4th week of flower organic top dress recommendations???

rkmcdon said:

I don't want to stray too far in someone elses thread, but i'm curious. Did you guys move away from ewc when you fell in love with the chicken manure or are you using both? Do either of you use insect frass? I'm using a mix heavy on ewc with a fair amount of frass

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No, I use vermicompost all the time which is basically EWC. I also use insect frass. Tonight I'm feeding a couple vegging plants a mixture. I actually forgot what all I put in it now, but I remember adding a little insect frass and some chicken manure along with the Craft Blend from B.A.S. I'm not gonna add EWC tonight, they're just gonna get a dry top dress.

rkmcdon said:

Thank you! I should've thought of that, but would have overlooked entirely!


That's definitely my goal, but its my first time trying to wean completely off bottled nutes (though i've only been using cal mag and age old bloom/grow, they are a pretty big crutch) so i have no idea how close i am to achieving that. My plan right now is water, compost tea every 2 weeks and one top dress day 29 of flower as a safety net. If that goes ok, i may try to drop the top dress with the next crop
Are you doing any tea's? In a perfect world I would like to be able to mix my soil and water without top dresses or tea's, but that may be getting the cart a little before the horse

Richard, I've heard you talking about a diy spike where you just push a finger in the soil and fill it with your mix. Do you consider this adequate to replace a top dress(it sounds easier)?

One other question regarding the top dress mix i mentioned above. I considered rock dust, crustacean meal and oyster shell, but thought they were probably to slow for an addition in the last 5 weeks. Thoughts?

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As stated in my post above I use Jobes AP spikes...2 in each final bloom pot.. they feed for 8 weeks....and yes it is easier but the thing is you need to push them in weeks before they are actually needed. Like say a week or two before flip to flowering. I don’t do teas much anymore but that’s only because I add fresh worm castings from my own worm bin to the mix directly which does much the same thing.
Starting up a worm bin is a baller move btw, the ewc you get in a bag are from worms fed mostly shredded paper. Homemade ewc from composted fruit/veggie scraps & dry cannabis leaf is supernaturally active and packed with nutrients. Got mad love for ewc and insect frass and chicken shit but everything you add in takes time to break down and become available to the plants.
The more you add to your mix the better; diversity is important. Add lots of inputs in small quantities but add it into the soil at least a month before there are plants in it. That’s how to get to water only. Amending with minerals, npk inputs, and compost to your base soil and then keep recycling like this after each run.
You’ll probably need at least a form of soluble cal/mag for awhile until other sources become available. Keep adding composted eggshell, crushed oyster shell, D-lime and garden gypsum at each recycle and in time you can toss the cal/mag. Until your mix is amended and recycled a few times you might even need to continue to give soluble forms of npk for some time. I keep a bottle of liquid fish in stand by just in case they get pale in mid bloom or late veg cycle but it is also common for plants that are feeding naturally to begin to yellow after week 7 or so. At least the fans anyway; the bud and sugar leaves will stay green all the way to harvest.

I topdress my indoor girls at 2 and 4 weeks of flower with fresh a 3/4” layer of fresh ewc. Then at 6 weeks I take a gallon of water and mix in a cup of fresh ewc. I then use this to water my girls. They love it.

Addition of kelp / kelp meal can help potassium hungry plants in bloom too .