I'm in the middle of my first serious indoor soil grow. I have been reading to have about 20-25% of water run off. In my 5 gallon set up that is like a gallon of runoff. I am wondering how other people water their plants. I only have saucers under my plants that will not come close to holding a gallon of water. So what is under your plants or what do you do when watering? I am also concerned about a ph problem and would like to flush also I hear I should flush before harvest. I have read to run about 3 times the volume of your soil through your plants. So I have to run 15 gallons through each of my plants (7 at the moment but not sexed yet). Thats alot of water and ph adjusting. Just looking for some techniques. Thanks for any help.
20-25% water runoff doesn't mean 20-25% of the volume of soil, just means if you put in one gallon of water, you want to get about 20-25% of a gallon of water running out. If one gallon doesn't runoff 20-25% of one gallon, then go up until the amount you put in is runoff by 20-25%. As far as pH and flushing, take a look at the pH link in my sig, I cba to go into depth about it anymore .
that is the thread I was just reading. Got ya and the watering, but what techniues are used for flushing. You dont really go into how to flush just that its good and should be done. I have heard of folks using the bathtub which I cant do. I could bring the plants upstairs and flush them one at a time in the sink but that would take forever and would lose the runoff. Just thought I'd see if anyone had any slick ideas to make it easier. thanks for the quick reply. I see your a fellow michigander as well ha? Cool.
There are flushing agents you can find on the market that actually do work well, but really all you need to do is just flush the shit out of them. The general rule of thumb is to use 3 gallons of water for every 1 gallon of soil. So if you're using 3 gallon pots, 9 gallons of water need to run through to correctly leech the soil of all the bad shit. If you are flushing simply to flush, you really don't need to collect the run off, the point of flushing is simply to get all the built up salt, nutrients, and other "grime" out of the soil, and leave your soil as simple dirt used to support your plant and it's roots. As far as RO water, I really can't say, of course it can't hurt to use it because RO water is about the purest form of water you can get. I don't know what part of MI you are from, but where I live the water is pretty shitty. I really want an RO unit, and it's actually number one on the list of upgrades, but atm it's not under the budget so I stick with filtered well water. As far as the amount of watering and pH adjusting all I can say is growing good weed is not easy. In fact, it can be rather time consuming - but in the end at least in my opinion, it's more than worth it. It's become a hobby for me, and because it's legal I find a lot of satisfaction from a completed harvest. I put a lot of effort into my grows, and get good results in return.
add 1 tbsp of dolomite lime per gallon of soil next time. You wont have ph issues anymore. If your using ffof you will have ph issues everytime without lime.
I am using ffof and thanks for the reply. Dolomite lime will raise or lower my ph to about 7 correct? Is it easy to find? I had been thinking about it but did not know how to use it and was nervous about it. Its good to hear from people who have done it. I take it you are experienced in this area? Thanks again for the reply.
I am using a flood table which would drain out to a 5 gallon bucket. But...I got sick of hauling sloshy 5 gallon water buckets so I recently added an in-line pump which empties the flood table out thru with my washing machine drain. Evil
Call me crazy but I do all my flushing in the bathtub. Its easy to clean up afterward. I ph my water in a 5 gal bucket then apply 3 bucket loads per plant. My pot size is 5 gal so it works perfectly. The goal is to do this as slowly and evenly dispersed through the soil as possible. I have 2 plants that I flushed a week ago and it took about 1 hour to flush them. I flush 3 times during a grow cycle using ff nutes. Once when I switch from veg to flower, once when I switch from open sesame to beastie bloomz and once about 8 to 9 days before harvest. good luck.
I use sunleaves soil sweetner (dolomitic lime). Since I started using lime this time around my runoff is 6.6 and no ph issues. plants have been flowering for 25 days or so and look better then any I have had in a long time.