Soil Questions

[EasyLiving29]

Out of my own interest(s), can anyone tell me the right mixture for soil when growing. I have always been in hydro and have never fully understood the basic(s) of soil growing. Can someone link me to or explain in simple form all that involves soil growing mixture and feed. Again, I am just interested and more or less curious.

Thanks

 

[Muddy Paws]

Soil eventually becomes a "blank" medium, not unlike coir or any other medium, after all the nutrients from the initial 2-3 weeks are used up.

It's all in the supplements you must add to the soil before hand and feedings with nutrients later.

I use stuff that I can get ALL from Lowes:

1 medium size bag Miracle Grow Moisture Control Soil (or whatever better stuff you can get your hands on)

-- 2-3 cups of dolomite lime for Mg and PH control

-- 1 bag of Earthworm castings

-- One half bag of perlite

-- One half bag of vermiculite (or however much you want to put in)

This will give you enough soil for 6 - 1.5 gallon pots; nothing is static, change the quantities as you see fit


I supplement with Molasses during veg; I use PureBlendPro and Humbolt Big Up during flowering.

Water plants as needed; feed using the schedule on with whatever nutrients you use and use less nutrient if plants appear burned.

Switching from hydro to soil should be very easy for you; soil is low maintenance

 

[blancolighter]

Well, many people here opt for something slightly confusin, called soilless growing. It's not hydro, but its not technically soil either. Stuff like peat moss, coconut coir, certain mulch mixes as well as others I can't think of right now fit in this category. These mediums give the roots an enviroment to thrive in, and these mediums also will hold water well, what makes these mediums different than soil is they offer either no, or very little nutrients for your plant to uptake. You have to supply the plant nutes by adding ferts to the water whenever you water your plants. Many people like the soilless (but still looks like soil and is done in pots) methods because they have complete control over the plants nute intake.

Now soil growing methods of course involve soil, which contains nutes for the plants growth, just like soil in the world around you. There are about as many soil mixes you can make as MJ plants you can grow, so I'll just outline a few basics. To make some fresh healthy soil, I take the regular soil stuff from anywhere and mix it with compost in a 3:1 mixture. This makes a nice diverse soil enviroment for the roots and brings in many beneficial microbes and whatnot. For any soil mix you should start with that. From there you can start adding different things like green kelp, blood meal, whatever, to get the nutirent content you want. Remember though, many of these items alter the PH of the soil, so you are gonna have do things like add lime or whatnot to combat that. Personally I like to use manure in my mixes rather than a bunch of other addative, manure is kinda like a one stop shop for me. I can understand why many dont go my manure route though :hubba: Now your pot size will determine how fast your plant will wear out the soils nutes. In one gallon pots, you plant will probably start needing additional nutes in about a month or so, but you increase the pot size and you start increasing the amount of time your plants can live off the soil in your pots.

Well, good luck, and just a heads up, Hick will prolly stop by and tell ya to search for it, and yea, that always a good idea too...