Soil Mixture Advice needed!

[Mistadobalina]

I've had terrible success when growing from soil in the past... yet I've had great success with hydro. The Catch is I honestly think that I should learn how to do soil so that i can have multiple strains of Mums to pick clones from so i can drop them in my hydro setup. So.. with that said, Can i get some recommendations for soil mixtures and some basic concise technique for keeping plants healthy in soil?

Here's my current nute/soil setup.

AN Sensi 2 part
R/O Water
Sensi Cal Mg for R/O water.
Hormex

soil: Fox Farms Ocean Forest.



(p.s. dont flame about AN.. i don't wanna hear it. lol i'll give GH a try when i finally run out of these nutes. I promise!)

if i can just make my own fancy schmancy soil mixture from a hardware/gardening center... i'd rather do that. I don't like going to our local hydro shop simply because i've heard LEO hang out around there, and shipping soil is too damn expensive.

so here are a few questions i have..
1) Do i need to pH balance water/nute solution if its R/O water before watering? if so, what pH?

2) why is soil so much more difficult to do for me?! lol

Advice needed!


p.s. if anyone has ever done a drip system with nothing but hydroton, please speak up now. I'm curious to find more info on this subject as well. I'm not hellbent on soil yet. I just don't want to drop on another Rez chiller if i can avoid it.

 

[Dr Dog]

Use a soiless mix
I use Promix BX but that is essentially Peat, Perlte, and Vermiculite. You can add Lime, to get the ph in balance and also add some Calcium and Magnesium

If I were to guess why soil is not working for you, I would say you overwatered/fed. If you are good at Hydro, that means you like to spend time tinkering with your grow. There is not much to do with soil/less, just wait on them to need more water/food. A lot of people will get overanxious and basically kill their plants with love

 

[Mistadobalina]

Use a soiless mix
I use Promix BX but that is essentially Peat, Perlte, and Vermiculite. You can add Lime, to get the ph in balance and also add some Calcium and Magnesium

If I were to guess why soil is not working for you, I would say you overwatered/fed. If you are good at Hydro, that means you like to spend time tinkering with your grow. There is not much to do with soil/less, just wait on them to need more water/food. A lot of people will get overanxious and basically kill their plants with love

i know i didn't overwater. i did that the first time, learned from that mistake. As far as feeding goes, thats one area that i'm completely in the dark about. Soilless sounds awesome simply because i can have a better idea of the nutrient concentration in a pot. Will any soilless mix work? i have a fuckton of hydroton that i've been thinking about doing a dripsystem/soilless mix with. what do you think? good? bad?

 

[toodles]

Go here for how to make soiless mixes. Why screw around making up your own if you don't know how....when the two mixes listed are PROVEN good mixes?

Organics for Beginners soiless mix recipes

Toodles

 

[RockyMountainHi]

Ive been using FoxFarms Ocean Forest.

Good Stuff!

I mix Pearlite about 50-50 with it.

And a tablespoon of Dolomite lime per gallon of soil. (Aproxamatly)

 

[stickyickyicky]

A lot of people will get overanxious and basically kill their plants with love

So true!

GUILTY!

 

[magiccannabus]

adding coco coir as 1/3 of your mix makes over-watering very hard to do. I'm loving it!