need a way to check and adjust the pH of the liquids you give your plants and I suggest a TDS tester pen to check the concentration of the nutes you give and avoid burning your plants. I use Roots Organics Original and it's not cheap, but had to buy some Fox Farms Ocean Forest and it was significantly cheaper than the Roots. It's a good soil, just not as arid as the Roots I use. Get in the threads dealing with growing in soil and do the same research you did for the DWC growing. Good luck!
Thank you much for the welcome. I ended up mixing some happy frog ocean forest and perlite in. Had some hydroton that I threw in the bottom of the pots to improve drainage. Have done quite a bit more research and luckily In time to keep my grow organic. Did not use any of the GH nutes and instead picked up some GO just the grow and bloom for now to try to keep it simple. I am looking forward to seeing my results. Again thank you for being kind and responding.
you're welcome! so glad to hear you opted to try something different! if you would like to keep growing some plants in soil, i really like my recipe and of all the ones i've tried, this one seems easiest for me. 1/2 cup each of kelp, neem and crab/crustacean meals per cuft of soil. 1 cup each per cuft of Calcium carbonate lime or oyster shell flour (whichever is cheapest) 1 cup gypsum 2 cups of rock minerals either basalt or glacial dust. (optional) add this to 1/3 sphagnum peat moss, 1/3 quality compost, 1/3 aeration like pumice, lava rock, hydroton, etc mix it up with water. add aloe preferably or a couple drops of dish soap to the water to help the peat soak it up. wait until the soil has cooled about ten days or so. this is water only and you can add stuff like BioAG fulvic acid, TM7, and Protekt. you can also use SST to make it even better. the SST thread is being talked on right now in this forum. my soil recipe is from the No Till thread. it is filled with everything you'd want to know about organic gardening. if you read just the first 100 pages, you'd be all ready to go. i know that sounds like a lot but it's only a small amount of time compared to a headache down the line. if you're looking for a friendly face, check out my thread and you can stop by and ask questions. i don't bite. http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-medical-marijuan...
Thanks for the advice. I have been trying to keep my ph levels consistent, seems to be about 6.8 right from my RO filter so I am happy with that. I also like to bubble it for 24 hours before feeding it to the girls, I'm sure it doesn't do anything but it can't hurt to have the water oxygenated and why not put that expensive air pump I bought to work. Contemplating trying a couple tea recipes I have found on here so we will see how that goes. I think for my next grow I am going to try the roots organic soil, I know it's expensive but I have heard a lot of good things about the quality and taste of bud it produces. I must admit that I am quite happy I ended up in soil and now going fully organic. Thanks for the advice!
Watch out with the RO water. It'll work fine, but may need a boost of cal mag +. I run RO ( not by choice really) and have had cal mag issues. Even with all the additions to my soil, I was still missing minerals with the RO. Keep walking down this path, you'll be happy you did, I know I am. Lots of great people around here with a ton of learnin' to give. Stop buying bags and bottles with labels, go talk to your local farmers and co ops.