Yeah man, a good pH meter is definitely worth spending the money on :] Most valuable part of my tools!
Good choices. I had a bad batch of light mix recently, it was pH 5.5, so make sure yours is at pH 6.5 before you start growing. Here's a simple step by step guide on how to do it.
#1 - Before planting your seedling, thoroughly soak your soil about a day before planting. Get a pot with holes in the bottom of it for your runoff and check the first few drops that come out of the bottom with your pH meter. I recommend getting a small, 50ml or so cup to put a water sample in for a pH test.
#2 - If your pH meter is properly calibrated to 7, put the probe in the water sample and see what the pH reading is. If it isn't 6.5 from the beginning, then do this:
- Pour 1x the pot volume of pH 7 water through your soil, i.e.: 25 litre pots, 25 litres of water
- Do the same again with pH 6.8 water
- Finally do it once more with pH 6.5 water.
- Check the pH of the water sample again to see if it's at 6.5.
That's also a good way of flushing your plant too, just do the exact same thing to flush (flushing is when you clean the soil of nutrients and salts, usually to fix a pH problem or just before harvest to remove any remaining chemicals in the buds that affect taste). I recommend getting some kind of tray underneath your plants with something to elevate them up above it, so the water drips down into the tray. I haven't got one, it makes my life a bit harder because I can't remove the tray from my tent if its full of water to pour it all away, so I have to extract runoff with a syringe, put it in a container and pour it away. Takes ages and I also have to flush in the bathtub lol.
sj
