Soil help ...need a good soil plan for my first grow

Hello:

I am just finishing my 8 x 12 x 6 foot tall room. I am going to be starting off 15 plants soon and need to come up with a plan of attack for my firstgrow. I dont want to spend an arm and a leg for foxfarm soil which I am reading is the only soil good for growing. I know there must be some good dirt left on this planet that will work good. I will be adding perlite at least to my soil for aeration. I am getting some clones and will be starting some from seeds also to have 15 altogether as per the law in my state. I have my 1000 watt hortilux ready to fire up and my room all painted flat white.

How big should my containers be? I plan on vegging quite a while to get nice big plants with healthy roots to make big healthy colas.

I have home depo walmart lowes plus hydro shops and many garden centers here so what soil should I get and how much will I need for 15 pots?

Thanks everyone for the help. Rollitup rulezz and here is a big spliff rip for the first person to post help.....

Grasshopper

Hello:

I am just finishing my 8 x 12 x 6 foot tall room. I am going to be starting off 15 plants soon and need to come up with a plan of attack for my firstgrow. I dont want to spend an arm and a leg for foxfarm soil which I am reading is the only soil good for growing. I know there must be some good dirt left on this planet that will work good. I will be adding perlite at least to my soil for aeration. I am getting some clones and will be starting some from seeds also to have 15 altogether as per the law in my state. I have my 1000 watt hortilux ready to fire up and my room all painted flat white.

How big should my containers be? I plan on vegging quite a while to get nice big plants with healthy roots to make big healthy colas.

I have home depo walmart lowes plus hydro shops and many garden centers here so what soil should I get and how much will I need for 15 pots?

Thanks everyone for the help. Rollitup rulezz and here is a big spliff rip for the first person to post help.....

Grasshopper

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As an outdoors grower I can't answer your question about container size for an indoor grow but there are plenty of excellent fortified potting soils out there for less than half the cost of Fox Farms. Kellogg Patio Plus Potting Soil and Gardner & Bloome Potting Soil, both organic, come to mind and are available at many big box and farm supply stores. For a hydro store, figure twice what anything will cost elsewhere.

As to calculating how much grow medium you'll need, most soils are sold by the cubic foot and there's .134 cubic foot to a gallon. Multiply that number times your container size for total cubic feet.

i.e. 15 five gallon containers would be 75 gallons times .134 = 10.4 cubic feet of soil.

Google LC's Soiless Mix #1 or perhaps someone can cut and paste it here.

Or, subcool's super soil in the other (sub's), organic forum.

Wet

you should inoculate your plants with Mychorrhizal fungi. When a plant teams up with the fungi, hyphal strand go out further into the soil than the root can, multiplying the available surface area of the roots by ten to hundreds of times.
Anyways it really speeds up growth, but you cant use it with chemical fertilizers as they'll kill all your fungi leaving you back at square one.



The yellow tube is a root, the white hairs are the fungi. the plant give the fungi carbon in exchange for phosphorous and nitrogen forming a symbiotic relationship

Great shot of a rhizosphere. 10,000X?

I wish we'd get more posters who understand or want to understand living soil. Maybe it would educate those posters pitching their favorite chemical labels in an organic forum.

yeah man, its just a massive con by the companies selling all these poisons. once you have it your hooked, because your plants can no longer survive without more and more chemicals.

I was reading in an organic mag, and they were like look at the rainforest, such a collosal, huge weight of biomass, on soil that has never had fertilisers, and it turns out nature has its own way of providing plants with nutrients, just takes a little understanding thats all.

Ah i was thinking this site really needs a super thread started, just explaining how soil works, cos i reckon a lot of people have literally no clue. Like i saw some people who were attempting to grow organic in soiless, or those who make compost teas anaerobically. which is pretty self defeating.

spokadok said:

yeah man, its just a massive con by the companies selling all these poisons. once you have it your hooked, because your plants can no longer survive without more and more chemicals.

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A majority of posters on weed forums are looking for the easiest, quickest method of not paying retail for cannabis. From what I know about costs of primo organic street weed and what chemical followers spend on advertised miracle products and expending their time to grow mediocre weed, they'd be way ahead of the game by just buying what they want.

I was reading in an organic mag, and they were like look at the rainforest, such a collosal, huge weight of biomass, on soil that has never had fertilisers, and it turns out nature has its own way of providing plants with nutrients, just takes a little understanding thats all.

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I thought I was an organic grower but realized how little I knew about what I was doing until I read and reread Teaming With Microbes. I knew what organic materials would accomplish and the importance of keeping chemicals out of my soils meant but understanding what actually goes on in the soil was a revelation.

Ah i was thinking this site really needs a super thread started, just explaining how soil works, cos i reckon a lot of people have literally no clue. Like i saw some people who were attempting to grow organic in soiless, or those who make compost teas anaerobically. which is pretty self defeating.

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I honestly don't think the audience is currently here for anything that requires anything but supposed instant gratification from heavily marketed miracle products. Half my posts in this (organic) forum are made to point out users of chemical nutrient supplements who rationalize their efforts. I've been told to fuck off by punk mouthed posters who worship chemicals and hydro techniques because they 'work'.

Good luck.

madodah said:

I honestly don't think the audience is currently here for anything that requires anything but supposed instant gratification from heavily marketed miracle products. Half my posts in this (organic) forum are made to point out users of chemical nutrient supplements who rationalize their efforts. I've been told to fuck off by punk mouthed posters who worship chemicals and hydro techniques because they 'work'.

Good luck.

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Those 2 words, "instant gratification", says it all.

Too many think it is nothing more than sticking a seed in dirt, adding whatever 'rocket fuel' whose ad copy appealed to them, then expect cured bud in 2 weeks ... from seed.

Wet

For good soil, it is too tightly packed to allow the roots to grow and spread out. And main thing is compacted soil will choke a plant and stunt the growth. Remove your plant, add some perlite or moss or other additive to the soil mix, then after transplant plant. It should perk up and begin growing in a day or two.

i use 70% coco tek 30% perilite in my mix then i put plants in 3 gallon pot add i scoop of soil and one scoop of earthworm castings seems to work for me im no expert put works for me