Which soil?

[Draston]

I drove around this morning looking at the soils I would be able to choose from locally from stores and I've come to only two options...

Sadly enough I can only get this one organic soil from wal mart that is a mix with 3 month plant food in it and it is .09-.06-.09

The other soil is Miracle Grow Organic Potting Soil which is .1-.05-.05

I can also get manure + humas as a fertilizer which is .05-.05-.05 and I already have fish emulsion which is 5-1-1.

I also have the fox farm 3 products: Grow Big - 6-4-4
Tiger Bloom 2-8-4
Big Bloom .01-.3-.7

I am obviously going to mix some perlite into the organic miracle grow soil because it doesn't have it in it to start with and I'm going to use the feeding chart on fox farms site for the fox farm 3 products.

My question is this. Is there something I should be adding as a buffer with the soil besides perlite? Should I mix some lime with it or some of the manure stuff I can buy?

Should I run the soil as is and just use the fox farm products or should I use the fish emulsion during veggie (because I was told is wasn't worth using during flowering) and should I put the manure in the soil? And if so, at what stages?

Thanks in advance guys .

 

[Mutt]

I would mix some lime in as a buffer. I would make organic teas instead of mixing more stuff in..until you can figure out what that MG soil is gonna do. TBG and I have both used MG soil products....but when we added anything we always ran into trouble. I know he and I didn't add ANYTHING (except for inert matter like perlite and vermiculite) until flower stage.
I purchased the organic, but did not have a chance to test it yet. I know what you mean finding decent soil WITHOUT additives. :hairpull:

 

[Draston]

Well I doubt lime will make that much of a difference (negatively) because I mixed it with my soil that I'm using right now (moister control MC soil with 3 month plant food).

 

[Mutt]

Well I doubt lime will make that much of a difference (negatively) because I mixed it with my soil that I'm using right now (moister control MC soil with 3 month plant food).

The Lime will buffer the PH. but I think MG might already have it in there. I throw a tblspoon in just for good measure myself. MG has been known to have wierd PH results.

 

[DLtoker]

Yeah, I just am getting some seedlings to pop up out of some Organic's Choice. I am not using this soil for anything more than the seedlings. The whole consistency of the soil is just weird. If I were you, I would make my own soil with top soils, manure, perlite and plenty of other additives. This is the best organics grow journal I have yet to come across. Unfortunately Eman is not with us at the moment. Still, I highly recommend reading through it.