New to soil, got a few questions

[yamaha_1fan]

It has been suggested I put my moms in soil. I have never grown in dirt, so its new terriory for me.

1st question is: How do you set your pots up? I know you water until water runs out the pot right? Do you keep the pots on a water proof table? I dont want to move my plants at all for watering. I am going to be growing some pretty big moms as I have a need for large amounts of clones on an ongoing basis to feed my SOG

2nd: I know this is going to be subject to opinion but can I use soil from Home Depot? Or do I need soil from the hydro store?

3rd: I am not sure if I am going to transplant my existing plants or start new moms from clones. Can I put them directly into big pots 5-7 gallon or do I need to start small and keep transplanting as they get root bound? Seems like going big is the easiest but maybe theres a reason you move up?


Sorry if these seem like newb questions, like I said I have never grown in soil.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

1 Well since my pots are on the ground I went to the orange box and bought tile, then duct taped it all together. Awesome Idea I think came out great and carpet looks brand new underneath. Make it easier on yourself with whatever your watering with to place plants appropriately so you dun have to move them.


2 That is really up to you and you will get debating answers. Obviously the hydro store will have more quality mediums but you don't HAVE to get it from the hydro dank can still be grown with MG... just be sure not to fry your plants and flush is a must. Biggest noticeable difference for me was is taste.


3 You definetley need to transplant. You need to build up a good 'rootball'. I know it sucks, as it wouldn't be easier to go straight to the big containers but the downsides are wasted space, lower yields, possibly poor root development etc etc. Plus your salts all build up, you just need to give fresh soil every month or so. Same with when its in the large container, you'll have to cut the roots, then replace with new soil... moms will last much longer, healthier and give you all those cuts you need.


there is a good thread on soils and moms somewhere... can't seem to find it!

 

[hedpi]

I use plates/whatever under my pots, it's also usefull because you can measure the runoff water's Ph instead of only the water your wattering with.

Regarding the soil.. it's so cheap i don't even think of saving 5-10 bucks and getting a possibly worse one.. i just get it at the grow shop!

Yeah..transplant.. http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=31919

 

[Guest]

^ thats the thread I was looking for... thanks hed!

 

[2buds]

1: I put a 40mil ( I think 40) pond liner down on the floor, ran it up the walls 6-10" to catch run off, bought some heavy duty black plastic shelf kits with the square holes in the shelves and used the shelves on the floor to allow the pots to sit about 3" above the floory, it made a huge difference on draining issues and ended root rot problems also the shelves are heavy duty enough I walk on them (old and fat) with no problems so holding large mom plants is NO problem. I have a low corner where the water gathers so I added a small fan mounted on the wall aiming down and the floor will dry in a day.

2:I just stop by the small Mom and Pop nursery and buy bags of metro-mix, they appreciate the business and I use it out of the bag with Flora Nova nutes and things truck along fine.

3:As said, you gotta work them in stages but it will go quick. The lower levels of soil will sit soaking wet and the roots won't like it if you start out large. If you think you got wet soil problems raising temps, added air circulation and making sure your pots aren't sitting in standing water will help a lot.(shelves on floor)

 

[Lumpy]

I agree with going to your local nursery and pay around 10 bucks/bag, also grab a bag of perlite to help with ventilation.

 

[jujubebe420]

I agree with what has been said so far, go ahead a spend the little extra money at your grow shop, it will be worth it. As far as transplanting, it going to happen in stages whether you want it to or not because when you put them into bigger pots they are just gonna want to keep growing. i would say to go BIG give your roots some room to expand, whether a small pot or a big pot the roots will eventually fill it out. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[chubbynugs]

I found these great pots for orchids online somewhere. I believe they are called Cambium Orchid pots. They are around a foot and a half tall but only eight inches squared on the inside. Best pots i have found for moms if you have a limited flooring space. They grow big in those pots!Ans yes go for soil from your dro store. You wont be disappointed.

 

[Blackvelvet]

You should be able to find promix at Homedepot. Probably holds too much water so add some perlite. Promix will already be limed and provide calcium and magnesium.

If your ferts do not contain sulfur, you can add 3/4 teaspoon powdered gypsum per gallon of soil mix (4 liters). Mix well. An alternative source of sulfur would be to use sulfuric acid/battery acid from the auto parts store as a ph down. An occasional application of epsom salts at maybe 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water could provide sulfur.

With a source of sulfur, calcium, and magnesium, your only left with n,p,k + 6 micronutrients(iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, and molybdenum) to add to your water. You can get the micronutrient chlorine if needed (if your ferts don't have potassium chloride, etc...) by throwing in a very small pinch of table salt. lol. 20-10-20 with minimum ammonia and urea and mostly nitrate nitrogen (50%+ of the nitrogen) might be a good all purpose feed to look for at lowes or homedepot.

How to test media ph easily: After watering till runoff, wait 1 hour. Then apply some distilled water till you get about 1 ounce of runoff and no more. Catch on a plate or saucer. Test this ph. Ph in soilless mixes should be 5.6 to 6.2

Other tips...

Water till 20% of what you apply pours out the bottom. You want runoff.

Adjust your fert water after everything has been added to 5.8 to 6 for soilless mixes.

Fertilize weakly with every watering.

Dolomite lime and gypsum added at planting will probably not last the entire crop. You can reapply pulverized dolomite lime to the pot surface at maybe 1 teaspoon per gallon of mix and water in. Only do this if ph is too low!!! Or, add calcium and magnesium to your water. 1/4 teaspoon calcium nitrate and epsom salts will provide about 70 ppm calcium and 30 ppm magnesium. Also you get sulfur. The calcium nitrate provides about 50 ppm nitrate nitrogen and is non-burning. Calcium chloride sold under names like blossom end rot stopper for tomatoes could be used instead of calcium nitrate. It has the advantage of not adding nitrogen which might be good if your flowering. It will take the % ca and net weight of the bottle to give you a rate of 60-70 ppm ca to go along with the epsom salts. Cal mag plus is a "store bought" suppliment that could be used but has the disadvantage of no sulfur.

Time for a joint...

 

[Jay_Khrist]

You are going to want to use a light mix.. you can either buy a soil that has slow release ferts mixed in, mix in time release ferts, or buy a soil with no additives and feed with some fish emulsion.. soil is very forgiving and as long as you don't overfeed you will have no problems. home depot soil would work great.. list of ingredients you want_soil, perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, ewc.. like stated above build your root ball and transplant 2-3 times when roots have overgrown container up until your last container.. great way to do this start in styrofoam cup move to two liter pop bottle or something proportional.. then into five gallon buckets.. always water till there is runoff and if you use a 5 gallon bucket you can catch runoff in another five gallon bucket(simple not alot of mess) and remember soil is very forgiving so not a lot of nutes needed.. hope this helps

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Is the powdered gypsum available at home depot? We tried looking for it for my wifes garden and they were clueless.

Is the perlite and everything else available at HD?

What is soilless mix?

Thanks alot for the advise

 

[Maj.PotHead]

home depot make a soil called super soil nice stuff, be sure to let the soil air out it smells like desiel fuel when 1st opened. if you use HD's perlite make sure its no mircial grows perlite because it's enriched with ferts

 

[vinivici]

Hey Yamaha,

you might want to look into Bonzi mum's they're fairly easy to take care of and dont require much space at all.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=31919

 

[texasluv]

1. I put my moms in 5 gallon pots on an slightly inclined table with a gutter at the end to collect the runoff. All the waste water gets pumped into the toilet. I use Promix HP which already has some extra perlite added to it and water when they dry up. With soil/soilless mediums you water differently than hydro. I've found from 7 years of experimenting the plants seem to 'like' the soil/soilless medium to almost completely dry before a watering. Not to the point the plants wilt or curl, but to the point where the top 1-2" of medium are mostly dry and the pots are really light. I water until it starts to drain out the bottom.

2. You can use any soil you want. Again, your mothers are the lifeblood of your crop. A little extra money spent at the hydro store now could save you a huge headache down the road. ProMix HP is my medium of choice because it already comes ph buffered, includes wetting agents and extra perlite. Its ready to use out of the bag and the only thing you need to give your plants is nutrients. Promix HP is a soilless medium- meaning it looks like dirt but has no "nutritional" value for your plants. The only nutrients your plant gets are the ones you add to your mix. Basically, growing in Promix is like a cross between growing in actual soil and hydro. You feed like your in hydro, but you water on a soil schedule.

3. I grow mothers from clones when my current mothers get so tall/leggy/stretchy that they no longer produce many clones. I start them off big most of the time, but transplanting doesn't really hurt as long as you do it BEFORE they get potbound. Dont wait to the point where you need to trim to roots to transplant- it takes them a few extra days to get over the shock.

What I am telling you isn't law, its just they way I've personally grown mommies very successfully over the past few years. I've never been stranded without clones in a commercial scenario.

 

[Jay_Khrist]

They carry the lime you are talking about just go to the garden section.. they are very good about keeping garden products through the seasons stocked full..

 

[danktown]

!

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hi yamaha

since everyone is telling you to go to the hydro shop to get soil (which id recommend as well) might as well pick up those cheap cloning trays to put under yer mommas,and i just use them for typically 2-3 pots depending on how big, 2 2gal buckets will fit in their perfectly!

 

[khaleel]

1. plastic round trays to fit your size of pot, available at any home depot or lawn and garden store for $1-5. water until there is a 1/4" or so of standing water on top, at least in the beginning. after a month or so of growing with soil (probably sooner lol) you will better know how much water is needed and can eliminate most of the runoff. when i was in the process of getting it down, i bought a shop vac on sale at kmart, and just use that to suck up the runoff. no need to move pots or dump trays. as for WHEN to water, a very, very important part of soil growing that can save you tons of problems or cause just as many, check out this killer thread by 10k: Lift the Pot

2. you don't necessarily have to get specialty soil from the hydro store, just make sure its quality. iow this is one aspect definitely not to go on the cheap. lower quality soil can have parasites, ph problems, fertilizer inconsistancies, all kinds of bad stuff. not sure how often you can water, but i would recommend mixing soil/perlite up to 60/40. (an airtight beer cooler works great not only for mixing but storing your medium too!) cannabis loves a loose medium, the roots get plenty of oxygen, and the perlite helps ensure good drainage and a more uniform saturation of the soil. fyi, the more perlite in the mix, the more often you have to water, and over 50% will cause most of it to float to the top so stay clear of that.

3. this is where i disagree with the conventional wisdom. (growing is an art, what do you do. lol) the size of the rootball corresponds directly with the amount of bud... but i found that after switching to 12/12 the roots don't grow much at all (by looking after harvest). if you transplant directly before switching, as most people seem to do, myself included in the beginning, the root system doesn't put on much mass. sure, a few tap roots will search out for water when the soil starts to dry out before the next watering, but for the most part it seems a waste of medium, effort, and space, and transplanting is always a stress that even done correctly sets you back at least a few days (this adds up with three or four transplants!). I've read that veg growth doesn't kick in as fast if you go directly into bigger pots from the start, but look at these examples i put in dirt a couple weeks ago:



this soon-to-be mama clone (Chrystal, nirvana) went directly into a 2 gallon pot from the clone tray.



the chrystal clone in the middle went into a one gallon pot at the same time.

now, two weeks later, look at the respective growth (the above clone is in the middle top, the mama of course is on the right. the floro makes things look lighter, so don't judge by the seemingly apparent lack of green lol):



the mama has been LST'd, which is responsible for some of the additional foilage, but it was ready to do so first out of the group, even though it went directly into a bigger pot!

my current strategy is to put clones into the containers you plan on finishing in and that's that (for seeds i go with four inch squares until rootbound then to finishing containers a week or so before switching to 12/12). even if you do have to veg an extra week, it will be worth it in the end when a larger, non-transplant-stressed root system fattens up your buds. that week will be more than made up for in the stress-time you save avoiding multiple transplants.

i haven't really ran this theory across any long-time growers, so please let me know what you guys think about it. and just to show i've got a decent handle on my own garden, here's some cannabis porn haha. all veg'd under a 200 watt compact fluorescent, bloomed under T5's:

 

[HeadyPete]

If your ferts do not contain sulfur, you can add 3/4 teaspoon powdered gypsum per gallon of soil mix (4 liters). Mix well. An alternative source of sulfur would be to use sulfuric acid/battery acid from the auto parts store as a ph down. An occasional application of epsom salts at maybe 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water could provide sulfur.

Here we go with the Sproutco recommended battery acid again.....

Don't take grow advice from someone who has never grown a MJ plant.

 

[HeadyPete]

and right on cue, the negative rep....just like clockwork.