Organic Growing Made Easy & Fox Farms Ocean Forest!

[Sincerely420]

Hey sincerely 420, glad you started a thread like this, definitely something I have been wondering about as I am growing a sativa for the first time and am getting the rams horns real bad and am not real familiar with sativas. I have only grown about 5 plants, but I have been using ffof. I have recently found the 1.5 cuft bag of ocean forest at a feed and seed store that i never knew existed and they sell it for $13 a bag! Thought this was amazing as I have been paying $36 a bag from amazon! Anyway a buddy of mine has a cousin that grows as well and my buddy passed along some information from his cousin, saying he uses ocean forest too. But, he claims his cousin uses that soil, but doesn't put anything else in it. I asked him again and he claims he doesn't put ANYTHING else in it. I'm assuming he means the whole grow. He uses 5 gallon buckets and only grows indica to the best of my knowledge. I'm just wondering is this really possible? And I've seen this guy's product and it is definitely some nice professional shit. I have been having probs with the sativas though (rams horns, lots of yellowing on lower leaves 3 or 4 weeks into flowering, and SLOW flowering)and wondering if it's worth the risk to go just soil the whole grow? I know I imagine it would starve, but maybe my buddy misunderstood his cousin. Anyway haven't had time to read this WHOLE post if anyone has mentioned this but just curious.

Wassup bossman! Thx for the props

But to be honest with you, I wouldn't be able to tell yo uhow good the FFOF would do on it's own for an entire grow.
If you look back thru a couple posts you'll see that a couple guys around here pull it off using the soil only.
One guy transplants a few times into new soil, which is giving the roots some new soil to grow into with each transplant. That's sounds like the best way to do it if you ask me!
But Sativas can go forever from what I've read about em, so you'll more than likely need to transplant a few times, or amend the soil so that it'll go the distance. The plants use lots of N during the first half of the show, and it's usually the first thing to go deficient is soils because of how heavily the plants use it.

But $13 bucks a bag. That's a robbery! I pay $22 a bag without a problem

 

[thewizard01]

I veg a plant in FFOF, in a one gallon container untill it needs to be transplanted, I then transplant into a three gallon container and put in flower a couple days later. I do NOT add any supplements to the soil with the exception of fox farms "big bloom", which is completely organic. They never go def. on me! Shit I dont even adjust my water ph which is at 8.5 out of the tap with a ppm of about 90.

Oh and btw I add 4 tablespoons of big bloom per gallon EVERY watering

 

[Sincerely420]

Nice post Wiz! I appreciate ya sharing w/ us bro.
There's literally a hundred diff ways to grow man!

 

[SOMEBEECH]

Try the upside down Tomato bag........Hang it from a tree method.


Beech

 

[HighFi]

Thanks 420 and wizard for the info. I'm trying to keep it simple and not over do it. I just ordered a small size botanicare nute trio to try it out, because I wanna be all organic. Just curious if anyone has done it straight soil. I do have the fox farms trio right now. Never thought about just using extra big bloom. I LST, so my plants are shorter, smaller, so it is possible I don't need much nutes. I just tend to get early yellowing of leaves lately and didn't know if it was nute def. I just know I have either a dinafem diesel or sleeskunk (didn't label them correctly) and it seems to be stalling pretty bad, so now I'm wondering if they have too much of something. Anyway I may cut back to water/molasses only and see what happens. I'll try to update if I get good results in the near future. PEACE!

 

[Sincerely420]

Thanks 420 and wizard for the info. I'm trying to keep it simple and not over do it. I just ordered a small size botanicare nute trio to try it out, because I wanna be all organic. Just curious if anyone has done it straight soil. I do have the fox farms trio right now. Never thought about just using extra big bloom. I LST, so my plants are shorter, smaller, so it is possible I don't need much nutes. I just tend to get early yellowing of leaves lately and didn't know if it was nute def. I just know I have either a dinafem diesel or sleeskunk (didn't label them correctly) and it seems to be stalling pretty bad, so now I'm wondering if they have too much of something. Anyway I may cut back to water/molasses only and see what happens. I'll try to update if I get good results in the near future. PEACE!

What kinda soil are you using ATM boss?

 

[HighFi]

What kinda soil are you using ATM boss?

I'm using the ffof soil. It's all I've ever used after my first plant which was a supersonic crystal storm, in which I used some soil out of the yard with some composted leaves.

 

[ibitegirls]

I veg a plant in FFOF, in a one gallon container untill it needs to be transplanted, I then transplant into a three gallon container and put in flower a couple days later. I do NOT add any supplements to the soil with the exception of fox farms "big bloom", which is completely organic. They never go def. on me! Shit I dont even adjust my water ph which is at 8.5 out of the tap with a ppm of about 90.

Oh and btw I add 4 tablespoons of big bloom per gallon EVERY watering

Can anyone chime in on how much pH is lowered when Big Bloom is added? My tap water is roughly 8 pH and i was wondering how many tablespoons to add to bring it down to neutral in 1 gallon of water...

 

[Sincerely420]

I'm using the ffof soil. It's all I've ever used after my first plant which was a supersonic crystal storm, in which I used some soil out of the yard with some composted leaves.

That's wassup bro. You said you're stalling and yellowing?? Could your plants be root bound perhaps?

 

[Sincerely420]

Can anyone chime in on how much pH is lowered when Big Bloom is added? My tap water is roughly 8 pH and i was wondering how many tablespoons to add to bring it down to neutral in 1 gallon of water...

If I could I would bro. The only thing I have that's in a bottle is Neptune Harvest Liquid Fish.
Maybe someone will see this and chime in. Otherwise you might need to get a pH meter and go to work.
Good luck with that

 

[ibitegirls]

If I could I would bro. The only thing I have that's in a bottle is Neptune Harvest Liquid Fish.
Maybe someone will see this and chime in. Otherwise you might need to get a pH meter and go to work.
Good luck with that

my Oakton tester pH meter is on the way.. just waiting for it to arrive

i think 4 tablespoons will drop it down to 6 or so, but i will have to run some science experiments once my equipment arrives. since my FFOF mix contains oyster shells, they should help to naturally balance out the pH if it drops too low. i know that oyster and lime have hard time bringing pH down, but they're quite good at bringing it back up... or so i hear

 

[Sincerely420]

Thats true bro(that last sentence regarding lime and oyster shell).
As far as I know, a good top dressing of peat should bring your pH down as well.
The FFOF should be pretty well balanced tho, unless you got a bad batch or something.
I pH'd my most recent bag at 6.5 right outta the bag. Afterwards I amended it and let it sit for a month to be never pH'd again.
If you have a good enough source of compost in the soil it buffers the pH of keeps it relatively unchanged by anything added to it.
You can buy more compost and earth worm castings and mix them in before using it to help out with that cause

 

[ibitegirls]

yes, ewc is missing from my soil mix unfortunately. although, big bloom does contain earthworm castings + bat guano, so i will include that in waterings.

you know, switch from chemical to organic is not cheap. i've bought soil meter, water pump for teas, water moisture meter, pH meter, ej grow/bloom/catalyst/meta-k, citric acide for ph down, ffof and happy frog soils..

all in like two week span, and it was all funded with tax return money. thank you government!

edit: FFOF does have EWC, please disregard my first sentence above. thanks to person below for correcting that

 

[Sincerely420]

Lol bro I spent like $150 to get everything I needed at first and haven't had to buy anything since except for more soil and EWCs! This since like October!
It is a little pricey at first, but everything will come back with time!

 

[SOMEBEECH]

yes, ewc is missing from my soil mix unfortunately. although, big bloom does contain earthworm castings + bat guano, so i will include that in waterings.

you know, switch from chemical to organic is not cheap. i've bought soil meter, water pump for teas, water moisture meter, pH meter, ej grow/bloom/catalyst/meta-k, citric acide for ph down, ffof and happy frog soils..

all in like two week span, and it was all funded with tax return money. thank you government!

If you have FFOF its got EC in it.

Good choice on the Oakton,I had one for 7yrs before it went bad.


Beech

 

[Sincerely420]

If you have FFOF its got EC in it.

Good choice on the Oakton,I had one for 7yrs before it went bad.


Beech

True that! But keep in mind that you'll need some more EWCs for topdressing and for your AACTs

 

[thewizard01]

Can anyone chime in on how much pH is lowered when Big Bloom is added? My tap water is roughly 8 pH and i was wondering how many tablespoons to add to bring it down to neutral in 1 gallon of water...

Last time I checked it didnt really change mine at all. It might move down to like 8.0 but still I have no problem with that. ONCE in a while ill add a couple drops of ph down to change it up, but I guarentee i dont NEED to. Actually I think its a good thing watering FFOF with slightly alkaline water due to the fact that it will become acidic quickly.

When I first started I tried feeding with regular grow/bloom nutes and the salts just made the soil waaay to acidic causing my leaves to go yellow and shity every single time no matter what my ph was at or how often I flushed, nothing I did mattered. Now I just use big bloom all the way through untill maybe the last couple weeks when occasionally ill add a pinch of bloom nutes with it. Also what ever size pot you want to use go one gallon larger and you will never have a problem. Seriously, i was SOO fed up with soil and FFOF when the first couple takes turned my shit yellow two weeks into flower, and I could never find info on how people could keep them green in FFOF anywhere. But now, I promise you all if you do exactly what I say in my previous post they will turn out great!... and dont forget, one gallon larger pot than what you are thinking to yourself for flower! it matters

 

[HighFi]

That's wassup bro. You said you're stalling and yellowing?? Could your plants be root bound perhaps?

Well yeh that was an idea, as they are only in 2 gallon pots...and actually I thought about that right after I posted on this forum. I had some 5 gallon lowes buckets so I went ahead and carefully cut the bottom out and transplanted it to the 5 gallon bucket. So we'll see if that helps. I really didn't notice a ton of root growth like I would expect of something that is rootbound, but we'll see what happens. Could be possible light leaks too from my other plant that I'm vegging right now. I think I got that fixed so I will give it a week and see if the progress speeds up. But DAMN I'm impatient lol.

 

[Sincerely420]

That's wassup that you transplanted to bigger pots! And watch out for those light leaks bro! Might cause one of your ladies to develop some males flower!!
Having zero light enter during dark period is of UTMOST importance!!!!

 

[Sincerely420]

Not necessarily the "newest" material, but informative nevertheless