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soil Thoughts on VERY Basic Soilless Grow Mix

compmodder26 said:
Yeah, the Bhut has me somewhat puzzled. It's thirstier than the rest of the plants too (it is a bit bigger as well, so that could account for it). Last night I upped my drip irrigation time from 2 minutes one time each day to 2 minutes twice a day. I did this because all of my plants were showing some pretty good wilt between 2 and 7 at night consistently. Today, all plants seem happier including the Bhut. So hopefully it will set pods better.
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If its wilting quickly esp because of the bigger size as you said it may needed to be potted up. A trick I learned to help keep the plants from wilting as fast is to wrap a towel around the pot
 
megahot said:
If its wilting quickly esp because of the bigger size as you said it may needed to be potted up. A trick I learned to help keep the plants from wilting as fast is to wrap a towel around the pot
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Yeah, Jamie told me that too. However, it's already in a 5 gallon pot and I didn't plan on going any higher. Also, the pots are root pouches, so I'd lose a lot of their benefits if I wrap them in foil.

Edit: whoops, misread there. A towel would probably still allow the pot the breath. Might have to consider that.
 
Cyan said:
http://www.mysquaref...n.net/mels-mix/

Mel's mix is a fine soiless mix. Though I modify mine by using a bit more manuer and less peat moss. I don't much care for peat moss or perilite. I've got some tomatoes growing in my mix now and its doing just dandy fine. For peppers you can mix in a bit of sand as well. The vermiculite was the only thing that was a pain in the ass to find (you should find it locally). I add a bit of organic fertilizer occasionally. When I made the mix I put a bunch of organic fertilizers in, fish meal, bone meal, bat guano etc... When I first made it (before it settled though watering) I could put my arm down to the bottom of the container with ease.
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perlite is better then vermiculite other then that its a good mix
 
queequeg152 said:
75% peat, 25% perlite, 100ml wetting agent, 1 cup dolemite lime.
OR
66%peat 33% perlite, 100ml wetting agent, 9/10ths of a cup of dolemite lime.

way way way way way way way way cheeper than promix.
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How much peat? 1 cup of lime to every ? 75% of how much?

I am sure if you really source your ingredients right you could make it cheaper? Do you get anything in bulk? I can find peat for 9 bucks a 3 cu ft compressed bale whcih expands to 6 total cuft thats the cheap part, the perlite I can not find cheap enough to be able to make a cheaper peat/perlite mix then promix with the same air porosity.

I like this topic because I do everything I can to keep costs low.
 
Capsicum said:
How much peat? 1 cup of lime to every ?
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oh sorry, i use those home depot orange 5 gallon buckets. i dump them into a wheel barrow, then into a 100gallon stock tank.

right now im going with 2 buckets of peat, 1 bucket perlite. and a tad less than 1cup of that... organic traditions dolemite lime, its the stuff you get a home depot, i think epsoma makes it?
i really dont care much about the ph of the mix, as long as its like 5.2-6. i only test if im useing different products.

i would like to point out that i once used some peat i got from Home depot; while it was cheap, it had like...25% bark and twigs of somekind, and it needed very little lime.. like half the amount. while the bales of peat i get from ferti-loam are way acidic and absolutly pure peat, no twigs or bark or other crap.

for what its worth i used to go with 3:1 peat to perlite, but it seems like they do better with 2:1.

you might consider adding more peat if you are useing fabric containers, as i would think they sort of augment the oxygenation of the soil,and negating the need for alot of perlite? idk.

edit:
oh and i use a product called drexel surfact 820 as a wetting agent. 100ml mixed into a watering can then watered into the mix, its a pita to get all of the mix wetted properly, what i do is water in the surfactant with my little watering can, then mix it in well, then wet the entire contents down with the hose, then mix again well.
 
queequeg152 said:
oh sorry, i use those home depot orange 5 gallon buckets. i dump them into a wheel barrow, then into a 100gallon stock tank.

right now im going with 2 buckets of peat, 1 bucket perlite. and a tad less than 1cup of that... organic traditions dolemite lime, its the stuff you get a home depot, i think epsoma makes it?
i really dont care much about the ph of the mix, as long as its like 5.2-6. i only test if im useing different products.

i would like to point out that i once used some peat i got from Home depot; while it was cheap, it had like...25% bark and twigs of somekind, and it needed very little lime.. like half the amount. while the bales of peat i get from ferti-loam are way acidic and absolutly pure peat, no twigs or bark or other crap.

for what its worth i used to go with 3:1 peat to perlite, but it seems like they do better with 2:1.

you might consider adding more peat if you are useing fabric containers, as i would think they sort of augment the oxygenation of the soil,and negating the need for alot of perlite? idk.
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Yea I use the 40# bag of lime from Home depot for 4 bucks. I use it at about 2 tbsp per gal of peat, so it is about the same as what you use.

Yea a 2:1 ratio sounds really nice. I did a 1;1 ratio with some tomatoes one year and they needed a lot of water and fertilizer but grew so fast!!

I like the peat from home depot, I find those little twigs may help it, and it seems to be quite course.
 
Hmm... looking at Home depot, looks like I can get 3 cubic ft (compressed) peat bale, 2 cubic feet of perlite, 4.67 lbs dolemite lime for ~ 32 bucks. If my math is right (and I'm correct about the peat expanding to 6 cubic ft), then I can get 8 cubic feet worth of growing medium out of that. Much better than 22 I was paying for 2 cubic feet of Happy Frog.

And that would put me at a 3:1 ratio of peat to perlite, which is what I think I should shoot for with root pouches.
 
compmodder26 said:
Hmm... looking at Home depot, looks like I can get 3 cubic ft (compressed) peat bale, 2 cubic feet of perlite, 4.67 lbs dolemite lime for ~ 32 bucks. If my math is right (and I'm correct about the peat expanding to 6 cubic ft), then I can get 8 cubic feet worth of growing medium out of that. Much better than 22 I was paying for 2 cubic feet of Happy Frog.

And that would put me at a 3:1 ratio of peat to perlite, which is what I think I should shoot for with root pouches.
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I cant ever find that 2 cuft bag of perlite in home depot. Nice find.

32 bucks is not bad if you can not locate promix HP. Promix HP can cost 35 bucks all together some places so for 3 more bucks you could just get promix hp and it will be ready to go right out of the bale. I am just saying this from experience of having to make my own media, it is a lot of mixing and waitng when you can have a nice dry convenient bale of ready to go mix. Otherwise, if you cant find promix in the 3.8 cuft bale making your own may be the only option.
 
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