I picked up the General Organics ca/mg+ (1/2 tsp/gal. or <100ppm) and added it RO water... the GO ca/mg+ brought the pH down to 5.1 (I was using Bontanicare ca/mag+ up until I bought the GO yesterday and the Botanicare only brought the pH down to 6.8 @<100ppm)... I am waiting to water until I'm clear on how to proceed...
I understand that I have buffers built in to my soil mix but can they deal with a 5.1pH?
Or should I water with plain RO water?
Or should I go back to the Botanicare cal/mag+ (it's got ETDA in it but the GO may also)?
Thanks in advance for any help!
The GO is what you want... When I water, I use 1tsp per gal minimum on full sized plants nowadays with RO water, when things look like they need more I'll go up to 2tsp per gal, I have no idea what the PH was ever... I dont wanna say just believe me cuz I said so, but for once I think you should but if you feel you need PH it... go for it bro.. I wish I could convince you to leave the PH-ing shit alone, its not as import as you think and are led to believe it is in organic gardening, it is important in synthetics and hydro etc...... I cant explain it to you any better than I have, not because of anything other than I cant break it down to the level I need to in order to make you understand that its not as important as its made out to be... It is, but in reference to your solutions or watering being used with supersoil, its not.. The soil and microbes etc.. do all the work and with the help of lime and the other things bring it to where they want it... Truly bro... I would not steer you, or anyone for that matter wrong, intentionally, ever for any reason...
I wouldnt go to the lengths I have in this thread trying to explain it to you, and searching shit and actually spending my time researching it for you in order to answer you as informative as possible, but dont think I mind doing it or anything like that but the reason a lot of other users wont answer questions sometimes is because the information is only a google search away and they feel that if you found your way here to this forum, you have weed growing halfway decent, you could find the info yourself, a lot of times thats the only way people learn, but I try to help others as others have helped me in the past at one point or another... but at a certain point you have to either do or dont in reference to PH..
I think if you seriously have doubts to anything I've said, the only way I can suggest figuring it out yourself is to put the extra work in and do a side by side with a couple of the same plants from clone... PH 1 plant, and do another without PH-ing anything at all and see what works out better, seriously... Its the only way to do it and be able to know without a doubt whats better... My meds have only gotten better since I've stopped the insanity (remember that commercial? "STOP THE INSANITY" with that almost bald, blonde bitch? LOL... I'm high already this morning.. a very nice buzz it is too...) of PH-ing and worrying about the PPM levels etc... Dont get me wrong, if it was what needed to be done, I'd be doing it... I was 150% as skeptical as you are about the PH of the water and solutions that were going into my plants, but at some point I realized its not necessary. If you are mixing up 7 different organic nutes in a bucket or something like that, you may wanna check the PH... but you are watering with only ca/mg in minimal amounts, the RO waters PH swings extremely when anything is added to it... Take a gallon of RO water in a bucket, check the PH of it and make note... Drop in 2-4 drops of any type of nute, use the ca/mg+ and see what 2 drops does to the PH... As easily as it changes when you add those couple drops of whatever... it will change the same exact way when it hits your soils buffers and as it dries the beasties do their thang and thats, that...
Whatever you do, dont go back to the botanicare ca/mg... F-dat shit, its garbage.... If you ever plan on doing a soil grow with bottled nutes or something other than general organics, use it... I was thinking about grabbing a couple bottles of botanicare in order to do my upcoming seed plants. For now I am only going to be growing plants from seed long enough to get a few clones off and then they are gonna be flowered and I dont wanna use a lot of resources to do so, so I want to keep them in smaller pots and not have to worry about supplying them with enough soil to make it all the way through... From seed plants are only a preview to whats to come from clones, I much rather work with clones.
The other thing I meant to tell you about when you asked me about the % amounts you put in your pot, dont think of it as too hot... like they're gonna get nute burned or something... the amount of SS in the pot directly corresponds with how long its going to last... If you put 25 or 50% in there... its going to be just as "hot" to the plant as far as strength, its just going to last longer the more you put in... Normally you can fill a 7 gallon pot (of subs mix) with 40-50% and go for a 50-60 day veg along with another 8 weeks of flowering with very little else...
As far as the post above that I missed by you (crab)... thank you for the b-day wishes brother.. It was yesterday actually and I got a pretty awesome gift... About a month ago I broke it off with the chick I had been with for the past year or so, I actually met her at a memorial day party... go figure.. lol.. But I was a little upset that I thought I'd be spending my B-day alone (as far as a GF or whatever...) but on thursday a mutual friend (a woman obviously) of myself and the girl I had broken up with, had came by to see me for some meds (she has MS) and we got to talking about why I broke up with the other chick... and for the same exact reasons I broke it off; were the same reasons she was only a friend in name with her basically... My ex was literally the fake-est bitch I've ever met who uses anyone and everyone she possibly can, sadly it took me a little while to realize it, a little too long IMO... I normally pride myself on seeing people for what they are but she was just really that good of a scumbag/manipulating POS who I wanted to see the good in, there was a little in her, not enough for me though....
However, it took me a year to figure out was there was absolutely nothing good about her except how "entertaining" (for lack of a better term) she was in the bedroom which is sadly all shes good for... As far as her being a manipulator or whatever, thats not the kind of person I am and definitely not the kind of person I wanna be with, I will never be with another person like that... I go out of my way to treat people the way I wanna be treated, I dont lie to people (aside from leo if and when I have to), I dont fuck people over... and the only thing I ask of people is to treat me the same way...
So anyhow me and the mutual friend got to talking and we ended up going out on thursday night which started out as taking a ride to walmart together to get some stuff in order for me to make my cannabutter on thursday afternoon... And just to let you know how it turned out... I'm presently typing as fast as I can so I can go get my ass back to her house and back in her bed and get some sleep, I had to go look at a job this morning but I could use a few more hours..... But thursday night we went out for a couple drinks after wallymart, it was one of those nights where your hanging out having a good time with someone you never thought you had that much in common to have an actual conversation for 12+ hours and not want it to stop (and before anyone else thinks it, there were no "substances" that could cause a conversation of that length about absolutely nothing, anyone whos used cocaine before will know what I'm talking about)... after close we went to her house and continued the convo until I realized it was 5:30 in the morning, still not wanting to leave or stop, but I had to go to work in 3 hours... So needless to say I just stayed up and went to work and then yesterday being my birthday, obviously I had to go out, lol... A couple friends that had gotten a baby sitter in order to go out with me, had to cancel because of whatever, and for once I was happy about that... I called up my new friend and as prior statements would lead you to believe, it ended up being a good night... actually, a VERY good night... Not that I'm looking for another full time girlfriend at this point, but it was nice to re-meet someone I had already known but my involvement with my ex prevented me from being able to hang out with her and get to know her better, which is only right. But that also caused her to be kinda reluctant to get together with me because of "girl-code" and all that dumb shit, but she knew what that other who-ore (sound it out and then say it faster, lol) put me through, none of it was right... I try to be as good of a person as I possibly can be, I am a firm believer in karma, and my ex has a whole lot of bad karma coming her way... But all in all, I had a pretty awesome birthday... I do appreciate the b-day wishes bro... And as you can see by the last paragraph I had an awesome birthday this year....
And thank you sidewing, your post wasnt up when I started this reply but I'm very glad you chimed in... My buddy crab pot here has a whole lot of growing potential but like all the others who come into the world of organics from synthetics, cant let go of that mindset that you need to PH everything... You explained it perfectly though.. The more I read this thread though, the more I wanna try a batch of your soil, I think I may do so in the near future...
Anyhow, sorry if my blubbering about my love life degraded the value of this thread, lol...
I hope everyone has a good memorial day weekend...
