I dont want to buy pre-ferted soil again, but thats literally all Home Depot and Lowes ever really has, even there Organic line is pre ferted some how. I have seen some other soils for orchids or violets and what not, is there something else I can use? I also saw some 'jiffy pro mix" or something? Can I just cut that with perlite. Its winter so the choices I have are kind of limited and even though I have money I just cant spend 20$ on some Fox Farm, even if I did I would NEED to cut it then just to stretch it so I would need to know something else to buy.
Kelloggs makes some good organic soil, I've heard of a lot of people growing in pro mix, but I've never tried it, I can't see where perlite would hurt. What kind of nutes are you running?
call your local feed and seed store, or a good garden center. ask for pro mix. it is the best next to fox farms.
Home Depot carries an organic potting soil all year round (at least in my area they do), it's called organic something or other, near me they keep it outside in big 40 lb bags for under $2. It's a lot of forest floor scrapings, decent composted organic material. Not great for small pots because it does have some larger pieces of bark and such in it, but overall it's a very good base for a soil mix. Add some sphagnum moss, perlite, and worm castings and it will work very well indeed.
Yeah I like to start off in party cups, but even the clones will have relatively smaller planters before they go to the final 3 gal, but I think I am going to start making my final pot 5 gal because I was checking out the root systems of the male counterparts and for the most part they were pretty root bound. I also see they have some sphagnum moss/perlite and something else mix, so that with some pro mix and perlite would be sustainable. From what I can tell your growing medium doesn't matter as long as its not dangerous and has decent aeration it will work. I usually cut my soil with like almost 50% perlite anyways.
Promix and FFOF aren't even in the same ballpark. Promix is a sterile mixture of peat, perlite and vermiculite and has no nutrient value. FFOF is made with actual soil, mulch, humus, crab meal, guano, seaweed and benificial fungi. Promix is a good media but not anything like FFOF.
I had the same problem. I am one week from finishing my first grow, hydro, and the end result wasn't all that big, which is what I expected as I was using cheap lights. I just started some out in soil just for the hell of it, as I figure I need to try both mediums for the experience. My question is, will Scott's brand work? I know it has slow release ferts in it, but if I just under fert them will the slow release make up for that? That's what I am trying should be neat to see what happens.
They work fine actually, almost to the point were I literally dont need to fertalize because so far all I have done is caused damage, I just bought bloom nutrient too, so hopefully they wont respond so bad to that. I might just break down and buy Fox Farm Ocean Forest, they are pretty big bags, good enough for 3 or 2 plants all the way through which is all I really need, but i'll be cutting it with perlite too so yeah. My only problem with FFoF is that people say it can be too strong for clones and seedlings, and I do not have enough to buy Light Warrior and Ocean Forest.
If you can find Fox Farm Happy Frog, it will work. It is a little cheaper than the Ocean Forest and comes in 2 cu ft bags rather than the Ocean Forest which comes in 1.5 cu ft bags. You save a few bucks and you get .5 cu ft more soil. You will still need to add some perlite though.
Thanks I know my hydro store carrys it online and hopefully in store, I heard about this type of Fox Farm but I have never heard of anyone using it, only OF and LW.
I have used it, there is really not much difference between the 2 actually other than price and amount of soil you get. Where I get my soil and such, the OF is $24.99+tx and the Happy Frog is $19.99. Right now I have OF and HF mixed about 50/50 with some perlite. It works, and is much better than most of the cheaper commercial time release stuff.
to my knowledge, pro-mix does not make anything but "soiless" soil. which means it has 0% nutrients, and is soley just a medium. but it (IMO) is GREAT to cut with a bag of FFOF and an extra bag of perlite. it is mega fluffy, and will make your FFOF last a real long time. i do: 40% FFOF 40%Pro-mix BX 10% ADDITIONAL perlite 10% worm castings
time-release ferts are a pain in the ass for growing MJ for several reasons, i believe. But one of the biggest issues about them is when you are doing your final flush. i just dont see how it could be possible to exctract ALL of those "time releasing" nutes out.
Well, I am planing on taking a shit ton of clones off of them and putting them out doors, so really they are only mother plants and I couldn't care less about anything else except having them kindly donate there limbs for me. Also, if I REEEEALLY wanted to, I could sit with a pair of tweezers and pick the time release ferts out of the soil.....you know those little yellowish balls. My question is though, will time release fert soil harm a plant in the veg stage at all? If I don't use any other type of fert, just water?