Flushing??

...if your in soil , I think it's a waste of time to flush. I really doubt you can wash bat shit out of your dirt.

...the idea of flushing comes from growing hydroponics.

 

yes flush in soil, and nutrients will make the bud taste bitter and when you burn it the ash wont turn white.

 

You could just do a water cure, this way the plant won't be put at risk and the smoke will be clean.

 

....sounds like your bound and determined to overwater the hell out of your soil, or flush which ever you chose to call it....so, maybe this will give you an idea on things.....this is what toastybiz posted on another thread

I don't know why flushing is so confusing to some people. Flushing is the act of running a bunch of water through the soil, rinsing and cleansing it. It takes 30 minutes to a couple of hours, not two weeks. You do not flush constantly during the final two weeks. You don't flush every watering for the last two weeks. You need to do it only once, 1-2 weeks before harvest, but that entire 2-week period is not "the flush".

You want to run at least 3x the soil volume through the pot. So in the case of a 5-gallon pot then yes, 15 gallons per pot is the target number. Or, in the OP's case, 105 total gallons of water, minimum (no harm in running even more water through) for the 7-plant grow.

That's a lot of water to pH, and you can cheat a little -- if your tap water is basically clean you can use un-buffered tap water for most of the flush (I haul my plants up to the shower and use the hand-held on a hose extension). Run water gently into the pots. As you run water in, it probably will collect on top (it won't filter through the soil as fast as you can pour it in). So, as the pot gets full you stop and leave it for a few minutes, allowing that water to percolate down into the soil and out the bottom. Then repeat, and keep doing this. Hard to gauge how much water you are using this way, but you can measure by running the water at the same flow rate into a bucket for a measured amount of time (say 15 seconds) then measure how much water that is and calculate how much time you need to flush like this (so, for example, if you find that your water is flowing at one gallon a minute, then each pot will need to get 15 minutes of water flow to get 15 gallons).

If you are going to use un-buffered tap water for most of your flush then it's best before the flush to prepare some pH-buffered water (at least 50% of pot volume, so in the OP's case 17.5 gallons minimum) that has been allowed to sit out at least 24 hours for any chlorine to evaporate, and then finish the flush with this buffered water. This way you will push out the un-buffered tap water and leave your soil mostly pH-balanced and any chlorine washed out for the most part.

After the flush your soil will be super-saturated, more so than after any of your typical waterings. The flush counts as a watering -- it leaves your soil soppy wet, after all, and you can't turn around and water those plants the day after the flush with the soil saturated like that. After the flush it most likely will take longer than usual for the soil to dry out enough for the next watering -- with 5-gallon pots it could be more than a week. Once the plants are ready for watering again just water your regular way except no nutes and add 1tbsp unsulfured molasses per gallon to your water. This is not part of "the flush", it's what you do after the flush. No need to try to run another 3x through the pot, your plants may be sitting in wet soil at the time of harvest if you do.

Now, as for flushing soil with Miracle Gro time-released ferts, how long did you veg? Rhapsody is correct that flushing will dissolve the time-released fert pellets still in your soil and so could release even more nutes, so the issue is how long have the plants been in that soil? If you vegged for a couple of months and then obviously have flowered for close to a couple of months now, that should have been enough waterings to pretty much dissolve those pellets by now, in which case you shouldn't need to worry about dissolving more. But if you vegged only a couple of weeks or shorter then you still could have the pellets in the soil and thus could dissolve them more with the flush. If so, you should either not flush at all or else flush well more than the recommended minimum, so possibly 5x or 6x pot volume (or more).

Many people hear that you flush 1-2 weeks before harvest and think that means the flushing lasts that entire 2-week period. It does not, you should need to flush only once, and then there is a period of roughly 2 weeks after the flush, not part of the flush.

 

Wow, saved me from replying to this thread!

Yeah, basically flushing is to cleanse the soil, pour a bunch of water through, afterwards the soil will be very wet so don't water again until it needs it. You won't drown your plants with flushing, overwatering occurs from watering too frequently not from how much you give in any one watering. Final flush is 1-2 weeks before harvest with no feeding afterwards. Other times to flush are when switching from veg to flower (though most growers don't do this) and any time you have a nute burn or pH imbalance issue.

 

I just got some chicken shit and am trying to turn it into a tea (my plants have a nitrogen deficiency). I just flushed my plants, and haven't given them any chicken shit tea yet. will adding only this poop water fix the problem? I had pH problems before (flushed with 6.5 -7.0 water), so I figured if I flushed with pH'd water, then fed them this tea when it's time for their next watering, will they be okay?

 

Ok after reading ALLL that I didn't see anyone say how to remove the water from the trays before it overflows.......or did I?...A shop vac is VERY USEFULL. I have only flushed once on my first grow (all organic this round so no flush but that's besides the point) and using 5g pots for my grow when flushing, water was definitely, definitely, going in the top and out the bottom at the same time, and I only used 3 gallons of water each, 3x the amount I normally watered with if I had no shop vac I would have had one Hell of a mess. To add, I only used 3g per plant because I gave only water the last 21 days.

This is just my 2 cents I am far from experienced.

Good luck bro, Be Eazy...V

 

I put 'em in the bathtub or shower for the flush, but a shop vac works well too.

 

Ya I can see using the tub for smaller plants.