B
buddymate
Excellent place but just gone into administration mateI get 90% of my grow stuff from this local place:
http://www.kaysdiscountgarden.co.uk/1.html
Unbelievble range of stuff, they are a huge horticulural supply place and the pries are the best around, they make a whole range of their own feeds and composts, I use em. Teh ysell seaweed extract that is as good as any I;ve used for a firth the price of Maxicrop, I use the powdered version, pay a tenner for enough powder to make 220 litres of the stuff, and you can pay more than that for a 2.5 litre of Maxicrop these days.
Their wormcasts are good and cheap, and their other own brand ferts are all excellent quality. I've used their stuff for years and never feel the need to go near a hydro shop, their 90p coco bricks never need flushing, hard to beat a soil mix of 50% coco, 25 vermiculite and 25% wormcastings with 3-12-12 organics pellets and mycohorrizae added, then I water with molasses and seaweed and get great yields. I use 7 litre deep rose pots from kays, 21cm diameter but 35cm deep, 7 quid for 10 at kays, they have a huge range of pots of all types including poly plastic ones like thick bin liners that I love for outdoors, they go upto 70 litres I think.
A big tip for money saving - don't buy PK13-14 at the hydro shop, get a 800g box of Chempak Mono Potassium Phosphate for 4 quid and make your own, disolve the powder in water and you get PK13-14. A 800g box will last many years even if you go through 10 litres of PK in a year, which could run to over a hundred quid. If ya don't like using a chemical PK booster, then the age old standby is steamed bone meal for P (usually something like 3-30-0) and wood ash from the fireplace (someone always knows someone with a real fire! lol) that is high in K. While I like the idea of fully organic growing, a judicious application of mono potassium phosphate increases yield over anything you can do with organics so a hit of PK in mid flower isn't gonna hurt anyone as long as ya flush well at the end!
Chempak also do a powdered hydroponic nutrient that works as good as Ionic or ny other basic hydro nute and it's again about 4 quid for an 800g box, had some stupendous yields with Chempak nutes in DWC back in the day.
Chempak liquid worm Humus is as good as the expensive brands and about a third the price. Same with their Fish Emulsion, half the price of Biobizz Fish Mix.
Other thing about Kays is they sell just about ever chemical and organic thing you can imagine in cheap bulk powdered form dirt cheap, you can get calcified seaweed, lime, kieserite, kainit, bonemeal, fishmeal, seaweed meal, rock dust and loads more in 3kg, 10kg and 25kg bags and all are as cheap as you can get. They have a full range of 3, 10 and 25 kilo bags of chemicals ferts like mono potassium phosphate and ammonium phosphate dirt cheap too.
Hydro shops and canna specific products are a big ripoff, you can get everything you need to grow great weed from regular horticulture places for a fraction of the price.