Choosing a Medium

I'm organic to the core but if I wanted to do a one-off indoor run and couldn't risk a screw up. Most importantly if I didn't care about chemical ferts (which I do and I hate),....

I would go for a simple three part system like General Hydroponics (there are better ones too), as they are simple and effective.
They consist of a Grow solution, a micro solution and a bloom solution.
You mix the three according to the plants maturity.
You could use GroDan rock wool cubes.
Start in the baby ones then set them into the big ones.
Set them out on a linoleum covered platform with a fractional tilt to it.
Give them plenty of space, say 4 to 6 plants per 1000w.
Fix a length of gutter along the downward tilted end of the platform to catch run off and return to reservoir.
Use a drip line system powered by simple aquarium pump to water. Run irrigation as a circuit.
Get decent air flow with fans, vents and extraction.
Best if your walls are white.
Suspend lights by pulley to ceiling, you will need to raise them as the plants grow.
When your seedlings are big enough to handle it, move them under lights. First day or two keep lights way high above and feed half strength.
When plants are settled, lower lights to approx 1' above tops or as close as you can without burning.
Start on 16 to 23 hours of light. When your plants are big enough (which depends on the size of room - they may treble in size in all directions), reduce light to 12 hours.
At this point you adjust nutes ratio.
When flowers first show you adjust the nutes a third time.
Always check and adjust PH of nutes mix and change it out regularly.
Pay attention to temps, airflow and humidity.
Keep the room spotless.
Watch like a hawk for mites etc.
Flush plants at least a week before harvest.
Don't be shy to prune or top.
I may have forgot something but that is indoor weed system that's tried and true.

Of course you really ought to grow outside organically.

I would avoid that three part system at all costs. Foliage pro is all you need. If you had the GH 3pary system I would toss their veg formula 2-1-6 (wtf?) and mix equal parts micro and bloom to end up with a 5-5-5 ie 1-1-1 ratio and use that all the way through

There's also no need to flush before the harvest. Since you're an organic grower to the core,I hope you don't flush, but flushing or leeching your soil won't do a damn thing since your nutes come from an organic source and you're less likely to have salt buildups whatsoever

Get a 1 part fertilizer like dynagro/foliagepro, or jack's classic 20-20-20 or the citrus feed. Just start small and as plant gets bigger you feed it more. Plus it's cheap so if it turns out you like smoking weed more than growing it your not sitting at home with $80 in bottles of nutrients you don't need.

Grow in something like pro-mix or coco as soil has it's own nutrients in it and you have to account for that with your feeds. While otherwise all you have to do is just measure 1 fertilizer and mix it with your water and feed your plant. If your plant has burnt tips, then you dial it down a couple notches, and slowly work your way up again as the plant gets bigger.

You only need flush if you are using chemical ferts.
3 part systems work well in an inert medium, if you follow the directions.
But you do have to flush.
It may not be optimum but it's efficient, easy and produces good results.


If you grow in soil indoors you may get a better grow but you make life more complicated.
If you start mixing ferts and stray too far from instructions you can get in trouble easy.
Half the trouble in these forums is from folks getting way over-complicated with feeding and supplements.
That applies to organic as well as conventional.
The thread asked about simple and easy systems. I stand by my point.

You do not need to flush whatsoever regardless if you are using chemical ferts, he'll your organics have chemicals in them if they didn't, your plant wouldn't survive. I know you mentioned simple, but 3 part products sound far from simple. Mix some of this with some of that, just use foliage pro or something with a 1-1-1 ratio, now that my friend is simple

Don't think Foliage Pro is organic but no matter.
My point was,
If you use heavy chemical fertilizers in a soil-less grow you have to flush if you don't want to taste it . Pretty sure that's a well known fact.

As for using an even simpler "1-1-1" fertilizer. It's a little too simple. Plants need more of one thing than another at different times of their development. In a soil-less medium you would probably have too much P & K in veg and too much N in bud.
Just my opinion.

pseudobotanist said:

You do not need to flush whatsoever regardless if you are using chemical ferts, he'll your organics have chemicals in them if they didn't, your plant wouldn't survive. I know you mentioned simple, but 3 part products sound far from simple. Mix some of this with some of that, just use foliage pro or something with a 1-1-1 ratio, now that my friend is simple

Click to expand...

organics have chemicals in it ???
please explain

Foliage pro isn't organic and that's my recommendation for an alternative to your simple 3 part system.

Your well known fact is the typical forum paradigm. Your organic stuff has chemicals in it, the water you use is a chemical itself.

However the flavor you refer to is due to the curing process and if you didn't know, it's essentially fermentation and you need N in order for that to happen

The reason I also said to follow a 1-1-1 ratio is because the plant is getting everything in equal amounts that's a general fertilizer ratio so it'd be hard to kill your plants with something like that and it allows a new grower to read their plants instead of using some whacked out ratio such as the ones find in bloom foods like 0-50-30 or some crap like that

It's so ironic that I'm advocating nasty Chemical grow .
I wouldn't do it in a million years, myself. I am committed to organic both philosophically and practically but the bloke asked, as a newbie, for a simple plan.
That's what I offered, based on my own experience. I grew a lot of top shelf weed and made a lot of money before I saw the light and moved outdoors and organic.
Frankly, doing organic under lights seems not only ethically dodgy but quite impractical for a novice .

pseudobotanist said:

Foliage pro isn't organic and that's my recommendation for an alternative to your simple 3 part system.

Your well known fact is the typical forum paradigm. Your organic stuff has chemicals in it, the water you use is a chemical itself.

However the flavor you refer to is due to the curing process and if you didn't know, it's essentially fermentation and you need N in order for that to happen

The reason I also said to follow a 1-1-1 ratio is because the plant is getting everything in equal amounts that's a general fertilizer ratio so it'd be hard to kill your plants with something like that and it allows a new grower to read their plants instead of using some whacked out ratio such as the ones find in bloom foods like 0-50-30 or some crap like that

Click to expand...

do you know the definition of organic

hells canyon genetics said:

organics have chemicals in it ???
please explain

Click to expand...

Organic ferts give a plant an unusable form of nitrogen which the microbes in your soil breakdown and convert over into an inorganic form (usable)

Organics are slow release fertilizers while synthetic ferts are readily available for your plants.

Read this
http://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/organic-superiority.pdf

And this
http://www.greenhouse.cornell.edu/crops/factsheets/nitrogen_form.pdf

hells canyon genetics said:

do you know the definition of organic

Click to expand...

Organic means carbon based, do you know what chemical means?

Look at organic chemistry

Not trying to start anything but you are missing the point that I suggested growing in rock wool.

Chill out ,
This is a misunderstanding.
On your part.

I'm not missing the point just having a discussion and trying to broaden yours on what you think is all

pseudobotanist said:

Organic ferts give a plant an unusable form of nitrogen which the microbes in your soil breakdown and convert over into an inorganic form (usable)

Organics are slow release fertilizers while synthetic ferts are readily available for your plants.

Read this
http://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/organic-superiority.pdf

And this
http://www.greenhouse.cornell.edu/crops/factsheets/nitrogen_form.pdf

Click to expand...

I dont bottle feed I used all raw materials and RO water

and ive been in the wsu green houses and done 17 years of contract work on campus and they are trying to get rid of chemical ferts because all of the local agriculture the winter wheat is polluting their aquifer they have crazy regs on campus about no pollutants in the soil

I'm pretty sure you can have a build up of organic fertilizers as well if you give it enough time. Though it's much less likely to happen than synthetic ferts. My point is one isn't better than the other. If it fits your way of growing then kudos to you