PH Balancing Water for Outdoor Plants

I'm a first time grower, and like most other first timers, I've made a few mistakes along the way. Yesterday I discovered what I believe to be my biggest mistake so far. I'm really embarrassed to admit this but I have to find out how much harm I've done to my outdoor plants in pots, so here we go. As soon as I purify water with my water filter, I PH balance it. That's all well and good, but like a dummy, when i added nurients to the PH balanced water, I didn't have the common sense to realize that because of the nutrients I added, my water was no longer PH balanced. After I realized my stupid mistake, I tested the water and found out the PH was somewhere between 4.0 and 5.0, far to acidic for my plants. Of course I immediately PH balanced all the water I had nutrients in, but the damage had already been done. My sativa plants are now in the sixth week of 10 weeks of flowering, and the thing is, when I look at the plants, they appear to be healthy and thriving to me. Can anyone tell what the negative effects could be on my plants before and after they are harvested. For example, could I get a smaller yield, not as good a taste, or worst of all, a lower quality high?

Damage, probably none. There are many of us here that don't ph anything.

If you take your straight base water and add your nutes to that, and dont adjust anything, where does the ph end up?

If I do as you say, I'll get a ph somewhere between the high ph base water and the low ph nutrients, but I don't know if it's near the desired ph of 6.5 I want. Well, at least the ph would be a hell of a lot better than mine was, because I used purified water. Even if the ph doesn't matter, which I believe is you're point, there are a lot of bad things in tap water that aren't that good for the plants. Thats why I use a water filter. I would think, since you're surely a more knowledgeable and experienced grower than me, you also use a water filter. Am I right?

" Put the PH pen down and step away from the grow" ! lol Your over thinking outdoor growing.

Never PH'd any thing. 3 successful outdoor grows. I use rain water that I collect and Fox Farm trio and FF bloom enhancers. The main problems with outdoors in my exp. have been pests (mice, chipmunks, slugs).

I too am a first time grower, but some observations I have made might help you. The plants started their lives in small containers. As I was eager, I probably jumped the gun and put them in larger containers too soon. There were 6 plants at this time, I had four of those 5 gallon smart pots. So 4 of the ladies went into 5 gallon containers. I also had (what I estimated) to be a 3 gallon and a 2 gallon container laying around, the other two plants went into them. Well, long story short, out of the 4 that went into 5 gallon pots, three had problems. One of them never really took off, it was significantly smaller than the others. Two others developed an iron deficiency, which is due to the pH not being correct. One of them was much more minor and an application of coffee grounds (my pH was too high) lowered the pH enough for this one to start doing much better. The other one with an iron deficiency was much more fucked. In fact I considered just letting it die, repeated applications of coffee and other stuff was just basically putting a band-aide gun shot. Of course, there was the other one that remained super healthy and thrived in the 5 gallon pot. The two plants that were in smaller containers never showed any signs of stress and were super healthy. In the second week of July all of the girls went into the ground. Large holes were dug and filled with a soil mix that was identical to the soil mix that was used in all 6 containers. The runt plant started taking off, but too much time passed, it is still significantly smaller, but growing fine now. The one with the major iron deficiency has really been a pleasant surprise. All plants were topped early for two or four main colas, sadly the iron deficiency in this one latterly killed half the plant, but the other half has started to grow and looks great now, nice and tall and somewhat bushy. The one with a minor iron problem has taken off and is looking great. The great looking plant that was in the 5 gallon is the best looking of all, tall, bushy, nice, thick. The two plants that were in the smaller containers have a tragic end, sort of. The plant that was in the two gallon container lost a week or two of growth being in the small pot so long. But now that it is in soil, it is the second best looking plant. The plant in the 3 gallon pot was my favorite, growth had also slowed on her, but not as bad. However, the very next day after putting it in the dirt my dad ran over her with the law mower. I guess they were camo'd pretty well. It isn't a total loss, there was some leaves at the bottom and 4 or 5 new tops are growing, but this happened around July 17, and two months of growth were lost, 2 zips will be a blessing from her now, as opposed to potentially half a lb or more. Long story short, in my (very limited) experience, I have noticed that all things being equal (the soil was the same, mixed up a big batch of it and have been using it and only it at all stages, watering and feeding them the same stuff at the same times) the cannabis plant is much more resilient to all things when grown in the ground and not in a container. Just my $.02

If i would be in your scenario. I would have used pH perfect technology to avoid pH issues. One such organic nutrient i heard of which is offering pH perfect technology + Coco coir growing medium is pH perfect sensi coco grow and bloom. Have you heard about this plant nutrient or did you ever use a pH perfect technology?

Starwalker said:

If I do as you say, I'll get a ph somewhere between the high ph base water and the low ph nutrients, but I don't know if it's near the desired ph of 6.5 I want. Well, at least the ph would be a hell of a lot better than mine was, because I used purified water. Even if the ph doesn't matter, which I believe is you're point, there are a lot of bad things in tap water that aren't that good for the plants. Thats why I use a water filter. I would think, since you're surely a more knowledgeable and experienced grower than me, you also use a water filter. Am I right?

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I'm not much more experienced. I'm on my second grow. I don't do anything to my water, but I'm on a well so I don't have to worry about chlorine or chloramine. I tested my water by growing some plants. They grew fine, so I didn't change anything.

I'm not saying PH doesn't matter. It's good to be in the correct range and know that your plants aren't getting something that's all out of wack. I'm just trying establish where your baseline is, and saying that soil is pretty forgiving. A good soil will self adjust or "buffer" the ph to some extent. I use 1tbsp of garden lime per gallon of soil in my starting mix to help with that buffering. Don't worry about the ph of your starting water. Since you have a ph meter, make sure it's calibrated and acurate, let your tap water sit for 24 hours, filter it if you feel you need to, mix your nutes, let that sit for a few and measure the ph of your final mix. I bet it's closer to what you need than you realize.

Basically I'm saying you don't need to worry about, or adjust anything except the final mix you're about to pour on your plants.

On days when you give only water, you can check the ph of the water and adjust from there if its out of wack, but personally I don't think it needs to be perfect.

That said, personally I would probably make sure my water and final mix were "pretty close" and not crazy out of wack, put the ph pen away, and let the soil and plants do the rest.

If I was growing hydro it would be a different story, there I would keep a close eye on ph.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: you said your plants were healthy and thriving. That's good. That mean you're doing something right. Trust your plants, they'll show you if they're unhappy. A healthy and thriving plant is more important than the numbers on your PH pen.

Thanks to everyone for your concern and helpful advice.

BigB 420, I use Fox Farm soil for my indoor plants and Master Nursery Garden Gold for my outdoor grow in pots. I know that they are both great soils full of good things for my plants.

Makcounter, I know nothing about ph perfect technology or Coco coir, but I appreciate the information, and I will google on the net later today to learn about both of them.


BigNBushy, I would love to grow my outdoor plants in the ground, but unfortunately because of where I'm living, I'm not able to do so. It's much safer for me to grow my outdoor plants in pots to avoid detection.

I realize now that in trying toget everything exactly right, I'm definitely overthinking in my attempt at perfection. Yes, I have been striving for perfection, but I've made a few really stupid mistakes in my first grow attempt, and have fallen way short of that mark. But as I become more experienced and knowledgeable, things are only going to get better. Thanks again, guys. Have a good one.

I'm growing in FFOF with perlite and a little dolimite lime (not the total recommended amount, I didn't have enough on hand so I distributed what I had). I use tap water that has a whole house carbon filter, i still let my water sit for about 24hrs. I never ph anything and so far things have been good. All my plants are starting to flower right now. I use the FF liquid trio but in very small amounts. I mostly have used the Big Bloom at 2tbls per gal max, only used Grow Big a handful of times at 1 to 1 1/2tsps per gal. Will start using Tiger Bloom soon at very small amounts. Some plants are in ground and some are in pots with one in a Smartpot. I'm by no means an experienced grower but from all the research and reading that I've done it seems most people say you don't have to worry much about ph outdoors in soil considering you use a decent soil and your water isn't too far out of whack. Maybe if I did monitor and adjust ph I'd have better plants, who knows? But so far I'm more than happy with the way my garden is looking. Just letting you know my experience, not trying to say what is right or wrong. Good luck. I'm a classic over thinker but I've finally come to terms with it concerning my garden and I'm now much happier and don't stress near as much as I used to.