Organic for dummies?

So I've been shaking some things up lately. I'm switching from Sunshine advanced over to a bagged soil mix a friend of mine was telling me about. Is there an easy way to continue feeding organic once my plants have consumed the nutrients in the soil? I have a veg and bloom compost tea by the guano company, and I was thinking about buying a dried bag of happy frog nutrients.

What would be a decently easy way to continue to feed plants once they become demanding in full bloom? I dont really have the desire to buy 10 different ingredients and measure them out to different degrees. Thats a bit complicated for a novice like myself.

Top dressing with the dry nutrients is about the easiest and simplest way of adding nutrients there is. I haven't bothered with teas in years, just top dress with the dry componets of whatever you were going to make the tea with and done.

No experience with Happy Frog per se, but have used similar from Espoma for years. Whatever is easiest to source locally and here, that is Espoma. Mostly, I use Tomato Tone for both my Tomatos and as a bloom nute for the girls, but have several of the 'tones' for general use. All work just fine.

Wetdog said:

Top dressing with the dry nutrients is about the easiest and simplest way of adding nutrients there is. I haven't bothered with teas in years, just top dress with the dry componets of whatever you were going to make the tea with and done.

No experience with Happy Frog per se, but have used similar from Espoma for years. Whatever is easiest to source locally and here, that is Espoma. Mostly, I use Tomato Tone for both my Tomatos and as a bloom nute for the girls, but have several of the 'tones' for general use. All work just fine.

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Well teas seem appealing bbecause it's my only way of measuring ppm of food. Top dresssing makes me nervous. Did I add enough? Or too much? How long does it take for the plant to access the food.

Those types of things

papa canna said:

Well teas seem appealing bbecause it's my only way of measuring ppm of food. Top dresssing makes me nervous. Did I add enough? Or too much? How long does it take for the plant to access the food.

Those types of things

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Measuring the ppm of an organic tea or fertilizer isn't going to tell you anything unfortunately friend! It measures salts, not nutrient content.

Even the things that measure nutrient content in fertilizers can't accurately calculate the amount of nutrition that organic fertilizers add to your soil. That's why compost isn't recognized as a fertilizer by the US department of agriculture (it is by Canada and everywhere else in the world tho).

Most all purpose organic fertilizer blends have a mix of readily available and slow release fertilizers so it'll work within a few days. If you follow the instructions for application I don't think your worry of too much or too little is a concern.

Down To Earth Bio Live is my preferred choice for all purpose ferts but the tomato tone and similar brands you find in most big box garden centers will do the trick as well. I just like to avoid the poultry manure ingredients as they can be overdone and are usually made of cheaper ingredients.

I use pro mix and top dress with organicare omri composted chicken shit w calcium.
I follow the directions on the bag and it costs me less than 3 dollars per plant for its life to feed. I flower in 5 gallon bags,
to about five feet tall under 1k lights, water only added when dry. I've never had a more successful fertilizing habit

How often should one top dress. I'm pretty new to organics. I started with supersoil but it just wasn't my cup of tea. This is my first run with "coots mix" in a sips container. My seed broke the soil June 9. I just top dressed last week with a blend from BAS. Everything looks very good but all my grows do until flower.

Skylander said:

How often should one top dress. I'm pretty new to organics. I started with supersoil but it just wasn't my cup of tea. This is my first run with "coots mix" in a sips container. My seed broke the soil June 9. I just top dressed last week with a blend from BAS. Everything looks very good but all my grows do until flower.

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Depending on container size, I would say every 4 weeks, especially as your plants get larger!

Skylander said:

How often should one top dress. I'm pretty new to organics. I started with supersoil but it just wasn't my cup of tea. This is my first run with "coots mix" in a sips container. My seed broke the soil June 9. I just top dressed last week with a blend from BAS. Everything looks very good but all my grows do until flower.

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If you're top dressing with just castings or compost then every couple of weeks.

papa canna said:

So I've been shaking some things up lately. I'm switching from Sunshine advanced over to a bagged soil mix a friend of mine was telling me about. Is there an easy way to continue feeding organic once my plants have consumed the nutrients in the soil? I have a veg and bloom compost tea by the guano company, and I was thinking about buying a dried bag of happy frog nutrients.

What would be a decently easy way to continue to feed plants once they become demanding in full bloom? I dont really have the desire to buy 10 different ingredients and measure them out to different degrees. Thats a bit complicated for a novice like myself.

Click to expand...

Ive used the happy frog dry nutrients for awhile and find they work best when either recycling in a mix globally or in an AACT. You certainly don't have to buy a fuckload of amendments to keep feeding organically.
A lot of peeps think the soil gets depleted in a few weeks time when really all they needed was to add compost. Worm castings are the best thing to add to your mix and often overlooked; the fresher it is the better too. Sometimes all I add is fresh EWC with a little kelp meal as a top dressing and a jobes organic spike(or two) just before flipping to bloom which will keep em green through to harvest time. I suggest using a liquid fish fertilizer like neptunes harvest either as it is or in a tea; keeps the leaves supple, healthy, and green. You don't always have to amend the soil to grow organically. But you do need fertilizer and at least one form of compost.

Rasta Roy said:

If you're top dressing with just castings or compost then every couple of weeks.

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I top dress with bas craft blend and a thin layer of bokashi.I use 30 gallon totes in which 10 to 15 gal is used for soil.(SIPS)

Skylander said:

I top dress with bas craft blend and a thin layer of bokashi.I use 30 gallon totes in which 10 to 15 gal is used for soil.(SIPS)

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If you let me know what ingredients are in your craft blend I could do a better guess! But my assumption would be the same. Bokashi is more of a long term soil building tool, basically any Bokashi you put down during this grow, won't really help you til your next round.

Hi guys, I love this thread, we needed something like this.
I just finished a grow in two 5 gallon air pots, I top dressed once in flowering, with compost, EWC and tomato tone, Now I believe I must have the meaning of "top dressing" wrong, because about a week later when I was watering alot of water was coming from the side of pot, when I tried to dig my finger on top of soil I realized that the top dressing was caked up and not allowing the water to move through the soil.
I took a cup of each amendment mixed and placed on top of soil then placed straw on top of that. Where did I go wrong

Top dress, mulch and ground cover, the secret to good soil, is things living in the soil.
Without that, it is just dirt.

CollieWeed said:

Hi guys, I love this thread, we needed something like this.
I just finished a grow in two 5 gallon air pots, I top dressed once in flowering, with compost, EWC and tomato tone, Now I believe I must have the meaning of "top dressing" wrong, because about a week later when I was watering alot of water was coming from the side of pot, when I tried to dig my finger on top of soil I realized that the top dressing was caked up and not allowing the water to move through the soil.
I took a cup of each amendment mixed and placed on top of soil then placed straw on top of that. Where did I go wrong

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You have to mix things in with the top few inches of soil. Compost can be very water retentive, if you just cake a bunch on top of your soil it won't drain well. Next time mix it in more, if it is not draining still...mix in some perlite.

Rasta Roy said:

You have to mix things in with the top few inches of soil. Compost can be very water retentive, if you just cake a bunch on top of your soil it won't drain well. Next time mix it in more, if it is not draining still...mix in some perlite.

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Lol! Organic for dummies is right! I thought if I disturbed the top layer of soil, I would be destroying my Microbes.
Thanks, @Rasta Roy for the clarity, so, I can safely say that for me growing Organic in 5 gallon pots doesn't make sense, I could barely put my hands in the pots. Thanks,

CollieWeed said:

Lol! Organic for dummies is right! I thought if I disturbed the top layer of soil, I would be destroying my Microbes.
Thanks, @Rasta Roy for the clarity, so, I can safely say that for me growing Organic in 5 gallon pots doesn't make sense, I could barely put my hands in the pots. Thanks,

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You would have more fun with a ten gallon pot or bigger!

Rasta Roy said:

If you let me know what ingredients are in your craft blend I could do a better guess! But my assumption would be the same. Bokashi is more of a long term soil building tool, basically any Bokashi you put down during this grow, won't really help you til your next round.

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Here are the ingredients listed from the site. I also put bokashi in when I mixed the dirt about 5 ago.
Ingredients all Equal by Weight:

1. Thorvin Premium Kelp Meal
2. Ahimsa Neem/Karanja Cake
3. Alfalfa Meal
4. CalPhos
5. Camelina Meal
6. Crustacean Meal
7. Fish Meal
8. 3x Fish Bone Meal
9. Soybean Meal
10. Sul-Po-Mag (Also Known as K-Mag or Langbeinite)
11. Malted Barley Grains (3 Varieties)
12. Azomite
13. Basalt - Local Colorado
14. Gypsum
15. Oyster Flour

Adding up all of the Approximate NPK values published for these products from the manufacturer and then dividing by the amount of parts we end up with a very nice NPK guesstimate of 4-4-2. Once we get the blend tested we will publish actual results.

Skylander said:

Here are the ingredients listed from the site. I also put bokashi in when I mixed the dirt about 5 ago.
Ingredients all Equal by Weight:

1. Thorvin Premium Kelp Meal
2. Ahimsa Neem/Karanja Cake
3. Alfalfa Meal
4. CalPhos
5. Camelina Meal
6. Crustacean Meal
7. Fish Meal
8. 3x Fish Bone Meal
9. Soybean Meal
10. Sul-Po-Mag (Also Known as K-Mag or Langbeinite)
11. Malted Barley Grains (3 Varieties)
12. Azomite
13. Basalt - Local Colorado
14. Gypsum
15. Oyster Flour

Adding up all of the Approximate NPK values published for these products from the manufacturer and then dividing by the amount of parts we end up with a very nice NPK guesstimate of 4-4-2. Once we get the blend tested we will publish actual results.

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That's a solid all purpose mix for sure, with lots of quality ingredients. I would happily mix a soil up with something like that. In a proper sized container or bed, that should take your plant all the way to the end.

If it's not, I would up your container size. If you do need to top dress, I would do it the week of or before you switch to flower, and that's it. The excessive application of oyster shell flour can make your soil go too alkaline.

Richard Drysift said:

Ive used the happy frog dry nutrients for awhile and find they work best when either recycling in a mix globally or in an AACT. You certainly don't have to buy a fuckload of amendments to keep feeding organically.
A lot of peeps think the soil gets depleted in a few weeks time when really all they needed was to add compost. Worm castings are the best thing to add to your mix and often overlooked; the fresher it is the better too. Sometimes all I add is fresh EWC with a little kelp meal as a top dressing and a jobes organic spike(or two) just before flipping to bloom which will keep em green through to harvest time. I suggest using a liquid fish fertilizer like neptunes harvest either as it is or in a tea; keeps the leaves supple, healthy, and green. You don't always have to amend the soil to grow organically. But you do need fertilizer and at least one form of compost.

Click to expand...

I read so much about compost. But I have no idea where to get any. Do I go to BFE and get some manure?

Only if they can assure you the cows were not fed on feed made where Roundup is used for weed control.
The shit is still poisonous to plants even after passing through a cow.