Is there anyway to salvage my messed up soil mix?

MedResearcher said:

Truely its hard to say from across a screen. I looked harder at the second pictures, only a shorter plant on the bottom right of the one picture, a wider leaf variety shows a very tiny bit of Nitrogen curl, on only 2 leaves.

Neem is mostly N (5-1-2 or 5-1-3), and if I remember right the bio live is what 5-4-2. Both are leaning heavy towards nitrogen, especially for flowering. So I would assume if it was over fertilized, you would see a lot of Nitrogen curl/claw. Have a friend who uses Miracle Grow, and I have been to his garden when he over does it... lol.. some serious Nitrogen curl.

The plants are also pretty large for their pot size. I am not saying they are overgrown, but I would assume even with a really rich soil, a plant that size in that size pot would need some regular feeding to stay healthy.

Your logic on the little plant doing better seems pretty sound.

Crush some of the seabird pellets up. Thin layer of worm castings, thin layer of seabird, cover it up with a thin layer of compost. If you have some liquid kelp, or seaweed powder to. Kelp is so broad spectrum, really good at greening a plant up.

Test it on a single plant, and observe. Worst case you make one plant go downhill further, and gain some experience. Best case, the plant improves and you gain some experience.

Canna plants really devour nutrients. Especially big plants. If you have a good amount of some really nutrient rich soil, and you grow small plants very little veg time, and quickly flower them, like SOG style, you can get away with not feeding much or at all. Big plants in small amounts of soil.... they need to be fed on a regular basis imo. More soil, more plants, less veg time, much more efficient, and much easier.

Cool varieties, and I think your soil mix will be dialed if you keep at it. Can be tricky with multiple phenos, varieties, one is Mag hungry, one is N hungry, one is a light feeder, one is a beast.

Hang in there,
Mr^^

Click to expand...

Thanks, man. I had some ACT and EJ brewing up before you replied, so I fed them that last night. I mixed up this...

Into 2.5 gal, bubbled 48 hrs, filtered through cheesecloth:
2/3 cups ( Yeah whoops ) EWC
2/3 cups Kelp Meal
2 Tbsp Black Strap Molasses
3 Tbsp EJ Bloom
2 Tbsp EJ Catalyst
1 Tbsp EJ Meta-K
1 Tsp EJ Micro-Blast
1/2 Tsp Ej OilyCann
1/2 Tsp EJ Bloommaster(0-30-50)
4 tsp of Neem Oil (part of my IPM)

So I'm gonna wait a week or so to see how they improve, or if they don't. But I have a feeling they will, the flowers don't look so bad. I flipped to 11/13 2 weeks ago. So hopefully I'll keep seeing nice new green growth.

I don't actually have compost sadly. I don't really have a good source for it, because I don't know what is in any of the municipal supply stuff, and at the store they just have some "Supercompost" that says it's enriched with fertilizer so I figure it's too hot. I've just been substituting all compost recommendations with EWC. I'm on a disability budget, so the shipping costs on things like Malibu or Oly Mountain is tough to eat.

Do you mean I should put all that into the top layer of soil? Sounds kind of like the layering I've heard suggesting for a mulching setup? In that case I'd probably NEED something different than the EWC for that layer you recommend compost? Oh and all I have is powdered seabird guano :/

I'm not sure what to do with the "bad" soil after this run is done, if I should try to condition it somehow. I figure just adding more Bio-Live and some dolomite lime and letting it cook would be best? I'm strongly considering just building a fresh batch from scratch, because I want to source some actual compost to put in and go with a Coot's style recipe. I could make a whole yard ( that should give an idea of how small my setup is, I refer to it as a "whole yard" ) and that would probably fill all my pots. I typically do a 5 plant veg and 5 plant flower cycle, or at least that's what I've been trying.

My main goal is to try to do water-only, or as much as possible. I hate to sound lazy, but I hate brewing ACT and mixing up nutrients and all that stuff, but as much as it's just a chore, sometimes I get very sick and it's like impossible to do that stuff. I have a chronic vomiting condition called CVS and it can leave me puking non-stop for a week at a time sometimes, so really my biggest goal in the LOS endeavor is to be able to just setup a little drip-watering system with plain water and then not have to worry about mixing up anything except for my IPM every couple weeks. I've got the drip system going, just need to dial-in a water-only soil.

Oh and the big plants problem... I'm on a small plant limit too, so unfortunately I can't grow many small ones Add to that, I have a crummy apartment so I'm stuck with relatively low lighting, 315 W CMH. Add all these limitations up and usually I'm happy if I get 1-1.5 oz per plant.

A funny side note... I was talking to my authorization doctor, and she said, "Wow, and ounce per plant? Some of my patients I talk to say they only get 1/4 ounce per plant." Ha! Yeah, I bet they DO say that.

Thanks for all the help!