soil

Hey guys I didnt prepare my soil very good this year, but I have learned alot. Im going to do a bit of a different soil mix next year and use pots. I plan on germinating in a paper towel, then placing the seedling into a jiffy pellet, as soon as I see a root I will put the pellet into a small pot, then as she gets about 5" tall I will transplant into a medium size pot with a bit more stuff added into the soil, to encourage good veg growth. Then when she is a couple feet tall and ready to flower I will transplant her into the final flowering pot. Here is the plan...

Small pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss

Medium pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts

Large pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss
1tsp epsom salts
Alfalfa pellets
1 tbs high P bat guano

I will do this along with feed a compost tea once every 2 weeks, and water with rain water. Sound good? Id also like to get my hands on some kelp meal.

You should definately add Worm Castings to the list. Imho as much as 1/4 of every mix except seedling should be worm castings. If the potting soil you use already has some in it, make about 1/5 of your mix extra Worm Castings. You should definately add the high Phosphorus Guano to the medium pot mix for P and Ca. The Kelp should be added to both med. & lg. mixes for K. You may also want to get another source of Potassium for late flowering. It'll depend on how big the buds get but neither the Kelp nor the Alfalfa are significant sources of Potassium.

And btw, we used to grow the Cubies also. I forget the exact recipe but we saw a major increase in growth rate, final size and potency when hydrating the rice with a Guano tea.

Thanks alot, and what do you mean cubies? So for late flowering if the buds get big your saying they use alot of potassium? Ill look for some kind of organic liquid kelp I can add to my tea.

Thinking about adding blood and bone meal too, good idea? Here is the new plan....

Small pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss

Medium pot
25%EWC
25%perlite
25%garden soil
25%compost/peatmoss
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high p bat guano
1/2tbs blood meal
1tbs kelp meal

Large pot
25%EWC
25%perlite
25%garden soil
25%compost/peatmoss
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high P bat guano
1tbs bone meal
1/2tbs blood meal
2tbs kelp meal


The pellets,salts,guanos,and meals will be added at that ratio per gallon of soil, so if I have a 2 gallon pot I would double the amount posted, sound good?

The word Cubies relates to you screen name. I won't go into it further since the topic may not be acceptable in this unrelated forum.

Start with about 1TBS per gallon of soil since it will be your primary fertilizer. When you have Worm Castings and other nutes to throw in, it might need a little less like 2tsp/gal. If there are no signs of nutrient burn, use a little more in the future.

If you have to order most of your ferts, you'll want to get them concentrated. Maxicrop soluble powder is lightweight for cheap shipping and stores well for a long time. It will supply about the same nutrients as the Kelp Meal but will be much cheaper to have shipped. Here's a good cheap source of Potassium to have shipped if you need to order some in the future http://www.planetnatural.com/site/organic-potash.html You soil mix sounds good, just check its Ph when you make it and add lime (add to list if u dont have) if it's too acidic.

What do you mean start with a TBS of what per gallon of soil?

Ill have to get more lime, cops took it when they searched my house, fuckers. Should I use kelp meal along with the potash??

Your guano- a TBS/gal.

Just use the Potash in the large flowering pot and yes, in addition to the kelp. The Kelp Meal has alot of good micronutes and the Potash is more of just extra K. The medium pot has enough K for vegging but the large one would benefit from having more for flowering. It's strong stuff so use lightly. It's also very Alkaline and will completely take the place of any lime you would have used otherwise. With the Bone meal and Guano, your flowering mix will have plenty of P for probably the first 6 weeks, so don't fertilize with much if any extra Phosphorus until towards the end of flowering.

I think you done a great deal of planning for your soils and fertilizers, +rep. Depending on how complete your grow area is already, you may want to move the focus to lighting, air circulation, stealth, etc.

Thankyou alot for all of the help, I appreciate it. Im also using a pinch of salt from my reef aquarium in the compost tea, the salt has many elemtents including magnesium, calcium, zinc, iron, potassium, and many other things. Ive heard that the only way humans can get these elements back into their body is by feeding a low amount of saltwater from the ocean too the plants that you eat, so It should be good for cannabis, I tried it during my last grow, and did not see a harm, I didnt even nutrient burn once during my first grow which I was scared of.

I hardly did any planning for my last grow soil wise, just kind through some stuff together, and fed all of my nutrients in the compost tea. This time I want to have all the nutrients in the soil, and my plant can use as she needs.

Ill feed with rain water the whole way through. Last grow I did compost tea every week. Think I should reduce to once every two weeks? Or stick to once every week even though im using nutrients in the soil now? It might be nice to use a light compost tea once a week to keep the soil very very lively. I also dug out all the roots of my old grow area, and found soo many worms, which means even though I was using a good amount of nutrients in the compost tea it wasnt harming the worm population. Some day I would like to make my own worm castings, my compost pile is already very nice, which black rich compost, which im sure will be very good for next year with all the worms shitting in it.

Here is a list of the stuff I need to get for next year...

Earthworm castings
Kelp meal
Liquid kelp
Blood and bone meal
Potash
Fish emulsion

Now im pretty sure I can find the fish emulsion here, I already have the alaskan which I did not use this year because it made a weird smell in the compost tea and killed all the foaming action, so I want to find a different once, with a cold extraction proccess. And I know I can get the blood,bone, and kelp meal here.Not too sure about the potash, but since I dont need it till the large pot(flowering) ill just wait till spring and look at some stores for kelp meal and potash. And I know I for sure cannot get the liquid kelp and earthworm castings here. Now would it be a major draw back if I couldnt get those two things, but could find the rest?? I probably should get those earthworm castings though, even though my compost pile and garden soil is rich with worms that are shitting in it.

Be careful when using only rain water. Try to check it's Ph at least once. Testing it every watering or at least every season would be better. It's Ph can fluctuate (usually lower) depending on where the clouds came from, the atomspheric conditions there and those around your grow. Using good bottled water once in awhile, especially when flushing, will reduce the risks by occasionally washing away any buildup from the rain water.

Compost tea can vary greatly from one mix to another so you'll have to see what your mix can do and how much of it your plants can handle. Make sure to monitor your soil Ph when using it as it can get pretty acidic. Compost can even get more acidic over time. All fertilizations should be separated by plain waterings and it's usually a good idea to switch up the foods you give them. So, maybe compost tea/water/other fertilizer/water/compost tea again would be a good system. Give them a good flush with pure water as the last watering before transplanting and then shortly before harvest.

Worms are great, for soil anyway. Any in the pots will keep producing a steady amount of castings and they work with the good microbes in the soil to produce a great growing environment and discourage some of the harmful ones. They can also be given old, used soil and will make it fresh again.

IMHO I would change the following for all mixes.

Medium pot
25%EWC
25%perlite change to Sunshine or ProMix or go with coco, do not add this much it is too much.
25%garden soil
25%compost/peatmoss Change to 25% compost. Compost adds food slowly and runs out of steam after a few months so you won't kill anything.
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high p bat guano Use a 3M mask this can make you sick. get at homer depot
1/2tbs blood meal use blood & bone meal
1tbs kelp meal

Thanks, ive never checked the Ph in my soil, water, or tea yet. And havnt had any problems, I might start checking it though. And I have been using good bottled water every once in awhile to clean the soil.

And I cannot get sunshine or promix here, and I do not want to order it. Ive heard peatmoss works well with the compost? Maybe im wrong. And if im not suppose to use that much perlite, how about 10%perlite 15%coco? And say 1/2tbs blood meal, 1/2tbs bone meal for medium pot?

We use about 1/5 perlite with a soil mix that has none in it. With everything else being discussed, I thought arguing over 5% would be knit-picking a little. Fifteen to twenty percent overall perlite is about what you'll want to aim for. We'll use a little extra perlite when using a significant amount of coco as it helps keep the coco from tangling into one large chunk. I wouldn't expect 15% coco to really need much if any extra, though.

Alright so here is the new plan, mothers finest do you agree with the using blood and bone in medium pot??

Small pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss

Medium pot
25%EWC
15%coco
10%perlite
25%garden soil
25%compost/peatmoss
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high p bat guano
1/2tbs bone meal
1/2tbs blood meal
1tbs kelp meal

Large pot
25%EWC
15%coco
10%perlite
25%garden soil
25%compost/peatmoss
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high P bat guano
1tbs bone meal
1/2tbs blood meal
2tbs kelp meal
potash

Annd again... took out the peatmoss as I was reading some stuff on it, and going to add a bit more coco.

Small pot
Garden soil
Perlite
Compost/peatmoss

Medium pot
25%EWC
20%coco
10%perlite
25%garden soil
20%compost
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high p bat guano
1/2tbs bone meal
1/2tbs blood meal
1tbs kelp meal

Large pot
25%EWC
20%coco
10%perlite
25%garden soil
20%compost
Alfalfa pellets
1tsp Epsom salts
1tbs high P bat guano
1tbs bone meal
1/2tbs blood meal
2tbs kelp meal
potash