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soil Fertilizing soil vs soilless

I am of the school that believes that Nitrogen should always be the highest macro, followed by Potassium, and with Phosphorus being the least. (always)  Some people believe the traditional advice, that heavy flower/fruit crops need increased, or mega doses of Potassium and Phosphorus.  I (and some scientists) have just not found that to be the case.
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I think that sometimes we get our concepts confused.  A lot of the things that are done in commercial agriculture, don't translate well into hobby growing.  Many of the things that dirt farmers do, they do, not because something isn't present, but because it isn't immediately available.  And they grow this one crop, with exactly one season, that goes through carefully timed phases, and at the end, they don't want it green and lush - they want it dry, so they can harvest it.
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For us, though, we should be rocking plant health until the day our plants leave us.  Or so I believe...
 
ShowMeDaSauce said:
Fish emulsion is the main thing i use in ground too. I change nothing during blooming/budding. Liquid kelp is also a good addition to the fish emulsion. Kelp meal if you can get it cheap enough.
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What do you use to supplement calcium or magnesium?

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CanadaChili said:
What do you use to supplement calcium or magnesium?
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I grew a group of test plants one season with fish emulsion, and no extra calcium addition.  The end result was as good as anything else that I grew that year. (which was quite good)
 
solid7 said:
 
I grew a group of test plants one season with fish emulsion, and no extra calcium addition.  The end result was as good as anything else that I grew that year. (which was quite good)
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That's good to know. I also should have plenty of calcium present where I live since our bedrock is mostly limestone if I'm not mistaken. The only other limiting may be magnesium, but can Epsom salts be worked directly in the soil?

Forgive me but I'm a total noob when it comes to growing in the soil [emoji23] Half of the time I'm probably overthinking it but I'm used to supplying all nutrients to the water. Having an already nutrient-rich medium is throwing me off a bit.
In the future, I'm sure that I'll end just feeding the soil (ie. slow release additives such as mulches and/or meals) and avoid being so nitpicky but I'm just so engrained in cal/mag additive this, fulvic/humic additives that so it's a totally foreign idea to just water the soil and that's it.

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You don't need to start with nutrient rich media. (although that would be soil, earth, tierra, etc)  In a container, you can start with a perfectly sterile media, and build it as you go.  Especially if you're starting from the seed stage.
 
Fish emulsions and seaweed additives really excel in this regard.
 
solid7 said:
You don't need to start with nutrient rich media. (although that would be soil, earth, tierra, etc)  In a container, you can start with a perfectly sterile media, and build it as you go.  Especially if you're starting from the seed stage.
 
Fish emulsions and seaweed additives really excel in this regard.
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Great, I'll be trialing some container pots with the soilless mix you suggested before using hydro nutrients as well as plants grown right in the soil using fish fertilizer.
Just thought I'd give an update on that botanicare cns17 product: it turns out it isn't even registered here in Canada so it may prove tricky to get it in. I'll be going with DG foliage pro in the meantime for next season if i can't sleuth down cns17 on Amazon.
Cheers [emoji482][emoji892]
 
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