I can't find a full list of ingredients for Patio Plus anywhere..... what does the bag say? Does it have ingredients? Does it claim to be organic, or natural, or what? I'm pretty sure there are no chemical ferts in your soil.... and in that case, I think you can go ahead and quit pH'ing. You haven't used any chemical ferts. You should have some good microbes working. You should still sit your water out over night. You might consider checking your county's water report to see if it has chlorine or chloramine. Chloramine won't evaporate overnight like chlorine. You have to add a small amount of either Vitamin C or organic matter to convert the chloramine to chlorine, then let it sit overnight. Though Jerry just posted a study which said even if some chlorine gets through, it's really not that bad...... Yeah, it seems like most MJ growers do amend the PP..... EWC is earthworm castings (poop)... also called vermicastings or vermicompost. You want quality here..... it's not the place to skimp. Get local fresh stuff if possible. Find out about the worms' diet.... produce is great.... paper and cardboard is bad. Lawn clippings and tree products are somewhere in the middle lol. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1277064-sourcing-organic-soil-mix-components.html That should be a useful thread in finding stuff, especially the EWC. Other good things for topdressing / making teas include.... chicken poo (pelletized or composted).... dandelions (to make a tea).... neem (nutritional and will get rid of your gnats)..... obviously kelp meal and alfalfa meal..... that's pretty much all I'd recommend, and you don't need all of them. Just whatever you can get.... especially since your plants still look fine right now.
Also, about the organic vs synthetic and work...... it's true that there's a lot more learning and reading, and more work at the front end of the grow. But I think most MJ growers would trade 1 day of work mixing up a soil, for all those hours mixing 'flower' and 'veg' nutes, then pH'ing and PPM'ing, worrying about when to flush, etc. Living organic soil can be water only, from seed to harvest. But it doesn't have to be. Also, it takes time and experience to really dial in your mix, so that water only will work. Some of us choose to still use teas and things with our organic soil. This could be to maximize the plants' potential. Water only will get you through, but maybe giving the plant some other stuff will make it even better. It's a way to optimize things. But if convenience is more important, water only is totally possible with organic soil (and not possible with non-organic soil). The other main reason growers use teas is to make up for not having their soil mix completely dialed in. Or it could be to apply a growth stimulant like Triacontanol (which is found in alfalfa). Lots of reasons..... another common reason is that water-only gets boring after a while and it's hard for growers to control themselves lol We love our plants, after all.......
Ok, great! Thanks for all the info! I already tossed the empty bags, so all I could find was on their site was this. Not exactly complete with % and stuff. I'll run to HD or lowes and take a pic of the ingredient list later today. The video seems to list the ingredients. http://www.kellogggarden.com/products?brand=kellogg&category=kellogg-soils#7 I have a friend growing worms, I'll ask him about some EWC, but that's the first thing I remembered was that paper and stuff isn't good food for them, and I don't think he's all about the organics. I got those water numbers from my water district, but it was the 2012 report. I'll look for updated numbers. I notice that too, overloving my plants. I just like sitting in the room counting leaves. I've been careful not to over tinker this time. I really appreciate you spending time to help me.
The Patio Plus is a decent bagged base mix. There are certainly better 'foods' than paper, but don't get the mistaken idea that paper is bad for the worms. It's also used more as bedding than food. But since it will rot, it gets consumed too. It's also hard to raise worms and not be about the organics. They eat the bacterial slime off rotting *stuff* and there is not a lot of non organics that rot. Fresh vermicompost from your friend would be great if he'll spare some, paper or no. If you would treat the mj like growing tomatoes or peppers, you would be way ahead of over thinking stuff and tinkering with plants. It's real easy to love them to death. Wet
Only because he talks a lot and sounded like he just throws random stuff in the bin like chicken bones and shoe leather. Maybe he was being facetious, I'll ask when he calls me back.
I think (hope), he was putting you on. That stuff would eventually break down, but it would take literally years and you would get tired of picking it out during harvest. I know I learned what doesn't break down fast enough and quit using it in my bins. Still put it on the compost pile though. Wet
Oh yeah, got sidetracked. Forgot about this! A couple dying leaves near the bottom. EDIT: o derp, you already answered about neem. Also, watered heavily today and stirred up the top layer of soil and still lots of new baby gnats. Gonna get some neem. Whats the best top dress neem to kill gnats? Thanks!
This is all my local navlet's has. I was trying to research the dr earth stuff and their website is hacked and they're spamming this forum. Blegh! They've got benes added and say nothing about being organic. This looks fine for EWC right? Thanks!
Their site works at home, but on mobile it kept forwarding to the app store and trying to download random apps and games.
I'm getting more yellowing of the bottom leaves, and I want to pull the trigger today on these dr earth products. Are they good or crap? Thanks!
I bought those boxes and bag, mixed in a 1 inch layer of worm shtuff on top then watered though with your tea. This is what they look like, hopefully in a few days they recover.
Pre-harvest update, cutting down on the 6th, that's 8 weeks 12/12. They did run out of nitrogen early, some plants more than others, but the teas seemed to pull em though. Yellowing started at like a month 12/12. Thanks so much for the help switching to organic, I think it's pretty good for a first try, hope the next round is even better! 56 days is early, these are known to go 75 days, but its time now for me, and a friend sampled and said it was f'ing stellar! They started to dreadlock (I think that's what it's called) a little over a week ago, and probably put on %10 since then. I'm thinking of giving them 48 hours of darkness before I cut, any opinions on that? Here are a few pics.