My fault! I looked at the wrong spikes. Some 10-10-4 synthetic ones which I'm returning. Grabbing the right ones from that Iink. I'm just super paranoid about running out of nutes during flower but I'm sure I'll be fine. I currently have a 5 gal bucket of wiggle worm soil builder worm castings, they were recommended to me on here and had great reviews. I also have an unopened bag of D lime so I may add just a table spoon to the container. Also no need to apologise for hijacking im making use of this great info too haha. Like I said I'll most likely reamend with the coot mineral pack and the same castings after this grow is done. I have a few sample packs of recharge too just for microbe reassurance but ill probably just use one on the initial transplant and not again. How often should I top dress with the castings? I plan to give them liquid kelp and/or Alaska fish emultion once a week with just plain water other than that. I'm thinking I may grab a bag of the Dr Earth tomato and herb blend, I'll hold off on the fish for now as I already have emultion on hand. Also how often would you guys recommend a molasses feed if any is nessesary?
Absolutely no reason to be paranoid friend! This plant is pretty hard to kill believe it or not. Most plant death is from being loved to death. Out of all of the problems I've ever seen and dealt with personally it has very rarely ever been a true deficiency. I'd say only a handful of times in my experience has the problem ever been "They need more nutrients", you really would be surprised!
A deficiency is one of the easiest problems to fix, however you want to actually
confirm it's a deficiency before acting.
Take bad pH for example. Bad pH levels will manifest itself in the form of nutrient deficiencies. But in this case, it isn't because you don't have enough nutrients in your soil. It's because the pH is out of whack and it's locking out access to the nutrients you already have.
Overwatering is another good example. Overwatering will cause the soil to become acidic, which will then cause pH lockout, which then causes "deficiencies".
I suppose the point I'm trying to make here is that "deficiencies" are a symptom of a deeper problem 9/10 times, maybe even 9.5/10 times. If you're seeing a deficiency of some sort, analyze everything else before using nutrients. Make sure you aren't overwatering, or that nothing is screwing with your pH, or you don't have pests/root rot, etc. Only once you've ruled everything else out, then you can add nutrients.
Lack of nutrients will not kill a plant, overreacting to a deficiency will.
Just be cautious my man, you'll be totally fine. Start a grow journal so that way you can get people to help out and chime in. The more input the better imo.
Those worm castings are ones that I have used before in the past. They work, but they're quite mediocre. If you're getting a good deal on it somewhere, then by all means use it. But there are better options, such as Malibu Compost or Coast of Maine's Lobster Compost. These composts cost the same price online as a bag of worm castings, but their quality is vastly superior and it's even a larger quantity to boot. The bags of compost come in 1cuft bags, 1cuft = 7.5g bucket/pot.
Again, please don't take it the wrong way. Those castings are decent and will work, there's just better products out there for the money is all. Most of the worm castings on the market are fed with mostly paper, it does make castings but the quality isn't as high as if the worms were fed quality compost and organic amendments instead. The aforementioned brands of compost on the other hand, are in fact made with quality in mind. You'll notice immediate results using them for sure. Once it comes time to top dress with compost again, consider grabbing come Malibu or Coast of Maine compost instead of more worm castings.
Castings and the compost brands I mentioned are quite light, so you can get away with top dressing every 1-2 weeks once the plants are 1ft tall plus. I just put enough compost on the top to cover the soil so I only see compost. I top dress again once I don't see compost anymore, anywhere between 1-2 weeks for me on average.
I use Recharge often, it's a quality product and comes quite in handy. You'll never overdo it with this stuff because the microbes will sort themselves out. I use Recharge every 1-2 weeks for my plants and for starting new batches of compost/soil. Recharge is essentially a "compost tea" in the sense that it's providing microbes (life) to your soil. The difference is that now you don't need to go through the process of making teas because Recharge simply goes in a 1g jug, shake it, apply. Simple. No need for buckets, teabags, airstones, etc. Simple is key here.
And on the subject of teas, I have always spoken against them personally. They aren't always "bad" but they're superfluous for sure and cause more problems than they solve. When people mention "teas", they mean either compost teas or "nutrient" teas.
Compost teas are usually simple teas made with molasses and compost and/or worm castings in a bucket of aerated water. These are quite redundant and at the expense of extra time and equipment. Why not simply top dress with that compost instead of making a tea out of it? Same thing for a new batch of soil, why not mix the compost into your new batch of soil instead of dunking a tea of it in there? It's never made sense to me, personally. I'm not faulting anyone for doing it by any means, it's just that it is redundant and unnecessary in my experience is all.
All of those nutrients teas you see on the other hand are the real problems.
Do not use these under any circumstances. There are numerous reasons to not make a "tea" out of any organic amendments and/or Dr Earth type blends. Let me explain why these teas are dangerous and downright deadly, I've had the pleasure of finding this out the hard way.
Let's use Bat Guano as an example here. You can do one of two things with the guano, top dress with it or make it into a tea. You need to consider that both methods consist of very different reactions and events taking place here, top dressing puts the microbes in charge where as brewing teas turn this into an organic hydro style hybrid grow. Remember earlier when I mentioned that as you top dress with something, the plant's roots will signal to the microbes to start decomposing the top dress right? Guano in this case. When you top dress, the guano will slowly be watered into your soil and decomposed by the microbes according to the plant root's specific needs and requests. The top dress's nutrients will be available gradually, at the plant's discretion.
What happens when you turn the guano into a tea though? These same nutrients become available, immediately and all at once. Instead of the microbes in your soil processing the guano, the microbes in your bucket of aerated water is processing the guano. There's just one problem though, the nutrients in the form of microbe shit are binding to the water and not the soil. This means that all of the nutrients are available immediately instead of over time, and worse off the entire amount is available immediately. So what happens is these "nutrient teas" throw everything out of balance AND cause toxicities if too much guano, alfalfa meal, etc are used. Imagine the guano not taking weeks-months to decompose, but instead is available instantly. Even top dressing with guano can burn plants, making a tea out of it is catastrophic.
I you already have the emulsion, then use it once the plants are over 1ft tall. Emulsion is 5-1-1, so it's best for veg and the 1st week of flower. Hydrolysate is what you want for flower with it's 2-4-1 NPK.
These are just things to keep in mind as you need to top dress and the like in the future. What you already have right now is fine and will work. Just wait until your next top dress is up and grab the higher quality materials as you need them. Sorry about the book, but I hope it's useful.
, or don't add lime to peat (no way to buffer peat) then all of these things can and will negatively affect the pH.