First Repotting. Disaster or Success?

Okay based on a bunch of advice and reading I decided to repot my plants into better soil. Before I was only using basic Miracle Grow organic, but I found it didn't drain well. I believe I made okay soil but I probably killed the plants in the process.

I mixed the following:

1 big bag (29L) of Miracle Grow Organic Soil
1 bag (9L) Perlite
2c. Blood Meal
2c. Bone Meal
2c. Dolimite Lime

Smelled really awful, too. I wasn't very exact with my measurements, either. I mixed it all up in a garbage can. I put larger rocks along the bottoms of the pots this time.

The repotting went pretty poorly. The pots are fairly large (I wasn't planning on repotting at this stage) I tried to "tap" them out but the soil was so clumpy and hard that it all just kind of fell out. 2/5 plants came out with a nice clump of soil around the roots. The other 3 were not so fortunate. A couple root balls completely disintegrated in my hands and I was left holding this sad plant and these weak, feeble-looking roots dangling. There seemed to be about 1/2 as much root as there was plant, and I've heard it's supposed to be about the same?

I did my best to get the exposed roots back into soil as quickly as possible. I added about 1c. water to each. They are standing on their own and are back under the light, which is off until 6am.

How screwed am I? Scale of 1 to 10?

Dont give up hope. This is my first grow and had to change soil early on and ripped half the roots off. I didnt think any would survive. Today I have seven of the 8 going strong (but theres still time for me to f*ck things up..lol).

6, they will be okay!

In the future, when you transplant you always soak the soil down with water, that way the soil stays together, once you have done that, get a good friend or brother, sister, wife to hold the stalk while you turn the pot upside down, the plant & soil will then fall out.

Some keep the soil that the roots are in & & put everything in a bigger pot. Some use a water hose & spray alot of the old soil out the root system. I keep the old soil so the plant isnt shocked by being transplanted into totaly new soil.

Hope this helps!

Two days later, and I'm happy to report that 4/5 of my plants have new green leaves coming in. The soil is STILL REALLY WET, but it's only been like 36 hours so I'm going to wait to water for another day.

I don't think my roots were moldy, but most of the roots I saw (oops!) were hair thin...so that can't be good.

next time try to mix some more perlite into the soil for better drainage

Ah man I knew I should have mixed more in. It was about 25% by my best estimates, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Man this is hard. I have another bag. Add some on top?

u called your plant kevin

I hate the feeling you are having! But luckily these are weeds and want to grow no matter what. But you may find you have issues later with bugs and such if they aren't healthy now. I'm a newbie, and as such I wanted to rely on others people's expertise, so I have been using as much premixed soil and nutrients as possible (Ocean Forest and predoone nutes versus home-mix soil and compost teas).
Just a thought, keep us posted.

SHLIMPY said:

u called your plant kevin

Click to expand...

I had just watched the Blu-Ray of Up (fuckin' blazed) and I was really happy with him, so I called him Kevin.

I suppose I should have thought of GIRL names....

what lights are u using ? seems like the babies are stretching just a bit.... if you got FLUORO setup, bring them bad boys down closer to the plants...