Organics 101

sup guys, ive been around, but havent posted much on my thread. i thought i would jus space it out a bit, hard as its been lol...this is my 3rd gro, and its been another learning exp. i liked the soil mix i used, made things very easy. the only thing i would change is my overzealousness with pH control. it may not be as important as with a hydro grow, but needless to say, its still important. ive learned from the three different strains ive grown, they all enjoy different levels of pH range. makes it kinda difficult to control that. you dont ever want to bring the levels crashing down or up to fast, because it will basically make the plant sick. i could be wrong about it, but changes in leaf structure to me have been ways to tell if my girls are good or not.

one mistake i did make was adding the additional lime. its kept the pH neutral and the end result, devil clawed leaves. the plants are still doing what they are supposed to do, the buds are swelling nicely, and we have some frost. the bottom growth on both plants are exhibiting some yellowing out. the soil could be loosing all its nitrogen properties, or it could be a lockout from pH. again im not sure. from notes, ill be sure not to add the lime next round and see what we get on the 4th go around. i still plan on working with organics. chemicals for me are in the past. if more people were interested in trying to gro organic or close to organic as possible, i would like to request again perhaps an organic forum.



Using organic materials as an alternative to growing mj is easier than you think. Upon reading up a little on the benefits and seeing some of the lovely pictures of ripening buds with minor to almost non-existent nutrient issues, I became quite curious on how I could put these types of techniques to my personal use.

There are dozens upon dozens of recipes for an organic mix suited for your needs. So many variations and I'm sure they are all good and all return well during harvest. What you should do if considering going organic, do some searching around in your area. Drop into your local nurseries, see what they have that you can use. If you plan on going with liquid organics, pay attention to what you are getting. Quoting a GC member, Froggy, "I think we all need a better concept of organic.
Certainly if it comes in a plastic bottle with a screw cap of some sort...the word 'organic' is suspect growing organically is a process, not products"
when I read that, I had to rethink what I was going to use for nutrients both during veg and flowering. I had already prematurely bought products that were suspect. Not saying the products I thought wouldn't work just as well, they just were not for me.

In starting with an organic recipe again you should know what you have access to. What I ended up getting for myself was relatively easy to obtain. Most products were purchased at garden centers and nurseries. For my mix, I basically made what has been called a "super soil" a lot of people get put off by it because they think it's complicated. As long as you have measuring cups and a tote (AKA rubbermaid), you're fine. I bought 2.2 cu ft of compost, bone and blood meal, garden lime, dehydrated manure and kelp meal. Pretty standard ingredients, somewhat easily obtainable. The kelp was slightly harder to find, but is not completely necessary for the mix. It can be substituted with a number of other items, worm castings, for example.
Okay, the point here is to get all these materials working together. What you are doing is creating an environment, a thriving environment of bugs and beneficial bacteria. All these organisms work in conjunction with each other slowly breaking down all the mobile elements in the soil into a from that can be absorbed by the plants. I'm not a scientist or botanist, so I'm not going to explain how or why it happens. Just know it does. What you want to do is make sure that environment is stable, unfortunately it takes time. We all know that this hobby requires at least 3 months of patients, so allowing this "super soil" to sit for a month, 2 weeks minimum, is what we will be doing. Let me tell you how these ingredients are mixed in together. 2cubic feet of compost (or pro-mix) received 2 cups each of all listed materials above. That was 2 cups of bone and blood meal, 2 cups of dehydrated manure, 2 cups of kelp meal and 2 cups of lime. You can cut that down 1 cup if you'd like. Once you get all the materials combined, just mix them up in the tote and let sit. You do not need to water, if you do, you will have to go in there often to stir the soil so it doesn't start growing mold on it, you want it to be moist but not wet. After about a week of the combined elements living together, you may want to take a pH reading to record what your soil is like. You should be around the neutral mark, 7 pH. Over the next couple of weeks while the microbes are working together, the pH will start to drop. By the end of the month, you should be in the high 5's on the pH chart, adjust the soil by adding lime and bring it to around 6-7 ph or leave as is. Now, if you have clones, and we are talking mature clones, go ahead and stick them in the soil. They will grow like no tomorrow and can be ready to go in the flower room in as short as 1-2 weeks if your doing a small SOG. 3-4 if jus trying to produce a couple of nice speciman with a larger yield due to longer veg.
I've noticed I've had to not to use any type of nutrient solution to support any type of growth. This doesnt mean you dont have to. Other websites and master growers seem to add extra ammendments to help their grows along. The soil youve prepared is so rich with the proper nutrients, the plant jus responds to what it's been introduced to. The soil provides all mobile and trace elements to support healthy overall growth. Some of the biggest benefits I've noticed with my last grow, I harvest and no extra nutes added besides a kelp tea for trace elements. My last grows using chemicals to supplement, I always started yellowing out on the lower growth. With what I've used with my super soil mix, I have no yellowing, no signs of leaf degradtion. Normally during this time period I'm loosing 2-3 fans per day. I also have not nuted with any type of chemicals or organic blooms and my buds are still growing fatter by the day.

You can use the mix to start seedlings, but you will need to cut it in half with a potting soil so you don't burn them. No nutes are needed at all. If you use the super soil for the seedlings, you should start them in 4-6” pots. When you transplant into gallons, you can use an uncut mix, because the plant is larger and will gladly and quickly consume what you give it.

Going into flowering. We did nothing different. The same soil was used and the plants got a repot from the 1 gallon to the 3 gallon pots. Since these plants were going to spending upwards to 60 days in these 3 gallon pots, extra bone meal was added into the repotted mix. 1/4 cup to be exact per 3 gallons. This idea was given to me by GrOwer and makes perfect sense to me. The plant is now in its final lifecycle stage. It doesn't need much nitro now, it needs more potassium and calcium to support stem and bud growth. Adding the extra bone will only benefit your plants bud production. The element is not readily available and needs to breakdown. Adding extra bone meal into the mix during flowering will give it time to become available for the plant. By the time the plant is in its final weeks of flowering, that extra 1/4 cup of bone should come into play. It should be providing the buds with the necessary nutrients during those final weeks, allowing you to continue to jus water as necessary. My method so far has benefited me, it may you also. After a couple of grows I was just frustrated with having to fight with the soil to keep the plants healthy when I used chemicals. Going organic has put much of those worries out of my hands. All I do know is sit back and watch the show. Here is a link to at least a dozen organic mixes provided to me by Unoit, thanks man!

There is a buzz to start an organic forum, the only way its going to work is if we have members who are actively experimenting with organics and posting results. Everything I wrote above is basically what I did for my grow. Different materials and methods are of course encouraged, the results can only be better and not worse.

http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/goodsoil.htm

 

sup Swaen! you could create the pile in the backyard provided you have the space, it doesnt have to go in a tote. as far as nute burns, the only time i exp it was when i tried to introduce seedlings to the mix. i introduced my clone to the same mix, but mixed it with half regular potting soil and it did excellent. my mature plants were put into the soil, with no cutting and did excellent. the ratios seem high, but as long as you can maintain a balance, youre fine

 

the tote on the deck would work, mines in my shed


yea Tet, wrong forum, i only put it here for traffic reasons