Outstanding! thanks for the great info.. so u say omit the blood meal intirely? What would u suggest as a replacement nitrogen source? For top dressing and such?
Also, when I started cooking my mix, u can see all the amendments I have that add calcium and mg, like the lime and osf, and gypsum. I believe that's the reason my ph is staying around 7.8 In my cooked mix. That being said do u think I should try and bring it down or let it balance out itself? I've read that with living organics ph is best around 6.2 to 6.8.. thanks for the advice..
Definitely omit the blood meal entirely if at all possible, same with the guanos and any other bone meals and the like. Don't get me wrong, you can get good results using those amendments for sure. It's just that there are much better options that provide a plethora of other benefits aside from just NPK ratios. My only source of nitrogen is Neem Seed Meal and I can't recommend the stuff enough, it is an absolute must. Depending on the brand you go with, the NPK will be somewhere around 5-1-2 or 6-1-2, along those lines. I use the Down to Earth product and have been having great results so far. Not only will it give you all the nitrogen you need for your soil mix and top dresses, but it will also provide you with integrated pest management to boot. And, unless you use the entire box, you'll still have some neem seed meal left over which you can use to make foliar feeds at your own convenience. No need to buy neem oil when the stuff it comes from is already in your soil, should you happen to be in need of neem oil you can just throw some neem meal in a jar with some water and let it sit for 48 hours. Strain it, dilute it, fill your sprayer and hit your girls with it. Great stuff and not too pricey.
7.8 ph is definitely pretty up there, if you're able to give things time and wait I'd recommend doing so and testing the pH every day. How long ago did you mix the stuff and how long did it sit for? It'll take a good minute for the OSF to buffer your pH, so if you just recently made your soil I'd say just give it some time and it'll eventually sort itself out for you. Your pH shouldn't be that high, if it is the only things that come to my mind is that either the OSF hasn't had enough time to buffer the pH or the water you're using may be too alkaline. Start with testing your water and see what it's pH is, then test the runoff from your pots after you water. If your water is too alkaline, try finding another source of water and seeing if that clears things up. If your water is not too alkaline/acidic then you probably just need to give the OSF a little more time to do it's thing.
I also never use blood meal in my soil mixes. kratos015 advice throughout this page is outstanding.
Looking at your soil mix, you already have several sources of nitrogen in the mix, and nitrogen as we know it, the N or 1st number on a fertilizer is not needed as you'd think in a true living soil, microbes produce free amino acids that provide nitrogen and keep plants green. You don't need any replacement if you lose the blood meal. Just my opinon of course.
(If a 'green boost' is needed on the side I would make EWC teas.. Alfalfa teas.. Mexican bat guano teas.. Peruvian Seabird guano teas for a nitrogen++ boost.)
He's totally right, in organic soil you'd be surprised at how little you actually need. I used to think you needed to load up your soil with the highest NPK numbers you could find and at the largest doses possible. I'm now discovering that you don't need to have insane NPK ratios and you certainly don't need enormous doses. My plants have been responding much better to me top dressing with lighter amendments as opposed to using stuff like Blood Meal. Rather than top dressing once a month with the 12-0-0 blood meal, you could top dress with the 6-1-2 Neem Meal twice a month instead. It's kind of like how professional athletes and such eat, rather than gorge on a single large meal they'll eat a grip of light and healthy snacks throughout the day.
Teas can be pretty helpful, but personally I feel that if you need to use teas then something probably went wrong with your soil. I feel you'll notice better results fixing the imbalance in your soil rather than feeding with a tea. The way it works with organics is you typically put organic amendments in your soil or top dress with them, over time the microbes/worms/etc will slowly start to eat said amendments and process them into readily available nutrients for the plant to absorb at it's own pace. In fact, the microbes will actually munch on whatever the roots ask it to. If your roots are asking for P, it'll signal to the microbes in your soil that it needs P, so they'll start going to town on your amendments with P in the and shit out readily available P right at the roots for the plants to absorb and at the exact amounts that the plant wants. However with teas, you're essentially speeding up the decomposition process as a result of oxygenating the water. Instead of amendments being placed inside your soil for the soil microbes to munch on at the rate the plant wants, you have an oxygenated bucket of water full of microbes processing every single last amendment you put into your tea. The microbes in your tea will then process the organic amendments at a significantly faster rate than they would if they were placed in the soil, as a result this tea of yours is filled with readily available nutrients and this can cause you more harm than good in some cases. If your plant only needs a small amount of nitrogen, but your tea has a metric fuckton in it, that entire amount of nitrogen will be made available to the plant and WILL be absorbed because the tea is essentially skipping the middle men (the soil microbes). As a result, it is entirely possible to burn your plants with teas and throw the balance of your soil out of whack. Especially if you're using alfalfa meal or any sort of guano. Teas can work, but if you put too many amendments into the teas you make they will ALL be made available to the plant at an instant as opposed to a slow and steady pace.
If you're ever in need of a boost of any particular nutrients, rather than making a tea I recommend top dressing the soil and inoculating with some extra microbes to help process the top dress a little faster than normal. You can either brew an EWC tea for this, or use a product called Grower's Recharge. Every time I top dress, I water with Recharge (just a jar filled with a bunch of bacteria and fungi ready to go). This way, I'm adding my microbes and amendments at a pace that is more comfortable for the plant. Using teas tends to mimic synthetics in the sense that you're filling your medium up with a bunch of readily available nutrients that will be completely absorbed whether it's too much or too little, by cutting out the microbes from the equation the plant can't go at it's own pace and will uptake every single last bit of that tea and if you put too many amendments in your teas you will run into more issues than you started with. I got to find that one out the hard way
Cal/Mg is really never needed in a well built soil mix. But a tiny amount here n there as a boost should not outright KILL all microbes and cause problems. It is still just minerals, yes in pure ionic form, but a tiny amount won't increase salt levels or make soil life imbalance enough to do any harm, they can deal with so much. Just as Mr. Drysift says. I agree with his statements. tiny amount is no big deal, but in my opinion shouldn't really ever be 'needed.'
Pretty much right on the money here, the way Cal/Mg is processed usually doesn't result in too many salt buildups but you should definitely still be careful using Cal/Mg products for sure. My soil has a ridiculous amount of Calcium in it and slightly less Magnesium, but I stlil feed with molasses until around week 6 or 7 of flower depending on the strain and finish times. Molasses has equal amounts of calcium and magnesium and your microbes love the stuff, if you feed with it once a week you shouldn't really notice any Cal/Mg deficiencies.
Hope this helps
