Mortloch
Well-Known Member
Ok I have seen a lot of first time growers on this site who have all kinds of problems growing in soil. When I first started growing I read about how if you over feed or mess up your PH with soil you have to flush with gallons of water and then add new nutes. Even after that it still takes a few days to bounce back or show signs of improving if you did it right and if its wrong, flush and wait is what you have to do. So, this is the way I looked at it, with soil you have the above problem as well as no way to tell whats going on in the dirt, with hydro if you over feed or your plants are looking yellow you can drain out all the water, put fresh water in and remeasure you nute levels, plus the plants show the change faster (good or bad) than when in soil because of the complete environment change.
I am in no way trying to bring up the soil vs hydro argument, I just want to point out that for a first time grow hydro is the easiest way to fix something if you make a mistake, plus you can measure PH and PPM levels to find out how much or little food they are getting. You can just pull a plant out of soil, knock the dirt off and put it in new dirt, but that is more root touching than you should do.
I started with hydro and a two part botanicare feed system, Pure Pro Grow and flower, simple and organic. My water from the city has a PH of 7 which I checked using a simple aquarium Ph test kit, add some PH down so it is at 5.5, follow what the hydro nutes say to add and everything worked out great. Using a PPM stick I could see if they had too much or too little food.
Now Mothers I have found have to be in soil to slow the growth, when I first tried to keep them alive in soil I over feed, under watered, then under feed and over watered. Why? because with soil you have to "talk" to the plants to know what they need, with hydro you can "see" what they are eating. I use a simple Deep Water Culture set up, you can make it your self using buckets and an air pump to give the roots oxygen.
In short it is harder to change out or flush all of your soil than it is to drain and change a hydro reservoir. So don't be scared
I am in no way trying to bring up the soil vs hydro argument, I just want to point out that for a first time grow hydro is the easiest way to fix something if you make a mistake, plus you can measure PH and PPM levels to find out how much or little food they are getting. You can just pull a plant out of soil, knock the dirt off and put it in new dirt, but that is more root touching than you should do.
I started with hydro and a two part botanicare feed system, Pure Pro Grow and flower, simple and organic. My water from the city has a PH of 7 which I checked using a simple aquarium Ph test kit, add some PH down so it is at 5.5, follow what the hydro nutes say to add and everything worked out great. Using a PPM stick I could see if they had too much or too little food.
Now Mothers I have found have to be in soil to slow the growth, when I first tried to keep them alive in soil I over feed, under watered, then under feed and over watered. Why? because with soil you have to "talk" to the plants to know what they need, with hydro you can "see" what they are eating. I use a simple Deep Water Culture set up, you can make it your self using buckets and an air pump to give the roots oxygen.
In short it is harder to change out or flush all of your soil than it is to drain and change a hydro reservoir. So don't be scared
