On my second grow Id like to ease things up a bit and go with something I strongly feel will work well based off of input I’ve seen on this site and elsewhere. I’m using Jacks AP and the blossom in my first/current grow and due to me being afraid to water too much I ended up allowing salts to build up which of course led to lock out and ph fluctuations now in week 6. Thanks to help on here I’m working through this and my girls are starting to get well.
I’m attempting to go organic on this 2nd run. I have 2 G-13 and 2 Moby Dick that are in veg using Roots Organic soil. I have Dr. Earth Premium Gold that I plan on using the last few weeks of veg in if they end up needing it and Dr. Earth flower girl for transitioning into flower. All 4 are in 3 g bags with the intention of going into 5 g bags for flower. I put half a tbsp of Dr. Earth Home grown in with the soil when transitioning into the 3 g bags from seedling. Since then its been ph’ d water and worm tea once last weekend. Every once in a while a foliar spray with Epsom salt. They seem to be thriving now so should I continue this regiment on into flower? (If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…lol) Any suggestions for the next few weeks in veg into flower?
Well I’m glad you realize it wasn’t Jack’s fault because that nutrient is good stuff.
Orgnaics can be tricky, first thing is I would suggest a larger final home.
The bigger pot you give your girls with rich soil the less you feed.
When you do feed you should be first watering to read run off, this low’s you to understand how strong the nutrient content in your soil is and also how strong to feed.
Don’t feed blindly organics can burn a plant easily if not done properly or stunt growth.
Also ensure you keep a 30% perlite ratio as cannabis thrives in airey soil.
Personally I don’t recommend spraying I see way to many with issues than with those that it helps, once your in flower if you burn the leafs with a spray your hooped because your plant never recovers in flower so every mistake adds up.
TDS your teas and understanding what exactly your feeding concentration wise.
Good luck with organics @Sirsmokesalot may be able to help you or @garrigan62 I can’t at this moment Remeber all who is organic.
Very good advice. I do have some 7 and 10 gallon bags that I can use so I’ll definitely go with those options. Both are good yielding strains so that’s a good idea. What would be an optimal TDS range for both and veg and flower? This topic seems skewed a bit a lot of places. From what I gathered basically try and stay below 1200.
I’ll be honest - since I switched to organic I really don’t keep up with tds. I do things a little different, not to say in anyway this would work for anyone but maybe you take one piece and apply it best case scenario…
First I run heavy on worm castings - like 25% of total medium. Worm castings do amazing things keeping the ecosystem in check and pests/diseases away.
I also run a litany of ingredients to mix up the microbial structure of my soil. Kelp meal, bone meal, oyster shell, blood meal, bat guano, castings etc on top of dr earth 4-4-4 in veg and then have heavy boosters on top of the 3-7-4 in flower. Feed every 4 weeks or so.
Secondly I read the plant and have a good understanding of early signs of deficiency’s. You gotta feed early vs late in organic. It’s really hard to overdue it to the point of harm. Go heavier than you think (not of anything with crazy weights or in flower - ie bat guano you would wanna keep closer in check but for castings and oyster shell the more the better).
Understand when you should water and make time to make it happen. You generally want a moist environment (microbial life can die out in dry conditions) but not to the point where it stays saturated all the time - ie root rot. As always ph is key - don’t go too low (sub 6.1 for me) and try to keep it in the higher range more often than not (so 3/4 needs to be 6.5 -6.8 then one sub 6.5 - it’s rough not a science really)… again microbial life doesn’t do well with acidic environments.
I use azos and mykos every transplant - this stuff really helps. I also use recharge every 2 weeks or so to boost microbial life.
I hope any of that helps and is somewhat clear lemme know if I can help down the road at all. Cheers and goodluck
That’s a wealth of GREAT info and I sure appreciate it. I actually grabbed an extra bag of castings on lunch earlier today after seeing how well they responded to the tea. I did run a PPM test on 2/4 using ph’d water and one was at 450 and the other was at 490. Im headed into the 2nd half of veg for the ones I tested so from what I’ve read (definitely including the advice on this thread too) I have room to give em more. I’ll keep you posted on how things go and again the tips are greatly appreciated.
Heres a basic guide Over here that I did for my 1st organic grow geared towards autoflower but if you keep the ratios roughly similiar with 8-4-4 needed for veg and 4-8-6 for flower you can change it out for what you have available (and probably repeat week 3 every 3 weeks until 2 weeks before you plan on flipping and repeat week 0 of flower an extra time at week 2 if you’re doing photos) also I never check tds or even did runoff except ight before I flipped (and just a 30%runoff as a preventative that was probably unnecessary
Here’s a couple links I think might help out with your organic soil mix. I switched to a living soil to get away from having to test my water and soil all the time. I haven’t checked the ph, ppm, of anything in probably 6 months with better results.
I switched to advanced nutrients organic line up and am really liking what I am seeing.
Most of them are lined up in the order I use them. Iguana juice is out of frame.
Wow that’s alot of different stuff to keep track of. I have 4 bags of dry stuff I use 2 are used once n 2 are used every watering. I’m not sure my little brains could keep track of all that. I have to write down my 4 or I’ll f up
I’ve been growing organic living soil since I started.
Feel free to click my profile and take a look at my journals and the topics I’ve created over the last 2 years.
I don’t check TDS or PH of anything anymore unless I have an issue and never water to run off unless for some reason I have an issue and will do a small flush. It’s good to check those things in the beginning to help you understand what’s what etc but after that usually isn’t necessary.
No need to adjust the PH of Aerated Compost Teas and as far as checking TDS of basic teas (worm poo and unsulphered molasses) that isn’t really required either but is a good idea if you have the meter as it will give you an understanding of where the tea is. Normally it’s around 600-800 depending on ingredients used. If you use a recipe with many ingredients than again it’s a good idea to be in the know and you may do a dilution of final tea with water.
The whole idea is to have a healthy critter population (bacteria fungi etc) and they will do the heavy lifting. Keep the top of soil moist as they need water for life and they eat those nutrients you top dress and poop out plant available food. Use a mulch layer as that provides a food source and a safe haven for microbes to thrive and helps retain moisture longer than just plain exposed soil. I mist my mulch layer almost every day and water when needed based on pot weight. Any water that settles in saucer usually will wick back up in an hour and if not will dump that into another plant that didn’t.
Happy to help if needed.
Organic is the way to go in my opinion as it’s the way nature intended things to be grown and is better for you and the planet.
Coming from FF trio and little calmag and silica it was an adjustment. But once you get the dose and dilution rates down it is actually very easy. As is adjusting ph. Once you run a mix or two I know within a drop or 2 of what I need for ph up.
This is my feed schedule. Enter the number of liters and let it do the rest
I’m very new at this organic living soil and I can’t explain why it is or how it works exactly it has to do with the enzymes and micro organisms in the soil that makes it unnecessary to ph your water. I have just completed my first grow in a live soil and I haven’t checked the ph in anything since I started it around 4 months ago. My tap water with a carbon filter inline is all I use. Last checked my tap water was running between 7.2 and 7.6 with a ppm between 275 and 325
Are you growing organic? Cause alot of those boosters (big bloom, sensi, bud candy, calmag, silica etc are synthetic derivatives…) you won’t be getting any real effects from the organic material you work into medium. Sounds like you’re not but I didn’t know since theme was growing organic… didn’t want ya wasting any money if not getting effects of organic material (stuff ain’t cheap)
I did at the beginning. I was using my tap and that was between 7.5 and 8 with 450ppm and used citric acid about 1/2 gram (1/4 of a 1/4 Tsp) lowered it to about 6.5 then I got an RO system so now it’s neutral with about 10ppm. Sometimes I’ll mix tap with RO but don’t check anything anymore. Letting the living soil do the heavy lifting.
Awesome information. I definitely have a good bit of info to work with here. The whole process is exciting to me in a way. I’ve started putting together a regiment based off of all the advice. Ill share how things go throughout the rest of this grow…
Organic to the extent possible at this time. AN is supposed to be doing a complete organic line up and some of them were not available when I switched. As they become available I will use them. For now I am good with using what I have. I knew some of the supplements were not organic, so compromise it was if I wanted to use AN. There are certainly benefits to using a product line that is integrated to work together. A major criteria was ease of use, consistency and quality. I was not interested or have any desire to get into living soils, top dressings, teas etc etc. I grow for the fun of growing not working to achieve a principled standard. Thanks for the heads up though. You are right about the cost. More than a few bucks sitting on the counter.
Hey man anything you grow with your own two hands is going to be 10x better than anything you pick up at the store. Can’t replicate the satisfaction you get from a completed harvest (seed to stoned so to speak)
I just wanted to let you know, essentially, you’re not organic at all… and that’s cool there’s a lot of benefits to using readily available nutrients and from the sounds of it would be a better situation for you all around (can fix any issues quickly if don’t feel like going down the insane rabbit hole of organics). But you’re not going to be able to rely on any organic material if you wanted to down the road at the status quo (say you read about how much better oyster shell was over what’s in calmag - not that it is just as an example, and ended up switching over, you would not get results of the shell because the salts in the medium from the bottled nutes kill your bacterial, fungal, and protozoa beneficials.) You might get some of the secondary benefits, like with castings, they would still retain water longer sort of like vermiculite, but as far as conditioning the soil, you’re not going to get that.
At the end of the day all that matters is you’re happy with what you’re growing. As the saying goes don’t fix what ain’t broken . And trust me I know exactly what you mean about using what you have on hand - here is my mostly unused AN line of bottled nutes on the shelf. Probably 300$ worth that’s going to be a complete waste if no one I know ends up going that route. I’d send to you if I could lol! Happy growing
Here’s how a few are now. First first day under a 240w LM301H +660+IR+UV quantum board. They’ve been under 4 4ft T5HO 26w 4K GE LEDs up until now. I can definitely tell the difference in the Roots Organic soil simply by the young growth of the lil’ lady up front. The other two are in black gold peat/coco based soil with 25% perlite and 25% Kellog Organic Plus. Imo they are doing well but the RO has the little one off to a significantly better/faster start…
lemme know if I can help down the road at all. Cheers and goodluck 
. And trust me I know exactly what you mean about using what you have on hand - here is my mostly unused AN line of bottled nutes on the shelf. Probably 300$ worth that’s going to be a complete waste if no one I know ends up going that route. I’d send to you if I could lol! Happy growing 
