The trick is to learn Patience. It's a plant. You have schedules & a life, I know. We all do. But your plants don't. They only have soil, and Sunlight, and you to water them when the rain doesn't. And the rain rarely floods them. So the Perlite & Vermiculite only work when we let them stay in the soil, and that means slowing down and watering the girls at the plant's speed, and not ours. The good thing is, my issue was (is?) just with slowing the frigg down, and accepting that I have to go at the plant's speed. It's easier with multiple plants, but this year, I have only one growing, and it's outdoors in a ladybug-filled PVC "mini-house" covered in insect-netting, so it's awesome, but a bit of a hassle watering it in gradual, slow phases. Needless to say, I'm having a dense-packed issue myself (as all my Perlite & Vermiculite washed away from my impatient ass), and was going to post about it here in these forums, LOL. So thanks for posting; hope this helps!
Sorry for such a late reply haha but I was just thinking about that so you are saying I am pouring the water to fast and it’s just going straight through it??? What do I do when they say to make it have run off sometimes I just wanna feed plants a lite feed do I always have to make sure it runs off??? Like cause I was thinking if I do lite feeds it will dry up faster correct??? Instead of doing two big feedings would it be better to drop it down to little feedings more often??Here's a valuable tip that very few people mention: Don't drown your plants.
Because this isn't often mentioned in forums, I never knew that tight soil was an issue not with the Foxfarm I was using (which is pretty awesome right out of the bag, BTW), but was the result of how I was watering my plants-- which is something I never considered & certainly didn't include in my postings asking for help on the forums. But eventually, after years of looking at my Perlite & Vermiculite floating atop an inch or 2 of water, I figured it out:
The dryness & thickness of the soil make absorption slow & difficult, which in turn makes the water pool-up a couple inches deep, in the pot & above the soil. This in turn will eventually flood the soil lower & lower, & the more watery the top of the soil, the higher the light & puffy Perlite & Vermiculite will float up, which of course makes the soil far below become less aerated & more dense. This densely packed, less-aerated soil-- along with your roots properly drying out (to avoid mold)-- adds dryness & denseness to the soil, making absorption difficult, pooling-up the water which pulls-up more Perlite to float atop another 2 inches of water, and... You get the idea.
So, for whatever it's worth... Moving forward, Be sure to let your plants gradually absorb the water you feed them. If you have several growing, this can be quite easy: Just water them all much less, and gradually, and bounce down the cycle of them all much faster, then repeat that for several cycles, so that the first plant you began watering has had enough time to absorb the smallish amount of water you already gave it. The upper & maybe middle soil will be moist anyways, for sure, if not full-blown wet, so the second watering-- and maybe a final third-- will go much faster, easier, smoother, and with less pooling.
Okay so that’s my problem honestly is I just have like a little spout pourer thing I use to pour water out and it’s like 1.66 liters of water and I’ll pour a whole one of them on my 5 gallon buckets of soil and I just pour it within maybe 30 seconds and go to next one and do same thing. Is that my problem?
Hey I’m a newbie still haha still learning as I go. Still can’t manage to get a bigger plant I don’t know what I’m doing wrong man. Last two plants I harvested maybe 3-6 oz each plant if that like what the fuck am I doing wrong haha
lets talk man. I'm learning organic farming and i was told worms and synthetics don't mix. please tell me about you experience?
Brother Sweetleaf, I'm interested in hearing your opinion concerning worms surviving fertilizer and stuff. My medium is soil, cocca coire, perlite, vermiculate and worm casings. I feed with Mega Crop nutrients.
I recommend no matter what soil you purchase always buy a bag of soil amendment (perlite, pebble, vermiculite, volcanic rock E.C.T) and run it at a 70% soil / 30% amendment. I'm learning and experiencing the same thing myself as I just purchased some premade super soil that was really nice until I stored it outside in the cold and now it's hard and turns to mud whenever I water it. I've ordered some vermiculite and I will post pics and results soon with all my transplants. I hope you get to solving your issues and get back to loving the process!
