At least your saving money over bottled nutes take her to the grow shop and let her look at some of those prices then she won’t think it to to bad compared to a dry amendment or two! Lol
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I didn’t realize you had been waiting on perlite my bad … if anything cause the burn my guess would be the blood meal at approx 15% nitrogen it’s pretty rough on tender seedlings!
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basically just aiming to do about a third perlite, worm castings, and peat plus the bone, blood, kelp meal and then buffer with the dolomite lime. Roughly that…
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you can check the label and see if the peat has lime added, don’t know if they add it to plain peat, all Promix blends have it
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https://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/soil_buffer_ph.htm
Here’s a nice scientific explanation of pH buffering. After reading this I am still wondering why I would want to add a liming agent to my mix at this point… is it not possible the combination of my tap water, bone meal, and kelp meal are accomplishing that for me?
So I’ve mixed my soil and I’m essentially doing a buffer test by loading it up with tap water (just like a normal watering) and I’m coming up with about a 6.4 on my pH meter… soooo why would I want to add an additional liming agent? this is telling me my dry soil is nice and acidic, and when I hit it with tap water, which it closer to 7-7.1 (contains some calcium, it’s hard water with no softener and leaves white spots on our sink and coffee maker like crazy) then I’m getting a basically ideal pH reading…
Kelp meal also contains Ca and Mg.
And of course Bone Meal meal contains Calcium… and is alkaline…
Blood meal is acidic and peat is acidic.
Tap water is pretty close to neutral with calcium…
I think I have to try this w/o liming. (And I’m not just being cheap, I have rationalized this and am willing to admit I was wrong if this thing shrivels up and dies from an overly acidic home/ too much nutrients). I will update the final soil mix I transplant to though, I still agree with ReikoX’s initial assessment of too much Kelp meal/dirt ratio.
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Day 14 after sprout.
Third set of leaves coming out. I transplanted already. That burn on the second set of leaves doesn’t seem to be getting any worse so I think it was that shot of bone meal tea i gave, It’s had two more watering since and the new growth looks healthy right now but too early to even tell I think.
As for the transplant. I just think that slashed up pot of top soil was too small and at two weeks the roots were starting to poke out the sides so I think it was good timing to let those roots grow more before they actually slowed their roll by air pruning and even getting too much light from me manually aerating that top soil with a toothpick from above and slashing up the 3” square pot.
Transplant went well, I just cut the pot and peeled it off and the dirt held together, decent root mass in there I think. Then i actually buried the stem about an inch in my soaking wet soil mix and didn’t water after. Instead I watered the new soil before in a separate container and precisely scooped into into the new pot to sort of sculp the new location. So it was surrounded by wet soil from all angles in the new home. It will permeate into the old medium and hopefully that will stimulated those roots as it dries out over the next few days. I will use my ph/moisture meter (on moisture setting) to determine when to water this pot for the first time.
So just tap water from here on out! Not even going to take the time to let it sit and have chlorine evaporate, I’m aiming for low wattage and low maintenance. Just wanted to try to make a solid organic soil mix with as few ingredients as possible.
SOIL:
4.5 tbs kelp meal
1 tbs blood meal
1 tbs bone meal
7 cups worm castings
9 cups peat
11 cups perlite
= 1.9 gallons
So I have a little extra as I didn’t quite fill the pot… I assume it is 1.75gal when filled to the brim and therefor I mixed about 1.9 gallons of soil. Ph came out to about 6.7 after soaking in tap water… Wondering about the calibration of that meter after me using it for a while now. Assuming it is accurate then I obviously neutralized my mix to become a little less acidic by having more dirt relative to the “meals”, especially the acidic blood meal as I understand kelp and bone meal are ether neutral or alkaline respectively. But I thought adding more peat would actually acidify the mix more even against the worm castings and perlite. Oh well, I’m just happy to see <7 on my pH meter. That was the goal.
I turned the fan off to reduce stress after the transplant. I’ll turn it back on in a couple days.
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I’ll be watching the see how your experiment turns out. 
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Don’t forget your castings have Calcium also. I’ve also thought of doing the no lime mix. My water is high ph so I think the lime is causing me problems. I also use homemade worm castings. I do t see a problem with extra kelp. I used 2 cups a cubic foot of soil made. I also didn’t add any rock dust beside the lava rock I crushed. And I didn’t add bone meal but I’m thinking I should now in new mixes and recycled soil. Awesome looking plants so far. I would use my sons old diaper boxes to prop up the plant lol.
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Day 15
Moisture meter says WET still, not maxed. The gauge was “redlined” into the WET side after re potting, I basically just scooped mud around my transplant. So that’s a little under 24 hours of drying out. We’ll see how much more it dries out by tomorrow.
I turned the fan back on. As you can see I have an extremely unattractive “mounting kit” installed on there… Out of respect for anyone reading this I will try to make this look nicer soon!
I’ll let it go right down to DRY before I water again with the old Kitchener, Ontario hard water tappy tap. I’ll do a pH test after the next watering too, just to see if there’s any change from that 6.7ish recorded immediately after mixing and soaking.
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We’ve had two of these from ikea for a while now lol. Ironic. But let’s be honest, the bigger problem is stopping my duct tape fan mount from doing this.
<img src="/uploads/default/original/3X/5/b/5bfd45e4d6b0f94b94a25d83747f4abb3cea5622.jpeg" width=“375” height=“500”
<img src="/uploads/default/original/3X/a/b/ab36acb2bee438d3ed59c3d5f94da19ca106befd.jpeg" width="374"height=“500”>
OK OK i am cheap, sorry not sorry.
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Day 17
Soil looks dry to be drying up top but reading still wet down at the bottom. I also rotated the pot.
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Your mounting kit is the schnizzle 
What did you use, some wire?
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I had two of these hangers meant for the garage that you just screw into dry wall and they are fairly thick metal hangers with a nice 90 degree corner that I taped the computer fan into lol. I added another one and a couple zip ties just to stabilize and ugly it up even more.
I pledge to get a nice white clip on fan and a second light by FY2020.
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Day 18
This plant smells good!!! I’ve been smelling it… and heavily mouth breathing over it ehhhhehehehhh.
I can physically feel the soil is dry over half way down the pot so this moisture meter reading is just the bottom 1/3 or so, still quiet moist. I considered putting additional drainage holes on the bottom but it already had about 8-10 holes around and one larger one in the middle with like a grille.
For this 1.75 gal pot, I think the soil seems to be drying out very reasonably considering the plant isn’t even really sucking up that water yet. Once it is really dry I’m sure those roots will have grown a bit and it’ll be sooo ready for a couple pints. As am I… almost daily 
.
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Day 19
I continue to rotate my pot… really just for the sake of doing something. Sill moist down at the bottom too. I take take the moisture/pH meter out and rinse/wipe it every time I use it. Seems to be working still. Interesting how the bottom will stay wet for longer, probably because it’s cooler and has a lot more dirt to go through to evaporate. ROOT ROT CONDITIONS??? thinking/hoping there isn’t too much roots down there yet anyway and once there is there will be able to drink the water at a good rate. Slowly growing every day here.
e moisture meter out
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Day 20
Getting that moisture meter right down to the bottom and it is showing a steady drying out even way down there in the bottom quarter. I anticipate watering in 2-3 days.
I notice how much thicker the second node is from the stem under to cotyledons… I wonder if that’s normal or if it has to do with the angle of my fan not blowing on the base due to the lip of the pot?.. Sparing no expense, I added the OEM deflector kit as a counter measure. Seems to have the wind directed across the stem where it meets the soil now.
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So I’ve got rooting gel and one of these humidity domes. Just wondering if anyone would caution against trying to clone at this point? earlier/later?
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Much later, you need a cutting about the size if the whole plant.
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Day 21
Soil feels very dry and crispy but down at the very bottom I still get a moisture reading. I will stop sticking this thing in the soil so I don’t damage the roots that must be growing into this bigger pot. I think once I water and check pH I’ll stop using this thing and just wait another week unless I visually observe the plant wilting.
I have had my tap water sitting in jugs to let the chlorine evaporate so I’ll use that soon.
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