First grow - Soil questions!

This year ill be doin my first grow and i want to do things right. I've been creepin around the site for some time now and have learned quite a bit from the riu community. In text, everything seems really easy and i plan on keeping it that way. My grow will be outdoors and i'll be doing a journal as soon as i decide on soil and get my sites prepped. I'll be planting 10-20 beans in 3-6 sites. Anyways, i have some questions about soil. I was readin around and herd some good reviews about fox farms ocean forest potting soil. I can't remeber the name of the soil but i herd you can mix the two, that being OF and the one i cant remember (its two words if that helps) and it makes for a really good medium. The issue is that I live in Ontario and i've only herd about OF being sold in the US. Does anyone know where i can buy OF in Southern ontario? preferably not online. I haven't been able to find an average ratio of soil to perlite and other soil additives so if someone could help me out with that, that would be awesome. Also when im mixing the soil's aswell as perlite and such, how do i know what one part is? What happens if the bag of perlite is double the size of the soil? would it then be say 1/2 part perlite to 1 part soil (just an example of a 1:1 ratio)? When i read about people mixing say one part "..." to one part "..." is that assuming the bags are the same size? just tryin to clear up somethings before i start the grow. Id hate to mess up something so simple.

Don't know much about soils & mixing with perlite.

Like you said, "Id hate to mess up something so simple. "
Simple is your keyword. How on Earth could you mess something up? Soil is soil..

Right now I have plants growing in Sand if that proves to you how easy things could be.

But if you want your BABIES lookin they are on steroids lol then that is wonderful as well.

Drugfreemike420 said:

Not to mention, if it wants to grow. Then regardless the situation. It'll grow.

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Welcome to riu. So let me get this straight... what you're telling me is that if you plant your seeds in a box of tiles it will grow? Good try but not a chance.

I use equal parts of perlite, riversand, and $.99/bag topsoil from Lowes that I have hand filtered the sticks and grass out of. Makes a wonderful yet easy to get for everyone, medium.

Jables&Jakoseph said:

Welcome to riu. So let me get this straight... what you're telling me is that if you plant your seeds in a box of tiles it will grow? Good try but not a chance.

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Okay, well you get the idea..

Obviously you looked somewhere in your room after reading so, and decided on saying something smart.

I was just stating a fact, that you more than likely don't need to worry about/notice every little cycle in this plants life-span.

1:1 ratio simply means that for every 1 part of something, you put 1 part of something else. So lets say 1 quart OF and 1 quart perlite. So in essence it's 50% of each. If it was 2:1, then you would have twice as much OF as you would perlite. Does that make sense? It has nothing to do with number of bags of each because bags are all different sizes like you said.

As for were to buy soil, I can't help sorry. I live in the US. But if you do some research and ask around there are lots of good alternatives to FF. Hell, there is even a Miracle Grow thread around here somewhere where people are getting some nice plants. Not that I would use it, but if you're desperate there are options

MrJoshC said:

1:1 ratio simply means that for every 1 part of something, you put 1 part of something else. So lets say 1 quart OF and 1 quart perlite. So in essence it's 50% of each. If it was 2:1, then you would have twice as much OF as you would perlite. Does that make sense? It has nothing to do with number of bags of each because bags are all different sizes like you said.

As for were to buy soil, I can't help sorry. I live in the US. But if you do some research and ask around there are lots of good alternatives to FF. Hell, there is even a Miracle Grow thread around here somewhere where people are getting some nice plants. Not that I would use it, but if you're desperate there are options

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Thanks for clearing it up. +rep.