Hello All, I'm sure this is on the site somewhere but I can't seem to find exaclty what i need. i bought a bag of Fafard Professional potting mix. I am unable to find the NPK values anywhere. I'm not sure how to amend the soil or if i even need too. I have three different seeds and they are all feminized auto flowers. I found FF bloom($9) and Tiger bloom fertilizer($12) but did not buy any of it yet cause again i have no idea what I'm doing. I'm on a very tight budget and to be honest, with only three seeds, I can't see getting two deep into this . I'm only going to grow one plant at a time and i hate too loose any of them. Do i need to buy both the bloom and the fertilizer? or can i just make a small amount of fish fetilizer (sardines and molasses)and mix in the soil? I also have no idea how much to mix together if i made it myself. I honestly thought getting the seeds was going to be the hardest part...lol
You don't typically get NPK or guaranteed analysis of potting composts, but to start with you don't need to amend it. Plants grow in soil! But cannabis is a plant that you want to grow a crop from, so typically you need more nutrients overall than a houseplant. If you had an auto in something like a 5 gallon pot, maybe you would get away without feeding at all and not noticing any problems. On the other hand, if you try to grow the same plant in a 1 gallon pot it would probably benefit from feeding after a few weeks and then regularly. It is not a good idea to make your own home remedies if you don't know what you are doing. Trying to fertilise your plants with a tin of sardines could wind you up in all manner of trouble. If you want to avoid using nutes then you want to use more soil, maybe start in a smaller pot and move to a 5 gal after a couple of weeks. That way the plant gets 'fed' when it is repotted, and if it does start to show signs of a magnesium deficiency or something later you can probably get away with giving it one or two feeds of something general for fruits and vegetables. Even if it's not ideal, it'd be good enough in a pinch. Although I advocate using a large pot, it can be risky to germinate your seeds in a large amount of compost because it is hard not to over-water them. Germinate them in an environment where you have a lot of control, and when it is healthy with roots then plant it out in a bigger container.
So, Then can i mix clean top soil with my potting mix in a 5 gl conatainer.... then use the same mix in lets say a solo cup to start my seed. Then after let's say 2 weeks I can transfer into the 5 gl pot? Know, should I go buy the FF bloom to help get a better yied? BTW.... I have done a lot of reading and askin on sites and you are the first one to put it into the easiset terms without me going??? So Thank you..
No worries. It's a plant, a weed in fact, it will grow if you give it a chance to. People are often so obsessed with growing the biggest fattest bud possible, maybe it's surprising that they can give you bud with minimal effort. Not premium, maybe you'd be pissed at your dealer if you paid street value for it, but when it's your first grow.... it's all the more satisfying when you made it yourself Although nutes are called "grow" and "bloom", at the end of the day all they have is a different ratio of three main nutrients. People who feed their plant every week need to use "grow" and "bloom" together to feed their plant throughout the grow, and just using "bloom" wont be sufficient. It's not a special product that makes flowers, it just has more of the stuff that plants need when they are growing flowers, and less of the stuff needed for when they are growing stems and leaves. So what I am saying is, if you buy "bloom" and want to use it on its own, this is going to be a nutrient high in P and K,low in N, and you'll use it once or twice as you start flowering as a booster to your soil. But if you used it every week, overall the ratios are wrong and you'd need a "grow" to balance it out a bit. If you over-feed or get the completely wrong balance in the soil, that's a major cause for pH problems, nutrient lockout, all kinds of things like that. Some bugs even prefer to attack plants that are over-fed. I would say, as a first grow start without nutes, and if you need them then buy them. Don't panic at the first sign of a mark on a leaf, but after 4-5 weeks something is happening, that's when a feed is needed. If you're transplanting to a 5 gal pot, that will be like giving it a good slow-release feed called soil! So you should be alright for a while. A big risk is overwatering in such a large pot when the roots are still only small, so keep in your mind how much water the plant actually uses in 1-2 days rather than soaking the pot right away.
Should i be concerned with the PH of the soil? I was going to use distilled water when feeding. I will also stick to your suggestion of a using just a friut and veg feed when needed. Is there a good PK valuse range to stay in?
People use distilled water because they think "it's pure! what could be better?" Actually the pH of pure water is about pH6 simply because of the carbon dioxide dissolved in it from the atmosphere. tap water has other things that act as a buffer, so the pH of tapwater is usually closer to neutral than distilled or reverse-osmosis water. Unless you have really really hard water, then maybe there's a good reason for using RO water. If you're doing hydro and you want to carefully control your ppm, there's a good reason to use RO water. If you're in soil..... tap water is usually fine unless there's a specific reason why not. The larger your pot and the less nutrients you use, and if you don't keep the soil wet for days on end, the less likely you are to need to worry about pH in soil. When you have limited root space and the soil gets old, or stays too wet for too long, or has too many nutrients added when they're not needed, these situations develop problems related to pH. Cheap composts with peat can be a bit too acidic, and even some branded soils like certain fox farm ones can be a bit harsh on some young plants, but that also depends a bit on the plant itself. I guess I'm saying, try to avoid worrying about pH or doing anything to mess with it, and you're less likely to actually have a pH problem. Generic plant food... NPK ratio you want is low:high:higher for flowering, something like 1:4:6. Something like tomato food is more like 6:3:10 which is heavy in the nitrogen, but has a nice lot of necessary K. MG all-purpose liquid feed is 3:1:2 which is way too heavy on the nitrogen (three times more N than P), MG 'grow your own' liquid is 3:2:6 which is better but still too much N. That's why they don't get used all the time. Even the ones with good K values, you want to see the P values a little higher in comparison and lower N too. Cactus/succulent foods tends to be 1:3:3 which is more like what you're looking for, but none of the above are really suitable for long term use, although could be used once or twice with a moment of care and thought. If you're worried, unsure, or you want to buy a product and use it, then get a bloom nutrient like FF BigBloom or Canna PK13/14 and use it around the time you start flowering. If you're broke, a little chilled out about things, have something in your shed left over from growing some vegetables, check the label and see what you have. But the more soil you have, the less additives you'll need. Oh, and don't mix your own nutes that aren't part of a set. If you're going to try to make concoctions out of different fertilisers, buy one mixed by professionals instead.