FoxFarm Ocean Forest Soil draining too fast!

Hello, I just switched to FoxFarms ocean forest soil mix and i noticed that the water is draining through the soil to the bottom after just a cup of water, in a 5 gallon pot.

The soil i had previously used to take atleast 2 gallons before i saw drainage..

Am I suppse to add something to the soil or is this normal? (perlite, vermiculite, etc)


it just seems like the water goes straight through, and therefore does not get a good supply of water since i would have to stop at about 3 cups to avoid overflowing...

Mix in some promix or c1p that will hold some water

over the years FFOF has started to go down hill they are putting a lot of filler(bark,sticks) to fill bags nowa days so now when i get my FF i just go through the bag and check make sure its only the good stuff i take all that crap out and adding some perlite helps besides thats the only thing i do to my FF add perlite and remove bark
but it does also matter if your temps and humity are going crazy cause it the room is too dry it will just dry your soil out way to fast and could cause what is happening to you now but to be sure i would have to know more INFO hopefully i helped

I always mix other soil with my FFOF... such as jungle growth or MG Organic... usually like 60% FFOF. Has done really well for me.

ya i am getting away from ocean forest as well for that reason....drains way way to fast.....its to bad very good soil but mixing it with pro mix or something sounds smart!!

I wouldn't add anything to it. It's good out of the bag in my opinion. Adding any perlite may cause the soil to drain even faster than it is right now. How do you have the dirt in your pot? Packed somewhat tightly or is it pretty loose, because it seems FFOF can be packed pretty well but still drain all the way through.

My bet is the plant hasnt fully rooted. If it fully rooted, it holds more water. You said 5 gallon, so the plant is what, 3-5 ft and bushy? PICS!

On top of that you might be overwatering, do you lift the pot to make sure you need to water, if its somewhat wet and the plant hasnt fully rooted, of course the water goes right through!

Try this next time. Give the plant a little water and let it sit for 20 minutes or so, then go back and give it the rest of the water. I think you'll find the soil holds water a lot better. I've been using FFOF for about 5 years now and it seems to contract more as it dries. However, if you give the water slowly over time I think you'll find it holds as much or more than other soils. On days I water, I usually water several times over a period of a couple of hours.

TechnoMage said:

Try this next time. Give the plant a little water and let it sit for 20 minutes or so, then go back and give it the rest of the water. I think you'll find the soil holds water a lot better. I've been using FFOF for about 5 years now and it seems to contract more as it dries. However, if you give the water slowly over time I think you'll find it holds as much or more than other soils. On days I water, I usually water several times over a period of a couple of hours.

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i do this myself when my soil gets too dry. i find that the drier the soil is the quicker the water runs through it. it's not that the soil drank the water, the water literally just went through it. doing just what you said always works for me. give enough water to let it sit in its own runoff for a good 10-20 minutes. when the plant sucks up the runoff, it will now be ready to "hold" any more water you give it. i have my pots in basic nursery saucers, so i'm not talking about letting the plants sit in gallons of water. i don't think its a ff thing so much as a soil moisture thing, because i have this issue with any soil if it's too dry. maybe the op's soil was stored in the trunk for a couple of hot days?

I noticed it sucks at holding water too, put of few drops of dish soap with your water and it will make your soil "wetter". Promix is a better bang for your buck over ffof. Food in oc only last for like 2 weeks...

Pain in the ass cause it has to be watered like every other day, promix is like every 5th day.

I had the same situation with draining too fast. My solution was before transplanting into my 5 gal bucket I would run water into it for 5-10 minutes, making sure the soil from top to bottom got soaked. Then I waited a couple of days to transplant. I found that after the initial soak the soil would hold alot of the water I used for feeding. Hope this helps.

sideways06 said:

I had the same situation with draining too fast. My solution was before transplanting into my 5 gal bucket I would run water into it for 5-10 minutes, making sure the soil from top to bottom got soaked. Then I waited a couple of days to transplant. I found that after the initial soak the soil would hold alot of the water I used for feeding. Hope this helps.

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^^^^^^THAT^^^^^^

Sounds like he never got it wet in the first place.

Dry peat will actually repel water and needs to be wetted and let sit for a day or 2 and FFOF is a peat based mix.

What picks up/holds more water, a dry mop or a damp one?

Wet

sideways06 said:

I had the same situation with draining too fast. My solution was before transplanting into my 5 gal bucket I would run water into it for 5-10 minutes, making sure the soil from top to bottom got soaked. Then I waited a couple of days to transplant. I found that after the initial soak the soil would hold alot of the water I used for feeding. Hope this helps.

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Yeah, very nice. I noticed this after I already made my transplant. I didnt really form it into an idea until now lol

the water runs rite threw my ffof soil

max316420 said:

I noticed it sucks at holding water too, put of few drops of dish soap with your water and it will make your soil "wetter". Promix is a better bang for your buck over ffof. Food in oc only last for like 2 weeks...

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DO NOT put dish soap in your water. (i aint saying that it cant be done , but DONT) and promix is a "soiless mix" and it is a lot cheaper , but its not dirt so it depends on what you feed with to determine if promix is for you.

FFOF holds water very well and always has. Just like some of the other guys said, your gonna have to run a gallon or 2 of water through the pot , wait a half hour or so an do it again , and maybe one more time and after that it will retain plenty of water.

obviously your plants are growing very well to be suckin a 5 gallon pot bone dry , so just water a day or 2 earlier then normal and it wont get bone dry.

bone dry is still a lot better then too moist , so your fine.



soil

CR500ROOST said:

the water runs rite threw my ffof soil

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Again thats not a bad thing at all , that just means your soil is too dry, which is way better then too wet, so either let it sit in its own run off for a half hour or so , or run a lot of water through the pot and repeat in a half hour till it starts retaining water again.




soil

fox farm is still an amazing product and i will continue to be a customer for a long time, plants simply explode when i put them in ocean forest, i cant argue against results, if it drains fast as hell and the plants are growing faster then bamboo then that tells me that fast draining is a good thing, i just half to water it more, no big deal for me.......but that might be a different story for others i guess

you can get them lil white rocks that look like crack n mix 30% of it i think its called perlite idk i never used that before i got all ffof.

PeacefulKid1992 said:

you can get them lil white rocks that look like crack n mix 30% of it i think its called perlite idk i never used that before i got all ffof.

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that will just cause it to drain faster, which is a good thing for some, but obviously not for this man.



soil