Much appreciated. I managed to keep it moist throughout, although It was kept outside under a cold frame and was partially frozen several times over winter. Would it behoove me to add any fresh dry ammendments in order to provide a reserve of "time released" nutrients, or will the originals suffice? I closely followed the beginner soil recipe outlined at the beginning of this thread. Thanks again. Sent from my SM-G986U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I think it should be fine, especially if stored outside. You really shouldn’t need to add anything. Cheers Os
Wow, this thread is amazing! Figuring out a good soil mix has been really stressing me out while I've been planning for my first grow. This is going to be incredibly helpful. I'm been trying to take a "less is more" approach to my first setup and then tweak and learn as I grow (literally and figuratively in this case). I think I'll try following the OP's recommendations w/ amendments and go from there. Might brew some teas along the way as that seems like something I would enjoy giving a try. Other than that I'm thinking a four plant setup in a 4x4 tent using SCROG will be my first venture.
Do the npk numbers not matter when picking between these 2 Espoma products? I know people say npk is out the window with organics but why would leaves yellow/nitrogen deficiency if there was enough nitrogen fertilizer in the mix even with the plant being in a small pot/less soil mass. Smaller pot meaning 3 gallon. Thanks 3-4-6 tomato-tone 5-3-3 plant-tone
I use it as a mulch layer in our outdoor veggie and flower gardens. It works great. Also works great in a raised bed as your soil. Herbs, veggies, flowers, berries everything.
It's a good all around Mix for growing most anything. If your using high PH tap water you can delete the Lime and add a bit of Sulfur to help keep the tap water from pushing the soil out of range. BNW
I don't know J - I've seen a ship-ton of em available lately. You'd think that cannabis is some plant that flew in from outer-space defying the laws of physics, chemistry and of course botany. Thought that was the stuff in bottles but now its soil too. And of course complete with a colorful label/packaging. Couldn't grow without a colorful bro label could we. lol Clones for 5-hudred if you need em.
The main difference between garden soil and Cannabis soil is the cannabis soil uses rock dudt from a specific mountain valley - on Venus; the kelp is sustainably sourced from a glacial lake in the belly of an extinct volcano and the bone meal is pounded by hand by small children in a remote Amazon jungle from red headed monkey babies. The garden soil is just peat and chicken shit. j
Well it's either red monkey baby brains or albino unicorn dolphin sperm, and good luck finding the latter.
I I don’t know guys, I think there must be a “secret recipe” that sets cannabis soil apart from regular soil, this one claims to contain a secret recipe that was developed up in the emerald triangle of NorCal and that cannabis plants absolutely love it!
Good Afternoon All, I'm hoping to get some help making the transition to organic soil. I learned the hard way that this organic soil mix is too hot for seedlings, so I've been starting seeds in ocean forest or happy frog. The problem I've been having is that any time I put a young plant into the full strength organic soil mix my plants begin to have severely slowed growth and progressive yellowing. Most recently I went from solo cups with happy frog and 30% perlite to 50% ITG's mix and 50% happy frog in 1 gallon containers. When I went from 1 gallon to 2 gallons I went with ITG's full strength soil, hoping that I had acclimated the young plants to their new soil, but the growth slowing, burned leaf tips, and subtle yellowing has begun. Eventually I plan to have 4 plants in a 39" by 39" under 600w MH/HPS. Environment is well controlled and not contributing to the problem. Previously I had success with this soil mix, but my first experience with it was outdoor and only the mature plants ready for flowering were put in the full strength organic soil mix. I make ITG's soil mix exactly as described in the first post here. My amendments are 2 parts kelp, 1 part tomato tone, 1 part alfalfa, 1 part neem, 1 part crab. I use 3 cups per cf azomite instead of 4 is the only modification. I've also decreased the amendments from 2.5 to 3 cups per cf to 2. For my very last round of soil building I tried promix instead of peat and omitted the lime. For compost I make my own out of leaves and loads of fruit and it attracts loads of earthworms. I even take finished compost and add more fruit and worms and try to get very rich VC/EWC. I'm post some images below. If you have any thoughts or comments about what may be going wrong please let me know. I've put so much effort and energy into building soil from scratch, but it will only be worth all the effort if the soil works. Not sure if this matters but I've grown tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and flowering plants with this soil with no issues. I even stuck my pH meter in a soil slurry once thinking a had a pH problem but the pH was 6.4
Here in the foreground are healthy plants in 50/50 organic mix with happy frog. The 3 in the background were recently transplanted into 100% organic mix.
What's your water like? Have you ever had a water test performed (not just testing water pH, but getting a lab test done)?