Hello everyone! I recently switched to organic growing, and I'm having some issues with the learning curve, so I figured I'd see what you all think! I have had some amazing hydro harvests, but I find it to be labour intensive and cost-prohibitive for the average grower, so I figured to delve in to organics, since I have 2lbs+ of red wigglers laying around So I flushed my coco coir to flower my girls in bigger pots, and then transplanted to what I think is 20 gal? They are doing fairly well, one had some transplant shock from trying to get rid of coir but she recovered after a follage trim and some TLC/follower sprays I figured as a clone has its leaves trimmed back and foliage reduced, the same for the flowering girl to recover. But I digress xD Slight nitrogen def. In the flowering room it seems, Soil is as follows: 33/33/33 Coco coir/perlite/worm castings(or compost if unavailable) On top of this, I top dress (no time to cook soil, need more planning skills tbh) and allow the molds to break down the following additives: Fish bone meal Alpalpa meal Kelp meal I also use kelp meal tea and I've used worm castings tea(live castings) a couple times. All known female plants get a handful of red wigglers also. Tips? Hello again everybody!! Photos to come heres a teaser of a defiency I am questioning... Ignore the others as it's an older photo, and the others are resolved, but I keep seeing this...
Hey Disposable, Welcome to the organic side! First if you're going to go organic i recommend you follow a known recipe for making the soil like whats outlined in the no-till or the beginners soil threads, lots of great info on organic soil in those threads as well. No-Till Gardening: Revisited Easy Organic Soil Mix for Beginners (If you go with the No-till recipe i recommend adding a cup of lime per CF of base soil as it is not included in the recipe) Second, Coir is great for hydro and i also love it as a cloning medium but as a base for a soil mix it is somewhat lacking and just too common to see problems when people incorporate it into their mix. Most of us use Sphagnum peat moss instead as it is just a superior medium for soil mixing in almost every way. As for the deficiency, could you post a photo of the whole plant (including pot) and also a closeup of the top growth? My hunch is that the issue is the soil is too hot since you didnt let it cycle and also used alfalfa which can easily heat up if not used sparingly. Also, I have compiled a thread with tons of info on organic gardening where you can find pretty much all you would need to get started consolidated in one place: All Organic Recipes and Notes Compilation
I was an organic soil grower and switched to coco, lol. Organics was too time consuming and expensive for me. I still grow my veggies organically using recycled soil that I add amendments to. Using powdered nutes at $35 for 12.5 lbs ( enough to mix 2,400 gallons) and an automatic watering system and growing in one gallon pots of coco in my indoor garden now. I still make a tea about twice throughout my coco grows to use as a flush if runoff PPMs get too high and add bennies to the roots. Ewc, kelp meal, humic acid, chicken manure, alfalfa meal (in veg), Recharge, and mollasses. Brewed with air for 36 hrs.
umm not to sound argumentative but thats a whole lot more work then I do for my organic grow. The initial cost may be a bit more upfront to make a quality soil, but once thats done your expenses should go down to about nothing. My "work" is pretty much boiled down to throwing a handful of top dress once every week or two and watering (which is done automatically via blumats). I honestly at this point tend to my plants once a week for 5 minutes and i haven't spent a dime on anything in over 2 years. YMMV
I mix nutes in my 55 gal res once every 10-14 days, and check and adjust ph once or twice. Gives me more time to spend on training a wide flat canopy. The lack of control in organics ultimately made me switch. Don’t get me wrong, I grew some great stuff outside organically, but nothing compared to what I put out inside in coco. I like to see a fade and can achieve that by withholding nutes now. Or adding them if I see a deficiency and having the nutes immediately available. Organically it’s already in the soil and keeps feeding, regardless of what I want it to do. There’s a million ways to grow these ladies, just giving my two cents. I might throw a 30 gallon pot in my room and grow out an organic tree this winter, we’ll see.
I was running AN but found Ebb and flow to be too problematic. In switching to soil I hope to achieve sustainable, and fairly care free harvests as loosing 30+ sq foot of canopy due to root rot in flower isn't really cost effective I hate coco manual watering, run off is a bitch. Anyways, I digress. I prefer coco coir as it's a renewable resource, and It's completely neutral PH, unlike peat. Why exactly do people usually use peat exactly? I'd prefer coco even if peat moss has a long list of positives, because of the PH drop that peat does over time, not to mention the drainability of coir. I didn't amend anything, only via top dressing/ teas. Mix is fairly neutral and shouldn't be hot
Runoff is easy to contain on a slanted corrugated steel table with a gutter and hose to bucket head shop vac. I suck out about 2 gallons of runoff every day and feed it to my melons, cucumbers, and squash. I manually water the veg cabinet for now on trays. I enjoy that time with the ladies and do my pruning and training while they drain. Might set up a smaller version of my manifold in there at some point, who knows. Start a journal if you’d like, I’ll follow along. I love watching different grows to help others with what I’ve learned, as well as learning new things myself
Hey there I just did the same... switched from ten years of hydro back to soil. I did try out coco for a year as an in between, but realized pretty quickly it’s still just hydro. A great version of hydro to be sure, but not what I was looking for. I used to enjoy the daily ritual of playing mad scientist and telling them what I thought they needed... now I enjoy the simplicity of it all and let them take what they want. I went with really large 220 gallon raised beds and filled them with the no till mix listed in the “no till gardening: revisited” thread. There’s pics of the planters I made in there too. From what I have seen so far, I am COMPLETELY sold on this set up. Specifically, I think the large volume of soil is key. Allowing the soil biology to work it’s natural wonders seems to be maximized better in these massive planters as opposed to smaller containers. Ph is buffered really well so no need to monitor it or death. Constant, steady uptake of nutrients without any weekly top dressing is another benefit. I also see better hydration properties ( just installed a Blumat system, so that should be even more hands off). What I really like is that I now have built a soil that should last for many years. I imagine I’ll need to do some minor top dressing in between harvests, but I bought all my original inputs in bulk so I won’t need to spend any money on that for quite awhile! HTH
IMO, peat is the better option for the water only soil mixes that we create around here. Coco is better for hydro/chem' feeding. Here are the majority of the pros/cons of each... Peat vs Coco Coir You didn't add any "lime" (some material containing carbonate, like dolomite, crab shell meal, or oyster shell meal) to buffer soil acidity... Where do you source your worm castings/compost?
The main benefit (among the many you can read in waktoos link) is the higher Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) which in a nutshell is the mediums ability to hold nutrients. The acidity is easily countered with the addition of lime to your soil mix. As for sustainability, the truth is that peat moss not being sustainable and/or renewable is a myth, most likely propagated by the coco coir industry. The truth about peat moss
Compost is local from an old ladys back yard, until mine is ready. I have 2 lbs of red wigglers that generate my castings Got em to eat up my leaves to increase security Guess I killed two birds with one stone. Well, since I already used coir, what can I do now haha? What exactly would adding the lime do? I assumed people use it for just reducing the PH of the media. Since the PH of coir is neutral, I assumed I wouldn't be needing it... :O oops
you’ll be fine. Might need to add some calmag as coco withholds these from the plants until at capacity
Awesome! I love soil for that reason, it's super difficult to fuck it up... Honestly I have clones that soil brought back to life xD it's awesome, and for what? A reduced amount of growth? Slow and steady I'd rather harvest in the end, then loose another harvest to root rot:/ Shit was hard to ID...
I'll hold off on the calmag unlessyou know of an organic additive, I have plenty laying around but I don't want to really add any soluble chems I was thinking of adding some of my silica to some RO water and ph'ing it, I like silica xD
Silica is a must for me. You could use oyster flour, gypsum, lime (that would raise your ph). As fine a powder as you can get so it breaks down faster.
Equally as important to me. Maybe a little more with all the training I do. 30 colas per plant and none that fall over. I grow in coco so calmag is always in the mix too. Everyone always comments on the size of my stem !!!
My guess is the uncycled soil along with the alfalfa top dressing caused some nutrient burn. I would lay off any teas and just do water only for a week and see how they react.