How to make you own Nutrients!!!

Ok...this is a thread about making your own hydroponic nutrient mixes...from household product that can be picked up at the local garden and home improvement store. I'll start off by saying this is a bloom mix and the recipe is for 1 gallon of nutrients at full strength 750 ppm...plus whatever your water adds to the ppm. I use tap water because that is the point to say money. One thing up front this is not a commercial mix and I'm not saying it is. If you want to save so money and grow plants on a budget then you can give this a try. But use at your own risk. OK now that we got that out of the way. You'll need some products and tools...these products and tools.



Spectracide Stump Remover - Lowe's or Home Depot
Greenlight Super Bloom - Lowe's or Home Depot
Epsom Epsom Salt - Walmart or Cvs
Wyeth Caltrate - Walmart or Cvs

Note I didn't have a source for molybdenum I use tap water and there is enough in the tap around here if you need it then they sale it in vitamin form in most health stores.

Ok you'll need a scale that is pretty accurate...I like to mix up a larger volume of solution so the amounts are more manageable. A ph pen or test drops...a spoon.

1 gallon

3 grams Stump Remover
.5 grams Super Bloom
1 gram Epsom Salt
2 grams Caltrate
Mix in this order...

One thing I do is I use lemon juice to disolve the Caltrate...it takes a few minutes to break down. If your water is hard you can use 1 gram of caltrate.

If anyone has more questions reply to the post. I'll try and answer them the best I can.

Many people do this so they can accurately measure the dosage.

how much is the cost for all of this?????????

6 bucks for the stump remover...9 bucks for the super bloom...4 bucks for the Epsom salts...6 bucks for the Caltrate. And lemon juice a dollar. 26 bucks....if you look around you can get it cheaper.

That seems pricey.. What are the benefits over something like Jack’s Classic 10-30-20 Blossom Booster
which costs $8.99 for 1.5lbs or $17.25 for 4lbs?

I'm not knocking your recipe, just wondering why not just order a professional hydro nute..

tommy

tommyo3000 said:

That seems pricey.. What are the benefits over something like Jack’s Classic 10-30-20 Blossom Booster

which costs $8.99 for 1.5lbs or $17.25 for 4lbs?

I'm not knocking your recipe, just wondering why not just order a professional hydro nute..

tommy

Click to expand...

Really as long as it is water soluble and gets its N-P-K values from chemicals the plant can uptake without the aid of bacteria in the soil, it will work.

For those of you wondering the Stump remover is Potassium nitrate (Commonly used in many fertilizers and black powder) and can be bought more cheaply on ebay in bulk amounts. Ammonium nitrate is another of the nitrates but has much more nitrogen than potassium nitrate. Both of these chemicals can be potentially explosive when richly mixed with a fuel source and exposed to an open flame, so it is best to keep large amounts of it away from anything else until you are ready to mix them.

N - P - K
Ammonium nitrate - 33.5 - 0 - 0
Potassium nitrate - 13 - 0 - 44
Diammonium phosphate - 18 - 46 - 0

Using these three chemicals you can mix a very good fertilizer.

The epsom salts are Magnesium sulfate which is a readily available source of Magnesium, and the Caltrate pills are Calcium carbonate with some Vitamin D. Egg shells or any other cheaper off-brand source of calcium carbonate can be used instead...just be sure to dissolve it with an acid first so the plants can actually use it.

Mixing your own fertilizer is a lot cheaper than buying pre-made ferts, you also have more control over what your plants get.

Thanks for posting this lc +rep.

Thanks Cantero...and jacks is good stuff...so is scotts and many other brands be sure to use something that is urea free...I use the caltrate because it has some minors in it too...I had this stuff around the house so I made a blend...and if you buy in bulk you will save a lot of money plus you can tune your mix the way you like...just thought someone would find this interesting plus there are many people that ask if they can make one with what they have at home...thanks for all the replies and rep.

in the amounts we buy theres nothing to worry about but some of those are on the homeland security watch list. Oklahoma City and a uhaul and all makes them nervous... So yea fertilizer is explosive under the right conditions.