I mix some of the fox farm with Promix. About 2/3 fox farm ocean forest, 1/3 Promix. I've run into problems with low PH so I also mix some pulverized lime in as well. A few regular size garden spades full. You can just use the Ocean Forest though and you'll be fine. If you get the promix it'll help to give you some filler. I usually buy one bag of FFOF and one 16 qt bag of Promix
I thought i had a low PH problem so i used pulverized lime. but i mixed a spoonful into a glass of water and gave it to my plant. Does that help?
Ive never seen someone say miracle gro was good...promix bx has lime added already and I know most add the powdered lime right to the soil not sure if you can use water to apply it since it wouldnt be distributed very well
No no no.... What you did,mixing it with water... can work. You can also buy it in liquid form already. I'm not sure how well the stuff you made will work but the store bought liquid kind can be the quickest way to change the Ph. However, here's what I do though when I run into a plant with low Ph... that does not need to be transplanted again. You want to mix some of the pulverized lime stone into the top of your soil. An inch or two inches down if you can. All around the surface of the soil. Stir it around and mix it in good. You won't be able to put it down very deep into the soil due to the roots. But the top inch or two inches is fine. Then, as you water the plant over the next week or so.. the lime will work its way down into the soil. Doesn't work as fast as the liquid method but it's always worked just fine for me. PS If you know what nutrients are not being absorbed, due to the low Ph, you can make a foliant spray. I put 2.5 ml of a CalMg nutrient into a gallon of water and spray that on the leaves. The leaves can absorb the nutrients that the roots can't. Many people forget about this. A foliant spray is one of the quickest easiest ways to fix a nutrient issue.
Also... I forgot to mention. Lime is very caustic...it's what the bad guys use to speed up the decomposition of dead people. Keep it off your hands! Not sure that the leaves of the plant will like it much either.
Amazon Bloom by Earth Juice is packed with tons of compost, all organic, to help you with feeding your plants up until you need a boost. (about 2 months later)
You could just buy a bag of Fox Farm and get going and you would be just fine. I've used Fox Farm Oceans Forrest for a couple of years now. To save a little money, last year I began mixing 50/50 Fox Farm and Miracle Grow and I only noticed a change for the better on my yields.(More likely because I became a more experienced grower.) This year I started mixing Fox Farm/Miracle Grow/and a coco choir based inexpensive potting soil 1/3 of each and have had as good a success with that as anything else. I've also grown pot in straight Miracle Grow potting soil both the organic(brown bag) and their Greenbag potting soil with excellent results. Lime(dolomite) is what is used to raise the alkalinity level of your soil. It also adds calcium and magnesium.It is nothing more than powdered limestone also known as calcium carbonate. In powdered clean form you could take a teaspoonful for heartburn. In fact Tums and Rolaids use calcium cabonate in their antacids. Do not mistake this for hydrated lime, aka calcium hydoxide, aka slaked lime,aka pickling lime, is NOT used in growing but has many other uses including acting as a flocculent (removes solids from liquid)in sewage treatment.