3rd grow, TGA Jilly Bean, first organic grow

Alittle background
this is my first grow, my first was autos in hempy buckets and 2nd(journel in link) was coco in a smrat pot and after 2 grows of mixing nutes and feeding 2-4 times a week i decided to go the water only organic soil route this time.

SOIL
my mix i got from a thread in this forum.

- half Bail Pro-mix BX
- 1 bag FoxFarms Ocean Forest
- 1 cup dolomite lime
- 1 cup blood meal
- 1 cup bone meal
- 10-20% extra perlite

anyone else use this mix? i have everything but ran ran into a problem, i bought the 12 qt bag of ocean forrest on amazon and now i see there is a 1.5 cft bag. anyone know if this mix is for the 12 qt or 1.5 cft bag?

GROW AREA AND SEEDS
i will be growing in a converted closet(24"w x 40"lx 76"h, pictures in sig link). i will be germing and planting 6 TGA subcool jilly bean seeds with hopes of 3 females, i wont keep more than 3 since i think it would become too crowded in my cabnet but do plan on keeping a male and breeding for some seed stock.

LIGHTS
first grow was a cfl/t5 grow wchich produced pretty well but very airy buds, 2nd was a spectra 290 LED panel and while the buds were dense and had alot of tric production it didnt produce a whole lot, and i dont think it would create enough light to flower 3 plants. i am going to use it for veg but when it comes to flower im going ot switch to a HPS. i was looking at a 600w aircooled hood hps and was wondering if you guys think i would be able to cool this thing enough in a cabnet that size. i will be running filer>>>hood>>>>150cfm fan>>. it stays pretty cold in the winter(60-65 in the basement). its not a big deal since the ballast is dimmable so all else fails i can turn it down.

THE PLAN
i will be starting them off in solo cups with just the promix to get them started, next i will move them to a 1 gallon smart pot with a 50/50 mix of pro mix and ocean forrest, plan on vegging for 6 weeks then switching to flower. is one gallon big enough to get them to this point? i would like to wait till the show sex before treansplanting the females to the finishing 3 gallon smart pots with the mix i posted above.
i will be adding molassass to the water trhoughout the grow, i have read that aloe works well too so i may buy a plant and grow it since i will have a abundance of left over soil by my calculation. i bought Dr Earths organic bud and bloom booster and was planning on using it at weeks 2 and 6.

i will have left over mix and was wondering the best way to store it? my plan was to put it in a rubbermaid tub and sliding it under my homes crawlspace. is this fine? anything else i should do to keep the mix optimal for another grow in 6 months?

thanks for any imput and will be starting the accual grow in a couple weeks, would like to get some input on the soil mix before popping the seeds.


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Hiya Sewich,

Welcome to the organic world. The one thing that stands out to me is the absence of any compost or worm castings in your soil mix. The amount that may or may not be present in your FFOF is not going to be enough IMO.

If you've already mixed your soil and planted your seedlings, you can top dress your plants at a later date. We typically like 25-33% by volume of either vermicompost (EWC), compost or a combination of the 2 in our soil.

Other than that, looking forward to following your grow. Good luck and don't hesitate to post a question if you're unsure on something.

chunk

i was wondering about the ewc's, i read alot of threads in the organic sub forum of the site and new they were pretty important, i kind of figured the ocean forrest was covering that since it wasn't listed. i basiclly went with the easiest soil mix i could find in the only water mixes thread and figured i would add more stuff if needed. i havent mixed my soil up yet so i will hit up amazon and get some ewc. i also forgot i bought some azomite that i was going to add to the soil mix as well.
im trying to keep it pretty basic this first run.

Sewich,

If you haven't ordered it yet, try using your local craigslist. I've seen a lot of folks here get some killer deals on fresh EWC from a local vendor.

chunk

i adjusted the ratios on my current mix after seeing how big the bag of pro mix was and it was way more than i needed, even this mix is about twice as much as i need. i have it in a rubbermaid tub so after i get what i need ill just throw it under the house and use it next grow.

1/4 bag of pro-mix bx
1 bag of fox farms ocean forrest 12q
3/4 lime
3/4c blood meal
3/4c bone meal
1 cup azomite
3/4 bag of perlite

i just got my EWC on amazon, it was like 20 bucks for 15 pounds shipped, my ewc should be here wed so i was thinking maybe 5# of ewc to this mix?
im going to be mixing in the Dr earth bloom booster into each as pot at about half the recommended on the bag since i have the other admenents, i dont want to make the soil too hot
i also bought a bag of sunshine mix that im going to use for the starting mix since it was half the price of another bag of ocean forrest.

i'd just mix all the EWC in, it shouldnt be any problem, and if its too wet just water less often, or add lava rock in the mix as well, especaily with that extra DR earth the ewc will be a great buffer and prevent burn when amended at higher amounts IMO. of course it will also greatly depend on the quality of ewc, and whether your source is a commercial or hom run business... have you thought about amending with neem seed cake?

yeah i bought 10 pounds of neem cake

so considering im going to have more soil than i originally thought im going to be growing a additional 5 plants, probably afganni #1 if available when i order this weekend. want to get a killer indica.

got my neem cake today, i was going to add all 10 pounds but wanted to check in here first and see if this was a good idea, will it burn the plants or anythign if i add too much?

placed my order with the attiude this mornign before i went to work, the Sensi seeds afganni #1 are on the way. anyone grow this know how the odor on these are? im trying ot figure out how many of each i want to plant. i was thinking of getting a 4x4 tent and doing 5 of each and hoping for 5 females between the 2 strains. im going to be using a new charcoal filter but i will be venting it striaght into the basement and not outside. otherwise im going to grow 3 of each and pray for 3 females to use in my grow closet.

also i do plan on keeping a male of each and pollenating 1 female of each strain(1 branch not a whole plant). do males plants smell alot? i am going to be keeping them in a seperate tent upstairs with just a small fan to circulate air. im going to be trimming them down alot, probably just a branch or 2 since i wont need alot of pollen.

growing is way to addictive, i could see myself quiting smoking at one point and still grow and give it away lol. hopefully someday i can do it without fear of jail.

so i was cleaning my juicers this mornign and was wondering if i would get any benifits from making a tea with the left over fruit and veggie matter? use that some ewc and molassas perhaps?

got my neem cake today, i was going to add all 10 pounds but wanted to check in here first and see if this was a good idea, will it burn the plants or anythign if i add too much?

Hi sewich,

On the Neem Resource site, they post this warning: Exercise caution while using in potting mixes. Using more than 1% could cause a lack of seed germination or stunt young plants.

Growers in the City use a wide range of Neem cake amounts in their mixes - some more, some less. For my 56 cup mix (total ingredients), I'll be using 1/2 cup Neem cake. That's just shy of the 1% limit recommended by the Neem Resource.

Hope that helps.
See ya,

yeah i read that after adding the 5 pounds. i have the soil cooking in a 30g rubbermaind tub that is about 80% full so roughly 20-25 gallons, 5 pounds of neem was roughly half a gallon of volume. im not going to be using this mix till the plant goes into flower and i transplant the females into their final containers so not to worried about it affecting the germ rate, hopefully the plants will be mature enough that if i did over do it with the neem that it doesn't affect them too much.

so yeah after adding that neem cake the soil has a rather pungent smell. had to move out ot the garage. hopefully the smell reduces as it cooks cause it smells like sour milk.

Hi sewich,

If my math is correct, it sounds like you added just over twice as much as is recommended by the Neem Resource site. I honestly can't say what affect, if any, that will have on mature plants set into pots to flower. Even though Neem cake is generally used to control fungus gnats and other pests that can inhabit organic mixes, it is an organic fertilizer as well, with a fairly rich N-P-K. I think as long as you haven't added an overabundance of other rich organic fertilizers to your mix (and it doesn't look like you did), you should be okay with it.

That said, if it were my grow, and the plants were from seed I paid good money for and didn't want to take a chance on messing them up, I would mix another 10-15 gal. batch of soil without any Neem cake in it and blend the two together just to be safe - which beats being sorry any day

See ya...

yeah i think im going to cut it with some more pro mix to be safe.

Letd see some pics bruh bruh.

nothing to take pics of yet, waiting for my seed order to show up. right now im just mixing soil. but once things get started i will be updateing weekly pics to document the growth.

Ten Four, I will be sticking around to see how this goes

I concur with Chunk. while my grow isn't in the organic section (I don't need it to be, lol) I've been organic for a long time and find the EWC is the most important element of any soil. Probably something to do with the fact that in nature plants evolved to utilize the micronutrients produced by worms over 1000's of years. Love me some EWC.

I have a lady who farms it up in Minnesota (glacial dump some of the most fertile soil in the entire world if not THE most) if you want, PM me and I'll send you her site.