hello knoledgable cannabis people. so, i got miracle grow spring ahead slow release fertilizer. it has a npk of 15-5-10. i know people grow organic, which is a different form of slow release fertilizer, but organics usually only lasts a month and needs to be fed about once a month. my slow release fertilizer claims one feeding lasts 6 months. in nature, before humans got all wizard-like in laboratories, everything grew and got fed from the natural cycles of life, which would seem there would always be nitrogen from pee throughout the entire grow cycle of all plants in nature, including cannabis. i read somwhere in one article cannabis plants, the plant itself, reduces its nitrogen uptake during flower, which makes sense that plants do that cause in nature there isnt no one but the plant there to regulate its nutrition intake while all the creatures are constantly pooping and peeing all over. but ive also read that cannabis will have undesirable growth patterns during flowering if nitrogen is present, which could just be a marketing tactic considering plants out in a jungle where humans rarely ever or never go, even today, grow perfectly fine with no one changing the fertilizer from a grow to a bloom formula. plus also, people who use gaia green often use 4-4-4 throughout the entire grow and when they get to flower they keep using it but also add 2-8-4, which suggests from their grow reports that nitrogen present doesnt negatively effect cannabis during flower. 4-4-4 plus 2-8-4 equals 6-12-8, of organic slow releas fertilizer. mine is a synthetic 15-5-10 slow release fertilizer. the mom grew fine for 2 months before i turned it into clones, so i know from that little experience its gives cannabis everything it needs during veg to grow healthy. but a very common practice i hear about is changing fertilizer for flowering, but i have only heard of that for indoor growers. ive heard of outdoor hemp farms feeding nothing but cow manure for the entire grow, and not only having no problems but having super high quality buds, ive seen in person. the miracle grow spring ahead formula is listed as good for all plants and has pictures of tomatoes and flowers and such on the bottle. cannabis is a flower and is often said to require similar nutrition to tomatoes. idk. have any of you used a npk similar to mine during flower? what happened? do you think everything will be fine but possibly might just need to add phosphorus? ive seen formulas that have zero nitrogen and high potassium and phosphorus, like tps nutrients on amazon. ill probably go organic next grow but not sure about all this. was less than 20 bucks to feed 9 plants and still have fertilizer left over. i think organic probably will costs a lot more, unless i just get black kow and just use that and mix it in with my pro mix, just dont like how low the npk is for that
Slow release and cannabis do not play well together.
More N needed during veg and first 3 weeks of flower, reduced N and elevated levels of P & K during flower.
Testing pH and PPM’s during all phases of growth is recommended.
PPM’s desired level for flower is 1000 ppm’s or higher.
Haven’t used Miracle Grow myself, I’ve read where it doesn’t bode well with cannabis. But I was just reading a post in this forum the other day (I don’t remember which post or I’d post a link) where a grower was using the same soil. Said it was turning out to be pretty good if I remember right.
I can’t say if you made a rookie mistake, time will tell. I used a medium product claims to be able to go from seed to harverst, barely made it through a short veg. But you’re in the right place. Don’t know how long you’ve been growing but there are many pro-growers here willing to help you get through to harvest. Just reach out.
Your philosophy on cannabis not needing our wizardry to grow - I agree. But I think we can also agree that with that wizardry, we have figured out how to produce much more food with a little assistance, and even grow food in areas where food has never been grown before. And we apply that widardry here and when it’s all about maybe quality, maybe yield, maybe pain relief…let the sorcery begin!!!
This is what I’m presently working with, plus some additional worm castings. Once the nutes in my medium are used up, I’ve been giving them all three throughout the grow. I haven’t seen any adverse signs from N in flower, but I’m not aware of what those signs are so maybe I’m missing it. I’ll have to research that. I’m working out the right balance, amounts, time between top dressings - starting with “less is more” this grow and increasing from there until I find what they can really handle. I have limited time so I’m trying keep it simple for now - I’ll start performing sorcery when I retire.
Current grow below. Happy growing. 
Photos. Flower, Week 4.
Autos. Flower, Week 7 (left & right), 8 (center).
thanks for the feedback. what do you mean you dont have much more time? also, it looks like you have the same humidity gauges as i do. got a 4 pack off amazon for like 10 bucks. compared to the gauge on my spider farmer humudifier, those read 25 points lower in my tent, meaning, when my spider farmer says the humidity is 65% those little black ones say its 40%. but you made it all the way to flower with doing things according to yours, so maybe i just got a bad batch. not sure. also, everyones situation is unique, in some form and in some way it may be beneficial to inhale cannabinoids, like via a dry herb vaporizer, but for some people it may be most beneficial to only eat cannabinoids via making a tincture. maybe some people would benefit most from swallowing a dose and then also inhaling a dose. ive been around since the days when the common way to use was via a joint or packing a bowl in a glass pipe. all they had in the shop was glass pipes back when i was 17 and rolling papers at the gas stations.
The part about not having much time, I meant in a day, week, month, and now lately, I’ve been measuring my to do list in yearly increments. 
I had way too many items on my plate before I began growing, it has been hard to squeeze in the time I need to really give my grows the attention they need sometimes. In fact, I’m heading out after I post this to finish fixing a busted water line below a hydrant at my sister’s
place I started yesterday.
I have more of those little black hygrometers than I care to count, lol. I use them all over the place. They are not super accurate but it gives me an average I work with. Some read drastically different than the rest and I trash them. I have a reliable humidity source that I compare them to and record the difference, tape it on the back. It’s a quick way for me to get an idea of the different humidity % at different elevations in the tent. One day I’ll invest in something better…maybe.
I’m not much for edibles. I’m an old smoker from way back. Started around the time the Big Bambu album came out I think it was. Just became a grower in 2021, way too late, imho. I’m loving it!!!
i had to look up that album to get a date, it said 1972. im actually growing a strain that supposedly came out around that time, or so they say. its called california orange. i think it goes by other names too. its a 50/50 indica/sativa strain. if i wasnt so ignorant when i was younger or if i could send a message to myself in the past id say to seal up some seeds to preserve the genetics from that time. imagine taking a vacuum sealed container out of storage and opening it up and planting a seed from a strain you loved back from the 70’s. who knows, maybe there are people out there who have been keeping a mom and replacing the mom with cuttings from the mom since the 70’s, that would be a true strain from the 70’s and not some strain concocted together with various strains from today to try to recreate it. they say old school weed is weak compared to todays strains, but, when i went out to the west coast and tried some potent strains for the first time, i didnt like the experience compared to my “weak strains”, and even the people out there liked mine more than there potent stuff and i asked em why and they said because its not too strong. when lookiing for low thc strains on the seed market, its actually difficult to find. id probably be happy with a 5% thc strain, but thats only possible via the seed market if i bought a 1:1 cbd to thc strain, which are roughly 7% thc and 7% cbd. i pesonally dont have a great experience with cbd. the best experience ive had was with low thc strains from back in the day. wish i could find a classic low thc strain to grow
Yeah, I hear ya. I am all about quality. I didn’t know squat about sativas and indicas back in the 70s but I know now I preferred sativa’s effect over indica’s effect, still do. I can’t get nothing done when my butt is dragging and would rather be locked on a couch. But with today’s strains, I’m finding the tastiest strains (for me) are indicas. And I find that odd because I still haven’t found anything today that tastes as fine as some of the strains I got back then. And I smoked a lot of fine tasting bud and wasn’t all couch-locked all the time. But those days are long gone and I didn’t think to seal off any seeds either. I’ll just keep hunting until I find a 100% sativa that’s tasty. I read somewhere it doesn’t exist. ILGM has a sativa called Durban Poison I want to try out.
Later.