Can you help me make a flowering mix from these ingredients?

[Bones]

Hi all,

I am quite new to organic growing. Having previously done hydro, soil and soiless grows indoors for a few years, I now find myself in a situation where i can enjoy and long growing season outside in the beautiful mountains of Portugal. For two summers I have watched my beautiful girls turn into 2 - 3 metre bushes with trunks like baseball bats All was going beautifully this year until, about 4 weeks into flowering, a forest fire came through, scorching this years beauties beyond recognision! Luckily my well trodden paths acted as fire breaks, saving the ladies from fire itself. Sadly, this was not enough to protect them from the heat of the air and wind generated from the fire, and now only a few pretty sad looking tops have survived. These tops now are succumbing to mold, as most of the stems are dead at least three quarters of the way round, leaving just a thin strip of healthy cambium struggling to support the tops

Now, heartbreak aside, I must start again. Which is fine.

I have previously used Horse manure (through neccessity rather than choice particularly), as my main fertilizer, and my five burnt ladies recieved about four tons between them this year. I found horse manure to not be so good for flowering, having too much nitrogen and promoting leafier buds than I would like. This has led to me having some friends bring me some decent organic ammendments, as the choice here seems to be mainly chemicals for agricultural use (hence the horse shit).

Which brings me to my question (ramble ramble)

What is the best way for me to mix these ingredients for a flowering mix with no veg time (veg done in seperate pots, and plants will be in a poly tunnel with the flowering mix)

DCM Granular fertilizer - 6:3:5
Blood Fish Bone - 5:5:6
Bonemeal - 3.5:19:0
Plagron bat Guano - 3:15:4
Maxicrop seaweed meal (ascophyllum nodosum - brown kelp) - possibly 1:0:2

I also have some organic liquid fertiliser - 4:8:12
Liquid humic and fulvic acids - 12% and 3.3% respectively
Wood Ash (possibly 0:1:3)

The base of my mix will be a store bought compost - N 50-100mg/l: P 50-100mg/l: K 200-400mg/l. Ph 5.5-6.5 EC 0.4-0.6.

To this I will add about twice as much soil and horse shit dug from the fire scorched ladies as I only applied a fresh (well rotted) batch about a week before the fire.

I have been trying to mix these to something that resembles a 1:3:2 ish mix but can't get anywhere close without using quite a lot of wood ash which im worried will fuck the Ph.

Any help with how to mix some/all of these ingredients would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

 

[h.h.]

Throw some worms in the horse shit, then give it a good 6 months. Using it fresh, it starts releasing nitrogen at the wrong time. The deeper it is, the slower to release due to less bacteria.

 

[Bones]

Hi h.h. - Thanks for reading and posting The manure is already well aged as I always take the oldest most rotted manure. When I get it, it is already full of worms and releasing nutrients at a good rate.

The reason I have applied so late into the season is because of only being able to transport a limited amount at a time, so I have given about five applications through the plants life.

The manure I will be using as a base has mostly turned to soil and humus as the older layers had already established a good amount of bacteria.

The problem I have now is that I have run out of growing season, so I'm vegging plants inside, to then put into a polytunnel to flower through the winter. Any new manure I now get will be composted under the growing bed for warmth through the cold nights.

Now I need to mix my flowering mix and can't seem to get the kind of ratio described in the "organics for beginners" thread. (1-3-2)

so far my attempts at math have got me :

2 parts Blood fish bone
1 part Bonemeal
1 part seaweed meal
1 part high p bat guano
4 parts wood ashes

Which gives me 17.5-48-30. quite close to 1-3-2 (16-48-32).

I am however concerned that sounds like a shit load of ash that could fuck up my p.h.

I feel like I need to find a mix that compromises on the NPK values so it doesn't need so much ash to get K.

anyone have any ideas?

are my concerns about the ash unneccesary?

Thanks for your time

 

[Swayze]

Too much ash may make the mix muddy. Instead of 4 parts wood ash, maybe:
Apple skins(ash) : 0/3.0/11/74
Cucumber Skins (ash): 0/11.28/27.2
Grapefruit Skins (ash): 0/3.6/30.6
and there is also:
Kelp meal (quick release, good for fruit/flower production)
Sul-Po-Mag
Granite meal
Greensand
Greensand Plus (0-0-17)for faster availability
Wood ashes (caution: too much can raise the pH level too high)
Sulfate of potash (0-0-52)

I've yet to use ash in my mix but definitely will in the future as I like the idea of it.

 

[Bones]

Hi Swayze, thanks for the info

I really need to get my mix composting as soon as possible so I am going to try with the ingredients I already have at hand. Definately bear the fruit skins in mind for the future though

I've been playing around with recipies a little more and have come up with:

2 parts seaweed meal (1:0:2)
2 parts Guano (3:15:4)
1 part wood ash (0:1:3)
1/2 part DCM (6:3:5)
1/2 part Blood fish bone (5:5:6)

Am I right in thinking that I add these NPK values up to get a total?

Like 2 parts of seaweed meal would be 2:0:4, When added to the two parts of guano would be 8:30:12 in total?

If this is how it's done then my total would be 13.5:35:20.5.

Is this good? And if so, how do I know how much to add to my soil/compost?

I will be planting in a raised bed that needs 1.7m3 of Mix to fill it.

Thanks for reading. (sorry bout the noobish questions, just trying to understand how it works)

 

[c-ray]

can you get alfalfa meal / alfalfa pellets, calcitic lime and dolomite lime where you are?

if so this should get you in a good range if you are using a peat, bark or coco based soil:

1.7 cubic M = ~450 gallons

4L kelp meal
4L guano
2L wood ash (from deciduous trees/not eucalyptus)
1L blood fish bone
1L DCM
5L alfalfa
2.25L dolomite lime
2.25L calcitic lime

if you are using a topsoil then I would go 1/3-1/2 strength of the above

 

[c-ray]

nevermind the alfalfa I didn't read the whole first post
but yes try and find some dolomite and calcitic lime
or oyster shell powder and maerl
Ca is the #1 nutrient that Cannabis requires

 

[Bones]

Thanks C-Ray.

I haven't seen alfalfa meal here. Or dolomite Lime, although I have a sack of Calcium Carbonate which contains:

99%CaCO3, of which 55%CaO
<0.5%MgCO3
Coarseness - 100%<1.5mm, 70%<0.7mm

It looks quite rough but I could probably smash it up finer easily enough. Is this the same as Calcitic lime?

The bagged soil I have looks quite peaty, however I only have about 200L of this though, so the rest will be made up from recycled horse manure from around the burnt girls. It is well rotted and most of it looks just like topsoil.

Annoyingly I also only have about 1.5-2L of kelp meal also.

With this in mind, do you think the best thing for me to do is 1/3 your mix and supplement with guano tea later on?

Thanks so much for the reads/replies really keen to get my mix ready to catch as much of the late season sun as I can

 

[Neo 420]

Me thinks you should not be too worried about your NPK profile. Just make sure you get them traces in there. BTW your gonna have to compost that mix also for a couple weeks .....

 

[c-ray]

yeah that sounds fine..yes CaCO3 is the stuff, aka sweet lime
make sure you use enough of the calcium, a good 2L
I would also add a bit of epsom salts to your mix, maybe 250ml, and perhaps more in the watering as needed

 

[The Hummus Monk]

Hey Bones...I'm just experimenting with the following water only recipe:

Base soil mix:

40% Beautiful rich compost with some comfrey in
30% Canna Pro Plus (peat, coir and bark...no nutes at all)
20% perlite
10% EWC although the compost is quite rich in it anyway

For the nutrients and elements:

Dolomite Lime (2tsp per litre)
Seaweed meal (2tsp per litre)
Calcified Seaweed (2tsp per litre)
Neem Fertiliser (1tsp per litre...it's 4.5% Nitrogen and keeps soil pests away)
Blood Fish and Bone (2tsp per litre)
Bonemeal (1tsp per litre)
Bat Guano (1tsp per litre)

Will report back with results!