Need help, living soil, pots too small mid flower

013 said:
You can do organics straight from the bag tho… Geoflora Organic Dry Mix… add to your soil mix by measure as you fill your containers, then add as top dress every 2 weeks and water in.

there’s 2 products… a veg formula and a flower formula since the ratios are different for each stage of growth
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Hi @013 thank you for that info, iv been looking and the one your saying, the geoflora, it’s a bit expensive over here, I did find one like it thou,
The geoflora bloom numbers are 3-5-5
The one I found had 2 different ones for bloom, early and late, I’m in the middle :rofl:
What one dya think would be best ?
I will put pics up of em :thumb:
And thank you for the help :thanks:

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I’ll jump in here and try not to confuse anyone.
I’ve grown organically for a while now and used a variety of bagged mediums. Currently I’m running things in KokoBop by Fox farms (which is a coco/soil blend) but I’ve used their straight coco, their Ocean Forest and various other amended bagged mediums. All with pretty good results.
After years of tweeking and trying different combinations, I’ve concluded that less is more when growing pot.
I’ll always add a little perlite and worm castings to my medium, regardless. Then, I’ll use a good dry organic fert, like Gaia Green. If the medium is heavily amended, I’ll use about 1/3rd of the recommended amount and mix in from the start. If the medium is inert or lightly amended, I’ll use a full dose.
Most of the dry organic lines have a veg formula and a flowering formula. Obviously I’ll premix only the veg formula initially.
Then I will water with tap that i let sit out for a few days. The initial mix will usually run the plants 5-6 weeks, which about flip time.
When I top dress, I’ll gradually decrease the veg formula while adding in and increasing the flowering formula.
Lots of folks top dress once a month but I prefer more frequent smaller applications.
I’ve brewed up organic teas and I’ve entire grows using only ReCharge. You just wanna keep the microbial life happy and active.
Plants don’t need 10 sources of the same nutrient….a good dry organic will contain everything the plant needs to thrive.
Lastly, you wanna keep your medium at a nice moist level but not too moist. I water very very slowly and my goal is no runoff…or very little. Then I’ll let my pots get light again but not a true wet/dry cycle that synthetic growers use.
When I threw away the bottled nutes and went organic, growing became much more enjoyable. More importantly, the flavor of the end result is noticeably better……much cleaner and more natural. I give almost everything I grow to friends and they have said the same thing.
Give it a shot. Good luck.
 
Kaldean said:
Whenever Is good for you my friend,
I’m thinking I’m gunna be needing the tea for my main ones pretty soon,
I wanna try avoiding deficiencies with those if I can.
One of them is not growing as much as the rest, so maybe something is lacking already.
If you could give me the ingredients I need,
The measurements of em and the process, that would be great,
I remember you saying earlier to let it bubble away for 24 hours,
Do I need one of those bubble stone things and a air pump ?
If you could give me the whole process,
And what I need, that would be very helpful :thanks: :adore:
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yes on the air pump and stones and 5 gallon bucket , .ro water , add about half a tsp of dolomite lime and a good veg or flower all purpose dry nutrient and a tsp of unsulfured molasses to the water depending on what phase your plants are in .let this continuously bubble .add a small amount of this tea to some r.o. water to get to a ppm level of under 90 ppm be sure to let your tea bubble for at least 12 hrs before your 1st usage you need to let the microbes in the tea grow , i use gia green dry nutes . just top up your tea pail with new r.o.water as you use it , leave the pump on constantly. i use this tea every 2nd watering if they are large plants in small buckets , don't water till run off or you will just wash out the bacteria and nutes , just moist soil is what you want with organics , hope this helps, do not worry about ph at all either , the dolomite will keep the ph around 7 .
 
Makeminefullgrown said:
I’ll jump in here and try not to confuse anyone.
I’ve grown organically for a while now and used a variety of bagged mediums. Currently I’m running things in KokoBop by Fox farms (which is a coco/soil blend) but I’ve used their straight coco, their Ocean Forest and various other amended bagged mediums. All with pretty good results.
After years of tweeking and trying different combinations, I’ve concluded that less is more when growing pot.
I’ll always add a little perlite and worm castings to my medium, regardless. Then, I’ll use a good dry organic fert, like Gaia Green. If the medium is heavily amended, I’ll use about 1/3rd of the recommended amount and mix in from the start. If the medium is inert or lightly amended, I’ll use a full dose.
Most of the dry organic lines have a veg formula and a flowering formula. Obviously I’ll premix only the veg formula initially.
Then I will water with tap that i let sit out for a few days. The initial mix will usually run the plants 5-6 weeks, which about flip time.
When I top dress, I’ll gradually decrease the veg formula while adding in and increasing the flowering formula.
Lots of folks top dress once a month but I prefer more frequent smaller applications.
I’ve brewed up organic teas and I’ve entire grows using only ReCharge. You just wanna keep the microbial life happy and active.
Plants don’t need 10 sources of the same nutrient….a good dry organic will contain everything the plant needs to thrive.
Lastly, you wanna keep your medium at a nice moist level but not too moist. I water very very slowly and my goal is no runoff…or very little. Then I’ll let my pots get light again but not a true wet/dry cycle that synthetic growers use.
When I threw away the bottled nutes and went organic, growing became much more enjoyable. More importantly, the flavor of the end result is noticeably better……much cleaner and more natural. I give almost everything I grow to friends and they have said the same thing.
Give it a shot. Good luck.
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Hi @Makeminefullgrown , first off, thank you mate for your time and reply,
I got lost thou, :rofl:
At the beginning, I understand with the mixing perlite and castings from the start, to whatever soil you use.
Here’s where you lost me,
When your explaining the best bit, with the third or full dose, depending on what’s in the soil,
And third or full dose of what ?
And sorry if I sound dumb, I am :rofl:
And thanks again :thumb::thanks:
 
NOOOBIENOT said:
yes on the air pump and stones and 5 gallon bucket , .ro water , add about half a tsp of dolomite lime and a good veg or flower all purpose dry nutrient and a tsp of unsulfured molasses to the water depending on what phase your plants are in .let this continuously bubble .add a small amount of this tea to some r.o. water to get to a ppm level of under 90 ppm be sure to let your tea bubble for at least 12 hrs before your 1st usage you need to let the microbes in the tea grow , i use gia green dry nutes . just top up your tea pail with new r.o.water as you use it , leave the pump on constantly. i use this tea every 2nd watering if they are large plants in small buckets , don't water till run off or you will just wash out the bacteria and nutes , just moist soil is what you want with organics , hope this helps, do not worry about ph at all either , the dolomite will keep the ph around 7 .
Click to expand...
Hello @NOOOBIENOT , thank you for getting back,
Im pretty much with ya, apart from this bit.
am I right in saying the dry nutrients, when using, is the amount it tells you per litre ?
And thank you once again for your reply and info :adore: :thanks:
 
013 said:
Yes as top dressing!
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Thank you @013 , I’m starting to get my head round this living soil.
Once I find my way a bit better, I’m thinking it will be much easier than liquid nutes.
I always seem to get some sort of deficiency with those.
Although I didn’t start these correctly with the clones,
My bigger plants are doing well up to this point, and now I’m gunna start with the teas and amendments,
Hopefully, I will avoid any of those usual issues I get,
hopefully lol
Thank you, and everyone else for the help and time.
It’s very much appreciated.
:thanks: :thumb:
 
Stuff that’s good to have in your tool kit for soil-

EWC for calcium and / or gypsum for calcium sulfate, epsoms for magnesium, soft rock phosphate for P, either kelp meal and / or liquid kelp for K, liquid fish for N. Rice hulls for carbon source, they improve aeration and moisture retention plus makes a nice mulch layer up top… rice hulls often have soil mites but they do not attack the plant plus you can’t win at eliminating them anyway.. so it’s best to ignore them…

Watch for crust layer on top of soil, the crust is screaming not enough calcium, but if / when you do have crusts it’s imperative to break up crust first then add more calcium on top. Stir your calcium source around for even distribution too. The crust blocks oxygen flow and makes the soil retain too much water. So keep an eye out, till top of soil and add calcium when you see it Keep adding calcium top dress as the weeks tick by.

Another cool hat trick is add 40% extra aeration to your soil mix and run swick style… self watering is the bomb. I like swick over SIP cuz there’s nothing to build. Plunk a fabric pot on top of a larger reservoir tub with inch or two of perlite in bottom. It does take about 2 weeks to convert a plant from soil roots to water roots so know that there is stall time but soon she will grow like a mother humper.

A good place to study all things soil is over at Gee64’s G-Spot journal. The dude just gets it avd there are plethora of heavy hitters bouncing ideas. It’s a long workshop thread but very much worth a slow read… at first you will probably be swimming in the deep end of the pool but he keeps repeating concepts in different ways such that I almost grasp the science shit but not quite. And even tho I don’t get all the techie stuff my grow game has benefited greatly from exposure to the Gee man, Keffka and the rest of the company.

Dude those are crazy narrow grow bags and you are killing it. Seriously that’s smoking hot! Hmm guess that’s also benefit of doing Christmas tree style in a tall narrow bag. Old saying goes that the plant above will match shape of roots below.

Nice work homes!!!
 
013 said:
Dude those are crazy narrow grow bags and you are killing it. Seriously that’s smoking hot! Hmm guess that’s also benefit of doing Christmas tree style in a tall narrow bag. Old saying goes that the plant above will match shape of roots below.
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Reminds me of some of the threads about growing with a Hempy style of set-up except using a natural soil mix instead of hydroponic medium. Both need an aggressive watering schedule along with combining it with an aggressive fertilizing program.

In this case the fertilizing program is based an organic or natural products to go along with the soil.
 
013 said:
Stuff that’s good to have in your tool kit for soil-

EWC for calcium and / or gypsum for calcium sulfate, epsoms for magnesium, soft rock phosphate for P, either kelp meal and / or liquid kelp for K, liquid fish for N. Rice hulls for carbon source, they improve aeration and moisture retention plus makes a nice mulch layer up top… rice hulls often have soil mites but they do not attack the plant plus you can’t win at eliminating them anyway.. so it’s best to ignore them…

Watch for crust layer on top of soil, the crust is screaming not enough calcium, but if / when you do have crusts it’s imperative to break up crust first then add more calcium on top. Stir your calcium source around for even distribution too. The crust blocks oxygen flow and makes the soil retain too much water. So keep an eye out, till top of soil and add calcium when you see it Keep adding calcium top dress as the weeks tick by.

Another cool hat trick is add 40% extra aeration to your soil mix and run swick style… self watering is the bomb. I like swick over SIP cuz there’s nothing to build. Plunk a fabric pot on top of a larger reservoir tub with inch or two of perlite in bottom. It does take about 2 weeks to convert a plant from soil roots to water roots so know that there is stall time but soon she will grow like a mother humper.

A good place to study all things soil is over at Gee64’s G-Spot journal. The dude just gets it avd there are plethora of heavy hitters bouncing ideas. It’s a long workshop thread but very much worth a slow read… at first you will probably be swimming in the deep end of the pool but he keeps repeating concepts in different ways such that I almost grasp the science shit but not quite. And even tho I don’t get all the techie stuff my grow game has benefited greatly from exposure to the Gee man, Keffka and the rest of the company.

Dude those are crazy narrow grow bags and you are killing it. Seriously that’s smoking hot! Hmm guess that’s also benefit of doing Christmas tree style in a tall narrow bag. Old saying goes that the plant above will match shape of roots below.

Nice work homes!!!
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Loads of great info there @013, thank you mate
I will be checking out Gee64’s journal for sure,
I do have problems thou, from knowing what deficiencies I have, I can’t tell the difference.
Like now, on my main plants, one of them is going a bit paler than the others, and there are burn spots on some of the leaves, just on one or two fingers of the leaves, what’s that ?
I think what it is, when I first started growing, I was told with every deficiency to add calmag, and I think I have a bad habit of always turning to that.
And as for my little plants, their really bad :rofl:
Most, if not, on some of the plants, all of the bigger leaves have gone yellow and fallen off.
I did notice it starting with the smaller plants a few weeks back, and that’s why I came on here for advice.
I didn’t add nutrients like I was gunna, cos I was hoping, with the living soil and messing it up with bottled nutes, to get through,
I only have a 2 or 3 weeks left but some of them are not looking good,
I think that’s another issue I have, with the different strains, I’m treating them all the same, and iv learnt that some strains are better at handling heat and stress and so on better than others , I like to do 4 different strains so maybe I’m going wrong there ?
And thank you for your help once again my friend :thanks::thumb:
 
It all looks great my friend!

Yes same here reading plant deficiencies is not my strong suit, but it gets better with every grow plus the keen eyes of other 420 members.

I still use carefully chosen bottled nutes with my half-assed, home brew living soil but mostly use single source liquid products like liquid fish, liquid kelp & super thrive.

In my case the heavy lifting is done with dry mix ferts that are multi-source products like Geoflora, Down to Earth 5-4-2 & langbenite, then to single source dry amendments like soft rock phosphate, 6-1-1 Neem seed meal, leonardite (humic acid)

I’ve been growing 4 years now, my plants are nothing to write home about but definite improvements have been realized in a slow but sure manner.

As for the cal mag thing ewc is great & I’ve had success adding pinch of mag via epsoms periodically in flower. But again a few of the biggies I’ve weaseled out by reading at Gees were the soil crust thing, tilling the top soil to break up the crust, frequent addition of calcium via EWC, getting SRP added to my mix as I transplant for flower, then every 2 weeks top dressing a bit more SRP

Swicks & self watering have upped my game too..

Hang in there dude, I know you will do just fine!!
 
013 said:
It all looks great my friend!

Yes same here reading plant deficiencies is not my strong suit, but it gets better with every grow plus the keen eyes of other 420 members.

I still use carefully chosen bottled nutes with my half-assed, home brew living soil but mostly use single source liquid products like liquid fish, liquid kelp & super thrive.

In my case the heavy lifting is done with dry mix ferts that are multi-source products like Geoflora, Down to Earth 5-4-2 & langbenite, then to single source dry amendments like soft rock phosphate, 6-1-1 Neem seed meal, leonardite (humic acid)

I’ve been growing 4 years now, my plants are nothing to write home about but definite improvements have been realized in a slow but sure manner.

As for the cal mag thing ewc is great & I’ve had success adding pinch of mag via epsoms periodically in flower. But again a few of the biggies I’ve weaseled out by reading at Gees were the soil crust thing, tilling the top soil to break up the crust, frequent addition of calcium via EWC, getting SRP added to my mix as I transplant for flower, then every 2 weeks top dressing a bit more SRP

Swicks & self watering have upped my game too..

Hang in there dude, I know you will do just fine!!
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Yes mate I understand that, with getting the soil right at the beginning sets you up much better
I thought that buying the ready mixed stuff would be good till harvest,
Don’t say about amendments and stuff when your checking out the labels do they lol
And you do the self feeding thing yeah, iv been wanting to have a go at that, reasons being, I find it hard to water them where I have other commitments,
So yes, I would love to have a go at that, and I just checked out the swicks method, looks pretty good to me, I think I may need to do this at some point,
A couple of things mate, SRP, what’s that mean ?
I did get the earth worm castings lol.
And when you say crust, I don’t know if that’s what I’m getting but
When I first water my ladies, the water puddles on top of the soil and takes a few minutes to go in, is that what’s happening with mine ?
And thank you @013 for all your help and advise
:thanks: :adore:
 
yeah my first soil mix deal was creating a frankenmix so it’s not my forte by any stretch of imagination.
No they sure don’t tell ya about the amendments avd much us based on trial by fire. Literally burning up some plants :cheesygrinsmiley:
So mostly self watering but yes I do add both nutrients avd amendmebts to my res water.

SRP is soft rock phosphate! Good deal on the ewc thing…

So if you have mulch layer on top brush the mulch aside so so can see top of soil. Next when you run your hand across top of the soil… does the soil easily move? or does it feel caked up? It should easily move just by sliding a finger across top. If it doesn’t then it’s caked for sure. Caked or crusted means not enough calcium for sure so remove top mulch layer if you have one, till the top inch of soil, obviously don’t tear up a bunch of roots but do disturb or break up top inch of soil. It’s ok to hit few roots they will just self repair.

But yes water pooling on surface, slow take up of water sounds like you are probs in crust or caked up soil territory.

Hey thank you- it’s my pleasure!!:
 
013 said:
yeah my first soil mix deal was creating a frankenmix so it’s not my forte by any stretch of imagination.
No they sure don’t tell ya about the amendments avd much us based on trial by fire. Literally burning up some plants :cheesygrinsmiley:
So mostly self watering but yes I do add both nutrients avd amendmebts to my res water.

SRP is soft rock phosphate! Good deal on the ewc thing…

So if you have mulch layer on top brush the mulch aside so so can see top of soil. Next when you run your hand across top of the soil… does the soil easily move? or does it feel caked up? It should easily move just by sliding a finger across top. If it doesn’t then it’s caked for sure. Caked or crusted means not enough calcium for sure so remove top mulch layer if you have one, till the top inch of soil, obviously don’t tear up a bunch of roots but do disturb or break up top inch of soil. It’s ok to hit few roots they will just self repair.

But yes water pooling on surface, slow take up of water sounds like you are probs in crust or caked up soil territory.

Hey thank you- it’s my pleasure!!:
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Hello mate, and thank you for the quick reply :thumb:
First off, SRP, got it lol.
And no, I don’t have a mulch layer, your gunna have to explain that for me please.
And I have crust lol, my soil won’t move if I run my finger across it, it’s only about the top 1cm if that, but yeah, when I push my fingers in it, it breaks in sort of chunks, so I tend to crumble it best I can.
So now I’m knowing I need either the EWC, or the gypsum,
What would you suggest, and what works better ?
Tbh, I like the sound of the EWC, iv found a few options but will wait to see what you suggest, and thank you my friend
:thanks::thumb:
 
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