House and Garden long term product review/discussion

furbolg

furbolg

Well-Known Member
TLDR: Aqua flakes A+B, Bud-XL, and Top Shooter are the four bottles essential to the line in my experience.

Hello. I wanted to share a little information that I have amassed over some years of growing with House and Garden nutrient products. All information will be applicable to DTW hydroponics using peat/perlite as a medium. I live in Southern California and have been smoking for 20 years, throughout prohibition, medicalization and legalization, and growing for about 10 now.

I began growing with this method 7 years ago. I purchased H&G Aqua Flakes A+B, Roots Excelurator, Amino Treatment and Bud-XL.

Over time, as bottles ran empty, I opted not to replace any of the additives, and slowly my feeding became extremely simple, with my entire nutrient solution consisting of only Aqua Flakes A+B. I did not notice a difference in yield, potency, or overall quality of the finished product. I grew with this simplified method for a few years, with successful perpetual harvests eliminating my need for a dispensary. I was very content with my product.

One day, I was at the hydroponics supply store when a man noticed I was buying a large container of Aqua Flakes and offered me a complete House & Garden starter kit, containing every additive and product they make. I was blown away by the kind gesture. I kept the following products to experiment with for myself: Algen Extract, Nitrogen Boost, Amino Treatment, Roots Excelurator, Multi-Zen, Bud-XL, Top Booster, Top Shooter (shooting powder), Rhizo force.

For several cycles, with two different strains, I implemented the full range of products from House and Garden, and after several harvests, what I have found has surprised me. First of all, overall quality of the flowers did improve. And more than I expected it to. An overall harder, stickier flower lead to higher realized yields in live resin production as well as improved smell and taste. The numbers, while quantifiable, are not as different as the impression you get sticking your nose in the jar.

In successive cycles, I opted not to use many of the products out of sheer convenience as I speculated which products were doing the heavy lifting in the improvements. And I share with you now the products that I have settled on using, and replacing each time bottles run empty. These products are: Aquaflakes A+B, Bud-XL, and Top Shooter. I believe these 4 products used together provide the "sweet spot" between flower quality and convenience of mixing (as 9-10 bottles is just ridiculous to me, 4 is okay.) As I have reduced my solution down to these 4 products, again I do not notice a decline in overall quality. Of course this is subjective, but for better or worse, these are the products I've chosen to stick with long term.

I would be interested in hearing from fellow long-term House and Garden users about which products they use and if they have ever tried truly running them all!
 
furbolg

furbolg

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
Bud XL?
House & Garden Bud-XL has a unique ability to extract sugars from the leaves of the plant and transfer them to the fruit.

LOL. unique ability? sounds legit.
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To be clear, my post only exists because I agree with you that industry conventions are at best silly and sometimes predatory and H&G is guilty of this themselves. Otherwise there would be no need for my post. The names and descriptions of products, as you point out, are bogus and snake oil salesmanship tactics. Using 10 bottles of mostly water, when you could manufacture the same result much cheaper with dry mix nutrients... obviously isn't for everyone. Yet, for whatever reason lots of people continue to do it. I was granted a unique opportunity to try out 10+ different products for free, and I have chosen to continue using two of them not because of any unique abilities they may possess but simply because they improved the quality of my flower.

Also, to be clear, when I make recommendations to friends becoming growers, I don't recommend H&G nutrients, nor do I recommend building your own LED lights, DTW hydro, old air-cooled Porsches or lots of other silly things that I choose to spend my time/money on.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
furbolg said:
when you could manufacture the same result much cheaper with dry mix nutrients.
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so why are you promoting them if you know they are overpriced?
the top shooter is $70 for a 250mL bottle of PK booster. that's not overpriced, that's robbery.
yet you say it's one of 4 that you can't live without?

so you aren't a salesman for H&G just to be clear??
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
I can grow as good of weed with a cheap bag of Maxibloom of Jacks as others can grow using all those bottles of overpriced designer nutrients.

It's ridiculous to use a dozen bottles of anything. The only growers that do it are cannabis growers and not because they need to or because it gives better results than using any decent 1,2, or at most 3 part nutrient. They buy it because they believe all the marketing crap out there which is tailored to cannabis growers that have never grown anything else and think they need all this crap to grow a plant when they don't.

Some even use their nutrients as a source of pride. Showing off their bottles of this and that to their buddies that also have absolutely no knowledge regarding plant nutrition. Many convince themselves that their wasted money was worthwhile. Usually after a few years they'll try some cheap complete nutrient and get the same or better results. It's at that moment they realize they've been duped by the snake oil salesman.
 
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OneHitDone

OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
so why are you promoting them if you know they are overpriced?
the top shooter is $70 for a 250mL bottle of PK booster. that's not overpriced, that's robbery.
yet you say it's one of 4 that you can't live without?

so you aren't a salesman for H&G just to be clear??
Click to expand...
Where did he promote anything? WTF
 
xtsho

xtsho

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
so why are you promoting them if you know they are overpriced?
the top shooter is $70 for a 250mL bottle of PK booster. that's not overpriced, that's robbery.
yet you say it's one of 4 that you can't live without?

so you aren't a salesman for H&G just to be clear??
Click to expand...
The BudXL is just ammonium nitrate and potassium hydroxide. $55 a liter for maybe 0.50¢ of actual ingredients.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
even the Aqua flakes itself is watered down crap.

the bottle of A ingredients are all less than 1%. LMAO!

0.3-0-0.3 hahahaha.
 
furbolg

furbolg

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
so why are you promoting them if you know they are overpriced?
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Because they work for me. I buy lots of things every day that are overpriced. For example: My Charmin toilet paper costs twice as much as Scotts 1000 but I prefer the feel of the Charmin on my asshole. Also, I would argue that I'm not promoting them. I refer to their line as "10 bottles of mostly water", I flat out stated that "I don't recommend them", and that they are guilty as charged of "snake oil" salesmanship. To reiterate, my post was to "share with you now the products that I have settled on using" and discussing with "fellow long-term House and Garden users about which products they use."

rkymtnman said:
so you aren't a salesman for H&G just to be clear??
Click to expand...
No I am not a salesman for any company actually. And if you guys can determine the exact formulations of their products and inform me, I welcome such a discussion and look forward to the things I could learn. I'm not opposed to the idea of mixing my own nutrients. But these ones aren't exactly breaking the bank.

rkymtnman said:
yet you say it's one of 4 that you can't live without?
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To be clear, I could live without them. I did before and I could again. But going forward I will restock these two bottles when available because they made a tangible difference to me in my product. What I mean by essential is (in my opinion) worthy of its cost and being ran as part of the line. I can change that word to something else I can't come up with a better word right now.

rkymtnman said:
even the Aqua flakes itself is watered down crap.
the bottle of A ingredients are all less than 1%. LMAO!
0.3-0-0.3 hahahaha.
Click to expand...
House and Garden uses 10% values in their NPK. So a bottle of A is actually 3-0-3. But no one is arguing that it's mostly water.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
furbolg said:
Because they work for me. I buy lots of things every day that are overpriced. For example: My Charmin toilet paper costs twice as much as Scotts 1000 but I prefer the feel of the Charmin on my asshole. Also, I would argue that I'm not promoting them. I refer to their line as "10 bottles of mostly water", I flat out stated that "I don't recommend them", and that they are guilty as charged of "snake oil" salesmanship. To reiterate, my post was to "share with you now the products that I have settled on using" and discussing with "fellow long-term House and Garden users about which products they use."



No I am not a salesman for any company actually. And if you guys can determine the exact formulations of their products and inform me, I welcome such a discussion and look forward to the things I could learn. I'm not opposed to the idea of mixing my own nutrients. But these ones aren't exactly breaking the bank.


To be clear, I could live without them. I did before and I could again. But going forward I will restock these two bottles when available because they made a tangible difference to me in my product. What I mean by essential is (in my opinion) worthy of its cost and being ran as part of the line. I can change that word to something else I can't come up with a better word right now.



House and Garden uses 10% values in their NPK. So a bottle of A is actually 3-0-3. But no one is arguing that it's mostly water.
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just curious, but what other nute(s) have you tried?
and i'm not trying to bust your balls either. it's sad that some nute companies put out this overpriced stuff with fancy bottles and cool names. (mainly Advanced Nutes).
 
Milky Weed

Milky Weed

Well-Known Member
The only things that are essential are
N
P
K
Ca
Mn
Si
Mg
S
B
Zn
Cu
Fe
Cl

Anything else is really only considered a beneficial additive. You can obtain all these elements dirt cheap on their own, or there are very very cheap metal salt mixes avalable.
 
furbolg

furbolg

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
just curious, but what other nute(s) have you tried?
and i'm not trying to bust your balls either. it's sad that some nute companies put out this overpriced stuff with fancy bottles and cool names. (mainly Advanced Nutes).
Click to expand...
When I first started growing I used store bought organic soils and fox farm nutrients. Grew like that for a year or so before switching to similar products from Roots Organic. Since switching to DTW hydro I have only used H&G products as a main nutrient. Started with Hydros, then Aquaflakes, and then experimented with the rest of the line when it was gifted to me.

edit: also I wanted to mention I understand this is applicable only to small scale growers for personal consumption. $50-$70 USD for a small bottle of nutrients makes no sense, especially to a professional grow. But for me, that bottle lasts nearly a year, and is a small price when compared to the cost of my electricty or water bill for the year.
 
Last edited:
Milky Weed

Milky Weed

Well-Known Member
furbolg said:
When I first started growing I used store bought organic soils and fox farm nutrients. Grew like that for a year or so before switching to similar products from Roots Organic. Since switching to DTW hydro I have only used H&G products as a main nutrient. Started with Hydros, then Aquaflakes, and then experimented with the rest of the line when it was gifted to me.

edit: also I wanted to mention I understand this is applicable only to small scale growers for personal consumption. $50-$70 USD for a small bottle of nutrients makes no sense, especially to a professional grow. But for me, that bottle lasts nearly a year, and is a small price when compared to the cost of my electricty or water bill for the year.
Click to expand...
Just to put it into perspective, i paid about $70 for a 25lb bag of nute salts that will last me ages.

When i just started growing, i walked into the room my previous grower friend was using. He probably had $1000’s worth of gallons of advanced nutriens and the like. He couldent grow shit either and it broke my heart.

He was very protective of his nutes too. Defended them till blue in the face. I bought some cheap sacks of salt and grew plants 6x better.

Its the grower not the nutrients brand that make a plant.
 
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