Grow Mediums Lost with all the potting mixes and soils.

[gelatomaster]

My local grow stores only sells fox farms and im trying to stay away from it. Staying with soil, its impossible to find a good medium. I can go to my garden center and get some pretty basic organic potting mixes as well.

Feeding with advanced nutrients. Any tips on where to look?

Thanks!

 

[DCLXVI]

Home Depot carries a few interesting soils on their website. Have to do the ship to store option but it doesn't cost you shipping charges on a bag of heavy ddirt. Might be worth a look. I think I saw roots organic soil and coast of Maine.

 

[gelatomaster]

Home Depot carries a few interesting soils on their website. Have to do the ship to store option but it doesn't cost you shipping charges on a bag of heavy ddirt. Might be worth a look. I think I saw roots organic soil and coast of Maine.

Good to know thanks :smoking:

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I use ocean forest as a base. Works great

 

[gelatomaster]

I use ocean forest as a base. Works great

I just heard so many times to stay away from ocean forest because of how hot it is. Mixed feelings

 

[Bruce Campbell]

I just heard so many times to stay away from ocean forest because of how hot it is. Mixed feelings

"OF is too hot" is a bit of a myth - it's a popular choice for / widely marketed to beginners, who tend to mess other things up and then blame the soil. There's reasons why it's not the best choice for later grows (once you learn more about growing from them), but it's a reasonable starting choice. However, it would probably be best to use nutes with it and use their feed schedule as a baseline.

As far as nutes, I don't like their main product line. It's based around selling you large amounts of Big Bloom, which is so diluted they could almost legally sell you water instead. If you decide on nutes, I would recommend their cultivation nation product line instead.

If you're set on using AN nutes, then any soilless medium (e.g., peat or coco) is a decent starting choice (and OF would be a poor choice).

"Soilless" means no organic amendments, which means that you will be providing all the nutrients through your feed right from the start. If you're purchasing locally, look for a mix that has just peat and/or coco, an aerator (e.g., perlite / vermiculite), and a pH adjuster (e.g., dolomite lime) if needed.

I'm currently using Pro-Mix HP which is just peat, perlite, myco, and lime. 2.8 cu ft bags show up on amazon every once in a while for $35-$45, which was a decent price for me instead of hunting around locally:

Amazon product

 

[PotDaddy]

I used OF for a couple years before switching to coco.

 

[Capt.Quirk]

Natures Creation/FoxFarm blend with plenty of perlite is my go to.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

You can use ocean forest and a bit of roots micro greens seedling mix to lighten it up then get some buildaflower top dress kit from buildasoil.com and topdress with it and get reasonable results with little effort.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

The biggest problem with OF/HF is the quality control. Some growers here have used it for years without issue but it is in the infirmary a lot and seems to run in streaks. It is too hot for seedlings but you can use a divot of a seed starter to get a seed going. It should have enough fertilizer to get a plant to the 3rd or 4th week with only PHed water. Do not add Cal-mag at all to the first grow in it as it has more than enough Dolomite lime for maybe even two grows. Most new growers over fertilize.



Do not add Dolomite lime to coco. Growing in coco is a science all it's own.

With the AN line use a peat based soil with the soil line or Use the coco line for coco. They are not the same.