Completely New to Organics, help needed!

I see nothing in there that you need to “cook”. You can sow a cover crop and plant in it right away. I would up the gypsum to 1 cup, maybe dropping a cup of the Azomite.

17 Likes

Personally I would cut back on the Azomite. For some reason I think 4 cups could make it more like concrete.
I would cut the base soil also. I don’t see the point in that for organics. I use 2-3 cups of amendments per cubic foot of soil. How much is a cubic foot?
3 half filled 5 gallon buckets.
1/2 bucket peat moss
1/2 bucket EWC
1/2 bucket Perlite
2-3 cups of ammendments
1/2 cup gypsum
bio char
DONT FORGET THE LIME!! You still need a PH buffer.

That is what I would recommend. Your amendments look on point.
Kelp is the bomb.

Edit: I use 1 cup lime per cubic foot of soil.
Nothing against @ReikoX but if you cut out the base soil and use what I recommend…I would let it cook 3 weeks. My recipe can be hot for a couple weeks.

6 Likes

Small adjustments often is the answer George, I am always learning something new.

5 Likes

I agree, but without those fertilizer bottles previously thrown away it is not and easy duty, you’ve got to know what you’re doing or your plants will suffer … :sweat_smile:

5 Likes

Thanks, I ment to comment on that. The base mix is the 1/3 peat, compost, and aeration. No need for FFOF or the like…

5 Likes

Typically, I find that many former hydroponic growers run into these two main issues (some other points I’ll touch on along the way, as well). First, you aren’t going to be able to grow a huge plant in a 4” container of medium. No, sir. Soil volume is the name of the game. If the biodiversity in your soil can’t keep up with your plant’s demand you’ll be forced to supplement—which as already pointed out is a bit of a crap shoot in organic. You begin overcompensating and throwing off the balance of your ribosome. That being said, I’ve had a lot of success with the “bud-sickle” style in the past. 2-gallon pots with a fresh 6” tall cutting thrown straight into flower. Most indicas finish around 18” tall with very little supplementation needed, most sativas finish around 24-30” tall with almost no supplementation necessary. Climate conditions will exacerbate things as well, like how often you need to water and how compact the plants will grow (colder makes for stockier plants, hotter makes for stretchier plants).

Second, things happen slower with soil, good and bad. So give adjustments a bit of time to show results before panicking, or giving up.

I’ve found that overthinking tends to be my biggest issue. My best runs came from a solid soil base, a proper soil volume to plant ratio, and a weekly dose of basic compost tea.

And if you increase your Gypsum to 1 full cup (as mentioned above) and also your Ouster Shell, you shouldn’t need additional lime to buffer ph.

If I think of anything else you may not have come across in your own research, I’ll swing back by. Happy growing!

9 Likes

To a degree, I think this is true. It wasnt until I learned how plants grow, how microbes work, etc. That I was able to succeed with organics.

Quoting that because it needs to be said again. Think of the soil as a battery. The bigger the volume of soil, the more nutrients it can hold.

12 Likes

microbes are the answer;)

what was the question again :wink:

5 Likes

I started in organics with 5 gallon fabric pots and now grow in 20 and 30 gallons. I have thought of doing one 100 gallon grow a year just to see what it looks like. You can’t grow big fat buds like the magazines without soil volume. It is one of the biggest mistakes.

That recipe I put above will grow beautiful plants with water only for one grow, but you have to have at least 8 gallons of soil. Anything less and I have a fade too early in flower.

Edit: Sorry I’m high and on a roll.
Get some worms going. That is something I can’t recommend enough. Fresh homemade EWC’s and Kelp are like a fix all tonic. Water in with some aloe…Oh BABY!

10 Likes

Ditch the bagged soil, your already creating your base from scratch so you don’t need ocean forest, it’s a waste of money and it’s shitty bagged soil at that. Langbeinite I would drop as well, you don’t need it.
I would up the gypsum and oyster up to 1 cup each and use only 2 cups of azomite per cuft. If you didn’t buy the azomite yet I would consider replacing that with a paramagnetic rock dust like basalt or granite. Azomite is loaded with aluminum

7 Likes

Get rid of the Azomite and get some good leaf mold from someone. I have replaced rock dust with leaf mold in my garden. It is the base for my soil and worms.

7 Likes

Noticing some of the ‘mixers’ here, are leaving out or encouraging elimination of the actual soil portion, of the mix. Good base, don’t need it? To get the best out of organics, the soil needs life. IMO 'castings, manure, and myco’s shouldn’t just be an afterthought. Soup-style organics, isn’t gonna get you or your plants, anywhere near where your hydro methods got you. IMO lose the ‘weekly additions’ of nutrients bit, learn a living soil (tlo,rols, no-till) organic style and you’ll save money and get great quality weed with yields approaching what you used to get with hydro. Ponder this, If you need to ‘cook’ these mixes for 3 months, what does a heavy concentration of any n p k organic additions do at week 6 of bloom?

7 Likes

Man, there is some gold in this here thread!
:+1::seedling:

12 Likes

Nothing the plant will be finished before it gets into the system. Yep you have to think ahead like playing chess. It would help with the next round of veg though. I tend to load up a bit more heavily at the start of Veg and then flower, same with the bacteria, and then let the plants cruise along hopefully with that.

I dont think anyone is saying eliminating the soil portion, I think its about buying a jaws mix, and adding it to the soil you are making. It would help initially to have, as it is like a ready charged battery, the plant can use while the soil and bacteria is getting up to speed but small plants would get enough food just from the EWC at the start.

I load up on gypsum as it has no effect on soil PH.

Edit, @BDGrows if you are looking for inspiration, Stonedmason has just started a no till grow. Heres a link.

4 Likes

I guess thats what this windbag was worried about, I kinda think backward, the smallest being the biggest etc. Simple KISS can be confusing to get, and really hard for me to explain…advice comes off totally douchey sometimes…

1 Like

Yeh I know what you mean, after I type something I have to spend 10 minutes making it coherent lol. Then I think of 20 other things that are more important, I would say 90% of my posts are re edited after I post them.

4 Likes

Ive always done for organics runs 65% limed peat 10% ewc 25% perlite…I imagine a mix with 1/3 of high quality ewc would be very muddy , heavy… :thinking:
The main benefit of EWC is to add a broad range of bacterias spores fungi nematodes and even worms…i see it as an inoculum of life…adding too much of it will reduce the oxigen retention properties of your mix…in my opinion… :smiley:

4 Likes

The recipe actually calls for 1/3 compost. I usually use something like Coast of Main compost in my soil mix and top dress with the castings.

If your castings are muddy, you may be overwatering your worm bin.

4 Likes

Thats what I was going to say lol, got side tracked, replace the FOFF with a good compost.

2 Likes

Ribosome made me chuckle. :heart: :slight_smile:

Ya’ll are making organics too difficult. It’s as easy or complex as you want to make it. Source some high quality compost/castings and the rest will fall into place. Like @ReikoX said, 33% castings isn’t ideal. Try like 20% compost and 10% castings instead.

Gypsum doesn’t ‘lime’ peat, only oyster shell and actual lime (dolomite/calcitic/agricultural) will do that. For those are saying organics takes longer to see results - in five gallons of water, mix 1c alfalfa meal and 1/2c kelp meal. Let it sit 24 hours stirring occasionally. Water it in, and watch how fast your plants green up. :v:

10 Likes