first outdoor grow, soil advice needed

Randm

Active Member
My situation:
I have built several above ground planters to use on my first outdoor grow, as the ground where I am is completely unusable due too rocks and bad soil. I plan on filling them primarilly with a mix I picked up at the local worm farm of 10 % worm castings and 90 % compost. I mixed in diatamatios earth to keep the ground bugs at bay and added peralite for water retention.
My question is : what else I should mix in to ensure a good crop? Or is this sufficiant by itself?
 

Randm

Active Member
Also: There is a dairy near where I live that has composted steer manure for $25.00 a yard, would this be advisable for mixing into my planter boxes? How is the best way of mixing manure into the soil so as not to burn my plants? Forgive my ignorance on what are probably basics too everyone else, but I am fairly new to gardening and value the advice of those that have gone on befor me.
 

chronic coinoisseur

Active Member
Perlite helps to add porosity and draining to the soil, vermiculite adds water retention. Lime helps stabilize ph and add calcium. Kelp meal, worm castings and azomite add trace minerals. Bone meal, blood meal provide nitrogen and phosphorous. Feeding with molasses supplies the plant with potassium and carbohydrates. If you want a premixed organic based dry nutrient that you can mix into the soil and can feed your plants longterm as the nutrients are broken down, look into the fox farm line, specifically marine cuisine but they have others.
 

Ganga Cook

Member
Yeah fresh manure can be too hot for the lil guys. This spring is also my first grow. My soil mix is gonna consist of premium potting soil, perlite, blood meal, bone meal, some dolomite lime, mexican bat guano to make tea for watering and top dressing during veg. stage, and Im gonna use indonesian guano tea for my flowering stage. Make sure they get good amounts of nitrogen during veg and more phospherous during the flowering and they will love u for that. Happy growing bud, keep us updated!!!
 

Ganga Cook

Member
Oh and another thing, make sure that u have good seed genetics. If u use some mystery seeds and ur grow doesnt turn out good it would most likely be the seeds fault lol. Do u plan using seeds from ur smoke or are u getting from a seedbank?
 

spacem4ncan

Member
I used sheep manure well composted blew 20 bucks on 20-20-20 for veg and 15-30-15 for flowering they are great ferts and have worked well for my outdoor durban poison in the past only thing was... the buds had a whiff of shit to them i rolled a joint for my friend and he said it tasted shitty but if got us stoned so best be careful with manure unless ur ok with some labrador cuz ur buds are what they eat.
 

Randm

Active Member
My genetics are all tried and true, Blue Dream, Og Kush, White Widow, and Pure Power Plant. All from clones, not seeds. All have shown to be good on indoor grows.

Is there a good dry fert that can be applied as a top dressing as the plants get older? I will try too get everything mixed into the soil well befor planting, but as the plants start using up the available nutriants how to best add what it needs? Just what is compost tea and how is it used / made?

Thanks for the info
 
Top