New to outdoor gardening.

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?

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.

lovemug said:

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?

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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.



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. https://www.rollitup.org/organics/525804-still-wasting-money-bottled-packaged.html

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.

lovemug said:

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.

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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.

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/tips/soil_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. https://www.rollitup.org/gardening/525782-simple-roughneck-3-barrel-rain.html 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.

lovemug said:

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.

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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.

Ok lovemug, here's what I'm going to recommend for you! If you've already tilled the soil, mix in just a little bit of fish bone meal, like a tsp per gallon or less. Here's a link for a good product at a great price, feel free to use a different one though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dr-Earth-Fish-Bone-Meal-3-18-0-2-5-Lb-Box-Made-in-the-USA-/150803002278?pt=Fertilizer_Soil_Amendments&hash=item231c8f33a6#ht_915wt_905

As dannyboy said above, the healthier your soil is, the more life forms that will thrive in it. These life forms do all kinds of things from aerating the soil, to cleaning the roots, to making food available faster to the plant, etc. So every time you water with compost tea you'll be adding more life to the soil again, not to mention using the tea as a foliar spray on the plants as well.

I would also recommend using a myco product. This is what I primarily use indoor and outdoor. http://growgreenmi.com/mykos-2-2lb-bag Just follow the directions on the package for transplanting, you don't actually want to use it in the soil mix because it will be more expensive that way. Putting it right in the hole when you transplant will ensure that the fungi attach to the roots and continue to grow with the roots. They clean the roots and help them take in more food as well.

Here is a compost tea recipe that would work great for you. You can dilute it up to 1:5 to get 5 gallons, and if you need more than that, just double or triple the tea recipe for one batch.

• Right now I'm doing:
  1 gal rain water
  1 cup compost
  1/2 cup Forest Humus or any outdoor soil (even from your yard)
  1/2 cup worm castings
  1/2 cup Alfalfa
  1/4 cup Humic acid
  1 TBSP of Organic Unsulphered Molasses or Agave Syrup
  ​

  
  
  ​

The alfalfa in this tea along with the compost should give you plenty of N, as well as a little PK. And you've already got a little of all that in the soil if you use a little fish bone meal. And just so you know, I'm not using the fish bone meal in my garden, but I'm doing all the other steps I've mentioned, and the little strawberry plants I put in two weeks ago already have some red strawberries.

Let me know if you have any other questions lovemug, or if I left anything out. I'm confident you're going to have a lot of fun growing this way. I wish they had a smiley face for the gardening section with a smiley standing next to a big tomato or something lol.

just skimmed through and didnt see this mentioned and im not an expert on composting or organics for that matter but ive always been under the impression for your compost to remain organic you must only feed it organic food, is that true?

badmojo420 said:

just skimmed through and didnt see this mentioned and im not an expert on composting or organics for that matter but ive always been under the impression for your compost to remain organic you must only feed it organic food, is that true?

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Good question! Yes and no. I'll explain though. Technically compost is organic by nature, because nature made it. Even if we grow the food with chemicals, once we eat what we want of it and throw it in the heap...it's back to nature, so it's organic.

BUT...there are other issues to consider like Genetically Modified Foods. GMO foods contain the BT toxin, which causes organ damage among other terrible things and is now found present in the blood of 93% of newborn babies. There are also other GMOs in foods. I'm sure that the resulting compost could still contain the BT toxin, but I'm not sure that it could be absorbed by the plants roots back into the plant or anything like that. Although I'm sure it's toxic for the soil, at least in bigger amounts.

So I would say that making an organic compost with only organic foods, which I do at home, is probably the best choice. But for someone who is trying to grow there own food in the most organic way possible, and can't afford to eat organic when shopping at the grocery store, I would say compost what you've got because if you can grow it this year, it's going to be in the compost next year anyways. No point in splitting hairs.

I wouldn't throw fast food or extremely processed food in it though.

If you worm-compost though, you'll find out real quick why it's important for us as people....and shit even our pets and livestock to eat as organically as possible, because non-organic food literally makes them sluggish and compost slower. I think it also has something to do with the bacteria in their stomachs not breaking it down right...I digress I'm sleepy

badmojo420 said:

just skimmed through and didnt see this mentioned and im not an expert on composting or organics for that matter but ive always been under the impression for your compost to remain organic you must only feed it organic food, is that true?

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the word organic means from life so if you add to your compost matter stuff that was alive, like grass clippings, or manure, that falls under the organic umbrella. products like the salt based fertilizr Miracle Grow are non organic. the nitrogen comes from amonia i believe. nitrogen from organic matter that is breaking down in your compost bin is slower to release and better because it is nitrate N. that's what i was taught anyways. the MG gives a quick fix and is good for stressed plants. but not as good as slow release. try to make your soil as lively and diverse as possible and you'll be right as rain.

Ok sorry been planting all friggin day. The garden is about 750 sq ft. As far as time is concerned i have all the time in the world. Im doing this as a learning experience. The soil has tons of worms. I noticed a fair amount of ant hills, i dont know if that good or bad. I found mayby 3 june bug grubs and several other crawlys i couldnt identify. I will have a load of grass fed cow manure comming down soon to get the compost pile going.

When i get to the house tomorrow i will check out the gutters and see what condition they are in i would love to collect rain water!!. Would i be best off buying large bags of bone meal and other fertilizers? I still need to go back and read the first page its been a long day. I didnt realize it would take so long to plant.

Also there is a family of 4 deer that live in the woods behind the place. I planned on putting up a twine fence around 4 foot tall than putting up a 3 foot twine fence about 2 feet out from the first one and hanging white flage on top. Will this work for keeping the deer out? They love to feed on the apple tree in the yard so we are hopeing having to deal with the fence will detour them when there is tasty apples right on the otherside of the driveway. Also have been having all the males urinate on the outer edge of the garden as i herd this is a great way to detour animals from comming around.

Also i have catnip, dill, sunflowers, and another flower i cant recall the name of in the garden. Is there any benificial plants that you would recoment i shouldnt do without? My ultimat goal is to not only have a garden but to have a sancuary for nature to do what it does. I will not use pesticides besides neem and other organic things. I know the fox farm is considered organic but i dont belive its true organic if that makes sence. I would love to creat soil so alive i wont have to use nutrients at all.

The only foods i plan on composting are whole foods. Nothing processed.

Wow, that is a very big garden! You definitely aren't messing around lol. We have tons of ants in our yard (and house if we don't use lots of cinnamon to deter them) and from what my wife read a couple weeks ago the ants actually aerate the soil and do some good things for it.

You're idea with putting up a twin fence is great. that's basically what I'm doing as well to keep out all the sqirrels and rabbits, except I just bought 25' rolls of 4' tall 1 inch spaced garden fence. I think you're right that they would probably just go for the apple tree.

I have gutter grates on most of my gutters and still have to clean them out sometimes from the little helecopters leaves and stuff lol, but for the most part it's all pretty efficient. I collect rain water from the backside gutter on my garage though. Those gutters are much crappier than the ones on my house and I still get over 50 gallons when it rains over night usually.

Yea, my wife and I are on the same tip as far as wanting to grow more beneficial plants. We've been living as naturally as possible and I haven't taken any prescriptions in over a year now, so we want to have as many natural remedies on hand as possible. She just ordered medicinal lavender plants and a few other things. When she gets up in a few hours I'll figure out all the stuff we decided on (it's not all planted yet), and what we still wanna get. Most of it would probably be right up your alley. The Uses of Therapeutic Helichrysum Essential Oil

Oh, and if you're having manure added to the compost pile, just be aware of some things. You'll want to keep an eye on your ratio of manure to food compost, or you could end up with way to much N in your compost next year. And also, if you use any of this compost this year, make sure that it is COMPLETELY composted before using. The biggest problems in Organic food production seem to be with using manures for nutrients, which is actually part of the reason we started growing our own food this year. There were a couple of contamination issues over the last few years, I think Spinach with ecoli was the last one...and sometimes it gets into ground water etc. I would be frugal with it.

By the way, a little off topic but since you're into other beneficial plants...have you ever juiced your fan leaves or ate your buds raw? There are apparently a whole LIST of diseases you can prevent lol. It's not recommended when using chemical nutrients obviously, but since giving organics a shot outside, maybe you'd wanna try a couple inside? Here's a link if you haven't seen anything yet. http://www.naturalnews.com/035759_cannabis_juicing_health.html

Oh, and you may want to look up companion planting since you have deer and probably other animals. You may be able to plant certain herbs or flowers around certain plants in your garden to deter certain pests lol. But I can't pretend I'm familiar with it yet.

Getting nutes this week i had some questions on collecting rain water. I am planning on using 5 gallon buckets at multiple spouts and getting a troff or tank by the garden to store water in times of drought. Is there anything i need to be aware of storring large amounts of rain water? If i go the troff route which would be a lot cheaper, should i be concerned about algae or is it not a big deal.

Tilling land for the first time is pretty tough work. Expect the tiller to jump around a lot when it catches on rocks. Also the tilling process kills the soil, so if you can, add in your beneficial microorganisms to help speed up recovery or avoid tilling all together either by creating raised beds or practice lasagna gardening techniques. Miracle Gro is okay, but personally (and if it's available in your area) I'd go with Kellogg brand organic fertilizers, sold at Home Depot and Lowes. It's usually cheaper and comes in slow release form so you don't have to apply it as often. A $7 bag of all kellogg all purpose 4-4-4 organic fertilizer should last you all season and be enough for veg and flower.

If you do decide to go synthetics on soil, make sure you do a soil test first, so you don't over apply the fertilizer.

$1200 worth of soil.........lol. sorry. it sounds so crazy. i'm trying to think how tall my pile of SS would be for 1200 bucks. sell that shit, man. try to recoup your money, imo.

if you compost non-organic matter such as pesticide treated plants, manure from drugged animals (antibiotics,hormones), etc................your compost is not organic. pure organics is tricky. i'm close.

lovemug said:

Getting nutes this week i had some questions on collecting rain water. I am planning on using 5 gallon buckets at multiple spouts and getting a troff or tank by the garden to store water in times of drought. Is there anything i need to be aware of storring large amounts of rain water? If i go the troff route which would be a lot cheaper, should i be concerned about algae or is it not a big deal.

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The easiest way to collect the rain is with a 55 gallon drum, or a garbage can with a lid. You can just get a 32 gallon rubbermaid roughneck can from home depot if you don't already have something to use. If you just want to be able to dip the 5 gallon buckets in the can for water, then it's as simple as cutting a hole or square in the top of it just big enough for the spout to just barely sit inside of, so it's kinda tight. Then you just wrap a little window screen around the gutter spout and tape it real good (I use hvac tape...probably somehting better though) and stuff it in the opening of the top of the can. Then when it's full you can just take the lid off and use it. You can also get a cheap submersable pump from the hydro store, I got one for $20 bucks that just sits in the can and pumps all the water out of my hose onto the garden.

If you want a spout so that you can just open the spout and water will come out of the bottom of the can/barrel, then here's a DIY. It looks long, but that's because it's to set up 3 cans in a row, so if you only need to set up one can, then you can skip some steps. Let me know if you have any more questions about it, I should be around most of the day!

Oh, and I think if anything the algae would probably be a good thing, but I haven't run across any.