Hi folks,
This is my first grow. Two questions:
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I’m considering buying a tray/seedling setup from Park. Thing is, they only ship with their own poly-type foam discs for seed starters. I’m not inclined to use those so instead I’m asking the forum if it’s legit to start them in ph balanced peat plugs and when the time comes to transplant whatever remains of the plug into amended soil. Does anyone see any problem with that mix for transplanting seedlings for the first (maybe only) time?
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What/where is a good recipe for creating the soil mix? I’ve found one but it must be for commercial growers due to the amounts of ingredients/amendments. I suppose that if I were inclined I could do the math to get it to a usable amount. I’m looking at a 6 plant grow in a 4x4 tent and possibly staggering those. There’s got to be some better way. My base at the moment will be Black Gold Organic Soil with fertilizer as a starting point.
I’m also looking for a good but very cost effective LED light to handle 3 plants until I gather the cash I need for the lights I want to use.
Thank you all for any input/advice you may provide.
Dave
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Your space you’re putting them in would be more helpful. You can have 3 small plants or 3 huge ones… just saying. 
Covertgrower,
An excellent point. If my expectations and dreams come true these three plants will use all of the space of a 2x4’ I’m devoting to them and possibly more than half the width of my GG 4x2. I expect tall and bushy. That would make me ecstatic.
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@Guitarguy48
This will cover your 2x4 they’re out of 3000k but if you email and ask when they’ll be back in stock they’ll let you know. 3000k will get you from seed to harvest. It’s a white light, full spectrum. A few grow with the 4000k just fine too.
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Yep great light for that space. There are several suppliers of that light just look on the Horticultural Lighting Group (HLG) web site and there are links for various suppliers of them. Maybe one has them available now.
You could consider using cow pots for seedlings and then just plant them in those into the final 5 gal fabric pots.
If you want to use a super soil at the bottom look up Kind soil on their web site. You would need 5lbs of that per 5 gallon pot at the bottom and the rest filled with the black gold. Would need about 1.5 cf bag of black gold for 3 of the 5 gal pots.
The kind soil only requires water ph between 6.2 and 7.0 and would get you through harvest. If they are Autos 3 gal pots and 3Lbs kind soil would do the trick…the 5lb of kind would be for Photo seeds…
Hope this helps
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From my own experience, I didn’t like black gold. It had a super low pH that I couldn’t get above 5. It scared me off. I use Roots Organics original soil exclusively now.
All of my lighting is HLG quantum boards as @Covertgrower and @Skydiver recommend. Its a great DIY option. Bunch of folks have posts what/how they assembled them.
Good luck!
@Sixpackdad I have the Rapid fixture for a 4x4. Still good lighting… 
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I am using 2 1600 watt led lights for my grow. I have them in a 32x32x63 tent.
Thoughts on potting soils.
I don’t know if this is the appropriate place/method to ask this question so any advice would be welcome.
I’ve been doing a lot of homework on potting soils before I decide to move forward with Black Gold or any other type of potting soil. Invariably the subject of unwanted bugs etc. comes up so I had this thought.
What if I take whatever soil I decide on and kill the unwanted (along with the desirable) bugs by baking it in an oven to kill everything and then reintroduce the desirable bugs et al when I actually plant the seedlings? I realize that this is a labor intensive approach however I can see any reason why it wouldn’t work.
Many insects can ruin a grow and I really want to take that option out of play by preventing a problem rather than reacting to one down the road.
I’m very interested in opinions and/or criticism of this approach so please don’t hesitate to comment one way or the other here.
I would have been well past this point by now if the inline fan, associated charcoal filter along with a silencer weren’t out of stock everywhere. Soon though…
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