I'm sold, switching it up to all organics with my new grow room.

I have been attempting to use products with as small of a footprint as possible throughout my growing career, however it has become clear to me that a dedicated switch to fully organic gardening is the way to go. So I have selected Happy Frog as my base instead of my usual Ocean Forest as its a few bucks cheaper, bigger bag, and has mycos, and have been browsing around for what amendments to use and I think that for a variety of reasons (price, availability, anecdotal evidence) I am going to go with the Epsoma line, so far I have decided on the Bio-Tone quick starter and their Garden Tone, have heard great reviews about both and both are made from quality ingredients as far as i can tell. Would anyone recommend any of their other lines to toss in? My hopes being to be able to recycle all of my soil and enjoy a nice herd of bennies every grow. I am open to either a water-only seed to flower build or any recommendations for adding in teas as well.

Thanks,

- Thay

Use teas my friend. You can do everything with teas alone in my opinion. There are a few cool tea threads around here if you look.

I have used happy frog and it's not very good soil..my opinion of fox farm is they have a friendly cool name and they rake in business for it but produce mediocre products..the mycos they say they add are honestly likely dead by the time you get the soil. A muchhh better choice would be roots organic potting mix, you can actually see a bit of colonization sometimes and the soil is just soooooo much better with moisture retention, it has pumice in it which is volcanic rock Idk I like that lol, the stuff just feels ten times better as you run your hand through it

Its hard to refute everyone's claims that teas are the shit, I have been leaning that direction for awhile now, in which case i think that the starter and garden tone would be enough in combination with the happy frog. There's a local place with pretty good prices on guanos and carries wiggle worm castings as well on the cheap. Thanks for the tip, lots changing with this new grow I'm pretty pumped.

If you decide not to heed my warning on the happy frog (trust me I thought it was great shit until I tried something else) at least add a goood bit of perlite..

Planned on it, about 30% maybe a bit more, forgot to add that. I already have some of the Happy Frog, only 2 bags, definitely going to need more base so I will have to track down a place that carries roots organics around me, thanks!

Ya even if you mix the two together you will be happier with it! I found the roots at a hydro store where I got the happy frog and they suggested to go with roots when I finally asked if I was buying the best option lol

kermit2692 said:

If you decide not to heed my warning on the happy frog (trust me I thought it was great shit until I tried something else) at least add a goood bit of perlite..

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This is a must. Stuff turns into mud.

I usually mix 2:1:1 - Black Gold, Happy Frog, Perlite. also throw some guano in there with some mycos and worm castings.

Then feed every once in a while with a tea. I use this for my garden as well.

I use to use Roots Organic. Stuff is just about good out of the bag. I always use more perlite though. But My hydro shop stopped carrying it. Said he was getting complaints about bugs and gnats in the soil. May have been just that batch. IDK

Hmm I mean soil comes from the ground so it happens lol..but the few bags I've used have been fine..

The most important thing is your source of compost. Your soil is only as good as the compost you add. The best advice I can give you is to start a worm bin. It's very easy, and allows you to recycle your table scraps and have them turned in to black gold. If you're interested in doing this there are a couple good threads on here, or I would be happy to help you out as well.

If you went with 1 bag Happy Frog (or whatever other brand you decide on) which is 2cf + 1cf of vermicompost + 1cf aeration (you can use perlite but I prefer rice hulls) you would have 4cf of a nice base that you could then add your Espoma products to, wet that down and let it sit for about 6 weeks. This would get you through a moderate veg and a few weeks of flower, at which point you could top dress some more Espoma dry amendments and worm castings and you would be smooth sailing til harvest. Water only. Teas can also be incorporated in to your schedule, but aren't 100% necessary imo. If you decide to go with some teas there are some good threads on here for that too (gandalfs and others).

kermit2692 said:

Hmm I mean soil comes from the ground so it happens lol..but the few bags I've used have been fine..

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I have never seen bugs in the bags either. Just what the dude told me.

It is more likely that the complaints came from people that were either inexperienced and or had a dirty room.

thay5212 said:

My hopes being to be able to recycle all of my soil and enjoy a nice herd of bennies every grow. I am open to either a water-only seed to flower build or any recommendations for adding in teas as well.

Thanks,

- Thay

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Glad to hear you're into the organics thing buddy! you'll be happy you did when you get to taste the difference!
As for teas, I'm also becoming a big fan of teas in general, but would recommend reading up on all the different kinds and their purposes. The other thing I'd highly recommend and am getting more into myself is simple foliars like kelp and aloe. They do wonders!
As for soils and whatnot, i've only purchased foxfarms stuff and have been decently pleased in all my gardens. They do require a fair amount amendment, particularly aeration. I'll be buying some roots organic to supplement my garden this spring because otherwise I'll run out of base prematurely
I'd also say its worth checking into the "subs supersoil" recipe threads.
Great to have you on board!
be easy,

Lots of good advice here so far. I'll just add a couple more points.

- I second starting a worm bin. You'll be set on worm castings for life. And you'll be doing a good thing for the environment by not sending your food scraps to the landfill (hopefully your city composts green waste anyway... many don't...).

- Don't mix the "mycos" into your soil. It's all fine and good that your Happy Frog contains mycorrhiza, but you are going to want to sprinkle some into the hole each time you transplant. This is the best way to ensure DIRECT contact with the roots, which is what you need.

- Add some liming agent at about 1-2 tablespoons per gallon. Straight dolomite lime will do the trick, but even better would be a mix of, say one tablespoon dolomite lime and one tablespoon of oyster shell flour. Or one tablespoon dolomite, one tablespoon calcitic lime (calcium carbonate, not hydrated lime). Dolomite lime is a little heavy on the magnesium (thus mixing with various forms of calcium carbonate) but it'll do just fine on its own.

- Set aside some of that Happy Frog with just the extra compost/castings, perlite, and lime added (before adding any fertilizer). Use this for your fresh young seedlings or clones, then transplant into the amended soil after a couple/few weeks.

Sounds like you're on the right track. Good luck!

Check out espomas website to see if there is a dealer near you. The organic ammendments they make are a little tougher to find than the garden and plant tone. I managed to find a place that carried espoma greensand, the big ass bag too. The guy there said they sell out almost as soon as they get it. I use thier greensand, gardenlime, blood and bone meal and garden tone, I just transplanted into my recycled, ammended soil. It has only been cooking about 3 weeks tho :/ didnt have much of a choice but use it. Organics has me overgrowing my space.

Well i got my soil cooking last night, I decided I had enough to get started with the Happy Frog i had purchased, I called around locally for some Roots Organics but was they were not carrying it anymore because of reports they had gotten of bugs. Hopefully that will get sorted out in the next month before I will need to get some more soil started but either way I think the HF will be ok for this run, i cut 4cf of HF with 2cf of OMRI certified organic chunky perlite. Miracle Grow perlite while never organic where I used to live, never had nutrients added, here the bags clearly state that they are enriched with miracle grow plant food, the organic stuff was only 15 or 16 bucks for 2cf and it's always nice to not have an even bigger stack of bag waste after mixing up some soil by not having 15 MG perlite bags.

Watered up and sitting out in the garage for a few weeks, meanwhile I have been doing some tea research! I only plan to veg for 1 month so my HF cut with bio-tone quick start and garden tone (recommended ratios) should be sufficient for that I am thinking, but as far as flowering I have managed to source the following locally at good prices for use in flowering teas, let me know what you think.

1 cup EWC
1 cup alfalfa meal
1 cup kelp meal
1 cup 10-10-2 seabird guano
10 tbsp molasses
10 gal water

I have some 30 gal buckets to use to brew up about as much or as little as i need with plenty of airstones. Those ratios look ok? I can easily dilute as needed. I prefer to keep rollin green throughout my grows hence the use of the 10-10-2 guano during flower instead of something with less N.

First time trying all organic with teas and all so I am definitely open to suggestions to improve this!

Thanks

- Thay

I can't comment on you're ratios. I am just interested in watching your grow.

All I have been doing lately is throwing a tablespoon or so of the Mexican and Jamaican guanos plus a little pour of Molasses. I will be making foliar sprays with Aloe Vera as well or maybe just throw that in the teas as well. This is /5 gallons of tap water. I also have an air stone. It will be cool to what happens when you deliberately make teas. <---By that I mean you know what you are doing.

Happy growing man!

Is stump tea the sh*t or what?

I would tweak your recipe a bit to look like this:
10 gal water
10 tbsp molasses
1/2 cup guano
1/2 cup alfalfa
1/2 cup kelp
8 cups EWC

And i would cut out the guano around halfway through flowering.

So ramp up the castings drop down the micro nutes, check. I can see 8 cups of EWC per tea getting a bit expensive, I definitely see the advantage to a worm bin, the wife is worried about any stink coming from them, which from what I have read doesn't seem to be much of an issue so I guess I should check into it setting one up.

Are you saying to cut the guano halfway through flower because of the high Nitrogen content? or is there concern over Phosphorous levels rising dangerously using that guano through the end of flower?

thay5212 said:

So ramp up the castings drop down the micro nutes, check. I can see 8 cups of EWC per tea getting a bit expensive, I definitely see the advantage to a worm bin, the wife is worried about any stink coming from them, which from what I have read doesn't seem to be much of an issue so I guess I should check into it setting one up.

Are you saying to cut the guano halfway through flower because of the high Nitrogen content? or is there concern over Phosphorous levels rising dangerously using that guano through the end of flower?

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For an AACT, I use one heaping cup full of castings, and 3-4 tablespoons of unsulphered molasses to 3 gallons of water. Brewed for 36-48 hours. That's it.