Great thread. very infofat

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so you don't pre-moisten the soil in your containers? i find it much easier when x-planting to get the medium evenly moist before putting the plant in the new pot. if not, then it's difficult to get everything wet, without creating wet/dry pockets. and there is a pretty good grow related book out there. Bushy Old Growers (BOG) "Bonanza of Green" is a pretty good read.

Thank you very much for the above, both specifically and preemptively answered questions. Of course I have, more, I always have more.

I recently found this book online, but have not seen anyone mention it. I think that there are basic terms used in gardening that I need to become more familiar with, along with those used for gardening mj, for that Sunset West, bu.
Marijuana Botany; Robert Connell Clarke--Google book results. Have you run across it, and if so do you have an opinion on it?

Do you have any recommendations on where to find suppliers of those nursery pots at more inexpensive prices, or on the pot types (I notice yours have a big lip around the edge)? Or are these something you're able to find locally? Where I live access to certain supplies can be a problem. I've discovered early on that for this plant big pots means happy girls, and bigger is better. I can't use any of the "soil" on our land, as it's red, thick clay broken up by rocks, so I have to buy enough ready soil or the stuff to make your recipe. I would have to place them in their permanent spot, as I doubt I could move 7-10 gallon pots at this point anymore.

Speaking of which, the potting soil you use for the filling the pots the rest of the way, is that a potting soil you make yourself, a pre-bagged soil, or what?

If I'm annoying let me know to slow the hell down. I tend to think of things all in a rush, that whole 'one thing leads to another' bit.

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My soil is already moist from preparation.
water is just a conductor of nutrients I try and stray away from over watering in my tutorials because it is such a problem with new growers
Bog learned his soil method from me in the OG forums over a decade ago but in the end this was to much work and Bog switched to Miracle grow soil and pre added nutrients.

I was very disappointed to hear this the Earth dosn't need more man made fertilizers but some love and attention.

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Thank you very much for the above, both specifically and preemptively answered questions. Of course I have, more, I always have more.

I recently found this book online, but have not seen anyone mention it. I think that there are basic terms used in gardening that I need to become more familiar with, along with those used for gardening mj, for that Sunset West, bu.
Marijuana Botany; Robert Connell Clarke--Google book results. Have you run across it, and if so do you have an opinion on it?

Yes it has some good information especially as a core discipline but unless you just want to understand basic Mendelian theory to Cannabis it may be a bit complex to most. A cool story is when I was inside MzJill printed it for me but substituted any reference to cannabis with fruits like Blueberry and mango and she replaced references of THC with ABC etc.

It got me through many boring days in the joint.



Do you have any recommendations on where to find suppliers of those nursery pots at more inexpensive prices, or on the pot types (I notice yours have a big lip around the edge)? Or are these something you're able to find locally? Where I live access to certain supplies can be a problem. I've discovered early on that for this plant big pots means happy girls, and bigger is better. I can't use any of the "soil" on our land, as it's red, thick clay broken up by rocks, so I have to buy enough ready soil or the stuff to make your recipe. I would have to place them in their permanent spot, as I doubt I could move 7-10 gallon pots at this point anymore.

Think hand truck or casters

I recommend any nursery if your on a budget just wash em well with Bleach water I buy mine from a grow shop that I have an account with and with discounts I pay about 7$ per pot but since I reuse them and have been for almost 5 years it is more of an investment than a purchase


Speaking of which, the potting soil you use for the filling the pots the rest of the way, is that a potting soil you make yourself, a pre-bagged soil, or what? I use a product callled Roots please review my Super Soil thread

If I'm annoying let me know to slow the hell down. I tend to think of things all in a rush, that whole 'one thing leads to another' bit.

Actualy I dig the interaction.

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i have his directions from og. it wasn't miracle grow, it was (wal-marts) sam's choice soil with pre added nutes. his mix was also amended with bone and blood meal. he mentioned you in those instructions. said you turned him on to letting earth juice sit for 20 hours before use. less acidity or something like that.

I miss Bog we had been in touch but when the whole Gypsy thing happened he just decided to be a grandpa and grow some herbs I think.

Yeah in the old days we used to flip back and forth between super soil and what we called Poo stew but the poo stew was never as consistent as making large batches of super soil and using as a concentrate. For me anyway.
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To me there is nothing like the flavor of properly grown organic cannabis. The subtle flavors and aromas created when using mother earth is over whelming to the senses when done properly. As with many vegetables a rich Organic soil can bring out the best in a plant. Over the past 20 years I have tried almost every possible way to cultivate our favorite plant and while hydro is certainly faster and the yields blow soil away, I have developed a soil that performs extremely well and there’s very little guess work. I don’t worry about ph or ppm I simply have spent a few years developing a sound recipe and in combination with 7 gallon nursery pots I can run from start to finish using only water. Other than a bit of sweat equity every 90 days or so it takes a huge amount of science out of the garden and puts nature back in charge. This recipe is slightly different from my last and from the one so many use as gospel that I have passed around for years from grower to grower








I always start with at least 6-8 large bags of high quality organic soil. The selection of your base soil is very important so don’t cut corners here. I cannot begin to discuss all the different products but I will discuss a few in this article. A good Organic soil should cost between 8-10$ per 30# bag. I want you to get a real good idea what I consider a balanced soil to be so take a look at the ingredients of a product called Roots Organic:


Lignite*, coca fiber, perlite, pumice, compost, peat moss, bone meal, bat guano, kelp meal, Green sand, soy bean meal, leonardite, k-mag, glacial rock dust, alfalfa meal, oyster shell flour, earth worm castings and Mycorrhizae.
I have always believed in giving my plants a wide range of soils and additives I figure it's like a buffet they get all they need

“Lignite, also known as leonardite, mined lignin, brown coal, and slack, is an important constituent to the oil well, drilling industry. Lignite, or leonardite as it will be referred as hereafter, is technically known as a low rank coal between peat and sub-bituminous. Leonardite was named for Dr. A.G. Leonard, North Dakota's first state geologist, who was a pioneer in the study of lignite deposits. Leonardite is applied to products having a high content of humic acid. Humic acid has been found to be very useful as a drilling
mud thinner.”


The Roots produced a more floral smell in the finished flowers while the Harvest Moon generated larger yields.

If you have access to a good local mix like these then I highly recommend starting with these type products. We have also had decent results using commercial brands as well but not as is. The best results we have seen from well known soil that is available nationwide is Fox Farms “Ocean Forrest” soil combined in a 2-1 ratio with Light Warrior. On it’s own the Ocean Forrest is known for burning plants and having the wrong ratio’s of nutrients but when cut down with Light Warrior it makes a pretty good mix for a base soil.

You can also just use 2 bales of Sunshine mix #4 but this is my last choice and plants growing in this may not complete properly with this “Just add water” method of soil growing. The concept to this concentrated soil is to not have to worry with mixing up nutrients after the soil is made. The concentrate is placed in the bottom ¼ to ½ of the container and blended with base soil. This allows the plants to grow into the strong concentrated soil and in the right size container need nothing else but water throughout the full harvest cycle. With strains requiring high levels of nutrients we go as strong as ¾ of the container with Super Soil but this is only with a small percentage of strains.

Here are the amounts we have found that produce the best tasting buds and strongest medicines.

8- Large bags of High quality Organic potting soil with a coco and Mycorrhizae
1-25-50 pounds of Organic Worm castings
5# Steamed Bone meal
5# Bloom bat Guano
5# Blood meal
3# Rock Phoshate
¾ cup Epson salts
½ cup Sweet Lime ( Dolimite)
½ Cup Azomite ( Trace Elements)
2-TBS Powdered Humic Acid



I would like to thank Vic High for his original recipe which I modified over the years to create my own.


Super Soil Mix



1 Bale sunshine mix #2 or promix (3.8 cu ft)
8 cups Bone Meal - phosphorus source
4 cups Blood Meal - nitrogen source
1 1/3 cups Epsom salts - magnesium source
3-4 cups dolmite lime -calcium source & pH buffering
1 tsp fritted trace elements
4 cups kelp meal.
9kg (25 lbs) bag pure worm castings

If youd like to accelerate your learning read every word on this site

bcgrowers title

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Very duly noted, thanks. I'm currently using something called Gardner & Bloome, their potting soil and their organic mulch to top dress into. I really need to get bigger pots, the logic is just too.. it's just like keeping fish. I don't know of a fish that doesn't do better if you give it more room.

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Ok so we have topped early and transplanted earlier than youd think and we are vegging under our largest light.
What steps can we take next to insure a good canopy?

How do larger yields and bigger buds with only the cost of some string and some of your time sound? Would you like to fill the same amount of stash jars using less plants, taking less clones, then lets explore the science of Plant canopy management
It is amazing what can be accomplished using plant bondage (LST) and canopy management. This can be very useful in medical gardens where the number of plants is limited but everyone can benefit using this technique by achieving larger yield per plant. I get amazing results with much larger plants using simple topping and spreading the plant open and using string or floral wire to tie her down. This method can help in many areas.
First we want to top our plants very early and close to the soil so they have multiple heads and there left in the vegetive phase for long enough to form a large bush with a height of about 24-36”. Once the plants leave the vegetive area and enter the flowering room tie them down so that there over all height is much shorter and the plants are wider. This allows your lights to be a bit lower maximizing lumen efficiency. With taller grows some time the lights can be so high that the over all lumens reaching the shorter of the plants have diminished so much that those plants end up with poor yields. This method also allows you to fill a rather large area with far less plants and it requires fewer plants to be cloned.
The second thing this training of the plant allows is more light to the second level buds or lower shelf as I like to call it. Before we employed this method or tops were huge but the lowers were airy and mainly fluff. This trick assures large buds even at the lower levels.
Last and most importantly it increases yields per plant, when the number of plants are limited that’s extremely important. Many state medical programs have strict plant limits. So with larger topped plants tied up to maximize yields and manage the canopy height we get a good 4 ounces per plant minimum and on some strain we get 5 and 6 ounces per plant. That’s enough to last and make enough cookies for our patients and other friends who have cards.
With my set up I run two grow rooms one for the vegetive phase ( Metal Halide) and one for budding phase ( High Pressure Sodium). I grow the plants in my own mix of concentrated super soil containing worm castings, bat guano, bone meal, Epson salts, lime, and other organic ingredients including endo/ecto mycorrihizae, which I find extremely beneficial to young plants. I start rooted seedlings and rooted clones in straight high quality potting soil so the super soil concentrate doesn’t burn the fragile babies. The clones are started into rapid rooters and then they are transplanted into 1 gallon pots, and when there firmly established I top the meristem ( Main Stem) nice and low so that the plant develops a nice short bush shape with 3 to 4 growing heads, as long as I leave to sets of fan leaves the plant always recovers well and gets a great start.
Seedlings are a bit different and you must allow the seedling to develop and have at least 4-5 internodes before topping. If you top a seedling to early the shock will slow the plant down tremendously wasting time. Clones and seedlings grow under a 18/6 light cycle until I can see roots in the lower drain holes. They then get transplanted again into large 7 gallon lowboy pots, using my super soil in bottom 2/3 of pot and straight premium potting soil in the top 1/3 and placed back in 18/6 under the same 1000 watt MH. Once the plants have been in veg for almost 60 days almost everything is finishing up in the bud room and harvest is approaching. One everything is trimmed up and the old pots moved out and the soil recycled it’s time to clean everything well, washing the floor and tarps with bleach and making sure everything is mold free. At this time I clean off the glass in the vented hoods with glass cleaner. A clean room is the sign of a good grower! The plants are now placed in main bud room that measures 10x5 with 2- 1000 Watt HPS Hortilux bulbs.
This is the time when we clean up our plants removing any smaller shoots that are shaded still so that this energy that would have gone to produce fluff and added time to trimming can instead go to the upper buds that are actually in the light. This also allows more air to circulate under the canopy so that O2 doesn’t stratify. This in it self will increase the yields and make your trimming a bit easier. I am not sure everyone will get this analogy but the plant looking up should kinds look like broccoli with everything up top.



Using a small drill I make 4 holes directly beside each main branch. I use floral wire now and secure the branch about halfway up and then gently pull that branch down opening and exposing the center of the plant allowing more light to penetrate the canopy. As we have discussed this also makes the plant shorter and this can allow more veg time and a larger base stem all things that can increase your yields. Don’t be so quick to bud your plants a few extra days can make a huge difference in how long your medicine holds out. Super Cropping is the next technique I want to cover here. In laymen’s terms super cropping is bending or pinching the stem causing slight damage, the plant repairs this damage making a stronger stem that for some reason creates much larger buds. Some people completely break there stems and then repair them using bandages or splits, we don’t need no stinking bandages! Try treating a room of plants and not a garden, get in touch with each strain or hybrid you grow determining how much it will stretch and if it does best topped or like a rare few better untopped. Try some of these techniques on your plants and I know you will be amazed at the outcome.

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