I am making a plea for all newbies

Ok I have been here for some time and have learned so much. First and foremost I would like to thank all who have given me advice.

From what I have learned there are so many questions a newbie ask when first growing. Most questions are easily answered (lights, Nutrients, Ph)

But the one question that I feel needs to be answered, and is not in any FAQ is about soil.

Now I know everyone is quick to say just get some Foxform, if not then Promix.

But I tell you many newbies including myself, just don't have it available to us.

The only solution is what is available at Walmart, Lowes, Homedepot, Kmart), and we all know what they sell - Miracle-gro.

The biggest problem I see is that first time growers always burn seedlings and young plants with this soil.

I had to figure out the hard way that with Miracle-Gro, the plants needs to be well established in another soil before being transplanted. Then it can handle the soil. And yes always start Miracle-Gro fertilers at 1/4-1/2 strength.

I have followed this recipe and it works great for me.

Also at the same time I see that a lot of people push organics. Now don't get me wrong, I agree with the whole organic system of growing, but once again, organic products are not available to me.

So here is my plea

Please help us out there that only have walmart, lowes, Homedepot at our disposal.

Please help us that don't have the money for the foxfarm soil and nutrients.

I know there is a simple soil solution for starting seeds, where the only supplies you need are at those stores.

And then a soil solution for transplanting after the seedlings have grown enough.

And a bonus would be a very inexpensive organic soil and fertilizer solution.

I am pleading for the newbie, myself, and everyone else who has no choice but to get supplies from Walmart, Kmart, Lowes, & Homedepot.

I hope many many experienced growers respond to this thread

from the grow FAQ's
I'm a beginner and need a simple and easy soilless mix.

I'm a beginner and need a simple and easy soilless mix.



From your local Hydro store get some Promix, vermiculite and Perlite.
Mix in the portions of 50% promix, 35% perlite and 15% vermiculite. This mix is nice and loose and will promote great and fast root growth. All though it doesn't retain water that well it is good for beginners because it will help safeguard against over watering. Plus if a beginner runs into problems with PH or over fertilization the properties of this soil make it quick and easy to remedy.


Added on: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 Viewed: 5243 times

First off you have to remember that weed is a WEED!
That means it can grow basically anywhere
Any soil medium would do, but it's best to start with a simple combination of 1/3 peat moss (humus) 1/3 perlite and 1/3 top soil. This mixture allows for your roots to breathe and to uptake available nutrient
Don't get lost in the process of considering soil.
You can transplant to a more nutrient filled medium in the future.
just remember the basic plant needs: light, air, and water. You can never have enough light! air circulation is important for stem growth, but just don't make the newbie mistake of overwatering your crops. it's worse than underwatering. hope this helps a little. btw cannabis sativa can reach heights of 15 feet without fertilizer, so if you don't got.. u don't got

There are a lot of questions that can be answered without the use of RIU.

You may not have access to some things but every town in the civilized world has a nursery/ garden center. So just go in there and ask people what kind of soil you will need. Of course you don't have to tell them you are growing pot but use some common sense.

Look at all the bad ass growers on here, you think they got all their questions answered from a website? No, they used trial and error and common sense to get as good as they are!

1) Read A LOT!
2) Practice, practice, practice!
3) Use local resources to help you out!

I usually try to help people out and I don't mind all the noob questions like some people but in all honesty THE BEST advice that anyone can give you is Figure it out for yourself, learn by trial and error, and practice makes perfect.

I could go out and tell you to buy Scott's Moisture Control but I have no control over how you are going to use it, what your environment is like, what light, etc. So step up to the plate and kick some ass and if you screw up, so what! Just start over again and keep growing!

I'll help you out since everyone else here isn't. especially MR BOLD TEXT who didn't bother reading "Please help us out there that only have walmart, lowes, Homedepot at our disposal. Please help us that don't have the money for the foxfarm soil and nutrients."

First, go to those stores, and look at your soils for a guaranteed analysis. find THE WEAKEST stuff you can find, and make sure there is very little wood in the mixture. You will start with this and a little bit of sand, so buy a bag of that as well. First, you will take a gallon of this poor soil, and you will flush it with TEN gallons of just slightly acidic water, to drain it out. Now, you will mix in a quart of sand to start, and add more if you think it's necessary but don't go over 2 quarts of sand per gallon of soil. Once that is done, take a gallon of water, dissolve two tablespoons of water of epsom salts (you can find this at walgreens or any grocery store pharmacy section.) You now have a fairly deficient starter mix that will provide lots of silica and magnesium per watering with a slightly acidic water, which is a good thing for starting plants, they are made strong by silica and the magnesium is a key component in making chlorophyll in starting plants. The rest is provided to the plant by the cotyledon (false leaves) that appears before the first set of leaves. That's the yolk for the plant.

Next, go find your super-hot miracle gro soils. You'll use a quart of that per gallon of deficient soil/sand/epsom mix. This will be the feeding transplant medium. For the first two weeks or so just watering this plant will be perfect, no fertilizers required.

Then, go get your happy powder and liquid fertilizers. I want you to pay attention to the guaranteed analysis on the packaging, and I want you to look for the urea/ammonia/nitrate nitrogen contents. If you can find one that is more nitrate than urea/ammonia, GET THAT. Growing plants have easier times growing with nitrate fertilizers than ammonia and urea, because they have to wait for bacteria to convert the ammonia and urea into a usable nitrate form. Think of nitrates as 'fast food' for growing greenery.

From there, follow the guides you see around here - start at 1/4 strength fertilizer in pH adjusted water for when you start using fertilizer. If it handles it well for a week, give it a teensy bump up in strength and wait another week. You'll get the proper ratios down for your particular stuff within a couple of grows, but you should be safe starting out with this kind of deficiency and working up in this scale.

the text was copied from the grow FAQ's all these items can be purchased separately at home centers or garden stores nubie doesn't mean helpless or stupid , they need info and thats what i offered up

im a newbie can i use road base gravel as a medium.

I went through the same trial myself. Went looking for soil in lowes, walmart, home depot. 1st time - MG Moisture Control, horrible results. I had read a lot, but in the end, probably my fault.
2nd time(about 32 days in) MG Organic. It's at walmart though a bit expensive, at lowes for about $4.50 for a cubic foot. Cubic foot will fill out 2 two gallon pots easy, with plenty left over. Soil got %10 perlite, tbsp of MG bone meal per gallon soil, tbsp dolomite per gallon soil.
Difference is literally night and day. Plant is almost tearing my grow chamber in 2 from its size. Just my experience.

growone

Go to lowes and pick up a bag or bail of PEAT MOSS(walmart has to now too) buy a bag of perlite, a bag of vermiculite, a bag of black kow or mushroom compost or just compost and some dolemite lime. Those are really all you need. Actaully all you need is peat moss and perlite then feed with nutes. You can also find Bone meal and blood meal at lowes and home depote, you can mix those in as well and they will help feed your plants with a nice organic medium almost as good as what you can buy from FOX Farm.

Home Depot sells SuperSoil brand (half the price of even the cheap MG). My friend used it with great results, though he was giving nutes within a month. The soil itself seems to be flaky and did not compact (this is what you want) so the root structure was great! The soil itself was not very hot, so be ready to supplement throughout your grow.

I am using Greenall Potting Soil (cheap and available where I am at) mixed with some vermiculite here and it seems to be fine. It packs a little tight for my liking, even with the verm but it is very affordable. I am inside of 30 days since germing, no need for nutes yet.

Here read through here and you will get some ideas
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=53792

klmmicro said:

Home Depot sells SuperSoil brand (half the price of even the cheap MG). My friend used it with great results, though he was giving nutes within a month. The soil itself seems to be flaky and did not compact (this is what you want) so the root structure was great! The soil itself was not very hot, so be ready to supplement throughout your grow.

I am using Greenall Potting Soil (cheap and available where I am at) mixed with some vermiculite here and it seems to be fine. It packs a little tight for my liking, even with the verm but it is very affordable. I am inside of 30 days since germing, no need for nutes yet.

Click to expand...

Hey if its packed a little tight you should try adding perlite instead of vermiculite.

Weeds can grow anywhere really. You throw 30 seeds in your backyard and I bet you will have to mow the lawn next week. I never get technical with this shit lol

The compost i use is from ASDA which i am led to believe is the same store as walmart, but the uk version so to speak, its called ASDA professional compost and i aint had any probs with it. So i dunno if you would get the same stuff at walmart? I use it from seedling right through to cropping, but i would think any cheap compost would suffice as long as it dont have any slow release nutes in it. I mix it 50-50 with perlite.

Plain Potting Soil, Peat Moss & Perlite Mix to a light fluffy consistency. Raise PH with lime if needed. And place mothballs on top of soil around plant to help with smell when plants git bigger and to keep critters at bay.

A newbs biggest mistake is to over complicate the whole process.

get some hypernex soil from walmart, its fert free and organic. add a bag of peralite to it.

mygirls said:

im a newbie can i use road base gravel as a medium.

Click to expand...

nice one mate.

CRIS.

or you can just be smart like I know you are and get an address that isnt yours...get a visa gift card and order online...guess what buddy your living in the 21st century and your have www available to you...to me...that seems like a easier way to go vs figurering out certain amounts of this and that to come up with a balanced food for your girls...

neno said:

or you can just be smart like I know you are and get an address that isnt yours...get a visa gift card and order online...guess what buddy your living in the 21st century and your have www available to you...to me...that seems like a easier way to go vs figurering out certain amounts of this and that to come up with a balanced food for your girls...

Click to expand...

Any and all electronic purchases are traceable. They only way to insure that your purchasers are anonymous is to pay in cash. And even that is traceable to some extent in stores that have cameras. As far as using an address that is not yours thats only going to work if the seller doesn't require insurance on the package that is being shipped. And then you still have to worry about the paper trail left when you made the online purchase. But then again purchasing growing equipment isn't a crime.

Anonymity is an illusion that we convene our selfs of when we want to feel safe and secure in reality it doesn't exist.

caracal said:

Any and all electronic purchases are traceable. They only way to insure that your purchasers are anonymous is to pay in cash. And even that is traceable to some extent in stores that have cameras. As far as using an address that is not yours thats only going to work if the seller doesn't require insurance on the package that is being shipped. And then you still have to worry about the paper trail left when you made the online purchase. But then again purchasing growing equipment isn't a crime.

Anonymity is an illusion that we convene our selfs of when we want to feel safe and secure in reality it doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

sounds like paranoia to me .
fuck that i just go to my local asda/wallmart and buy big bags of soil/perlite/pots/ph testers/soil meters/trimming scisscors/some nutes/thermostats and any other shit i need and buy it without any hesitation.
its always paid for by credit card and as for online ordering for fans/ducting/nutes/lights and specialist grow equiptment the most established distributors are completely safe as they are not in the business of losing custom by giving out customers details to 3rd parties and paying by card is the best way to go.
if you are paranoid about buying the growing gear then its not really a good idea to grow weed.
either take the bull by the horns or lay of the weed.
LUDACRIS.