Tom Hill....very inspiring!
For the past 4 years my buddy and I has used a local "base" mix from a place right off the 101 right b4 ukiah, heading south its on the left.... lots of peeps in the area use them, and have good results, its not hot... last time i grew up there we pickd up 60yds, im space'n on the prices though??? i know for a fact it was well under a grand.
our plants were healthy as f@CK from beg-end with some in the 5's with 100gallon bags.we also always start off with a pallet of FFOF for starts.
btw TOM HILL u da man.
.... I had very high pH water source (8+) so I used Earth Juice grow/cat at the rate of aprox 1/4 tsp per gal on every watering to lower irrigation pH to 6.5. Folk who have no H2O pH issues, use plain water in this mix with excellent results. Also, If my H2O pH was closer to 7, I might go 50/50 gypsum/lime instead of straight gypsum.
Folks who are checking out the numbers on this mix will no doubt note that it is high in Calcium.
....
I see some of the Humboldt growers are trying something new with oyster shells. They say the results are amazing. What I was told is your bottom layer in your container is 1-2inches of pearlite. Into the pearlite you mix a small amount of ground oyster shell, like a few tablespoons for a 3 gallon pot. fill the pot with your regular growing medium and grow as usual. The buds I saw (headband) grown this way were 20-30% bigger and solid. They were resinous as hell, but headband usually is anyway. Im doing a control test run now.
Legal,, pffff, come-on, of course it is . But we are all little ants crawling around for a single moment on a marble. Next year will be a good one, mark my words, grow for it!.....
Cheers to all - Tom