First off, my history. I have grown several times (all failures due to my lack of planning and knowledge. haven't tried in over a year) and know a decent bit about growing. My first grow, I used MG Organic mix(i know, i know) and six weeks into the grow it had barely sprouted past its seed leaves, and plus i used a crap flouro light which probably didn't help either. Scrapped that one. A little while later I came across an "Uncle Milton's Hydro Greenhouse" at a local craft store and had to buy it. It used a perlite soil medium and the toy-brand fertilizer. I also used an unknown watt (highest lumen output i could find) CFL bulb. I stuck the seed into the perlite and the plant went absolutely nuts. I mean, you could tell a difference in hight and growth every 4 or 5 hours. The only problem with that, I'm pretty sure I got root lockup and the bottom leaves started turning yellow and dying. I thought it was a male (didn't know how to sex) and yanked it, started over. Had the same fertilizer and light in the Uncle milton and the plant ended up growing about a foot and a half tall with very little problem. Occasional leaf yellowing, but nothing too bad until the end. I didn't know how to fix the problem with the roots (which i assume caused the yellowing and death of leaves) and the plant was male anyways, so i threw it away and haven't tried again since. My Questions: 1. I want to try organic growing. I'm still a beginner and finding a lot of the supplies to make my own soil is expensive and difficult to locate. I saw a thread about Kellogg Patio Plus and wanted to try it. If I buy this Kellogg Patio Plus soil, do I need to add any other nutrients to the soil? If so, what nutrients and how much? Can I find them at a local Wal-Mart or hardware store? 2. Should I use the same soil for flowering as I did in my vegitative cycle? If not, what should I do differently with the soil? Any help would be greatly appreciated. The weed around here has been crap for the last couple of months (smelling like cabinets, smelling and tasting like dryer sheets, its usually still wet and doesn't even smell remotely like marijuana and its always dark and has a headache high. I don't live close enough to a major city to ride out and get some purp or kush, and there is a HUGE drought on both in my area. Any times i do come across it, its 30 per gram. Help.
Well soil shouldn't be too big of a problem, I have seen alot of diff people try diff soils. I personally like promix and add some perlite, about 40 bucks a bail but it lasts damn near forever unless you clone like 100 plants a month. I started using hyponex, perlite, sphagnum peat moss, and vermiculite mix. Worked good, Hyponex can be found anywhere, it is potting SOIL not potting mix, about 3 bucks for a 60 lb bag, another 3 bucks for a 8 quart bag of perlite, 3 bucks for a bag of sphagnum peat moss, and 3 bucks for an 8 quart bag of vermiculite, I was able to find everything between walmart and lowes garden section. The mix I used and liked, I had a like 15 quart tote I premixed the soil in, measured with a blue party cup, 4 cups hyponex, 1 cup perlite, 1 cup vermiculite, 1 cup sphagnum peat moss, mix well, prewater before you plant anything in it. You can mess around with the mixtures see what suits your grow needs the best, thats just what I used. When it comes to soil for veg vs flower, you can use the same soil, I use promix always, the shit is AWESOME and it has some type of micro fungus in the soil that promotes root growth, I use two-liter bottles cut in half as pots and you can see the roots, all covered in green from the fungus, looks cool. Sorry, don't' know anything about the Kellogg Patio soil, I usually don't like premixed potting mixes because they generally have time released fertilizer in it which makes it very hard to figure out when to fertilize and usually ends up with stressed out nute burnt plants. If you have a bit of money to spend and want something decent I would go with "Promix BX" and just buy a bag of perlite, like 5 parts promix to 1 part perlite and you got some awesome soil, with no time released ferts and burn your babys. One thing, you aren't gonna be able to find promix just anywhere, prolly a farm supply store.
I'm pretty sure the Kellogg stuff doesn't have any time-release fertilizers in it. Thanks for the soil recipe though, I'm going to give it a try. There aren't any farm supply stores around here as far as I know, so I'm going to go with the Hyponex mix. Thanks for explaining the measurements too, I always see the recipes in "parts" and not actual cups. Makes it a lot easier. Do any nutrients need to be added, or can they be in order to up quality and/or yield? I have some Dynamite plant food for my next bag-method hydro experiment if I ever get around to it.