Tutorial Organics for Beginners

[Linenoise]

Something else came to mind as I was mixing up Recipe #1. Is that recipe designed to not require additional nutes to be added in waterings or is it assumed you will still need to supplement with regular feedings?

My inclination is to assume additional nutes will be needed, but I learned long ago never to assume. You know what they say about assuming.

edit: I found the answer to this question in this thread

Also, how long is a soiless mix good for after it has been mixed and 'cooked'? Again I would assume it to be usable for years but then I am ignorant to any real facts so thought I would defer to someone in the know.

Again thanks much for all the help. While people say it is easy to grow weeds I can safely say it would not be possible for me without great places of information such as this.

 

[TheOneWill]

So how do I measure parts by?
Gallons or % or cups???

LC’s Soiless Mix #1:
5 parts Canadian Spaghnam Peat or Coir or Pro-Moss
3 parts perlite
2 parts wormcastings or mushroom compost or home made compost
Powdered dolomite lime @ 2 tablespoons per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of the soiless mix.

Also for the food source is this good for both flowering and vegging?

RECIPE #1
If you want to use organic nutes like blood, bone and kelp...
Dry Ferts:
1 tablespoon blood meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix
2 tablespoons bone meal per gallon or 1 cup per cubic foot of soil mix
1-tablespoon kelp meal per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of soil mix or Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract as directed
1 tablespoon per gallon or 1/2 cup per cubic foot of Jersey Greensand to supplement the K (potasium) in the Kelp Meal and seaweed extract.
Mix all the dry ferts into the soiless mix well and wet it, but don't soak it with Liquid Karma and water @ 1 tbs./gal. Stir and mix it a few times a week for a week or two so the bacteria can get oxygen and break down the bone meal and make it available. And don't let the mix dry out, keep it moist and add water as needed. It'll also have time to get the humic acids in the Liquid Karma going and the dolomite lime will be better able to adjust the pH of a peat based mixture too.

 

[Linenoise]

So how do I measure parts by?
Gallons or % or cups???

'parts' can be any measure, so long as it is consistent throughout the entire recipe. So in short a part can be gallons, liters, quarts, cups, teaspoons, or whatever you need it to be, depending on your needs.

 

[TheOneWill]

How many weeks should I wait to trans plant into the nuted soil?
I'm going with sweet tooth seeds, purple ice seeds, and juicy fruit seeds so far.
I might buy some seeds but I'm just kinda nervous about it.
Also would it be bad to add earth worms to the soil?

 

[green_grow]

i also am using LC's SOILLESS MIX #1, complete with nutes added, exactly as shown by theonewill (above). It has been percolating for a month now, so i am sure it is ready . my question is ... since this mix is already loaded up with nutrients, will it be too strong to put germinated seeds into ? if so, what should i use to get them started ?

 

[billyba79]

Awesome thread BurnOne!! If you use organic soil, the microherd will automatically buffer anything that you put in the soil? I have been using Fox Farms Grow Big and Big Bloom with their ocean mix soil. I saw that some one wrote that this isn't entirely organic..how is that? My last questions is that when you are using synthetic nutes..does your pH start fluctuating b/c the lack of a bioherd?

 

[BurnOne]

i also am using LC's SOILLESS MIX #1, complete with nutes added, exactly as shown by theonewill (above). It has been percolating for a month now, so i am sure it is ready . my question is ... since this mix is already loaded up with nutrients, will it be too strong to put germinated seeds into ? if so, what should i use to get them started ?

Just use LC's mix by itself to germ seeds in. Then transplant into the nute rich mix after two to four weeks.
Burn1

 

[BurnOne]

Awesome thread BurnOne!! If you use organic soil, the microherd will automatically buffer anything that you put in the soil? I have been using Fox Farms Grow Big and Big Bloom with their ocean mix soil. I saw that some one wrote that this isn't entirely organic..how is that? My last questions is that when you are using synthetic nutes..does your pH start fluctuating b/c the lack of a bioherd?

It's the humates that "buffer" the soil.
Burn1

 

[S4vvy]

Nice thread fellas. Learning a lot and i'm just skimming thru. I got a feeling i'm gonna be re-reading this for a while

 

[Guest]

Hey everyone!!

Better late than never I guess.

I am going to try real hard to make this an "organic" grow. Yes I used Promix, but so what. I could have, and did on my first grow, use a generic potting mix. Result will be the same.

I see people asking about "parts" and what to use for measuring. As Suby and BurnOne have said, "it really doesn't matter as long as you're consistent".(paraphrasing them).

If you're kinda anal like me, this may help you.

1 cubic foot is about 7.5 gallons,,,
and there are 4 quarts to the gallon. Some EWC bags may be sized in quarts.
Soil comes in various size bags, often labeled in cubic feet.

Folgers Coffee cans(size sold at Costco, 54oz I think) are exactly one gallon ( I measured it) for those of us who like doing things this way

Obli

 

[BurnOne]

^^^Yeah, that's right. I use a 3 quart sausepan. You know, a cooking pot with a handle.
Burn1

 

[stoned teacher]

Great thread!

I'm looking to keep my soil mix as simple and light as possible. Am I correct that I'd be good to go with a mix of peat moss, perlite, with recommended added pulv. limestone if feeding with the following flowering mix: ?? (So no need to add worm castings or other amendments to soil?)

Flowering nute tea mix:
2/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano
2/3 cup Earth Worm Castings
2/3 cup High P Guano (Indonesian or Jamaican)
5 tbs. Maxicrop 1-0-4 powdered kelp extract
5 tbs. Black Strap Molasses
@ 2 cups/5 gallons of water EVERY watering.

Also, to burnone, using this watering mix, how do you feel about adding liquid karma and/or hygrozyme (says it's organic)???

If this liquid mix is all I need, it's what I've been looking for!

 

[Guest]

Great thread!

I'm looking to keep my soil mix as simple and light as possible. Am I correct that I'd be good to go with a mix of peat moss, perlite, with recommended added pulv. limestone if feeding with the following flowering mix: ?? (So no need to add worm castings or other amendments to soil?)

Also, to burnone, using this watering mix, how do you feel about adding liquid karma and/or hygrozyme (says it's organic)???

If this liquid mix is all I need, it's what I've been looking for!

IMO, you need to add compost and worm castings to your peat. Perlite should be added after mixing your peat, EWC, and compost. Perlite should be about 25-35% of the final volume of mix. Pure peat, even with perlite wouyld be too heavy, and probably too acidic.

And again IMO Liquid Karma is fine to add. @ 1tsp/gal.

Obli

 

[Mr Celsius]

Hey guys

I want to do a nice organic grow. I'll be having 180 plants in 3 gallon bags. I will root in rapid roots, then goto keg cups, then 1 gallon bags and finally the 3 gallon bags to flower.

So I'm sort of curious as to how to go about which planting mix for which stage. Also I want to use coir instead of a peat based mixture; as peat is unsustainable.

So peat has a low ph and coir has a neutral ph. So the dolomitic lime should be reduced? I know your saying the humates will buffer the ph, but I doubt adding something alkaline to something neutral will be able to be buffered by so little humates. But what do I know, thats why I'm asking.

So... using coir. Which mixes should I use for which stages. I'd prefer not to have to do tea mixtures, as to the scale I'm going to be growing. Mixing up a tea for 180 plants would not be cost effective or easy. So water only mix.

Btw this is all indoors. They will probably be in keg cups for about 7-10 days and then in the 1 gallon grow bags from 10-14 days. Then an additional 7 days inside the 3 gallons bags; its flowering time after that.

 

[Suby]

Hey Mr C.

I find that mixing choir with anything too strong or fast release can have ill effects on the plants, like blood and bone meal and yes dolomite, skip it totally or use like 1tsp per gallon of mix of less.
Choir is a Ca and Mg hog, it require extra humates added to the soil to make up for the less composted nature of the coco compared to peat and to keep nutrients flowing.
Growing in pure choir is more about feeding the right nutes, you'll be watering often with coco, it's really hard to overwater it and it's best to water with nutrient until you get runoff, it keeps salt from building up in the rootzone.
I can go on I had a like 50+thread on organics in pure coco on OG.
You can feed it teas and just 100%coco and maybe some EWC and kelp meal.
I you are going large scale you can start with using PBPro lineup, you'll need liquid Karma, veg and flowering for soil VIP, and the calmag formula, this is all you need to feed them till the end of flowering, remember to flush.
I like peat, I find it really bridges the gap and makes for a complete composting action in an organic medium, plus it recycles better then coco longterm, but that's just me.

Later

S

 

[Mr Celsius]

Thanks Suby. Its kind of depressing, but it sounds like I'll be using peat. Mainly I don't want to use liquid nutrients at all. Just add water... I guess I could use Blazeoneup's soil mixture: 2 cubic ft bag of promix, 1 bag miracle grow organic soil, 1 cup blood meal, 1 cup bone meal and 1/2 cup dolomitic lime. He vegged his Chronics for 40 days and has been flowering for about 60 days by only watering with tap water at 7.3 ph and 250ish ppm. I was looking for something simple, but I guess its not as easy as it sounds.

 

[Suby]

I'm not saying not to use coco, I'm curently using it half and half with Promix, so far I really like the results, you can water more frequently and coco makes more K and P available in the rootzone, plus with a 1/2 and 1/2 mix you can still recycle your medium and ammend it with blood,bone,kelp,dolmite at half rate, EWC.
You'll be set and you not have any Ca and Mg defs in flowering, I love to do something Kyle Kushman calls double coverage, you should have 1 source for every major element +micronutrients in the soil and 1 source to feed in a tea or nutrient formula.
So far I have experienced good results with a rich soil and coco mix, plus I feed with teas but it's essentially my OFC recipe with half the dolomite and I cut half peat with coco and 30% perlite.

For a large grow I always recommend having liquid ferts on hand, if you have def with a batch or strain that's fussy it becomes much easier to correct but it's a backup.

Guanos and kelp meal and liquid kelp can also fit the bill nicely.

I use plain coco/peat for clones, I use kelp meal, dolomite, blood meal in veg and add bone meal in flowering.
Then I feed with microbial teas and guano and the occasional LK and PBPro soil bloom formula.

Maybe try B1up's recipe and cut it with coco?

S

 

[Mr Celsius]

Suby, thanks again man. Laying down some serious knowledge. I really like the idea of what you're doing. Could you link me to your soil recipe, along with the teas; if you don't have them sourced already, maybe you could explain it to me?

Something formulated would help. I realize that you re-use your soil so it might be kind of all over the place.

Thanks.

 

[Suby]

Click the first link in my sig, it's in the first few posts.

S

 

[TheOneWill]

Where can I get some kelp meal,Jersey Greensand and liquid Karma?
I went to lowes and got all the stuff I could get but I don't know where to find the rest.