Dr Earth Flower Girl 3-9-4 --- Experiences / Opinions wanted

[Lockedin]

Just like the title says.
I'm top dressing tonight / tomorrow and am considering running Dr. Earth Flower Girl 3-9-4 at 1/4 - 1/3 strength in the soil amendment.

A 4lbs bag of Flower Girl 3-9-4 was impulse bought when I got my soil (good salesman - I'm usually pretty immune to them!).

Grow philosphy this round is to go as minimal as possible - I'm only planning to feed 5 of 7 if I use it at all.
I'm in FFOF and water - no nutes - and my plants seem very happy overall. However, I am concerned about soil depletion as flowering continues
2 plants will go with FFOF top dress only, as a baseline for the soil's abilities.
This way, I will have an idea of whether or not I want to start buying multiple expensive bags & bottles to burn my plants with.

All experience / opinions welcome.

Here's the details, and a shot from last night:

Week 4 of flower / 4x4 / LED (mixed lights, around 1000w true) / FFOF (one top dress) / 7 indica hybrids in 5g fabric pots.
- sorry 'bout the lights on; I spent a lot of time in my tent last night and wasn't feeling up to a full photo shoot - better shots are in the journal in my sig.

 

[Lockedin]

Don't know if it helps - Mix plan is:
5 of 7 plants will be fed - 2 Tbsp of Flower Girl 3-4-9 scratched onto the surface of the soil. Then 1/2"-1" of FFOF top-dressed.

2 plants will get FFOF top dress only - the tallest, and the medium-est.
I figure they will make good controls to see how the nutes affect the plants.

 

[Lockedin]

Dressed per the above - t Tbsp per plant - 4 of 6 plants*
We'll see how this goes.

*RIP plant #6 - you were a good girl until you became a boy......

 

[Gullett79]

Dressed per the above - t Tbsp per plant - 4 of 6 plants*
We'll see how this goes.

*RIP plant #6 - you were a good girl until you became a boy......

I recently started using Flower Girl, and I love it. I'm also in FFOF only. After a 2-3 week veg, I scratch a small handful into the soil then top with a mix of FFOF and a bit of compost. This should be enough to get you to the finish line if you don't veg for more than a couple weeks and deplete the medium. If you do, you can always add a bit more Flower Girl midway through flower.

 

[Lockedin]

I veg'd 4 weeks
Top dressed appx. 1" FFOF at week 3
Top dressed last night 1" FFOF & 2 Tbsp Flower Girl

Hopefully gets them through!

 

[Gullett79]

I veg'd 4 weeks
Top dressed appx. 1" FFOF at week 3
Top dressed last night 1" FFOF & 2 Tbsp Flower Girl

Hopefully gets them through!

If you start seeing any issues, you can always give another top dress and/or Flower Girl. You're not going to hurt anything unless you dump a whole bag on a 5 gallon pot. I'm on a second grow with it and I haven't had any issues.

 

[inth3shadowz]

Im on my first grow and started seeing deficiencies with Dr Earth, but im probably just retarded. I've seen really good results on videos from people, you should be fine.

 

[Lockedin]

Im on my first grow and started seeing deficiencies with Dr Earth, but im probably just retarded. I've seen really good results on videos from people, you should be fine.

Deficiency?
Or nute burn?
What setup?

I went with soil & minimal nutes for this grow - seed to smoke - nuthin' fancy!

 

[quirk]

That's one fine looking tent load of plants @Lockedin. I keep my grows simplified as well amending my FF soil mix with a dry fertilizer and top dressing per instruction, then nothing but water until week 7. Can't burn and has eliminated deficiency problems in my small grows. Auto grower

 

[curious618]

Mine are in FFHF and I’m gonna be using Flower Girl Pump n Go. I’ll keep y’all posted on how it goes. I flip in about two weeks ish

 

[Lockedin]

Mine are in FFHF and I’m gonna be using Flower Girl Pump n Go. I’ll keep y’all posted on how it goes. I flip in about two weeks ish

Good to see ya, Curious.
Send me a link when you start taking pics.

I lost one to herm yesterday.
Tonight I spent over an hour searching every site on the remaining six -- all clear (so far)

Feel free to check my journal out & comment if you want to. It's kinda boring - no problems at all - until the herm last night.

 

[@EastCoastGenetix]

Good to see ya, Curious.
Send me a link when you start taking pics.

I lost one to herm yesterday.
Tonight I spent over an hour searching every site on the remaining six -- all clear (so far)

Feel free to check my journal out & comment if you want to. It's kinda boring - no problems at all - until the herm last night.

I know this is old but Dr. Earth is the shit! I only use it and I order directly from the company website. I veg with the tomato blend fertilizer and flower girl during flower. I use to grow in pots. 3 gal indoors and 35 outside. But I always make soil from scratch and re-used my soil. I amend when I mix and top dress every 3 weeks. I just grab handfuls and sprinkle around the entire surface of the pots, scratch it in, and water. I now moved to no till beds but I still use only Dr. Earth. I still top dress every 3 weeks. I only had a problem when I switched to LED's and ran them hard i ran into a cal/mag issue but other than that I had nothing but smooth sailing.

 

[farmingfisherman]

Same here. I've had great results with mixing green bag tomato into ffof soil during transplant from seedling to first pot. Water only for the first few weeks then add more as the plant needs it. There are products out there that cost more money for certain but not sure if they are worth it or it they are just trying to profit. Ps. I also use flower girl at transplant before bloom but do add other nutrients because Mary Jane likes to eat during flower more than any other plant i've ever grown. Good luck to all!

 

[Lockedin]

Guess I never followed up with results.
I fed 4 of my 6 plants with FG - up to 1/2 strength by the end of my grow.
The two un-fed plants provided a baseline of FFOF only results before I started frying my plants.
All 6 turned out great, but the FG fed plants finished with noticeably fatter, taller and denser flowers over the unfed plants. - FG Stays in my grow regimen.

This grow, I applied lessons from the first grow - added 25% perlite and 1 cup FG to the bottom 3 gal of the 5 gal fabric pots I'm using.
Also top-dressed with Dr Earth All Purpose 2-2-2 @ full strength & diatomaceous earth* in about 1/2g of FFOF.
I just flipped to 12/12, so next watering is just water - but I'm starting FG on the one following.

I'm still pretty averse to using a lot of nutes - I keep seeing burnt plants in threads and don't want my little girls gettin' fried like that.
*After researching non-toxic pest elimination I re-discovered DE. Also found out that my girls like the silica.