That’s valid. Do they require you to use their netting ? Or can you just dump soil? And I’m assuming you’ll need to add aeration if you use that method , correct ?
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The netcups were included with my purchase so I’ve never looked into a replacement. Anything with similar dimensions that fits the hole in the fabric pot and allows the roots to grow down into the reservoir while keeping the soil out should be fine.
Aeration is not recommended for Octopots. They address that in their FAQ under the Oxygen section. The rez is designed with a large surface area to facilitate oxygen exchange. They say that using an air stone will cause pH swings.
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I meant aeration as in more stones in the soil , not an air stone in the reservoir.
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Oh yeah! I used to amend the ProMix a bit. I tried dolomitic lime, EWC, and more perlite, but eventually came to the realization that the plants don’t need it. The soil breathes well enough in the fabric bag and all the perlite in the High Porosity ProMix.
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Sorry if that was confusing. I appreciate your input on octopots.
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Any time!
Hopefully our conversation didn’t clutter up @CrunchBerries thread too much. Feel free to visit mine to check out the pics or ask any questions.
Do you have a thread? I have a few dozen Bodhi strains (currently have Saints Crossing in flower) but don’t have any CSI in my library of seeds. Some of those S1s of old school strains are quite tempting, but the price is high and I have so many I need to grow already…
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What compost do y’all use? I’ve used Bu’s for a while now, but shipping costs are a bitch. Been using a local blue crab compost recently but am looking to change it up.
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I use a blend of bu”s( I save on shipping my local grow store gets pallets of it)mushroom compost and for my compost blend I’d love to find a lobster or crab compost heard real good things about them wish there was a local quality compost source around me
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I’ve tried to get the local organic grow store to carry Bu’s, but no dice. I like the idea of the trifecta of composts. 
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I really like mushroom compost tends to be a bit woody but used in conjunction with others I find it gives a great fungal burst of life wonderful for flowering plants and light nutrient feed have even had mushrooms sprout in my pots
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I use mostly Ocean Rich and Oly Mtn Fish Compost, and sometimes Bu’s. The Oly Mtn Fish/Ocean Rich is cheap locally near me, I think $11 or $12 of 1.5cuft bag, so I’m thankful for that.
On another subject… I’ve been trying to figure out a way to install some sort of support system, stakes, or netting on my City Pickers. I didn’t want to poke holes in the cover, because I feel like it’ll just get torn apart when you try to remove it to top dress or whatever. Also, I wanted to be able to move my CPs around and have the cage/netting attached. So… here’s what I came up with. Hopefully someone finds it useful…
Get some 54 inch tomato cages from Home DePOT, flip them upside down and bend them away from cage at 90 degree angle, about 15 inches up from the bottom of the cage… like so. You’ll need some heavy duty pliers or a wire bender. (ignore the CP in the picture, I was using that for prototyping)
I flipped the tomato cage back over, put on top of a CP, with the cover and full of dirt (as a guide), and then use the pliers to bend the tomato cages as pictured. Another 90 degree bend, down over the lip of the CP. Then you want to kinda of twist the bend another 90 degrees… hopefully the pictures help, I’m not a technical writer!
Eventually you’ll (hopefully) end up with something like this:
This is kind of a work in progress, so I’ll see how it goes this run with the cages installed. It’s easy enough to slip the cage off on one side of the CP, so you can pull up the cover for top dressing, and still leave the cage in place and not jostle the plant too much. I do like this way because it’s cheap, and removable, and you don’t have to modify the CPs. I’m guessing you could adapt to Earthboxes as well.
Anyways… if anyone has any modifications, or better ideas… let 'em fly!
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I use the build a soil top dressing as my local hydro store carries it. No isssues with it so far and it seems to work well.
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How come? Just curious.
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It’s not biodynamic and seems pretty lifeless. Also, I’ve found plastic pieces and fruit stickers throughout.
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You know me, I use my own now-a-days.
I always liked the CoWoCo stuff though when I was buying stuffs.
Love love those cages @iamyou_youareme !! Thanks for sharing that!!
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@BeagleZ Do they sell thermophilic compost? I thought they only sold EWC.
@iamyou_youareme Thank you for sharing!! I’m going to give that one a try.
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Hmm I dunno about hot compost but I always saw their stuff more vermi compost rather than straight castings.
Be happy to bring you some of mine, need to get you that canna juice too
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Ah, okay. Yeah, fruit stickers (whaaa?? haha) in your compost is probably not good. “Why are there fruit stickers in my compost?!?” Haha.
I ordered two gallons of that “fungal compost” from KIS a few weeks ago, used it to make one compost tea so far. Plants seemed to like it, but I’d also just transplanted them from the little starter pots into the half-gallons, hard to know if it was the compost tea or the transplant that made them take off. I’ve never mixed that KIS stuff in my soil, though, always used Bu’s.
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Happy Friday!! 
Fruit stickers are pretty common if they source discarded produce from stores. I don’t really feel like that’s too big of an issue - I’ve even seen that in Bu’s back when I used that.
Nowadays, I use Oly Mtn exclusively as my compost, if I can find it. Way more humics than anything else (it’s dark black) and more bioactivity - fungal and bacterial colonies explode when you put this stuff in. Also, importantly, it basically never has severe fungus gnat infestations. But I’ve had bags of other brand’s compost that were all gnats. That’s what made me start using Gnatrol when watering in every transplant.
I’ve also used CoWoCo but that’s castings. That stuff is awesome, and it’s turned my dirt totes into worm bins! Buy it once, reap rewards for life. Oh, also I guess I have used Buildasoil’s flower topdress compost, but not in a year or two. It was good but ridiculously expensive compared to Oly Mtn.
Really cool idea and execution. Nicely done. How’d you keep the stress of bending from breaking the little tack welds they use at each horizontal support level? That’s where my cages always fail…
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