Please help well intentioned grower get a toehold in the organic world! topdress and tea---

m4s73r said:

yep. 3 gallons of FFOF will veg a 5 node plant big enough on its own with just water. ONce she gets good and big and you see that first yellow leaf, you transplant her to 7-10 gallons and bloom her. Use a little big bloom and tiger bloom at the end. PROFIT.

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m4s73r said:

Teas are one of those controversial things. Some people swear by whatever concotion of worm shit and kelp meal ect in a bucket till its bubbling. When you see those guys, look into thier growing past. (Proly hydro guys or tinker guys) Now thats not to say teas dont have uses. They just have little use on a soil that full of biological activity. Now if you have a inert soil or something that been wore out by being dryed/ over used. then teas can help recondition a food soil web. Most of the time the guys feeding these teas are feeding in volume that its almost a DTW muddy hydro system. LOL. And finally the teas that are used to recondition bad soil are done so by agricultural engineers that study the shit under a microscop to see whats killing the food web of the soil. Not Fred Too Stoned growing organic weed in his basement.

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m4s73r said:

Oof dont put hot manure on your pots. thats not a good idea. worm, alpaca, and rabbit droppings are ok to use right away. but compost chicken cow and pig manure compost before use. OR even better, dont do that, grow clover and use it to feed your soil food web.

Have you read the ROLS no till Thread yet? Defiantly give that a once over. There's also a current grow journal going on over in the organics section called "pink lemonade". he goes into good detail on how to keep your soil alive. Worms, mulch, homemade leaf mould and water. I dont do any teas, no top dressings, no slurrys, no re-ammends, none of that shit. in a 4x4 no till bed i started with 1000 red wigglers and 2 lbs of European night crawlers. I got a top layer on my pot that looks, smells, and feel like a forest floor.

IMO and I stress that its just MY OPINION, all that other crap (teas, top dressings, ect) falls into one of 2 categories, Growers that don't care for their soil properly have to use that stuff to bandaid their poor soil feeding practices or (and im guilty of this) we like to tinker too much.

What you really have to do is separate things a bit. You got feeding your soil. And feeding your plant. I have been growing in the same dirt now for over 6 years. When I harvest, i have a huge crop of clover and other plants that have grown in. I chop and turn off the lights and let everything die and decompose. 2 weeks later Im dropping more plants in. I have at this point covered the cover crop with mulch from my harvested plants and they go on top of everything. once you learn to dump everything organic back into your pot and when to cycle in cover crops and get your watering right its pretty set and forget it.
Then you got feeding your plants. You can get super complicated with this if you want. Im a simple grower that is kinda lazy and kinda cheap. So I only use 2 things for plant food. Coconut water and Aloe water. I do each once a week Coconut on Tueday, Aloe on Friday. Foiler feed a half gallon through 70 micron misters. Ill do this until i got buds on it.

Also if you are using FFOF in smaller containers you will water often. Keep in mind that FFOF is made with Peatmoss and if it drys out it wont take water for shit. Get yourself a bottle of Yucca Extract. It will reduce the surface tension of the water so the peat will absorb it. If your cheap you can use 2 drops of Dawn dishsoap/gallon of water. Its not organic but its also non toxic. Nothing worse then dry spots in peat...

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osowhom said:

the chicken manure works great but be prepared for it to stink like poo for a while but the bernefits outweigh the smell

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m4s73r said:

So that big mass of roots is chock full of nutrients. A good soil with a lot of bio activity will eat them roots in a week. I love those totes. Do you grow directly in them? if you do even better. I got a med grower that he grows in those. about 20 gallons of dirt. once he harvests he throws on some of his EWCs. throws in all the leaves and stems from the plant he just harvested. wet it all down and puts a lid on it. he will come back to that on after the next harvest. He has 8 totes. 4 being grown in 4 just decomposing. But he has a good established worm bin that he feeds a scoop of amendments every 2 weeks. Here is a link of what he gets. he gets the bucket once a year i think.

https://buildasoil.com/collections/pre-mixed-kits/products/buildasoil-nutrient-kit-clackamascoots-style?variant=8754838503541


If you do something like this make sure to start making leaf mould if you have the space. Eventually the peat will break down and become compost. So you will throw about half that outside and fill back up with the leaf mould. Then its just a worm bin, and mulching.

I really like how you kept it really simple. Believe me too many growers turn into tinkers and things can get way complicated. Make sure when you ad new compost that you throw some perlite/pumice/rice hulls in with it. But the system is simple. Feed your worms. Give them the nutrients. Throw their poop on the dirt with the dry leaves and let it set. Make sure you check it once in awhile. He dont even take them out the tent. he just rotates the lids around.

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Nwtexan said:

Again, thanks!

As far as water. We have pretty awesome well water. It is right around 7.0 and has low minerals. The only issue is that similar to RO water it doesn't hold PH too well. I have all kinds of testing equipment(I love that!) so i feel pretty solid on water

I'm already in my final pot, so i will do a top dress. I'm gonna try a version of the one suggested and see how it goes. It sounds like it should be ok either way.

I'll do the:
- fishmeal
-kelpmeal
-EWC
-a bit od Down to Earth organic bud and bloom fert

I'm curious to hear why the teas didn't work out for you.

Thanks also on the gnat idea. I'm gonna do that now. Ive only seen one or two, but i have definitely heard that they are an issue

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Nwtexan said:

Is this a per plant basis? Sounds like it by the ewc reccs. All of the “all in” amendments like roots organic and down to earth have really minimal amounts (1-2 tsp) of their mixes.

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Nwtexan said:

You don't need anything more p or k heavy towards the end?

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Richard Drysift said:

I prefer to put everything in the soil all at once about a month before you actually need it but I was thinking you were planning to top dress assuming the plants are already in their final size containers. In this case you could mix the above recipe for a top dress and distribute to let’s say 2-3 plants. Ratios do not need to be deadly accurate in organics; a wide diversity of amendments is almost more important than quantities. You don’t want to add a whole lot of one thing...instead add lots of different things in small amounts. Adding lots of organic materials into the mix all at once usually drops PH so that’s why you need to let it “cook” for 30 days to normalize ph in range for proper absorption.

Try to get away from the idea you need to add this for that phase and that for this phase. Put all that is needed for a particular phase into the soil/container and just let it ride. Water only with let’s say a bi-weekly aactea regimen should sustain them for the duration. I’m a big fan of slow release fertilizers; try building in a high N bottom layer w/manure (or fert of your choice) into your final size pots just before bloom phase. All this along with the organic spikes I mentioned before should help your mix go the distance. You can even DIY your own spikes out of amendments you have on hand for long term slow release. In the beginning when your soil has not been recycled a million times yet you’ll need teas more than you will later on when your mix gets into “supernatural” status. If they start to look pale and need a boost mid to late in bloom keep something w/soluble NPK that is safe for living soil like liquid fish w/seaweed.

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Nwtexan said:

OK. I just top dressed with the ratios you gave per plant. It was a bit confusing and I wanted to get it into the soil/. I figured you had offered your advise and moved on(grateful for it!)
Should i try to take some off of the pots or am i OK leaving with the ratios?(basically 1C EWC, 1/2C kelp and fishmeal, and 6 TBL Dr Earth flower girl)

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PadawanWarrior said:

You know fish meal is different than fish bone meal right?

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Nwtexan said:

OK. I just top dressed with the ratios you gave per plant. It was a bit confusing and I wanted to get it into the soil/. I figured you had offered your advise and moved on(grateful for it!)
Should i try to take some off of the pots or am i OK leaving with the ratios?(basically 1C EWC, 1/2C kelp and fishmeal, and 6 TBL Dr Earth flower girl)

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Richard Drysift said:

I prefer to put everything in the soil all at once about a month before you actually need it but I was thinking you were planning to top dress assuming the plants are already in their final size containers. In this case you could mix the above recipe for a top dress and distribute to let’s say 2-3 plants. Ratios do not need to be deadly accurate in organics; a wide diversity of amendments is almost more important than quantities. You don’t want to add a whole lot of one thing...instead add lots of different things in small amounts. Adding lots of organic materials into the mix all at once usually drops PH so that’s why you need to let it “cook” for 30 days to normalize ph in range for proper absorption.

Try to get away from the idea you need to add this for that phase and that for this phase. Put all that is needed for a particular phase into the soil/container and just let it ride. Water only with let’s say a bi-weekly aactea regimen should sustain them for the duration. I’m a big fan of slow release fertilizers; try building in a high N bottom layer w/manure (or fert of your choice) into your final size pots just before bloom phase. All this along with the organic spikes I mentioned before should help your mix go the distance. You can even DIY your own spikes out of amendments you have on hand for long term slow release. In the beginning when your soil has not been recycled a million times yet you’ll need teas more than you will later on when your mix gets into “supernatural” status. If they start to look pale and need a boost mid to late in bloom keep something w/soluble NPK that is safe for living soil like liquid fish w/seaweed.

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Richard Drysift said:

Should be fine; just leave it. A little more than needed but it’s slow release and will take a weeks to break down and become available. Don’t sweat it; sorry I didn’t reply faster...

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M.O. said:

Just wanted to say thanks for adding in where you do. I’ve learned from so many people here but what I’m doing now is based a lot on reading your posts. May not seem like that when I’m not using teas but yea. You’re responsible for a few eureka moments in my growing. Thank you kind sir!

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Nwtexan said:

We have a pretty active garden of tomatoes and such in the summer

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M.O. said:

Yea we’re definitely speakin the same language, I love it. You get a good field variety like a Brandywine and they’ll give any cannabis plant some competition in how much they pull from the soil. A few tweaks but they’re very similar and I approach them the same way with compost and ewc.

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