I noticed FF was becoming more and more inconsistent, My buddy called and they explained that due to increase in the use of their product, they had to open another plant. If you are on the east side of the US there is a good chance you are getting FF from there South Carolina plant, which uses different fillers then their west coast plant.
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milehighmedical
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I
Iron_Lion
Last night I was mixing up a fresh bag of FF OF and I was looking at it thinking I remember this stuff being much darker in color and as someone else said more loamy. I noticed big clumps just like you showed in your picture, I just figured the bags on the pallet had been tightly compressed and dried up and clumped in the bag. The clumps dont really look like root balls. I took a good whiff of the fresh soil and I thought it had a different smell then it used to, almost more pine compost smell, not a bad smell just different. At 20 bucks a bag I was recently considering switching to ROOTs soil but when I went to the store to buy some the pallet of ROOTs smelled absolutely RANK! with a horrible rotting odor and the bags were heavy like they were saturated with water, safe to say I went home with Fox Farm instead.
Im on the E.C so looks like Im getting the S.C blended FF OF which kinda pisses me off. They open an E.C mixing plant but the price stays the same WTF! I used to not mind the high price because I knew the soil was coming from the west coast.
Im always looking for cheaper alternatives but havent come across anything better as of yet. Even though FF OF has changed a little bit it has still always served me well, I have never had any pest issues and thats why I am so hesitant to switch.
EatMoGrass
Member
Wow! You have a good nose! It did smell totally different to me as well but that was months ago and I havn't used FoxFarm since. Your right on about the pine smell, the SouthCaraliona OF uses pine bark fines and the NorCal OF contains Redwood bark fines. This comes straight from FF.
Did you notice more peat along with the less loamy feel you mentioned? Or more perlite?
P.S. Now mixing my own soils from peat, compost, worm castings, alfalfa, kelp, rock dusts and more. Besides not adding quite enough lime for cal-mag its working out great.
Did you notice more peat along with the less loamy feel you mentioned? Or more perlite?
P.S. Now mixing my own soils from peat, compost, worm castings, alfalfa, kelp, rock dusts and more. Besides not adding quite enough lime for cal-mag its working out great.
I'm on the East Coast. I have been using OF for 9 years with no problems. I heard that their mix changed and decided to try Roots Organic even though I had no problems with the new OF mixture. Within 2 weeks I had a MAJOR fungus gnat infestation. Roots Organic was the cause, period. Back with OF now.
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Iron_Lion
Hmm, thats seems like a major down grade going from redwood bark to pine bark. The recent bags of OF I have opened seemed to have much more perlite. It used to have too little now seems to have plenty. I also noticed it looks like it has more coco coir in it, in a handful you can visibly see coir.
I have considered making my own soil but what I love the most about FF is its convenience. I know I can mix 1 bag light warrior, 1 bag planting mix and 1 bag OF and some lime together and have a perfect soil. I could probly obtain the same effect at home but it would require a lot more shopping, alot more measuring and just too much time.
I think with all the changes to the recipe its not quite ocean forest anymore and they should rename it, but its still overall a pretty decent product. It might even be better, I could see it holding up better as a stand alone grow medium where as before it didnt drain as good and seemed to retain water almost too long.
wow. im on the EC too and have started to notice clumps too.. wtf. its expensive as all hell, we shouldnt be getting recycled crap..
any other good alternatives?
any other good alternatives?
EatMoGrass
Member
I'm not saying that the East Coast OF isn't any good, I'm just saying it is not the same as the stuff I used between 3-5years ago that was shipped from NorCal.
This East Coast OF has as much perlite as Light Warrior. The bags I bought also were very warm to the touch and I believe still composting in the bag.
The soil was just so much different than the OF I had used for years that I didn't know how to go about amending it. Again I don't know if its good or bad, its just different than it used to be.
I was also told that the HappyFrog soil is now made in SC for those of us East of the Rockies.
I'd reccomend to mix your own(soil), grow your own(herbs), roll your own(joints), and smoke your own(tha best of tha best).
This East Coast OF has as much perlite as Light Warrior. The bags I bought also were very warm to the touch and I believe still composting in the bag.
The soil was just so much different than the OF I had used for years that I didn't know how to go about amending it. Again I don't know if its good or bad, its just different than it used to be.
I was also told that the HappyFrog soil is now made in SC for those of us East of the Rockies.
I'd reccomend to mix your own(soil), grow your own(herbs), roll your own(joints), and smoke your own(tha best of tha best).
greenplanetguru
New member
******
******
I dunno guys...
This is about all it takes for me to jump off the FFOF wagon... I live in the mid south and I'm sure we're getting FFOF from SC too. At first I was glad they opened an East Coast facility thinking it would be more economical and if anything the ******price has only gone UP...
Now this bullshit with the clumps and old roots in it... I bought a bag of FFOF a couple weeks ago and it has LOTS of 1 - 2" clumps in it. I had to go thru my soil bin and break them up as well as I could with my hands... And when I xplant I break up even more small clumps as I find them. I mainly get it for convenience but I can sure mix up my own and I have most of the amendments ready to go. I've used FFOF or Roots soil as a base to mix up Subby's supersoil for about a year and it's always worked fine but I think it's time to grab the ProMix and start from scratch... **** FF... Those greedy bastards...
Peace~!
Peace~!
******
I dunno guys...
This is about all it takes for me to jump off the FFOF wagon... I live in the mid south and I'm sure we're getting FFOF from SC too. At first I was glad they opened an East Coast facility thinking it would be more economical and if anything the ******price has only gone UP...
Now this bullshit with the clumps and old roots in it... I bought a bag of FFOF a couple weeks ago and it has LOTS of 1 - 2" clumps in it. I had to go thru my soil bin and break them up as well as I could with my hands... And when I xplant I break up even more small clumps as I find them. I mainly get it for convenience but I can sure mix up my own and I have most of the amendments ready to go. I've used FFOF or Roots soil as a base to mix up Subby's supersoil for about a year and it's always worked fine but I think it's time to grab the ProMix and start from scratch... **** FF... Those greedy bastards...
Peace~!
Peace~!
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I
Iron_Lion
EatMo you brought some awesome info to this thread, this is one thread every FF soil user should read. Also is it just the OF thats being mixed on the E.C? Or is their Light Warrior and planting mix being made here too?
EatMoGrass
Member
First I want to say that I am no expert, not even close. I just exchanged a few emails with FF back in March after the issues I mentioned.
In those emails I was told that it is just the FF Ocean Forest and Happy Frog soils being mixed on the East Coast. Not the Planting Mix or Light Warrior. However when I had the issues with OF I also had three bags of Light Warrior that seemed different. The LW was a lighter brown(peat) than normal and felt like it had less minerals and castings in it. The previous couple bags of LW I used several months before that were wet. Normal used to be somewhere in between.
So I really have no idea about the Planting Mix or Light Warrior but I used to use FF because it was consistent. Now that it is not consistent I no longer use their products.
GEMiNi GENETiCS
Member
This is how I see it...your paying $8 a bag. Its used soil so use it outdoors. Go buy a $20 bag and use that for indoors. Ive re-used a few hundred gallons of soil this year from various indoor growers that only use it for 1 run and I haven't had issues. Just run through breaking up some root clumps and amending...also add in some extra perilite.
Ive paid the $20/bag of FFOF and they have all been top notch and great for the babies.
Ive paid the $20/bag of FFOF and they have all been top notch and great for the babies.
Stoned Crow
Member
What kind of nutes are the previous soil users using? Do you flush the soil and rebuild or amend the soil before you use it?....SC
I
IGotTheCottons
We used FFOF for our plants... It was too hot for them, when they were babies... Then, as they started REALLY vegging - the soil went barren really fast. I was surprised, because so many people have said they use it for most of their grow (only having to feed a hand full of times for the entire life-cycle)... But once our babies really started eating, we were feeding every other watering, like clock work.
FFOF is all hype, IMHO... And completely overrated... I could see it being a good base, for mixing your own... But I'll never use it as a standalone soil again.
FFOF is all hype, IMHO... And completely overrated... I could see it being a good base, for mixing your own... But I'll never use it as a standalone soil again.
FFOF - The World's Very Best Soil!!!
FFOF - The World's Very Best Soil!!!
<chuckle> - 'nuff said.
CC
FFOF - The World's Very Best Soil!!!
<chuckle> - 'nuff said.
CC
Sourbear
Active member
Starting my first grow I went with two bags of FFOF
Here in WAYYY nor cal, its only 10 bucks a bag and from what I can tell it's high quality stuff. But I do want to switch over to Earth Juice Amazon Bloom soil.....Just because for my perpetual grow, I'm not really in veg, pretty much straight to flower. I was thinking of cutting my remaining bag of FFOF with a bag of EJAB and then adding some EWC to the mixed soil.
See pic below for soil quality
Here in WAYYY nor cal, its only 10 bucks a bag and from what I can tell it's high quality stuff. But I do want to switch over to Earth Juice Amazon Bloom soil.....Just because for my perpetual grow, I'm not really in veg, pretty much straight to flower. I was thinking of cutting my remaining bag of FFOF with a bag of EJAB and then adding some EWC to the mixed soil.
See pic below for soil quality
i finally bought a bag. it looks good but we will see
M
milehighmedical
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dragging hooks
Member
now that is funny
pre employment is pretty much the norm and easily passed
it's the companies that random test that should be avoided
I worked as a contractor at a company years ago
that drug tested their employees the morning after the Super Bowl
being a contractor they couldn't test me, but DAMN
morning after SB????
