Question about using only Jobe's Organic 4-4-4 dry amendments.

Hello, I am a first time grower with 3 Royal Creamatic Autoflowers that are currently on day 26 in FFOF soil. I am a broke college student with a super tight budget and I only have Jobe's Organic 4-4-4 dry amendments available and my pots are roughly around 3 gallon sizes I would assume approx. The main question I have is would I be able to add my dry amendments at start of week 4 since I used FFOF and realize it will carry me about until week 5 and the 4-4-4 would hopefully pick up then? I would want to use this for the rest of the plants life cycle until harvest since I cant afford all these crazy amounts of nutes and kinda wanna keep it basic anyways. If its possible with just the 4-4-4 in the FFOF (Fox Farms Ocean Forest), any recommendations on how much to feed them (3-4 tbsp?). Thanks guys and sorry for being such a noob lol.

The reason people think their bagged soil mix drops off at 60 days or so is because that’s how long it is rendered sterile from using either highly chlorinated water and/or synthetic nutrients. You should be able to get through most of your grow by transplanting to larger containers as needed with just ocean forest soil. If you want to prolong the life of the soil you already have on hand put some into a tote bin before there are plants growing in it. Add your dry Jobes nutrient and a form of active compost like worm castings. You can add up to 1/3 of your mix as ewc. If that makes it too mucky add some perlite to lighten it. Give it two to three weeks and then transplant. 3 gal may not be enough for a full bloom phase unless plants are kept small. Transplants are a great opportunity to add fresh mix; don’t try to leave a plant in the same container for too long. Once the roots reach the edges of the pot it’s time to pot up. Also use granular mycorrhizae & sprinkle it into the hole at each transplant. This will eliminate most absorption issues before they occur.
Use a clean water source if possible: I use water collected from a dehumidifier. Any water that does not contain chlorine and fluoride will be ok. Even single stage filtration is better than municipal tap water though I’m sure someone here will disagree.
Recycling your mix will recharge it: it gets better every time you do. Older the soil the easier it will be to keep it active. Microbial activity is what keeps ph in range so keep adding fresh ewc as a top dress or soil amendment regularly. Dry fertilizes are slow release; use as directed. No worries about nute burn because they are not absorbed directly; they need time to break down first hence the 2-4 weeks of time in the tote before plants are growing in it

Oh? I was told I could plant seeds directly into final pot through the whole life cycle for a autoflower, I only have a little bit of ffof soil left anyways. So I couldnt just use the 4-4-4 through the rest of the lifecycle, or would I have to buy a whole other bag of ffof and repot them? I am on a tight budget so I really cant do that.

I think I may have learned something new, I read that I can use 4-4-4 until flowering stage and then add a banana peel tea? Does anyone have any experience with banana peel teas?

ogsceneboy said:

Oh? I was told I could plant seeds directly into final pot through the whole life cycle for a autoflower, I only have a little bit of ffof soil left anyways. So I couldnt just use the 4-4-4 through the rest of the lifecycle, or would I have to buy a whole other bag of ffof and repot them? I am on a tight budget so I really cant do that.

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Use what you have on hand. No need to buy anything more right now. The idea is to put the fertilizer into the soil sort of before the plants need it so it can be broken down for absorption. Problem with leaving them in small pots from jump street is that at some point the tap root hits bottom; has nowhere to go but sideways. Just because you can get away with it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. You’ll find with small pots of soil it is harder to regulate moisture once roots reach the edge; you’ll have to water more often as plants grow bigger and roots develop. No reason to change anything you are doing if it is working for you but if you can scrape up enough couch change in the next month or so and have some space available it would good to transplant once to even just a 5g just before they start to throw pistils. It is not easy to keep small size pots active for very long without adding ewc either as tops dress or in tea form every few weeks to keep the mix working. If you find your plants getting lighter you can always get something like liquid fish emulsion. This and fresh vermicompost is pretty much all I give my plants. Compost in any form if active will keep your soil working; fertilizer only provides the means. FFOF is pretty good just on its own up until flowering phase.
Of course that 4-4-4 should work; I would give it a top dress every other week starting at week 5 as you say. Never made banana teas but I have made aloe fpj that worked great; would think the process for any kind of plant based fermentation would be similar. Here’s a link that might help:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/aloe-fpj-fermented-plant-juice.1043432/

Richard Drysift said:

Use what you have on hand. No need to buy anything more right now. The idea is to put the fertilizer into the soil sort of before the plants need it so it can be broken down for absorption. Problem with leaving them in small pots from jump street is that at some point the tap root hits bottom; has nowhere to go but sideways. Just because you can get away with it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. You’ll find with small pots of soil it is harder to regulate moisture once roots reach the edge; you’ll have to water more often as plants grow bigger and roots develop. No reason to change anything you are doing if it is working for you but if you can scrape up enough couch change in the next month or so and have some space available it would good to transplant once to even just a 5g just before they start to throw pistils. It is not easy to keep small size pots active for very long without adding ewc either as tops dress or in tea form every few weeks to keep the mix working. If you find your plants getting lighter you can always get something like liquid fish emulsion. This and fresh vermicompost is pretty much all I give my plants. Compost in any form if active will keep your soil working; fertilizer only provides the means. FFOF is pretty good just on its own up until flowering phase.
Of course that 4-4-4 should work; I would give it a top dress every other week starting at week 5 as you say. Never made banana teas but I have made aloe fpj that worked great; would think the process for any kind of plant based fermentation would be similar. Here’s a link that might help:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/aloe-fpj-fermented-plant-juice.1043432/

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Thanks for all the information, I got some spare 5 or 6 gallons outside I will replant them in and maybe throw some new FFOF from the leftover bag and mix it with the old to give some more time and then top amend with the 4-4-4 at week 5. Not sure on the banana tea because I heard it could possibly cause mold problems. Cheers man!