Newbie in need of advice about soil mix

[Limolax]

I am new grower.I have very limited access to organic material used in grow guides and books. I will mention what I have available as grow medium and fertilizer. You tell me What's the best mix for me to grow on? Take into account that I have no experience growing anything. I have no PH / EC meter or RO machine. Think very treditional. I'll explain everything so u guys can better assist me.
Here is my set up for young seedlings clones and plants in vegetation period:
It's (1 w 0.4 d 2 h) meters closet with 4 fluorescent lamps at 20 watts each and a computer fan for air circulation. I am planning on having a very short vegetation period and bloom them really small. I figured it has less complication to go SOG since the total time is shorter. Ex. Salt build up, ph of soil changing drastically, nute lock out, mold, pests, etc. here is what I have available :
-Cocopeat I think it's a very low quality cause it has lots of salt and other crap in it. I kinda wash them and let em sit on watter for a few hours three or four times before use
-Peatmoss that is pre-mixed with (30-40)% perlite+ vermiculite
-Localy made non sterilized potting soil
-lava rocks of different size. They are different in shape and color with the ones u have in states or Canada but I think they serve the same purpose.
-sand collected from river !
Here is what I have available as fertilizer:
-vermicompost
- chicken manure ( the spelling might be wrong. It's chicken crap I think mixed with something )
-variety of different NPK chemichal fertilizers
- animal fertelizer that is mostly from cow/sheep/horse crap they use in on farms over here. I don't like this1. It smells. My grow closet is in my bedroom. So unless I really have to, smelly fertelizer is a no no.
I would like to add that I would prefer to go organic and not use any chemicals unless I have to. I have the time to spend in grow room or water them twice a day but I don't have any of the monitoring equipments and limited access to materials needed mentioned in books and guides. So please help me grow some smokable ganja. Here is the question again :
What's the best potting mix from what materials I have availbe to me mentioned above?

 

[MrBelvedere]

Since you're unsure of all your soil, I highly highly recommend you simply use 50% perlite and 50% vermiculite. Nothing else in your grow medium. Keep it simple, this is a very old in proven method. It's very good for beginners and you will have great results. Once they've sprouted and rooted and developed a little bit of root try to get good water or distilled water from the store and add a little bit of cow poop to it. Assuming you have an empty milk jug it's 1 gallon put 1 gallon of water in there and a few teaspoons of poop, and shake it vigorously for five minutes and let it sit for 24 hours so it gets to be room temperature. Then right before you water the plants shake it again and poured into your vermiculite perlite remix. By shaking the water and letting it sit a day or two you're creating an oxygenated organic tea and the micro organisms will live in the vermiculite.

Are you really in an area that does not sell pet supplies like pH strips? Thx for growing. By the way what part of the world are you in? Would love to know what's seeds u are using

 

[Former Guest]

Grab that peat/perlite mix, vermicompost, and the stinky farm poop. Mix it so it's equal parts peat, vermicompost and perlite. That is your base. Then add the farm poop to that 60/40 soil to poop. You'll need lime of some kind to raise ph but you'll never have to monitor your soil ph either but the lime is a must. You can use oyster flour, dolomite or agricultural lime. The poop won't stink once the soil sets for a few weeks in a tote with a lid. Then just brew a tea with vermicompost and molasses minimum and if you can get fish hydrolysate, even better. Brew in your bathroom and then feed your plants that. If you don't want to do that, then do a slurry of castings and then top mulch with some perlite added to the slurry.

Anything organic can stink but your plants will stink up your room too. Carbon filter can solve both. Lots of DIY fertilizers to make like bokashi, lactobacillus serum for fermented plant extracts, fish fertilizers and ideas on The Unconventional Gardener website. Organics is easiest when you're limited with resources. Well that's my

 

[Limolax]

Since you're unsure of all your soil, I highly highly recommend you simply use 50% perlite and 50% vermiculite. Nothing else in your grow medium. Keep it simple, this is a very old in proven method. It's very good for beginners and you will have great results. Once they've sprouted and rooted and developed a little bit of root try to get good water or distilled water from the store and add a little bit of cow poop to it. Assuming you have an empty milk jug it's 1 gallon put 1 gallon of water in there and a few teaspoons of poop, and shake it vigorously for five minutes and let it sit for 24 hours so it gets to be room temperature. Then right before you water the plants shake it again and poured into your vermiculite perlite remix. By shaking the water and letting it sit a day or two you're creating an oxygenated organic tea and the micro organisms will live in the vermiculite.

thx for all the awesome info. I have some questions about it.
1) Do I go all the way with 50/50 perlite vermiculite till the harvest ? Or it's just for seedling phase?
2) if I grow on that 50/50 medium, do I need to add some kind of fertilizer later to provide the micro stuff like Mg, Su, etc for the plant since I am not using any real soil ? Or the cow poop provides everything?
Thanks again

 

[Limolax]

I forgot to answer your questions :
-to be honest I have ph strips the range is from 0 to 14. All the instructions are in German! I know I should compare the color with the indication shown on the case but when I compare it when the strip is still wet it's 1 scale higher comparing to after a few minutes when the strip gets dried. So I can test the ph but it's a ruff estimate.
-I live in Iran now but not the capital so even less resource.
- I have 10 feminized seeds I got from Vancouver. They were 13 I killed 3 seedling so I decided to go with bag seeds for now untill I learn more. Cause it's really really really hard to get good seeds. I ll see if I can bloom the bag seeds I ll try with the original seeds. I have 2 seeds of each strain :
Guava
Romulan
Purple bubba kush
New York diesel
Sage
All feminized

 

[Limolax]

Grab that peat/perlite mix, vermicompost, and the stinky farm poop. Mix it so it's equal parts peat, vermicompost and perlite. That is your base. Then add the farm poop to that 60/40 soil to poop. You'll need lime of some kind to raise ph but you'll never have to monitor your soil ph either but the lime is a must. You can use oyster flour, dolomite or agricultural lime. The poop won't stink once the soil sets for a few weeks in a tote with a lid. Then just brew a tea with vermicompost and molasses minimum and if you can get fish hydrolysate, even better. Brew in your bathroom and then feed your plants that. If you don't want to do that, then do a slurry of castings and then top mulch with some perlite added to the slurry.

Anything organic can stink but your plants will stink up your room too. Carbon filter can solve both. Lots of DIY fertilizers to make like bokashi, lactobacillus serum for fermented plant extracts, fish fertilizers and ideas on The Unconventional Gardener website. Organics is easiest when you're limited with resources. Well that's my

Thx for the advice. I think I should be able to get agricultural lime to get it to the desired Ph or close to it. I have some questions.
1) can I use the 40/60 recepie for seedling to? Or shall I go lighter on poop on them?
2) molasses I don't know if I can find shall I just go with vermicompost for the tea ?

 

[Former Guest]

For seeds you would want to add perlite to the base mix that you are using for the 60/ part. Put some mix in your container and thoroughly soak with water to check drainage. It needs to not sit in the surface ever. When you get a good consistency use that for seedling mix. You can make compost tea by just soaking like suggested above by someone else. The molasses is needed but I think there are a few substitutes. Take germinated seed and plant in moist dirt. Feed with vermicasting tea first then start using compost when they get two or three sets of leaves. Practicing on bag seed is good. Just grow it like farmers do tomatoes veggies and the like. She's not that fussy. Just get your soil mixed and moistened in a sealed container like a garbage can for at least a month.

 

[Former Guest]

Check out The Unconventional Gardeners website to make your own fertilizer

 

[Limolax]

Check out The Unconventional Gardeners website to make your own fertilizer

Thank you very much. I've searched and red about DIY to make grow room equipments. I will make a carbon filter if needed in the future. Also found lots of home made organic fertelizer recepie. Thanks again for the DIY gardening equipment idea. It can be a great source for me since I have very limitted access to well known brand of fertilizer, soil and gardening equipment.