I really, really don't like the soil they have at Lowe's or Home Depot, you look around and you can't find any potting soil that doesn't have fertilizer in it already.
If you look by the mulch, you should be able to find Premier Sphagnum Peat Moss at Lowe's, Home Depot might have Pro-Mix, which is a bit more expensive, but it's the same crap with perlite added. So, if you can get perlite from a garden supply store, not MG perlite because we're getting away from the soil with nutes.
Another thing is the potting soil you can buy isn't as airy as you want, soil turns to mud, and that's bad... Pro-mix, and peat moss/perlite is technically "soil-less" growing, because there isn't soil in it... Unless you use earthworm castings...
Fox Farm's Big Bloom is not very strong at all, it's moreover beneficial guanos, Tiger Bloom is the concentrated fertilizer that really packs on weight.
Also, the soluables, Open Sesame, Beastie Budz, and ChaChing are really made for boosting the yield and resin...
You can follow whatever major nutrient chart you want, I'm finding out more and more that products are basically the same thing... That is the main ingredients, the NPK, it all is derived from the same shit...
Advanced Nutrients are all derived from "pharmacudical grade" origins, other products are from "test grade" materials.
They're more concentrated, and possibly easier for the plant to uptake, but who really knows...
On an upside, the FoxFarm is working out fairly well... I'm not following the chart really... Just using the TDS to tell me what's going on. I add the different parts at the strengths I want... Close to what the chart recommends.
I'm adding the soluables by measuring the ppm, I'm upping it by 250 points with the soluables... I'll up it to 300 ppm when they start to pack it on. They are currently getting 600 ppm of Tiger Bloom/Big Bloom, and 250 of Open Sesame, along with Sweet Leaf, Carbo Load, and Barricade.
The AN side is being fed 600ppm of 2part bloom, and Mother Earth Bloom, and 250 ppm of Open Sesame, along with the SweetLeaf, Carboload, Barricade...
So far, not any differences, however a 9Mile shot up at least 5 inches from this time yesterday... I'm trying to control the bitches, but the sativa's a hard bitch to tame... They're going to be massive, I've taken some pictures, but I might not be able to post them until Sunday...