What's going on with my GG#4

503budman

Member
Fox farms is great. Ignore their schedule for feed. Ignore any companies feed schedule. They are all horrible schedules and will get you in trouble. I thought everyone knew that. May I ask which company you use?
I use jack's bloom booster and Botanicare cal-mag and silica blast. Just recently bought a generic brand (Kroger) epsom salt.
 

503budman

Member
Top dressing with ocean forest isn’t going to fix that deficiency. Transplanting into several more gallons of it will help though. You want to use liquid fert or top dress with something like roots organic dry fert or epsoma dry fert mixed into some ocean forest or scratched into the existing soil. Just adding top dress of ocean forest isn’t now going to be enough to catch up to the deficiency...even with healthy plants just adding ocean forest as top dressing often isn’t going to do the job unless you have very small plant in a deep pot with lots of room for a thick layer of top dress. What are you checking ph with? I highly doubt you are getting a true reading with the run off.
Using the vivosun ph meter and TDS EC meter.
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getogrow

Well-Known Member
coco doesn't buffer nor does peat unless amended those are considered mediums not soils. true live soil uses microbes to feed the roots so soil ph becomes only relevant as to not kill the microbes or create a soil where they have a hard time living
Coco and peat are buffers.....thats why they have to ammend peat , because it has too low of a ph for us. Coco does not need anything and the ph is going to stay in range unless you poison the medium or something. coco is 6-7 ish, soil is whatever the microbes want it, and peat is 4.5-6 ish. without ammending.
 

getogrow

Well-Known Member
fox farms and the like promote this hybrid soil/hydro methodology that confuses the shit out of 99% of new growers. If you grow with soil, you shouldn't need hydroponic nutrients. As someone else mentioned. top dressing with more of the soil is ALL you need.

the fact that they sell you overpriced soil, and then sell you bottled nutrients, and then say oh but you don't need fertilizers cause the soil is good for the first few weeks, then give you a feed chart that says to feed 10 different things in week 1.

It's borderline a scam. But if you insist on using Fox farms products the soil is all you need. Start with 3 gallons of soil in a 5 gallon pot with the sides folded down and then top dress a few handfuls each time you water.

New growers: choose soil or hydro. one or the other. they don't mix well.
if you follow the directions to a tee then its a full scam. If you use it as YOU want to then its not so bad. I flower in fresh FFOF everytime. they dont need anything for the first 3 weeks....after that i feed with salt. I cannot beat the taste of true organics but i can beat the taste of hydro everytime.
 
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