I have a small grow starting, just two plants indoors and would very much like to do an organic grow, my problem is that I have limited acces to certain supplies and dont want to sacrifice yeilds because of inadeqaute nutrients. This what I have available: Miracle gro organic potting mix, vermiculite, perlite, peat moss, blood+bone meal, lime, and some vegetable compost. there are also general use "organic" ferts at the store. Can you reccomend a decent soil mix of these things? I dont know if i could go water only or what kind of tea/fertilizer I should use either. Would love any advice as I am new to organic gardening.
at the top of this section theres a post for beginner organics and it has a few soil mixs you could do with most items found at local stores. 5part spag peat moss 3part perlite 2part worm castings if you use 3qt as ea part you just need to add 1cup of dolomite lime(powdered), This mix makes enough to fill 2 5g buckets. That is a basic mix but you will need to use some form of nutes(go to the link on top of forum and you will get a list of nutes you can add or tea's you can make) Numb
yes, Ive read those. But I am limitied to only the supplies I listed above for the entire grow. could possibly order some worm castings or kelp meal but thats probably it. CAn I get by with just those things and how would anyone recccomend I do it? If not Ill just have to buy some foxfarm nutes or something but I would really rather grow organic.
Hey, Im a noob so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Dr earth is suppose to be a good product.If you need soil you can order it online ace hardware sells promix. Promix is suppose to be a good soil mix. You can order bat guano and other organic products online. You can find a lot of products at farm stores/feed stores in the country. I live in the city and I found stuff at the farmers market.I know you may feel limted but with the internet you can order many things needed or take a 2 hour drive to the country and find the products. If you cant order things bc you live with parents or room mates you probably shouldnt be growing yet imho
Get rubbermaid bin and start a small worm farm to digest kitchen scraps and such, then you will have a nice supply of fresh castings to make some tea with and anyone can get molasses. Bone meal is good as well as blood meal but castings will help. Hopefully the vermiculite and perlite are not miracle grow brand, they have chem nutes in them. If you only have the MG organic soil you should not need lime, it has it in there I believe (never used it, but most mixes include lime). If you are going to mix sphagnum moss into your potting mix you will need that lime though. What source of vegetable compost do you have, is it your own? If you build a soil right you can do water only and supplement with molasses. This usually works best with clones that you grow out in solo cups and then transplant to your "flowering soil", that way you never have to keep a tub of VEG soil around, just a good hot flowering mix. You can use your MG organic soil for little clones in little cups and the soil alone will be enough for the short amount of veg time, if veg time is needed to be longer for those who love big plants, you can transplant them into 2 galllon pots with plain MG organic soil (with maybe a dash of blood meal) and they will be pretty good for another month, then go to a hot soil mix with some bone meal ( shell out the $20 for some jamaican bat guano shipped to yur home, you'll thank me later) and use some light teas for flowering. Man the possibilities are endless and I could ramble on for hours, don't let Chuck see this thread.lol
okay... so here is what Ive come up with. let me know what you think. Currently seedlings are in a 1:1 mG/vermiculate mix in small yogurt cups Will transplant in two weeks to solo cups with 1 part MG mix, 1 Part veggie compost from local composting co op, 1 part perlite, and a little blood meal. They should have plenty of N, hopefully enough K. These will stay here for another two weeks. In the meantime Ill order worm castings, kelp meal, and bat guano online. These are autoflower ruderalis strain so I imagine they will start to flower around week 4. just a guess, but when they do start to flower Theyll go in big 2gal pots in: 2 parts mg mix 1 part perlite 1 part worm castings 1 part compost Bone meal for P Kelp meal for K Bat Guano for more P I have access to crushed lime and to epsom salts. Would you reccommend amounts of either in any of these mixes? Also I just made these up so feel free to suggest diff. ratios. Will make teas for flowering w guano, castings, kelp meal, and molasses. Although I dont have a way to aerate these teas really. Lol, will my plants grow any be happy and yeild well even though I didnt pump them full of chemicals?
You dont need no stinkin Chemicals Not sure whereabouts your from...but check walmart(or something similar) and pick up a small air pump from the fish section(only about $10) and a airstone. Numb
So the only perlite I have available is miracle gro and pre-ferted. Maybe I will use 10%vermiculite and 10%mg perlite. would this make any difference in how i setup my soils? particularly the ferts in the mg crap?
theres not a walmart or a local nursery in your area? Perlite can be found alot of places...Home depot sells it also. MG has time release nutes most of the time and thats not good. You should try and find a substitute for the MG if at all possible. I would check a nursery in the area for best chance...hope you can find some Numb
do yourself a favor and ditch that miracle grow crap brother. those time released ferts are pretty hot and are likely to burn the shit out of your little ones. not sure where you got the idea that fox farm isn't organic but most of their stuff is all organic and pretty damn good too. i've used their soils for just about all of my grows and have had no problems. grab a bag of ocean forest soil and chuck that mg, your plants will thank you for it... if you can't get any good organic soil, you could use what you've got, minus the miracle grow... i guess my main point here is to not use the miracle grow. that stuff tends to do waaaaaay more harm than good, i'd bake stinky ass backyard soil in my own oven to use before i planted any thing in miracle grow. it's not even all that much cheaper than a quality soil either...you should check the ferts in that mg perlite too, they're probably not organic. not too big a deal but if you're trying to stay all organic... i'd say add ocean forest to what you've got, lose the mg and feed 'em some supertea guano during veg and budswel during flower and you should pull some kill at the end. good luck, let us know what you decide to go with...