New to outdoor gardening.

The used soil should be ok, but I would thoroughly wet it and then let it sit for a few days before tilling it in. Sometimes old soil dries out to the point where it is very difficult to get it to take water. I would add a bottle of peroxide to the water I wet it with to kill off any mold. I would not use miracle gro to fertilize with. I would add in lime, bone meal, and epsom salts at least and worm castings if you have them available. See how your plants do with that. If they look like they could still use some nitrogen, add blood meal or manure tea.

Originally Posted by lovemug

Im putting in my first outdoor garden this saterday!! I will be tilling and amending the plot tonight, I should of gotten it in mayby a little earlier but were i live has really unpredictable weather.

Ive been growing cannabis indoors for a number of years and i am fairly knowlegable about indoor growing. Should i apply these to my outdoor garden? I have about 1200$ worth of used FFoF soil ive been saving and plan to till it into my outdoor garden, Will i have any problems with this? The ground its on seems to be very nice soil, Its a little hard but not clayey. When i break it up it crumbles nicely.

I plan on tilling off the top inch or so of grass and roots than raking them out, putting my FFoF soil on top of that than tilling it down around 6 inches. Will this be deep enough? I hope i am not bitting off more than i can chew. Any tips would be great, I wish i could go organic but its not in the picture this year. Im starting a compost also through out this summer so next year i have compost to till in.

What kind of nutrients would be good to use? Miracle grow?

Hi Lovemug. Using all of that FF soil you have saved up is a GREAT idea. I would recommend you do a simple raised bed though. Here's a pic of one of mine, we're actually going to wrap the whole bed in 1" garden fence because there are a lot of squirrels and pests in my neighborhood.

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I had to raise mine 12 inches off the ground though because we have terrible clay soil. If you have good soil a 4" raised bed would work. And it's as simple as making a rectangle out of any type of wood, or some people get fancy and save wine bottles and stuff like that..

Why do you feel like it would be expensive to grow your garden organically? Miracle grow is full of poison so it will poison your food, plain and simple. But if you're ok with that, go for it. Also, non-organic seeds may be genetically modified.

Making your compost is a GREAT idea. That's why it's not expensive to grow your garden organically. Forget about Miracle Grow lol, your compost IS your nutrients. You can buy some bone meal or fish bone meal something like that for an amendment if you are growing something that requires a lot of N or P for really cheap, and other than that all you would have to do is water with compost teas for nutrients. This applies to indoor gardens as well , but I won't preach lol.

Here is a thread I posted a couple weeks ago on how to set up a really simple compost tea bucket. Still wasting money on bottled/packaged teas? Here's a simple DIY compost tea bucket

You could buy local compost or just use extra store bought bagged worm castings in place of the compost. I make worm compost as well, which is really easy to do inside or outside with NO SMELL! Hard to believe, I know, but those worms mean business lol. And worm compost is MUCH higher in NPK and beneficials than regular compost.

6 inches might be a little bit shallow, but if it's harder to go further than 6 inches, that's an even better reason to get some logs or 2x4s or something and make a little raised bed around it. I would also lay down some of that black weedblocker landscaping tarp if you are planting where there was a bunch of weeds.

I am starting a 12x12 to 14x14 compost area there this summer to build soil for next year. I wish i could compost at my house but im stuck on a half lot between two apartment buildings. As far as the compost soil goes will i be able to bring it here and use it in my indoor garden? Im not experienced with organic gardening but im going on 4 years now of indoor gardening using Fox Farm nutrients and i really want to learn more about naturaly growing.

From what i understand once i get good compost going its pretty much set and forget. I should also be able to recycle all of my used soil back into the compost pile and the cycle will continue. I am not keen on miracle grow but im relying on this garden to help feed us for the next year and if i have to use it this year untill i can get composted soil its not a big deal.

If you know anywere there is some solid information on composting as far as what i should add to affect nutrients and trace nutrients in the soil i would greatly appreciat it.

Originally Posted by lovemug

I am starting a 12x12 to 14x14 compost area there this summer to build soil for next year. I wish i could compost at my house but im stuck on a half lot between two apartment buildings. As far as the compost soil goes will i be able to bring it here and use it in my indoor garden? Im not experienced with organic gardening but im going on 4 years now of indoor gardening using Fox Farm nutrients and i really want to learn more about naturaly growing.

From what i understand once i get good compost going its pretty much set and forget. I should also be able to recycle all of my used soil back into the compost pile and the cycle will continue. I am not keen on miracle grow but im relying on this garden to help feed us for the next year and if i have to use it this year untill i can get composted soil its not a big deal.

If you know anywere there is some solid information on composting as far as what i should add to affect nutrients and trace nutrients in the soil i would greatly appreciat it.

Well just so you know, The chemicals in your miracle grow will actually KILL all the beneficial organisms in your soil from the compost. So you'll have to decide one or the other if you want your garden to work. Chemical nutrients (Miracle Grow) or biological nutrients (life that died and wants to help create new life). Obviously you know which one I'll suggest lol.

I found this info on another site for you to explain it better, I'm a little...sleepy...

"Fish emulsion is no different than Miracle Grow in this regard. Both contain nutrients in water soluble form or in a form that soil organisms rapidly make water soluble (water soluble nutrients are the only ones plants can use as they take the nutrients up with the water).
Simply put, using organics feeds the soil which then feeds the plants. Synthetics feed the plants and the soil starves which leads to an increased dependence upon fertilizer and results in soil that is more or less biologically dead.
The smart use of any fert, organic or synthetic, along with a soil management program such as the incorporation of organic matter, mulching etc. ensure the soil stays healthy and can support vigorous, healthy plants.
I prefer fish emulsion to MG simply because fish emulsion is a complete fertilizer and MG only has NPK and a few of the minors. That's the only difference of concern to me between them."



If I get a chance later I'll find some more composting info in my bookmarks, but the here's the jist. You are talking about making a huge compost pile and mixing old soil into it as well. This will work fine as long as you have the room and don't have to worry about smell, but there are much easier ways for you to do this if you want to make it easier. Using some kind of bin outdoors and just putting food waste into it instead of soil as well would make things a lot easier and you could still pile up your old soil in the big pile. Here's a pic of a homemade composter I saw on craigslist. You could make one very easily if you don't want to buy one.

You can do a google search about the benefits of worm-composting though and find out more than I can tell you right now probably. The worms compost the food much faster and they don't actually digest anything because the bacteria in their stomachs breaks it down, this way they also contain most of the NPK that the food already had before it was composted. What this means is that you can make a tea from this compost and it IS your nutrients. Meaning you don't have to use Miracle grow, or any organic bottled products either. All you will need is some N, which like I said you can just use a little fish bone meal in the soil.

Here's a pic of my worm bin. I keep it downstairs, but it used to be in the kitchen and it didn't smell. I use the Worm-composter 360 now because it's easy and has stackable trays. They compost about 25 lbs of food scraps from us in 2 weeks, which gives me plenty for teas and to mix into the soil for my indoor plants.
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I found a great link for you about the benefits of composting. http://www.wormpost.com/benefits/composting.html

And here's something listing some other organic fertilizers that are really cheap as well, although I would still recommend using the fish bone meal for your fertilizer. http://www.fifthseasongardening.com/...amendments.pdf

If you decide to use Miracle grow anyways, I would probably use compost tea every watering that doesn't have Miracle grow or other chemicals in it because the bio in the soil will constantly die off.

Either way you decide to go, let me know if you have any other questions or need help or suggestions, I'm glad to help.

I will go organic as long as it wont mess anything up. I might be missinformed but read somewere adding organic matter after i have tilled is a bad idea. How would i go about feeding plants in the garden using organics? Could i make teas and water weekly with them? Do i just springle organic matter on top of my rows and water it in? Like i said im a noob when it comes to organics ive always just used Fox Farms and had really good results but organics is the next step in this journey and i am really interested in learning all i can and putting it into action.

Lovemug, I am glad to hear that. I won't let you down, I promise :] I'm looking through some bookmarks right now, I'm going to figure out how much amendments you'd want to mix into the soil. And adding organic matter after you tilled is the perfect time to add them because they will mix right into the soil easier. You may want to mix them in AS you till.

By the way, the Fox Farm soil was organic when you bought it, and some of Fox Farm nutes are actually organic, depending on what you used. So the soil may still be healthy. And yes, once you've amended the soil you should be able to just use water and teas.

I can show you how to make a rain barrel for about 20 bucks too that connects to your gutter if you'd like to water your garden with rain water. Rain water has nitrogen and a bunch of other minerals and stuff in it, so if you water you plants with rain water you're giving them nutrients even with plain water. The water coming out of your house has sediment, chlorine, flouride, etc. Stuff that's all kinda bad for the soil. Here's a link to a DIY for one with a HD garbage can if you wanna check it out. Simple Roughneck 3-Barrel Rain System - DIY Instructions - Free Water Healthy Plants! This thread better explains the benefits.

But if you're going to be busy setting up this garden you might not feel you have time for a rain barrel right now, and that's ok too.

How big is your garden going to be in square feet? I almost forgot that part lol.

Originally Posted by lovemug

I will go organic as long as it wont mess anything up. I might be missinformed but read somewere adding organic matter after i have tilled is a bad idea. How would i go about feeding plants in the garden using organics? Could i make teas and water weekly with them? Do i just springle organic matter on top of my rows and water it in? Like i said im a noob when it comes to organics ive always just used Fox Farms and had really good results but organics is the next step in this journey and i am really interested in learning all i can and putting it into action.

The beginning of any successful grow starts here. In the soil. It starts with soil biology and relationships between different life forms that share the same home. Soil. The symbiosis that occurs between the various life forms is what we study as professionals and as gardeners alike. If your soil is healthy, if it offers all the genera of life forms in it the ability to thrive, the plants you put into it do not need your help. Except for a little water thank you. Manure as a source of N with lots of aerobic (air breathing) bacteria as a bonus. P is usually not deficient in outdoor soils anyway, nor is K but old timers will tell you a handful of Epsom Salts helps a lot. If you want to get more out of food crops, add some Humic Acid (amazon or ebay). And I like Azomite. (again from amazon or ebay) That's about it.