i'm about to try my hand at organic growing in a soilless medium. i've been growing hydro in hempy buckets for the longest time, just using GH nutes/lucas formula with great success, using 90% perlite/10% vermiculite, with higromite in the bottom two inches of the bucket. now that i'm about to try organic, i'm using the General Organics "starter pack" thing, and i was hoping to just keep using the perlite/vermiculite i've been using. but after doing some research, it seems that for the organic nutrients to be readily available and at the proper pH, you have to have a healthy bunch of beneficial microbes around the roots. and to get that, you have to have some sort of compost or organic material *in* your mixed growing medium. how much truth is there to this? i'm fine with adding compost if necessary, and would happily welcome recommendations on the best/cheapest/most available types to use! but the General Organics starter pack includes liquid kelp (bioweed) and liquid fish emulsion (biomarine), if i used these with each feeding would it be enough to keep the microbes happy? would love to hear from anyone with experience with any of this. thanks GC
[quote name='"mindismoving"']i'm about to try my hand at organic growing in a soilless medium. i've been growing hydro in hempy buckets for the longest time, just using GH nutes/lucas formula with great success, using 90% perlite/10% vermiculite, with higromite in the bottom two inches of the bucket. now that i'm about to try organic, i'm using the General Organics "starter pack" thing, and i was hoping to just keep using the perlite/vermiculite i've been using. but after doing some research, it seems that for the organic nutrients to be readily available and at the proper pH, you have to have a healthy bunch of beneficial microbes around the roots. and to get that, you have to have some sort of compost or organic material *in* your mixed growing medium. how much truth is there to this? i'm fine with adding compost if necessary, and would happily welcome recommendations on the best/cheapest/most available types to use! but the General Organics starter pack includes liquid kelp (bioweed) and liquid fish emulsion (biomarine), if i used these with each feeding would it be enough to keep the microbes happy? would love to hear from anyone with experience with any of this. thanks GC[/quote] Perlite wont keep microbes alive for very long. That's the reason for peat moss in almost every organic grow arund here. Personally I would say read some stickies around here on soil mixes. Not just what to put in, but why. Also for some basic reading on compost I have a Gardening Book thread in my sig. HtH And don't let the learning curve scare you, it's very worth reading before you begin this organic journey. HaGGarD
Would you mind a suggestion, or are you already set in your "organic" gardening method? If you are open for a suggestion might I suggest, as SH did, reading the stickys on soil building, ask some questions here, get comfortable and build a real, organic soil and then use it. To hell with continued spending spending spending on bottled goop. With a properly made soil you can keep your new soil moist with water from start to finish and not worry about anything. There are many here that will be willing tohelp you with this. If not and you already have your bottles or have already decided to go this route, then I apologize for butting in and best of luck to you - whichever method you use. J
I was thinking of trying a 60% perlite to 40% soil mix in a small pot to compare but 100% drainage seems like a waste
all suggestions are quite welcome i've been mulling over the entire spectrum between "hempy" style hydro and straight organic soil for the past few days.. the problem is that it's hard to separate fact from hype in the "soil vs hydro" debate. like i said, i've been doing passive hydro from the start, and had great results. i just got through pulling almost 8 oz from one plant grown in a 2 gallon bucket in a tent that measures 23" D x 30" W x 52" H, and i'm utterly thrillled lol. but that's not to say i'm among the unconditionally-convinced hydro crowd. i just don't know if i could get the same yield in such a small space doing soil, and since resources are tight i haven't experimented until now. have you done any scrupulous comparisons between hydro and soil for yield/quality etc? what really swept me away was the GO line of nutes' (according to GO, of course) flexibility to be used in hand-watered hydro setups; i was hoping to keep using the concept of the hempy bucket, specifically that a small reservoir of water or solution could be kept in the bottom 2" of the container, the excess drains through a small drain hole, and if things get gross in there it's very easy to flush the crap out of it. ...at any rate, what are your thoughts on having a similar root volume (gonna test out a 3 gal geo-pot) with organic soil? if i just took my 90/10 perlite/vermiculite and added like 30% total volume of a quality compost, would it still be just plain unsuitable for microbial life? like the fellow above suggested, i'm going through the info, but damn it's a slow process haha. there is A LOT to be accounted for! always fun to learn new stuff tho.
i've experimented with various ratios of perlite/vermiculite for several years, all hand-watered hydro but i've used it for everything from cannabis to kale, chard and any number of herbs. in my personal experience, even using 20% vermiculite resulted in very impressive water retention, across the board with all species throughout every growth stage. i've come to favor the higher ratio of perlite, because i don't like to let things go stagnant too long in any medium indoors. i keep a fairly tight schedule: plain pH-adjusted water on day 1; nothing whatsoever on day 2; feed appropriate strength day 3; nothing day 4; pH'd water day 5 and so on in perpetuity. this gives the medium time to dry out completely on about the top 2 inches. there's a lot of flexibility too.. again, even at only 20% verm i have let my plants of all kinds go 3-4 days with nothing but light and raw enthusiasm . i would think 40% verm would probably fair better than you think if you'd rather just kinda water-as-you-go, testing for dryness by hand, tho i would probably want to add 1/2 inch or 1 inch of plain perlite to the top layer to prevent fungus gnats and all that comes with a moist exposed medium.. cedar shavings work GREAT for that as well, and are dirt cheap. hell, do both lol.
Peat(moss) like coir is an inert soilless growing medium. Own their own and without the addition of other soil conditioning ammendments one can't grow anything in them. Additionally, peat and coir provide for water and nutrient retention as well as air spaces to a small degree. Finished quality compost, along with an areation ammendment for soil porosity such as perlite or similar, and some quality EWC would probably grow a plant for 60 days with nothing else but water. If you are going to use the GO line I would recommend both the compost and EWC as a base component of your soiless medium mixed in the same recommended percentages as many of the stickied soil mix threads and follow the GO schedule but do so at 1/4 dose all the way through the grow. Do NOT use the full strength recommended dosage or you'll begin to have some pH issues about 1/2-3/4 through your grow. The compost and the EWC will greatly help to keep the pH in balance. If you select a known, quality finished compost and quality EWC you will have some microbial activity by default. If you trust the GO line is organic and contains no harmful salts and metals then you should not have a problem IMO. The compost and EWC is the absolute 100% way to keep the soil chemistry in favorable balance in addition to any benefit you will receive from a dubious amount of "microbial life".
if you go with GO, mind the expiration dates. No doubt their extracts and emulsions decrease in efficacy over time collecting dust on a shelf. I would pick up a couple GO products except there are much finer bottled products for the price- such as fish hydrolysate, fermented fulvic acids, neem and karanja's, etc...
Or, you could of spend the money on the bottles, do a little research, build a quality soil as Possum suggested with peat, compost & earthworm castings and then simply keep moist with straight water during your grow... You asked above if I had done Any comparisons between soil & hydro regarding yield and quality? The answer is yes - a well made soil blows away hydro on quality - there's not even any comparison. Hydro is not even in the same league as organic soil grown flowers. The flavor and aroma is amazing where I find hydro flowers to be so-so. As far as yield goes, this. Ones down to the individual gardeners experience every time, no matter what, but I have personally grown consistent 8 to 12 ounce plants indoors in organic soil, so... That's suitable for me. Best of luck in your choice of methods. If you do decide to garden organically, remember - quality soil = quality flowers. J
I get about 10-12 oz off of organic soil 5 gallon pots with a 30-40 day veg from clone and 9 week flower.
many thanks to both of you! this is exactly the kind of info im looking for. i've been hoping to try out organic soil growing for pretty much the reasons you gave, flavor and aroma and, i would bet, with many strains an increase in potency. the reason i've been reluctant is because in my situation (a closet) height and space in general are at a premium, so i've not gone bigger than a 2 1/2 gallon container. i know a handful of people with bits and pieces of experience, and they've suggested to me that it's harder to get away with smaller pot sizes in soil, whereas hydro it's less of a problem. this seems to make "intuitive" sense, but i've found a lot of growers' intuitions to be a bit off plenty of times haha. either way i go i plan to use aeration containers, but i think the largest ones that are practical for my space are the 3-gal ones. i've read conflicting info in various grow journals on pot size vs yield.. what's the story here? could i still pull a decent yield in organic soil in 3 gallons? thanks again for the replies
i agree that a smaller container gives less room for error. Remember, the soil will be loaded with orgeonisms including worms, and your plants roots, it's nice to give them enough space. The 3 gallon fabric pots are good. Like herbmed suggests a 5 will be better, and if you roll like jerry you'll go with 10-15's. I am using a 30 gallon smart pot with 6 plants in there, and around 450 watts of HID/t-5 light. the pot is loaded with worms, whom work for me. I keep the plants watered with aloe vera and topdressing with a simple thermal compost. So far it's putting the wowie in my maui.