To the Widow,
Soilless means "does not include topsoil like what is outdoors." All potting soil is soilless. Dr. Shiny's recovery only proves that the plants needed fertilizer, which according to the first post, wasn't being done even though Shiny made mention of the plants being in organic mix. The term potting soil doesn't mean that it is soil. It would be more accurate to call the bagged products "potting soilless," but in the mind of the consumer this wouldn't make sense. When we see the word "less" we tend to think less than good, so the term potting soil was born. According to Widow's definition, I'm wrong because only potting soil contains fertilizer, but when you Google the term soilless growing medium, you get a return of potting soils that have fertilizer, like this:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=soilless+growing+medium
So something is wrong, either Widow is or Google. The truth is that both are partially right. The term potting soil really doesn't mean anything. It's just a term that people can relate to. All potting soils are soilless because as they may or may not have fertilizer or bacteria, it's not TOPSOIL, the stuff you find outdoors. That's the difference. It's the only difference. Just because a potting soil has nutes in it doesn't mean it's a soil. It's a soilless mix with nutrients that manufacturer's like to call potting soil. The idea being this: that if you buy potting soil, you get the nutrients like what topsoil will provide for plant growth. This is distinguished from soilless as soilless has less components to it and by itself won't grow plants. You have to fert them. So in this Widow is partially right. If you took potting soil and removed all of the nutrients, what would you have? Soilless, right?
"They are two totally different styles of growing."
Gotta disagree. One just has more stuff to it.
"One you feed every second or third watering at 3/4 reccomended dose max, and one you feed every watering at up to 1000% dose for huge 6 oz plants."
Huh? The whole point to using a nutrient-filled potting soil is so you don't have to add much in ferts. Using 1000% seems like such a silly statement... I'm stunned.
