Love the Berger BM7 mix. Just mixed up the last bulk batch using all the BM7 and vermiculite. If those two items top the $125 free shipping promo, I’m in. I usually take advantage of it couple times a year.
Don’t let the bag of BM7 fool you - it is BIG and heavy @Dirt_Wizard. https://www.amleo.com/berger-bark-growing-mix-3-cu-ft/p/BM7
Uncle Ben
The Cannabis plants you are showing are overfertilized with nitrogen and are far away from being grown optimally. You may be a good farmer but potting mixes is not the same than soil I’d wish you best luck to learn this. Once the leaves and petioles do not hang limblessly down but the plants show turgidity and vigour, you are on the right track.
Says who, you? 
Am going to start 12/12 on one of these leafy beasts today. Pre-flowers suggests it’s a female. 
UB
Good price on the myco. Used this brand for planting a vineyard and 1,000’s of trees and shrubs since 2005.
Helluva buy for this huge 4 cu. ft. bag of vermiculite, grade 2 (2-4 mm). I switched from perlite many moons ago for several reasons. You have to mask up when handling it, perlite tends to break down into a useless (anerobic) powder with a little handling/shipping, doesn’t provide any nutritional value. As opposed to vermiculite:
Horticultural vermiculite is permanent, clean, odorless, non-toxic, sterile and pH neutral. It will not deteriorate, turn moldy or rot. It is typically mixed with soil, peat, composted pine bark, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides and promotes faster root growth and quick anchorage to young roots.
Horticultural vermiculite is a natural ‘wicking’ mineral. The vermiculite granules attract and hold ammonium, potassium, calcium and magnesium needed for the growing plants. Additionally, the vermiculite/peat mixture provides excellent aeration and retention of plant food and moisture. The growing plants take what they need (food, air, water, minerals), when they need it from the vermiculite granules, thus less maintenance for the grower and healthier plants with higher yields.
Because the vermiculite granules can soak up to over three times its original volume in water it can be a very useful component in a passive hydroponics system that does not utilize pumps or other devices to force the nutrient solution to flow. Additionally, it is perfect for seed germination and cutting propagation. Sold in 4 cu. ft. bags.
UB
I got that exact same bag from my local feed store. Price was about the same, I think. I don’t use it much though. Maybe I should add some to my soil mixture and figure it out.
I don’t use it to aerate my custom mix as much as I do just to give me bulk. I really like tight mixes. Cuts down on watering requirements.
I also have a dwindling pile of washed builders sand for bulk, but it’s so damn heavy and a pain on my back.
Here’s a bulk mix I did in 2019 after mixing. I use the tractor to fetch stuff I stockpile outdoors and to mix the ingredients on the garage floor. Use a flat nose shovel to scrape up the last of it.
So many organic gardeners get suckered into high priced mixes from vendors like FoxFarm when they can make up their own on the cheap. All you need is some fine grade pine bark mulch from reputable dealers (Lowe’s) like the Landscape Pride brand and some fillers like vermiculite. Throwing in a couple of handfuls of the meals is good too.
UB
when i use to gorilla farm we also added and mixed a table spoon or so of the water retention crystals to the hole to help keep the plants hydrated and growing during the dry spells. there are tons of different brands, just showing these for reference.
A.M. Leonard carries such, but they’re expensive. Organics like pine bark and inorganics like vermiculite hold quite a bit of moisture.
UB
They have the big boy bag of that stuff, ten pounds of hydrogel:
Someone may or may not find these PDFs interesting on the topic of hydrogels by Linda Chalker-Scott.
https://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/hydrogels.pdf
https://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/hydrogels-2.pdf
https://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/hydrogels-3.pdf
You’re definitely right! May or may not find them interesting, but I’ll read them anyways. Can never have to much information!
Edit: Aaaaannnnddddd, I’ll be staying away rom hydrogels. Thanks for the info @syzygy ! I’m sure they’re effective, but we are doing our best to get away from toxins. They were interesting by the way.
I picked up some 15-9-12 and 14-14-14 a couple weeks ago decided I was gonna give it to a run of tester seeds. Made a blend of the two based on that RIU thread and the testers are loving it. Just flipped them all a couple days ago, but just giving them water and whatever microbes has been super easy. Excited to see how flowering goes, but don’t see any issues arising so far. If successful I feel like this will be my new way for popping and running seeds, then the standout cuts can get cloned receive the living soil treatment.
We use Osmocote outside, and my wife uses it on her house plants.
My issue with using it on seedlings is I always bottom-water everything.
I guess I could mix it into my homemade potting mix, but not sure?
This year I took compressed bags of Promix, mixed about 50/50 with coir, and then a gallon bucket of composted manure into a 10gal container. Plants are loving it, and I’m mixing another batch right now.
No idea how much Osmo to use if I were to mix it into my potting mix…
You can mix it in with your soil per the label. Your soil sounds like a great blend.
Why don’t you water from the top? Bottom watering does insure against no dry channels if you wait for the level to be seen at the top as it rises thru the mix, but it’s also a PITA.
I work about a small handful into the top inch for a 2-3 gal. pot.
Good luck,
Uncle Ben
The “testers”? I have to laugh. Sheesh, with each new crop of newbies… LOL.
Been using Osmocote on all kinds of materials for 50 years. It’s nothing new.
UB
like OUB said it should say on the label, but here’s the data sheet straight from the website
personally I wait for seedlings to stop being so delicate and wimpy before top watering, just so I don’t accidentally float them around.
say @OldUncleBen I had a question for you. I was looking at the micros on the indoor-outdoor plus and I noticed it doesn’t have any calcium. Not a problem for people with hard water but mine is very soft. Do you have any recommendations for a slow-release calcium source to add on to the osmocote for those of us with soft water and and no obvious need for lime? Would gypsum over do it on the sulfur?
Their root radicle is 4" long by the time they pop the surface. Decades ago I did the experiment by germing a bunch of brick weed seeds and when they popped dump them out to inspect what’s going on.
That’s what I use. No, won’t be too much sulfur. Am half ass with it, adding a cup or so to a tractor bucket of mix I’m making. However, I reckon that cannabis is indigenous to NON limey soils, volcanic rich. Way to find out exactly what pot likes is to find a tissue analysis posted somewhere. For example, citrus tissue analysis reveals that it uptakes, processes the ions, in a 3-1-2 NPK ratio.
Dyna-Gro foods have Ca.
Here you folks go, this is a sample test result from a consultancy run by Jennifer Martin, famously of Harborside Dispensary and creator of the Bubbleberry strain:
And here’s the Ag Schools:
And here’s an Advanced Nutrients study on it:
PhosphorusMyth.pdf (1.0 MB)
Excellent! Thanks @Dirt_Wizard
Based on Table 1 essentially the NPK is around 4 - 0.5 - 2
Backs up what I’ve been preaching for years, cannabis doesn’t need much P.
Uncle Ben
