Hi folks,I’m a first time grower. I have 3 white widow seedlings in solo cups with holes drilled for drainage and I would like to plan for when they are ready to be transplanted to 5 gallon fabric pots. I used Fox Farm potting soil in the solo cups. Can I use the same soil in the fabric pots?
Thanks
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You can definitely use the same soil in the 5 gallons just cut it with something that’s gonna help it not to compact with watering I’m sure one of the more experienced growers will be along to help shortly best wishes
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Which fox farms? I used a basic seedling potting mix to start the plants and am using ocean forest for the rest of the grow. Ocean Forrest can be too “hot” for seedlings. If you are using ocean Forrest, you can go the first 4 weeks of veg with just water and no nutrients. I am also growing white widow. Make sure to add perilite if you’re using OF as the soil likes to compact
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I use pro mix soil vegetable and herb mix with manure and feed at a quarter strength of the fox farm nutrients schedule
The bag says Fox Farm Potting Soil
that a good organic soil - use to mix Ocean Blend with Happy Frog with good results because of the "mychrooiza in it). but now I use their “original Potting Soil” with Ocean Blend – a 50/50 mix
It has a frog
Ok, that’s happy frog. You should be good to go
When preparing the 5 gallon pot should I compact the soil?
You can push it down lightly so it’s firm. You don’t want it compacted.
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Thank you so much for the advise. I will proceed accordingly
How do I check the ph of soil.
You’ll want to control the pH of your water. Many of the better grow soils will list their pH but you can REALLY screw that up with water that is not the correct pH. For example my untreated tap water is about 8.2 pH. My RO (Reverse Osmosis ) water treated from the same supply is about 6.5 pH - perfect for what I need. My straight tap water would eventually lead me to nutrient lock out issues as it is WAY too high. Also if you’re on treated city water it will likely be full of chlorine which also has to be dealt with.
Water the soil until you have enough runoff to test. If your runoff collector is flat, you can use a turkey baster to suck up the water and put it into a cup. Then put your ph meter in and test. You can also check the ppms while you have your sample.
In other words buy yourself both a Digital Ph meter and a TDS meter
TDS is total dissolved solids and it uses EC scale and will also have ppm setting change (parts per million) that uses an algorithm (math) to convert the EC reading into one of 3 scales (math) that converts to ppm.
What you will want to search here or the interweb is what the tds (EC or ppm) ranges are based on how old your plants are and they range from say (200 EC) (100 ppm) when seedling to (4000 EC) (2000 ppm) in flowering depending on what scale you decide to use. Most TDS meters have a button to toggle between the 2.
They range from $12 up to $100 or more for each. You can also buy both as a set and save a couple bucks. I use the $12 ones and if I drop it in water and it’s toast I have a back up. The more expensive ones are quicker with the reading and more accurate (by small measure I think?) and can be waterproof so if you do drop it in water it won’t fry it but again 8 testers for $96 or one for $100 your choice.
Ph and TDS (EC or ppm) test everything to start. So after you put in nutrients to the water you will feed them test it and adjust your water plus nutrients mixes Ph if needed using either chemical products like general hydro ph up and ph down or you can use stuff that might be in your house like citric acid or vinegar or others (ph down) or baking soda etc (ph up) dirt likes Ph around 6.5 as sweet spot with a range from 6-7. Also test the mix with the TDS meter to know if it’s too much too little or just right.
And as was stated earlier water them until it comes out into the pots saucer and then test the runoff for Ph and TDS and write all this shit down as you go to be able to track trends etc and be able to provide data for others to review if you need help with an issue.
Hope this helps
HAGD
how Do I water until run off without over watering my seedlings?
You can test it using the same excess soil. Just duplicate the process without the seedling, including your nutrients. Once the plants get bigger and consume more water, it’s easy to get the readings from the actual pot like described above, without over watering.