magicpepper said:
so ive been looking and
I can find compost/ewc, sphagnum peat moss in canada and i can not find red lava rock, kelp meal, Espoma Tomato Tone, alfalfa meal, crab meal, neem cake and glacial green rock dust. all though glacial green rock dust comes from bc canada, its not sold here? or at least i cant find it anywhere, i can have it imported from the u.s.a for $24 (50lb bag) and shipping would be 3 times that due to the weight. and the only red lava rock i can find is for bbq's, so i guess ill go a different route 
I understand that you are new to growing and you are trying to absorb and process all the information available here, what you need to remember is that you are trying to mix all of the different growing techniques you've read about to get a real headstart in your rooky season. What you need to remember, however, is that mixing several methods together can sometimes be detrimental to your plants. Think of it like this, all you really need to grow peppers is dirt, water and oxygen. Now that being said, container gardening is a little different, but still the same principles apply. You need something to retain water for the roots, something to aerate said mix and nutrients to help the little guys along. First off choose, organic, all natural, or chemical fert gardening. Next choose the base for your medium, this can be peat moss, topsoil, dirt from your yard, compost, etc. Then choose your aerator, this can be any number of things, red lava rocks,perlite, bark chips or mini- nuggets, even quartz or granite rocks or vermiculite(chunkier the better) or turface, there are too many to name! The next step is based on what u have chosen as your base and your aerator, you can decide upon your need for further amendments. Let's say u have chosen cheap topsoil and pine bark nuggets, then you will also want to a smaller aerator as well, such as perlite or vermiculite. You will also want to add some sort of nutrient rich amendment such as alfalfa pellets or worm castings or a bit of composted manure. If you use compost as your base, you will need less amending. If you are using peat moss, you will need a bit of amending. A good standard recipe is 60% base/30% aerator,10% amendments.(also peat moss is very acidic and u could use some dolomite to level out the pH) since you are using MG fertilizer, don't bother wasting money on organic amendments, because the MG is really giving u all the nutrients you need, just not in a natural form. I've seen decent plants grown in sh!tty topsoil from wally world w/ just MG certs. Really, the point I'm trying to make is all of us have been slowly working on our soil mixes over the years we've been growing and have perfected what works for us. While taking tips and pointers from the more experienced growers can help you grow by leaps and bounds as a grower, trying to amalgamite all of our processes together to get some sort of supermix could in the end be detrimental to your grow and cause you a lot of headaches and cost you a fortune! Just find a good mix to start with and work from there. Again feel free to contact me if you have any questions, lmk what you have available, and I will try to help you get yourself squared away!
