Hello my fellow, Tokers. I just planted my germ'd seeds in a pot. I'm using horse manuar and I was reading that people just use horse manuar and water for food and it's been very successful before. So my question is would this work indoors since I'm Using straight CFL's? (I have 2 plants and only two CFL's equal to 2600 Lumnes I know I need more I'm going out today.) Keep in mind also the horse manuar I am using is 6-7 years old if I dig deep enough and very composted. (The shit I got is probably only 3-4 years old but still very composted) Thanks!
cfl spectrum matters you have 5500 or 2700k spectrums?, and cfl's only emit up to 5 inches of usable photons for plant life, id suggest moving them 2.5 inches away form your plant. not to sure about your horse manure, but if its to rich it can hurt a young mj plant; they're very sensitive to over fertilization at a young age.
Yes it has the potential to work fine for a smallish grow like you are referring to, however, you're going to need to probably add some aeration because composted horse manure has the potential to be very wet and heavy - ie: insufficient oxygen to your root system. I would personally go down to your local beer brewing store and grab a sack of rice hulls and mix around 25% in with your manure compost. If you're trying to keep this really inexpensive there is still one other item I would add to ensure sufficient nutrition, and that is Kelp Meal. You can go to your local Home Depot or garden center and buy a 5 pound bag for under ten dollars. "Epsoma", the same company that makes the "Plant Tone" or "Garden Tone" organic garden fertilizer sells this product in little 5 pound bags that would be perfect for you. Mix in 1.5 to 2 cups (max) of the Kelp Meal for every cubic foot (7.5 gallons) of the composted horse manure and aeration mix. Kelp meal not only contains major and minor nutrients/micronutrients but it also contains plant growth hormones - it's the perfect single plant food. Any plant food in an organic garden paradigm needs to be broken down into its basic elemental form prior to being used as plant food, so mix the horse manure, aeration and kelp meal asap to allow time for the bacteria in the manure to start breaking it down. Both the aeration and nutrition are key - these two items will cost you less than $20 to mix in and are money well spent, IMO. J
Thank you very much, Jerry. I' m going to go to Home Depot today and buy some of that and make sure I get some and for the Rice I'm going to run and get that also, so thank you. And I will check the bulbs Watts when I get home. (I know not the equivalent . )
If you can't come up with rice hulls you can always use perlite; I'm just not really a perlite guy myself but its really just a matter of preference. I'm an organic gardener; I construct my own soil so seeing little white balls in my soil makes it look like a commercial soil and just goes against my grain lol - but it works fine. Aeration is aeration. Just make sure that your soil isn't heavy and wet/dense when you plant. Oxygen to your roots is crucial. Good luck. J
I acquired the Kelp Meal, I feel like it will help the grow very very much. The rich hulls I could not come up with, but I do have perlite laying around (Amen!!!). One last thing though, do you think that will be enough for a decent grow (To me decent is about an OZ cause I'm new myself.) I have Composted horse manuar, Kelp Meal, and Perlite. If you feel there's anything else necessary just let me know because I want to have a decent grow also. Thanks.
*If this were me* I would personally get some Pro-Mix and mix your soil like this: 30% compost 50% Pro-Mix 20% Aeration To this, for each Cubic Foot (7.5 gallons) of this base mix add 1.5 cups of your Kelp Meal. Moisten thoroughly after mixing and you could use this right away but the longer you let it sit the better. I'm sorry I didn't mention the ProMix earlier but I was only going by your original thread. I suggest Pro-Mix because it will do several things - it will lighten your mix up considerably over straight compost and perlite, it will add mass and the sphagnum peat that it is based on is, quite frankly, the base for almost every potting soil made. It's an excellent product that already comes pH balanced and should treat you right. You basically, at this point, have built yourself a good basic organic soil that you will not need to add bottled nutrients to, you will not need to check or attempt to balance the pH for, and you will not need to flush it. Your lighting, growing area, pot size and length of vegetative time will determine your yield. Very quickly, organic gardening works like this - the soil microbes, ie: bacteria and fungus which is already in your compost break down organic matter, including your kelp meal (which, btw, will provide you with complete mineralization - every element needed for plant growth is in it) by excreting enzymes. These enzymes break down your organic matter into its basic elemental form - nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, calcium, et al, plus a wide diversity of organic compounds essential for plant growth, at which point your plant can use these elements and compounds as plant food and hormones, etc. Just keep it moist with dechlorinated tap water (let it sit out overnight if you live in the city and chlorine is used). You will not need to add anything. Good luck. J
PS - take a few minutes sometime and read the first few pages (or more) of this thread - you'll find it extremely helpful. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1116550-easy-organic-soil-mix-beginners.html J
I defentily will! Like I said, I only have two plants and two CFL's (They are 'Daylight' CFL's.. 19 Watt.) Should I buy more? It's only 2600 Lumnes between the two. Also should I buy Blue CFL's for veg and Red for flowering? I'm doing a small closet grow (Keeping it hid from the parents ) So i don't want to buy hps bulbs and have a 4 ft plant.
Kelp Meal. Vitamins (mg/kg) Ascorbic acid (C) 500 - 2000 Tocopherols (E) 150 - 300 Carotene (A) 30 - 60 Ba 15 - 50 Niacin 10 - 30 Vitamin K 10 Riboflavin 5 - 10 Ni 2 - 5 V 1.5 - 3 Thiamin 1 - 5 Folic acid 0.1 - 0.5 Folinic acid 0.1 - 0.5 Biotin 0.1 – 0.4 Vitamin B12 0.004 Amino Acids (as gms of amino acid nitrogen / 100 gms of protein nitrogen) Alanine 5.0 Arginine 11.8 Aspartic acid 8.7 Glutamic acid 5.3 Glycine 5.7 Leucine 8.7 Lysine 4.1 Serine 3.3 Threonine 2.7 Tyrosine 0.5 Valine + Methionine 14.0 Minerals and Elements (%) Aluminum .193 Antimony .00014 Barium .00128 Boron .0194 Calcium 1.904 Chlorine 3.68 Cobalt .00123 Copper .00064 Fluorine .03265 Germanium .00001 Gold .00001 Iodine .0624 Iron .08956 Lantanum .00001 Lead .00001 Lithium .00001 Magnesium .213 Manganese .1235 Mercury .00019 Molybdenum .00159 Nickel .0035 Nitrogen .0624 Phosphorus .211 Potassium 1.28 Rubidium .00001 Selenium .00004 Silicon .1642 Sodium 4.18 Sulfur 1.564 Strontium .07488 Thallium .00029 Tin .00001 Titanium .00001 Tungsten .00003 Vanadium .00053 Zinc .00352 Trace or Undeclared Amounts: Beryllium, Bromine, Bismuth, Cadmium, Carbon, Cesium, Cerium, Chromium, Gallium, Hydrogen, Indium, Iridium, Niobium, Osmium, Oxygen, Palladium, Platinum, Radium, Rhodium, Silver, Tellurium, Thorium, Uranium, Zirconium
I apologize but have not used CFL's before - maybe someone will chime in that has the experience with them. J