K
khaleel
instead of perlite (which i used to use -- effective but nasty dust off that shit!) that's why i use the coco. to get the soil to hold a little less water. works even better, in my experience the girls love the texture of the mix even more. of course the happy frog already has a bit of chunky perlite... and i may have that wrong somewhere, they probably don't do the exact same thing, but fuck it the proof is in the pudding. had nothing but killer roots since i started doing it (click on the "root porn" link in my sig to see what i mean). dolomite is added with ph in mind, right? i'm not an expert on it, but i don't mess with adding any. i basically tried everything i heard lol (like most growers) that sounded like it was cool or made sense to me, and if i saw results or not i kept doing it or stopped. so far in a few years of growing, my personal from-experience notes are:
- definitely don't want too rich of soil. mix some cheap ass coco in there. if the soil is too heavy or you are using too big of containers for the size of your plants, you run into a couple problems: overwatering in general, and a problem in feeding regularly cuz that's how you feed them -- when you water. so keeping the drainage/retention ratio in your mix is a crucial element of the grow. probably the most important, as the timing of when you water affects everything.
- keep it light when comes to nutes. you hear this all the time -- more is less. there is a reason you hear this all the time, cuz it is true. lol how many plants did i fuck up because i was overfeeding, building up too many nutrients in the soil so it began to burn the roots and they couldn't take up any more nutes, leading to more build-up and more burning... yikes. ties in with the above water item. but for sure, even if you make a rule of using no more than half what the manufacturer reccommends, you will be thankful. might risk missing out on 5% weight or something by keeping it dialed towards the low end, but the quality will be well worth such a small proportion of weight. believe me, you can sell one pound of smelly chronic lot easier than you can sell two pounds of shit. lol and if it is just personal use, like mine, then of course you are going for quality. that's what it is all about, finding the perfect bud.
-- proper flushing and rinse. last two weeks, no nutrients allowed! haha sorry nutes, get the fuck out. only pure water (i use a tablespoon molasses per gallon as a finisher; can do this or some other finisher, but make sure it is specifically a finisher and doesn't have the stuff you are trying to get rid of). during the last couple weeks, this is where you make or break your harvest when it comes to smell, flavor, potency, and texture. you need to get all the green-ish stuff out. that means no nitrogen of course (stop the wormcastings around week 2-3 in bloom), or even phosphorous or anything. the plants has plenty of food storage in her body already, enough to make it a couple weeks, and that is part of what you are doing -- getting her to burn through her own supplies so you don't smoke all that shit. sort of like if you like your beef on the lean side, you would excersize the shit out of your cow for a few months before killing it so she burns off the fat. uh, something like that. lol if you need to, when you are ready to start plain water, the first watering can be a rinse, where you sit the container in the bathtub and run enough water through that you can see the runoff water finally turns clear or close to it. now you know all the buildup is gone from the soil. ok i'm rambling on now...
finally, when you do have that yellowed-leaf, purplish dank smelling bud staring you down at day 70-75, now is the last chance to screw it up and most people do. make sure to leave that shit to dry long enough. leave it hang an extra day or two, once you think it is dry enough. they always say leave it hang until you can snap the branches, not bend them. for 6 months i rushed this and took them down when they were almost breaking. and for 6 months i couldn't figure out why my weed wasn't that good. lol you gotta let it dry appropriately before bagging/jarring up, period. then, and only then, will the beautiful chronic smell come out while jarred up. not to mention i read that the chemical process involved in drying actually increases potency. other words, if you take it down too moist as so many people do, you are selling yourself short on potency. i can't explain it, but just the way it works, and you can tell the difference for yourself.
ok, i know you probably didn't ask for that much, but i've been meaning to write a little "khaleel thinks this shit is important" post like that for a while, so thanks for the question and hope some of that helped!
T: you know it is a fact that i made sure to trim them up that high after seeing your room... best way to get killer buds. plus it kind of makes me hard. they look so badass that way. hahaha laters pimp.
couldn't believe I almost let him/it fall through the cracks and pollinate my ladies. thanks for the compliment and post bro!
lol have a good weekend everyone 
