Water and feeding
- Thread starter Sashasrs
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neiro
Well-Known Member
What is the growing medium and style: coco, perlite, soil?
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- #3
The medium is organic soil. I use snoops nutrients.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Hi @Sashasrs and welcome to the forum!
I have written a thing called coincidentally, How to properly Water... and you should read it. The link can be found below.
I don't know who your many people are, but that schedule you suggested is certainly not the most commonly used, or the proper way to water a soil container grow. The most common advice is to feed full strength one time, and then come along the next time and water with plain pH adjust water. The reasoning behind this is that anything not used by the plants on the first pass is then given a second chance to be used by the plant on the next watering, effectively keeping the soil clean of unused nutrients.
Then the question becomes, when do you water? How do you best determine the time to water so that you are not overwatering your plants by watering them too often?
The proper way is to let them dry out completely, all the way to the bottom, between each watering. Read the article and get an idea of the concept of a wet/dry cycle and how it is the proper way to water a potted weed.
Bush Doctor 77
Well-Known Member
Welcome. New nutes to me, but I would follow his schedule for soil.
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- #7
Hi. Since you are incredibly knowledgeable, I have a situation with this plant. I reported her last night because she started to droop. Sure enough she was totally root bound. I cracked the ceramic pot to get all of the roots out without damaging them. I gave her just alittle water in the new organic soil , in a 7 gallon material pot. Will she recover? Should I have loosened the roots before I put her into soil? She is a white widow with incredible roots! What should I do? Will she survive?
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Bush Doctor 77
Well-Known Member
Soak when transplanting.
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Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Yes, the good doctor is right, you should always completely saturate the soil when you transplant, so as to merge the two soil regions together. A confident knowledgeable gardener will rough up the roots a bit, even cutting those that start to wrap, so that the plant takes off aggressively repairing and sending out the roots in new directions, no longer confined to the shape of the last container. This however will cause a "shock" of about 3 days of apparent non activity up top and this scares more timid gardeners into thinking that this practice is bad. If you are growing an Auto plant, there is no time to waste and you do not want to shock the plant, so the common advice is not to transplant ever... or at least do it very gently with no shock. This timidity has carried over into the bro science of the photoperiod world, and it is very common for someone to think it is best to always transplant gently and with no shock, and I too once believed this. My Dad, who is a much better gardener than I am, convinced me that you get stronger and more vigorous plants by "loosening" up the roots a little bit as you transplant. Water properly and then watch a 3x explosion in growth as the roots take off into the fresh soil.
oh, and yes, she will survive. You did exactly the right thing.
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
Are you watering with nutes every time? That is not how people usually handle a soil grow. It depends of course on your nutrient line... some of them do demand every time, but normal synthetic nutes usually recommend nutes/water/nutes/water, all through the grow.
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- #13
Emilya, thank you so much ! 
Wow. I’ll do that. It sounds likethat should be common sense after the article you wrote. Ijust finished reading it. Brilliant you are! So much BAD information on YouTube. Thank you for all the time you put in teaching us about all there is to know about growing! You rock!!
Wow. I’ll do that. It sounds likethat should be common sense after the article you wrote. Ijust finished reading it. Brilliant you are! So much BAD information on YouTube. Thank you for all the time you put in teaching us about all there is to know about growing! You rock!!- Thread starter
- #14
Oh, I forgot to mention this is my second try at growing. I use Snoops Premium Nutrients. My last plant was beautiful before I flushed her for 8 days, which meant the buds totally dried up. Also I used the Bloom button on the lights, and both of those things absolutely destroyed the buds. Before doing that, the plant was beautiful and healthy.
I grow in soil. Step one: I water then wait for it to dry out (if you look at your plants they should droop a little) not to stress them out but for them to tell ya they are thirsty. Step 2: then I feed. repeat step one. When ready I water. I feel it also depends on strong your nuits are, and the PPM you are at. I'd either feed again or water really just depends on how they respond. Everyone has a different approach to their own garden and strains, but I do water minimum every 3rd time no matter what.
@Emilya good writing!
Gotta remember it is a weed...
@Emilya good writing!
Gotta remember it is a weed...
Bush Doctor 77
Well-Known Member
If the roots are circling much, I scrape down all around with finger nails, breaking a lot of roots. It will recover. I give about 1/4 nutes soak.
Bush Doctor 77
Well-Known Member
I doubt flushing and/or Bloom button ruined your crop. I'd almost bet you had something else going on, unless you actually burned them with your light.
Nunyabiz
Well-Known Member
Totally dependent on your particular soil.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to watering.
Same with "feeding"
There are far different variations of what people call "organic soil" also.
For a soil to be organic it's either living right now or was once alive, containing compost, carbon, etc.
Should have an active microbe and bacteria population.
Should be inoculated with mycorrhazae.
IF you use salt based nutrients on your soil then basically you're killing it, you'd be better off just using a medium like Coco.
If you use a big box store bag of "soil" in 3 gal plastic pot then likely your best bet is to follow Emily's watering advice.
Now me personally I just see things quite a bit differently than most.
IMO, if I am not watering at least once every 48 hours then I am changing my soil because something ain't right.
For me there are two methods that work the best.
Coco and feed with organic nutrients at 1/4 strength every single day, keeping the coco moist.
Or
Living Organic Soil No-till and just water every single day and occasional sprouted seed teas and top dress amendments to feed the worms and soil, again "keeping the soil moist".
I like whatever medium I am using to stay moist, never dry out and have a tilth that gets lots of oxygen to the roots.
I have 25 gallon fabric pots and I water my worms, microbes, cover crop etc every single day even when I am not growing cannabis, I am always 24/7/365 growing soil.
My pots absolutely devour water, my soil is alive, it's very porous, its literally like feeding a lethargic pet.
I keep lights on all the time even when I am not growing cannabis, in fact I don't really grow cannabis, I grow soil, the soil does all the rest.
My soil requires moisture to live, the worms, microbes, fungus, bacteria, Beetles, cover crop all requires water and lots of it.
So I would suggest if you use soil and not coco, then always use at least 10 gallon fabric pots as a minimum.
If trying to do LOS no-till then 15 gallon fabric pot minimum.
Make sure your soil tilth is right, add at least 30% aeration in the form of pumice, rice hulls and precharged biochar until you get the right consistency.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to watering.
Same with "feeding"
There are far different variations of what people call "organic soil" also.
For a soil to be organic it's either living right now or was once alive, containing compost, carbon, etc.
Should have an active microbe and bacteria population.
Should be inoculated with mycorrhazae.
IF you use salt based nutrients on your soil then basically you're killing it, you'd be better off just using a medium like Coco.
If you use a big box store bag of "soil" in 3 gal plastic pot then likely your best bet is to follow Emily's watering advice.
Now me personally I just see things quite a bit differently than most.
IMO, if I am not watering at least once every 48 hours then I am changing my soil because something ain't right.
For me there are two methods that work the best.
Coco and feed with organic nutrients at 1/4 strength every single day, keeping the coco moist.
Or
Living Organic Soil No-till and just water every single day and occasional sprouted seed teas and top dress amendments to feed the worms and soil, again "keeping the soil moist".
I like whatever medium I am using to stay moist, never dry out and have a tilth that gets lots of oxygen to the roots.
I have 25 gallon fabric pots and I water my worms, microbes, cover crop etc every single day even when I am not growing cannabis, I am always 24/7/365 growing soil.
My pots absolutely devour water, my soil is alive, it's very porous, its literally like feeding a lethargic pet.
I keep lights on all the time even when I am not growing cannabis, in fact I don't really grow cannabis, I grow soil, the soil does all the rest.
My soil requires moisture to live, the worms, microbes, fungus, bacteria, Beetles, cover crop all requires water and lots of it.
So I would suggest if you use soil and not coco, then always use at least 10 gallon fabric pots as a minimum.
If trying to do LOS no-till then 15 gallon fabric pot minimum.
Make sure your soil tilth is right, add at least 30% aeration in the form of pumice, rice hulls and precharged biochar until you get the right consistency.
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- #19
Thank you sooooo much! She’s back!
