Switching to organic

The earthbox does look good, I was going to do something similar based on a soil hempy bucket I’ve used for non organic soil grows. I simply used the 3gallon buckets with a hole 2” from the bottom, used clay pebbles in the bottom and soil on top. They consistently yielded more than my air pots with less maintenance.
 
I went with the easiest mix,peat,compost and perlite. To ea cuft 2 cups kelp 1 cup fertilizer like tomato tone (its what I had) then 4 cups rock dust. Mix moisten and let sit. So easy.

Sips are the bomb,so easy. I dont do anything else no teas no anything just add water and some topdress and your set.

Cannabis growers tend to over think things, keep it simple.
 
There are lots of different practices/cultures within the organics "realm".
What they all have in common is what you clearly already know: you want microbial-fungal activity interacting with the plant.

So you want a good soil with energy, minerals, biology and micros. Here's a good read, although these guys also use some salts:

Mineralized Soil - Foliar Sprays

The Four Bases of Mineralized Soil--The Optimum Food Supply for People and Animals Should Be Grown On Mineralized Soil. This Type Of Soil Isn’t to be Found—It I
foliarsprays.com foliarsprays.com

To keep it simple, i believe that an amended soil with a few top dressings (maybe even not needed) could be the simpler way to go if you want to try organics.
Having a bottle of fish and/or kelp based fertilizer is always a good tool for your box. Quality EWC is also something you must have.

You can remix the soil batch after every harvest, adding some EWC and some ferts, like it's done in ROLS.
You can do no-till.
You can go with KNF or JADAM practices, where homemade liquid inputs are used, from fertilizers to bio-stimulants.
 
JustBlazin said:
Easiest way is to buy bagged soil eg fox farm ocean forest/happy frog, Gaia green living soil(canada).
That's how I first did organics. Then just top dress with more of your soil when needed.
The bags are kind of expensive so I just bought a 2kg jug of Gaia green all purpose 4-4-4 and a 2kg jug of Gaia green power bloom 2-8-4 and some pro mix....Easy Peasy
Just mix that stuff up at the recommended rates for container gardens and let it sit moist for at least 2 weeks preferably a month. I've used it right away(no cooking) in like 2-4 gallon containers with no I'll affect, it did stink when I would go in my tent for like a week though, its better to let it cook for a bit first.
You also need to top dress in flower when using containers. Unless your in a giant container you might not have too.

I liked this method so much I bought the bigger bag of all purpose 10kg and never went back to bottled nutes. I just use Neptune fish and seaweed a couple times a grow if I use it at all.
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this was similar to my thought. Just buy some ocean forest and use dry organic fertilizer pre mix and go from there.

Some plant strains aren't heavy feeders and are easy to grow others need more food. Start with easy ones. I would also recommend running the same strain over and over as you tweak your mix and feeding to see the difference. You are not really able to see the effects of change if you switch plants as you learn. I grew green crack autos several times in a row. I took notes regarding plant health and corrected the next grow. For example, the first round I saw the leaves were turning yellow due to lack of N around day 45 and the plants ended up finishing 5 days early. My next grow I fed them more N around day 30 and again at day 45 (on top of my normal schedule) the results were no yellowing of bottom leaves and they pushed through till 63 days. 60 days was the listed length.
 
xtsho said:
There's a plethora of non-complicated information available. Don't isolate yourself to just cannabis organics which like everything else cannabis related is usually over complicated by many. There is a ton of non-cannabis specific organic gardening information available online.

Good luck
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Good point there, I actually went into a normal garden centre on my way home and organic additives are available without the hydro shop prices. Grabbed some liquid seaweed, mycorrhiza and microbes to to try out.
 
For anyone in the uk, this might be common knowledge but I stumbled across Ecothrive. They sell an organic living soil and some amendments and claim you don’t need any organic fertiliser although you can still use them if you need.
www.ecothrive.co.uk

Ecothrive: Experts in Living Soil and Organic Growing

The best living soil and coco coir in the UK by Ecothrive. Enhance your organic grow with amendments, Grassroots pots, Blumat irrigation, and soil tests.
www.ecothrive.co.uk www.ecothrive.co.uk
 
Speedtriplebbc said:
For anyone in the uk, this might be common knowledge but I stumbled across Ecothrive. They sell an organic living soil and some amendments and claim you don’t need any organic fertiliser although you can still use them if you need.
www.ecothrive.co.uk

Ecothrive: Experts in Living Soil and Organic Growing

The best living soil and coco coir in the UK by Ecothrive. Enhance your organic grow with amendments, Grassroots pots, Blumat irrigation, and soil tests.
www.ecothrive.co.uk www.ecothrive.co.uk
Click to expand...
Yes, i am on my first grow and am using the Ecothrive & Indoor Organics Eco-life
 
thc2022 said:
Yes, i am on my first grow and am using the Ecothrive & Indoor Organics Eco-life
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I’ll be interested in how it goes as I can’t find much information from anyone who has used it? I’m still holding back on living soil as I’ve had so many issues to deal with this year I’ll stick with what I know until I can focus on my grow. It sounds easy one minute then I read something else that makes me think I’ll do a little more research and watch a few grow diaries first.
 
This is my first grow organically, and here’s what my shop recommended. Happy frog soil, mixed with the appropriate amount of perlite, and happy frog fruit and flower, then top dress once a month with the appropriate amount of fruit and flower. I also top dressed with worm castings once. I’m very new to this, but this has worked pretty well.
 
turbobuzz said:
This is my first grow organically, and here’s what my shop recommended. Happy frog soil, mixed with the appropriate amount of perlite, and happy frog fruit and flower, then top dress once a month with the appropriate amount of fruit and flower. I also top dressed with worm castings once. I’m very new to this, but this has worked pretty well.
Click to expand...

Nothing sounds bad.
If I have it correct microbes, microorganisms, are living in the soil so they consume materials and in return are a part of the soil food web in which plants get their needed nutrients from with a little help.

One of the interesting Organic Soil topics is the "Soil Food Web."

Here is one source. It's USDA so I hope it's a good link for a new person to read.

Organic Matter Fuels the Food Web In general
 
turbobuzz said:
This is my first grow organically, and here’s what my shop recommended. Happy frog soil, mixed with the appropriate amount of perlite, and happy frog fruit and flower, then top dress once a month with the appropriate amount of fruit and flower. I also top dressed with worm castings once. I’m very new to this, but this has worked pretty well.
Click to expand...
Use some mulch.
 
Friendly_Grower said:
Nothing sounds bad.
If I have it correct microbes, microorganisms, are living in the soil so they consume materials and in return are a part of the soil food web in which plants get their needed nutrients from with a little help.

One of the interesting Organic Soil topics is the "Soil Food Web."

Here is one source. It's USDA so I hope it's a good link for a new person to read.

Organic Matter Fuels the Food Web In general
Click to expand...
Teaming with microbes by Jeff Lowenfels, explains living organic soil very well.

The microbes in the soil, eat organic matter, their waste is what the plants consume.
 
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