Dr Earth Amendment top dressing... now soil top surface feels very hard and compacted

Will this be a problem? I’m in flower and have one more top dress to do, worried that there might be an oxygenation problem but plants healthy so far and i dont want to try to disturb the surface and stress and herm the plant. What do you guys think? In a smart pot.

what i did was compost tea with molasses and top dressed about 3 times so far

Personaly I would soak pot in a deep bucket of water, being careful to not let the soil start floating above the top of the pot, allow it to soak for a day and see how the hardened layer go.s, it should soften up and your good to scrape the top layer around to see if it’s sofftenend enough. But someone else may have another idea

you're not gonna hermi a plant by disturbing the topsoil. go ahead and scratch up that dried top crust if you want, you can even poke deep holes in the soil with a stick if you want.

Dont let your top soil dry in between watering it will help
Next top dress mix the first inch off the top soil with your topdress and water good !

Humic acid works great at loosening up the soil & keeping it fluffier. Also yucca extract will help by allowing the water to really penetrate through that top layer to help soften it up. So I would recommend watering with yucca & Humic at the same time for a double effect.

ekillah said:

Will this be a problem? I’m in flower and have one more top dress to do, worried that there might be an oxygenation problem but plants healthy so far and i dont want to try to disturb the surface and stress and herm the plant. What do you guys think? In a smart pot.

what i did was compost tea with molasses and top dressed about 3 times so far

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Thats why you mulch the top layer,keeps it moist and alive.Cover the dirt man.

ekillah said:

Will this be a problem? I’m in flower and have one more top dress to do, worried that there might be an oxygenation problem but plants healthy so far and i dont want to try to disturb the surface and stress and herm the plant. What do you guys think? In a smart pot.

what i did was compost tea with molasses and top dressed about 3 times so far

Click to expand...

Check the pH with " Dr. Earth ", might be alkaline ?

ekillah said:

Will this be a problem? I’m in flower and have one more top dress to do, worried that there might be an oxygenation problem but plants healthy so far and i dont want to try to disturb the surface and stress and herm the plant. What do you guys think? In a smart pot.

what i did was compost tea with molasses and top dressed about 3 times so far

Click to expand...

I just breakup the top crust with a chopstick.. Soils gotta breath..

Keep the topsoil moist. Use mulch. Yucca extract helps too if soil becomes hydrophobic.

PadawanWarrior said:

Keep the topsoil moist. Use mulch. Yucca extract helps too if soil becomes hydrophobic.

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Newspaper makes an excellent mulch, no color pages. Earthworms can exist in it.

Weedvin said:

Newspaper makes an excellent mulch, no color pages. Earthworms can exist in it.

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They also eat it. I'm in 15 gal pots and am using rice hulls now. Some of my pots have a mixture of pumice and rice hulls as a mulch and that works good too. I'm debating which is better. I thought about straw too, but I think it might be harder to move when I topdress without making a mess. I can just push the hulls and stuff to the other side of the pot and topdress, then move it to the other side and topdress the other side.

I agree though that newspaper is a good mulch and worm bedding, I just don't know how it'd work with my system.