Title says it all. Please share experiences and thoughts on these guys. I trust OG. BAS is here to profit. OG is here to OG the
The way they teach/market on YouTube is a thing. Grow shops have been horrible for over 3 decades of my life. Condescending, overpriced and wrong. Are they different?
Im a BAS customer. Craft Blend and Gnarly Barley are my personal faves. Have 1 plant in a .5 cf bag of BAS 3.0 growing great. Expensive as hell. I can get 4 cf of Happy Frog for the same price. It seems meatier than other bags. That .5 cf almost filled a City Picker and the HF needs 1.5cf. Havenāt done a true side by side with any other products but the marketing is strong and plants are happy.
I find that Jeremy dude to give a lot of awful advice. And the prices on their products are pretty outrageous. Ive been using Pride Lands since it hit the market, and its almost identical to the craft blend, but has biochar and a couple other cool inputs. Ive even had a few friends switch over from BAS to GreenGro products and the results were night and day.
Im south bay as well, and the local hydro shop sells 5 lb bags of PL for under 35 OTD. Vs BAS, which is lookin like 25 for 3 lbs. I dont mind paying a premium for a really nice mix I dont have to add a buncha stuff to, but theres no way to justify the premium they charge.
I can toss a brand new growers opinion in the hat for what itās worth with my experience (none, my first grow) noted.
I went to a local grow shop with what was originally a bag seed that I had put in Coco with some vermiculite that was already around (mushrooms) and at field capacity. Anywho ā the grow shop steered me to a bag of BuildASoil Light. It seemed to do well. Although I take any video and information with a grain of salt and try to do my homework, it seems like they were doing a lot of marketing but also cared about their product.
As Iām super new, Iām not yet loyal to anything really. Still trying to take in information and learn whatās best. Iām sure there are a lot of different opinions on things, certainly including this topic. I certainly donāt have the answer ā but I also wonder if there really is one answer?
Anywho, staying tuned for others thoughts and opinions. Donāt know if this added value to the pile but so far Iām happy with BaS, even at a bit higher price point. It also seems to be re-usable to a point. Anywho, learning!
Itās pricey, but they are a solid source for high quality soil blends / amendments and soil building in general. Iāve really liked using their BAS 3.0 and Build-a-Flower top dress. I recommend recycling and amending their potting soil blends. Iām on a third cycle of the same 3.0 and my plants are happy as can be. Iāve got a 4x4 and two 2x4s so a little soil goes a long way for me, Iām sure there are cheaper approaches to living soil if youāre running a large garden.
Iām on my 5th or 6th run on two earthboxes. I use some compost, BAS craft blend, and coast of maine fish bone meal to reamend them. Plus some rice hulls, pumice, or peat as needed. I probably should add castings too, but I havenāt been to the grow store in a while. I feel like I need to add more calcium, especially in a top dress for some plants. I donāt use the BAS flower products, so maybe if I used the whole line, I wouldnāt need to.
My reamend costs around $3.50- $4.50 per cubic foot.
I also grow in 7-gallon pots with the same amendments. Iām on my 3rd run with those, so weāll see how it goes.
I tried the Yah-whey Kefir/LAB bottle. Iāll buy it again as one bottle lasts me a grow season, but I could always make it for basically free by doing a search here on OG.
So Iām pretty new to growing myself, but I used the BAS light mix for my first 3 attempts at sprouting beans, nothing survived. Switched to Blackgold seedling for my current (4th attempt) and everything is much happier with it. No amendments or nuts for either, same light cycle, same distilled water. I found even the light mix (supposedly for seedling) has huge perlite chunks and can make it hard for babies to get a foothold. Also the water retention for the light mix is abysmal, nearly nonexistent.
Iāve had BAS in my folder for many years now. Iāve asked them a few questions over the years, and yes, I do think many if their items are way marked up. I do however buy a few things. I go the health food store to get grains for pennies on the dollar compared to BAS. bit Iām not going to bash them, as we either pay their price or move on.
I guess, Iām the odd animal, as I love my grow shop! I once had a 2-3 hour drive, down to one of the hoods in Baltimore.
Now it is a sweet 30 minute drive through awesome countryside, that my crappy scooter loves to run!
The kid, thinks Iām raving nutter, but he treats me very well.
Their 3.0 is probably the most complete widely available soil ive seen, but for the most part its a money pit selling byproducts they pay next to nothing for. Thatās not a knock; there are a lot worse ways people make a dollar. He puts out some good information on youtube and im happy for his success.
What little advice i can give is to use his products when starting out, but in your second or 3rd grow get a couple 3 gallon pots, a bale of promix and some some type of compost, chuck some dry amendments into it a pop a couple freebie seeds you dont care about. It doesn take much to keep these plants happy in veg, and if you dont experiment yourself youāll really never understand how shit works
I will also add that heās probably not making near as much as people think, a substantial part of that premium price is involved in packaging and distribution. Bags of soil are heavy and take up lots of space in trailers.
The thing I appreciate most about BAS is how they educate people on creating there own nutrients at home. A lot of people wanna gripe on the pricing of some of there products, but if you watch enough of Jeremyās YouTube content youāll see that he teaches you how to do all this stuff on your own.
Iāll forever be grateful to Jeremy for teaching the living organic way, donāt really need to buy many nutes at all anymoreā¦but I still grab there coconut powder, EM-5 and a few other products from time to time
I like their Insect Frass and Colorado Worm Company worm castings. The worm castings are so fresh, my bag had a few live worms it in it. Iām pretty happy with Promix, Michigan Made Mix, and Gaia Green, so I donāt overspend with them.
Ive never purchased from themā¦but a buddy gave me a small tub of dried and crushed seaweed and hops and i now use that bucket to mix my gaia green brand basalt dust and glacial dust with mycorhizal powder and ground cornmeal and beta flakes and crushed oyster and eggshell.
TLDR: spent no money, use the hell out of ātheirā bucket.
Transportation is a ākillerā in that business.
Finding a good ālocalā source is paramountā¦ my local source is 1.5 hrs awayā¦ but good shops are few and far between.
but good shops are few and far between.