How do I proceed?

Well, here I am about 3 weeks into round 2 (I love the great indoors!!!) I have 22 plants under floros for the time being, and have mixed the soil, and prepared the containers for their permanent homes.



Soil: The round pots have a soil mix by our local nursery. They assure me that there are no added nutes. I have mixed 2 cups of BioTone starter plus per 5 gal container.

Espoma Natural Gardening Solutions

The square pots have a "soilless" mix of pro-mix, humus, cow compost, perlite and BioTone. Again, no added nutes.



I have Earthsafe Organics Bat guano (10-3-1) I HAD a bottle of Fish emulsion (5-0-0) until about 5 min ago, now it's all over the floor! (FUCK!!!), so I'll get more. I have Epsom Salts, of course Molasses, bone and blood meal. I will have worm castings soon.

SO..........Where do I go from here? Do I need to feed them at transplant? If so, what, how, and how much? I understand the MG thing. Mix this much and feed on schedule. This organic thing is uncharted water for me. I'm sure it aint as complicated as I am making it, I'm just not sure how to proceed from here.
Thanx in advance.

TLP

If it where me:

Go to the store trade the Epsom salt for DOLOMITE LIME, the gods have spoken, I just relay the message. While you are at it get a big bag of EWC (earth worm castings) and some five gallon buckets for making compost tea (I use about 3-4 for mixing and aging water for the next batch).

Now go to the hydro store or a pet store and get the biggest air pump you can afford (not over 50$, for now till you really "get-into" making tea), about 10 feet vinyl tubing to fit (usually 1/8 inch inside diameter), air stones, and connectors so you can have three air stones in the bottom of a five gallon bucket.

I don't have the time or space so search compost tea on this forum and google it, learn about compost tea and the microorganisms of your soil.

this is what I mixed in an almost full 5 gallon bucket 36 hours ago (next batch may be different, yet similar):

1/4 cup fish emulsion
1 cup EWC
2 tablespoons brown sugar (I need to go to the store for Molasses)
1/4 cup kelp meal
1/4 cup bone meal
1 tbsp dolomite lime


But it does not matter for a while. I'd just transplant with almost plane water (almost: 1/4 EWC, 1 tbls kelp, 1 teaspoon molasses per 4 gallons, just so it's not too pure) no need for a tea till the second or third watering.

Peace out.

Nice set-up, now you need a pretty good air pump and trade in the Epsom salts for DOLOMITE LIME (big loud deep voice off in the distance).

EDIT: www.microbeorganics.com cool and quirky site, great links, this is organic.
EDIT (again): this may not look simple but believe me having a bubbling tea maker making your next perfect batch of ultimate fertilizer is the way to go (it really is the ultimate way to go, get some latex gloves too, can be messy)

TheLastPirate..... Your babies look healthy and their new home looks comfortable. Take a look at the thread Making Tea is EZ on page two of this forum. It will give you allot of info about feeding.
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Do you have a source of mcyo fungi ? Like SPT, Myco Magic or Sub-Culture ?
If not, I recommend you get some, as they are quite helpful. I have a thread called Myco Fungi..why you should get to know them, and Uses of SPT, located in this forum also. Give them a read.
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Hope this helps...
Keep it Real....Organic....
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Ohsogreen said:

TheLastPirate..... Your babies look healthy and their new home looks comfortable. Take a look at the thread Making Tea is EZ on page two of this forum. It will give you allot of info about feeding.
.
Do you have a source of mcyo fungi ? Like SPT, Myco Magic or Sub-Culture ?
If not, I recommend you get some, as they are quite helpful. I have a thread called Myco Fungi..why you should get to know them, and Uses of SPT, located in this forum also. Give them a read.
.
Hope this helps...
Keep it Real....Organic....
.

Click to expand...

Organik,
Thanx for that link to microbe organics. I'm chewing on it now. Thats a good informative read. EWC right now ain't an option. Either the prices are wrong at the nursery, or I just AINT gonna spend THAT kind of money. They want almost $15 for less than a qt. and when the directions suggest I use a 2 to 1 mix I'd need over 100 qts right off the bat (or worm, as the case may be)!!! I can't find them anywhere else locally as yet. I DO have a vermi-composting container set up, but thats for the next grow. And why would you change out Epsom Salts for dolomite? I get that dolomite is a pH buffer (almost any porous mineral calcium source is), but I didn't use the epsom to buffer pH. I got it for the Mg. (just in case) I got ahold of a couple of 30 liter Nalgene storage tanks (photographic lab) to store water, and to mix my "teas". I have an air pump with airstones, but also there is a recirc pump in each tank (pics coming soon in the grow journal)

Whats up Ohso?
That Bio Tone (4-3-3) was purchased specifically because it contained mycorrhizae. Check out the Espoma link, and let me know what YOU think of it, if you would. I had read about them (mycorrhizae), and lo and behold...there they were in the BioTone bag!! It was a couple of days later that I found the product "Myco-Stim". (Oh well) The Espoma name is real big around the organic veggies crowd here.
The buckets are ready to go, there are no nutes other than the 4-3-3 of the BioTone mixed into the soil.
I get the idea of making and serving "teas", but should I apply some Guano topically when I transplant? I have some superthrive left over from last time so I'll use that as well, but I want to minimize the stress of moving them. Surely a good dose of bat shit will take their minds off of the transplant
Also, how often should I feed? And do I add up the numbers to get the correct ones? Right now, there is BioTone in there (4-3-3), so if I add the fish emulsion (5-0-0) as well, would that give me a 9-3-3? How important is it to "mix up" the source of nutes? Say, blood meal one time, guano another, or is it better to make a "witches brew" of several smelly substances?
I'm starting to re-think this whole organic thing. Y'all MUST have green houses or something. Theres some SMELLY ASSED SHIT involved here. Go figure! I just this morning finished cleaning up a quart of Alaska Fish emulsion that fell and broke open all over the floor yesterday (What a fuckin' mess) The ONLY reason the wife hasn't run me out is because then she'd have to smell this shit by herself! We (and everyone else) are gonna be smelling concentrated dead fish for a while. Hell, the fucking cops might just be able to gain entry by claiming they smell a corpse!!! The upside is that you can't smell dope growing!! Thats what I told the wife anyway.
Do you all REALLY use these things inside your home? Miracle Gro, for all it's downsides, at least doesn't REEK. I surely hope that the organic way is noticeably the better way. It will have to be significantly better to justify this stench. Note to self: Get a bigger air exchange fan. LOTS bigger!!

I wouldn't fert for a while, you already have nutes in the soil. After you trransplant just see how the plants react. You will need dolomite lime, it is critical to a succesful grow. I premix it into the soil at a rate of 1 large tablespoon per gallon of mix. I would remix everything with the dolomite lime.
I have burned my plants with the fish emulsion, be careful with that stuff it is very acidic with a pH of 4.5.

GanjaBaby, ya think that's enough nutes in there? Each bucket has 2 cups (more or less) of the BioTone (4-3-3) mixed well into the soil. The soil has no nutes. I guess I'm still trying to "over-engineer" things. That was the main thing that killed off most of my first grow. My normal mindset is that "if one is good, then 2 is better", so I tend to kill off plants with kindness. I really gotta watch that here.

I really don't know if there's not enough or too much nutes, like I said transplant and see how they react, don't get ahead of yourself! But before you tranplant mix the dolomite lime in the soil. I wouldn't have used the bio-tone, you have no way of controlling the amount of nutes the plants get.

gangjababy said:

I really don't know if there's not enough or too much nutes, like I said transplant and see how they react, don't get ahead of yourself! But before you tranplant mix the dolomite lime in the soil. I wouldn't have used the bio-tone, you have no way of controlling the amount of nutes the plants get.

Click to expand...

Thats about par for me. The downside to this "hobby" is that you can't ask anyone's opinion except online anonymously. Anyone who can get a "hands on" education is extremely fortunate. So I take what I read, and try to apply it blind. I'm trying to work up the will and energy to transplant right now, but that's gonna involve setting up the lights again. I gotta figure out a better way to hang my lights to make it easier to raise or lower them.
I guess I'll get this down eventually. I keep reminding myself that it's the journey, NOT the destination, that's important.
Should I go get some dolomite before I transplant? I'm gonna do this for sure this afternoon.

Oh, BTW, There aint a whole lot of danger of me using the fish emulsion anytime soon. There are alot of other N sources, and I just got talked out of (OK,...I was told not to) buying anymore fishy shit. (The wife said NO!!) Fish emulsion is now on that list of things I am no longer allowed to play with. It's right up there with "no sharp objects"!!

Yes get the dolomite lime before transplanting. Remix all of your soil with 1 large tablespoon of dolomite lime per gallon of mix, do this before transplanting.

I'm off to see the lizard. I needed some other shit anyway. 1 tbsp per gal? Got it! Thanx Ganja!! I'll post pics of them transplanted this PM.