Grow help

Hey guys I'm new to growing and new to the site. I'm growing 4 plants in 5 gallon buckets. Soil is 2 parts black cow manure compost 2 parts worm castings 2 parts topsoil 1 part Verm and 1 part per. 2 of my plants are looking good but my other two are stunted and thought I was going to lose them but past 2 days I see new growth finally only nutes I have used is one feeding of alaska fish fert. They are 3 weeks old today my ph has been around 6.5 and 7 everytime I check any advice would be great. I don't have the money for the top grade nutes as I work in oil field and times are slow right now. They are grown outside in the sun light.

Well first may I suggest to dig up and re-pot any that has two of them in one bucket. 5 gallons is barely enough for one outdoor plant let alone two. One will take over.
The second thing is manure doesnt have that much nutes in it. It has to be amended to make it work.
It doesnt cost but a couple of dollars (under 10$ ) for nutes and thats probably what its lacking.

Well I actually thought the two were dead is why I put them both in one bucket but put something to separate them incase they came back and I could repot. What liqued or water soluble nutes could I get to add to them

A cheap yet good one is the earth grow line.....they even sell that at walmart if you dont have a hydro store near you.

Yea nearest hydro store is 3 hours away

I meant earth juice....sorry ive been out in the sun way to long lol

I've used the 5-1-1 fish fert for 1 feeding and the girls loved it perked up and the two stunted ones started growing again I'll def look into the ones to said

Looks like you may have an aeration problem, roots need o2 to breathe else the plant won't do so well. When you water the pots how long is it taking for runoff to come out of the drainage holes? Add something like perlite or lava rock for aeration.

Another thing that helps for added o2 if you decide not to repot is hydrogen peroxide at the rate of 1/2 cup per gallon of water.

I mixed lots of perlite in the soil and I don't water enough to drain out bottom of bucket read on other forums not to water to much but maybe bad information first time I've ever attempted soil growing so I'm just going in circles with Google lol.

DesertGrow89 said:

Looks like you may have an aeration problem, roots need o2 to breathe else the plant won't do so well. When you water the pots how long is it taking for runoff to come out of the drainage holes? Add something like perlite or lava rock for aeration.

Another thing that helps for added o2 if you decide not to repot is hydrogen peroxide at the rate of 1/2 cup per gallon of water.

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Wow...thats more then I ever used...however he has an almost organic thing going. It would kill the good bacteria.

I have a 2 prong ph tester and used it to jab lots of holes in the soil oh and forgot to also mention have about 20 earth worms in each pot

Tondo17 said:

I mixed lots of perlite in the soil and I don't water enough to drain out bottom of bucket read on other forums not to water to much but maybe bad information first time I've ever attempted soil growing so I'm just going in circles with Google lol.

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Yeah im sure your drainage is fine. I use amended cow manure and it drains great!!!!!

ganga gurl420 said:

Wow...thats more then I ever used...however he has an almost organic thing going. It would kill the good bacteria.

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The most important thing is to add aeration/drainage to the root substrate... Or the plants wont do so well.

Tondo17 said:

I have a 2 prong ph tester and used it to jab lots of holes in the soil oh and forgot to also mention have about 20 earth worms in each pot

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Not all worms are good hon. Earthworms can sometimes eat your roots.

DesertGrow89 said:

The most important thing is to add aeration/drainage to the root substrate... Or the plants wont do so well.

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Im well aware.

Perched water tables are bad.

ganga gurl420 said:

Im well aware.

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OK, then why haven't you suggested that? lol

DesertGrow89 said:

OK, then why haven't you suggested that? lol

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Because I do not think thats his issue. I work with the same substrate as him minus thr perlite/verm. My plants didnt thrive until I started amendjng my compost better. There is not enough nutes to it as it stands even using fish fert.

Well another thing that's killing me is I started them in jiffy cups in a barrel with 2 300w CFLS once they got about 6 inches I replanted them in the buckets and put them out in the sun but since they have been replanted there has only been about 4 days it hasn't rained. So sunlight haven't been to strong. They are covered so no worries about drowning.

I don't think drainage is an issue cause when I repotted I watered really well and took about a minute- minute and half to come out of drain holes on bottom