Good compost mix?

[420CaRNaGE]

Howdy Evatil, I'm only new to outdoor growing and this site but after a bit of experimentation (with failures   and success) and reading all the good info on OSA, here are some thoughts for a first grow:

 

Canna terra base will save you having to buy separate bags of peat, coco, perlite etc. and is pH balanced. Not exactly cheap but will save hassle for first grow. Add all the compost, worm castings, scoria & ammendments at ratios recommended by the pros itchy and pug.

Start the seeds in jiffy pellets as suggested and put them into the pot and soil that you are going to grow in so as soon as the first little white tap root pops out of the pellet it gets used to the environment it will grow in.

Fabric pots give good aeration to roots and awesome drainage but keep them out of really hot sun (shade the pots but not the plant)

Forget hydro nutes for outdoor soil grown. Use purple powerfeed, seasol and gogojuice with rainwater or filtered water (tap water where i am is terrible, i wouldn't drink it so i won't feed it to my girls). Add potash and bury some bananas during flowering.

If possible try not to move the pots around too much, i found the autos like everything constant (much easier in controlled indoor environment). Hard to achieve with nosey neighbours or dis-approving family members and fluctuating weather. But good results still possible.

White Widow auto is a good beginner strain. Lots of resin for making oils. Did you get only 1 or a 3 pack? if you got three grow them all so you get a bit more out of it. During spring i got 2 ounces off one, but at this time of year with less hours of sunlight i would imagine less.

Haven't tried girl scout crack yet but have heard good things.

 

Hope that helps a little. Enjoy the grow!

[evatil]

Hey Auqadoll! Yeah, that's my idea with pots, too. I live in a place that is prone to torrential rain at times, hectic storm systems. Gotta keep the babies safe inside. Mother Nature is a bit of a shit at times haha. Hoping to use the K.I.S.S strategy with my Spring/Summer grow. Where do I find these grow diaries? I'd love to check it out. Still a total newb to the forum. I mostly browse on the OSA app.

 

Look, Itchy, you will just always be an egg to be. I'm willing to call you googy, but that's as far as I'm willing to negotiate with your request haha. I call everyone good eggs. My late grandmother used to call everyone she liked good eggs, so, just know it's coming from a neat place full of love and gratitude.

Going to go CT Pro (I explain why further down) it has perlite and compost already mixed in. Do you reckon I should still add some extra compost and perlite with it, or leave well enough alone?

 

Pug, thanks for that informative reply! Will be taking your advice re root amendments. This first grow will just be whatever I can get my hands on. Looking at doing my own amendments and going towards more soil sustainability and reuse once Spring hits and I can start planning some photo grows, with some autos to keep me honest, during the wait for my big girls to grow up. I'm not exaggerating when I say the sun exposure at my place is f'in awesome, especially where the hidey places will be for my girls to grow with little attention. Thinking I can grow some beautiful plants and keep it as organic as I can. Looking forward to doing the soil mix myself and growing with as little chemicals as possible! Wish I'd started researching earlier, but believed a family member knew heaps about it and could help me with the plants they gifted me. Find their advice is sparing, questionable and the plants I've been given have come to me in a horrid looking growing medium and nute-deficient. Looking to grow my own plants from seed so I know more about them.

It's kind of like these plants I have were adopted kids that I got at age 11 that I know nothing about. Wanna birth my own babies so I know more about them from the get-go so I know how to better handle the adopted ones. Still love them both the same though haha.

Will check out a few places round me to see if they carry the big bags of peat in prep for my spring/summer grow. I want to learn the autumn/winter and hit the ground running in spring.

 

Xtro, cheers. I'm probably way overthinking it, but I just need this shit to work before Winter hits and I end up with hella short plants due to change in sun hours. Looking forward to doing the less is more method when I have time on my side. Don't think my local Bunnings does the Searles but I have a few stores around me that I can try, including Mitre10 so here's hoping.

 

So, I found a hydro shop that will courier an order to me. It's an absolute dope shop with so many things -- the Canna range namely. It also has afterpay so hello to making an order that is affordable because it's stretched out over two months worth of payments.

 

Order may be (unless you guys have any learned opinions) Canna Terra Professional, Rhizotonic, Canna Terra Flora, Cannazym. Apparently, the Canna Terra medium goes hand in hand with their nutes. Could be a marketing gimmick obviously, but from what I've read in forums, their range is great. Only thing is the CT Pro medium is a little hot for seedlings due to the fact it's got nitrogen in it. So, thinking if I soak the Jiffy pellets in a water/rhizo mix and pop my seeds into them to germ, then transfer the pellet to the soil, they'll hopefully have some healthy roots that won't be coming out of the seed and straight into the CT Pro and by the time they reach their roots into the pot medium, they should be strong enough to survive and thrive in it.

 

Figuring because autos have such a short veg period, and you shouldn't feed them for the first few weeks, the nutes in CT Pro should have them covered for veg.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I've gathered across the board with growing autos in Canna products.

 

Once again, sorry for the novel haha.

 

Geez, and to think a week ago I knew next to nothing! I'm getting there! And this forum us the reason for it! You guys are so rad, really. My adoptive plant looks 200% better than she did when I picked her up after a hot summer with f all nutes and f all water. That's all thanks to the advice I got in here. I love it!

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

[evatil]

Cheers, 420Carnage! Forgetting the nutes would end up being a cheaper way for sure and something I'd definitely be down for! (I wrote in my last post that I was thinking of giving them a go but chucking inexpensive goodness into the soil sounds even better and like less of a headache, tbh.

 

Ahhh, bananas! That's an awesome idea! My kids like em one minute and hate em the next, so I've always got some bananas without anyone to eat them, guess my flowering plants can take on that job. Too neat.

 

Got a 3-pack of each strain seed. Honestly, I'd be happy to have 14 grams free off a plant I grew than pay for an oz that I know nothing about that is a rip off. If I get anything, I'll chalk it up as a win.

 

Thanks, man! You've given me more to contemplate on this beautiful sesh Sunday, so I can order tomorrow and hopefully be cracking along the week after this one.

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

Edited March 10, 2018 by evatil

[itchybromusic]

googy  

 

you can def use CT pro on it's own , the reason i would still add compost / castings & more air 

is to re-inoculate the CT with local beneficial microorganisms from the castings/compost & air to keep the 

same kind of ratio already in the CT pro

 

although makes sense to do the banana thing in flower , there are pros & cons to burying produce 

 

attracting unwanted pests would be one of them possibly , better to top dress with compost , in general compost 

is lower in nitrogen N & higher in P & K , so you get the flowering nutrients without attracting animals / pests to feed 

 

don't disagree with the idea , i have a couple of worm towers for exactly that , burying kitchen scrapes but towers have a lid which 

seems to trap any smells that might attract the unwanted 

[xtro]

Xtro, cheers. I'm probably way overthinking it, but I just need this shit to work before Winter hits and I end up with hella short plants due to change in sun hours. Looking forward to doing the less is more method when I have time on my side. Don't think my local Bunnings does the Searles but I have a few stores around me that I can try, including Mitre10 so here's hoping.

 

 

i run some mixes like itchy is suggesting as well, would def recommend them to, are you in areas where the air temp stays consistently above 15C coming into winter, always found that an important part for speedy upward movement

[evatil]

Itchygoog! Fairly set on doing the compost mix, CT Pro and perlite/scoria. So, you've definitely sorted me out with my medium choices, finally, after a lot of umming and ahhing. Top of the Christmas card list, fella!

Next question -- I was thinking of ordering the Great White Mycorrhizae to help the roots when they start. I've read good things about it. Now, if you can suggest an alternative I can get from Bunnings or wherever, I won't have to really even worry about an order to this hydro shop and will just go the peat, compost and air mix. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I have a hydro shop actually near me so I might go suss it out tomorrow and see what they have. Their site was fairly basic, so I couldn't see their full range of products but the minimal amount of products they did feature included the Great White. I really want to take advantage of the good weather in the early Autumn, don't want to get held up waiting for a delivery, you know?

 

Xtro, I think so. I mean, I've never really had to pay attention to weather until now . Used to love long stretches of dreary rainy days, not anymore! Give me more sun and just enough rain! Just looked at the weekly forecast for my area, highs between 29-36° and lows between 16-19°!

Around the area I live, there was a wild plague of Sativa strain a fair few years back that the cops had a hard time getting control of. There's also a tonne of vineyards a little drive away. With that, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that where I'm at is going to be great for canna growing.

In winter, we have cold nights dropping to the minuses but I intend on having them inside of a night time and on those cold winter mornings before it heats up enough for the day, I'm going to place them either inside my mini-greenhouse or inside the house behind my glass back door. It gets uninhibited sun exposure from early morning until late afternoon. I have white-backed block out curtains on the door so it really heats up nicely between the glass doors and the curtains.

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

[pug1010]

hey evatil

 

this is a good aussie myco brand and reasonably priced for the amount:

 

https://www.mycoapply.com.au/mycoapply-defence-500g

[evatil]

hey evatil

 

this is a good aussie myco brand and reasonably priced for the amount:

 

https://www.mycoapply.com.au/mycoapply-defence-500g

You're a good egg, too, Pug! Cheers!

 

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app

[pug1010]

 

not sure if you're in WA (please don't tell me either way - secret squirrel:)) but if you are, I would be all over this compost too:

http://www.intuitearth.com.au/

 

they are from the same area roughly as the myco mob.

Edited March 11, 2018 by pug1010

[evatil]

 

not sure if you're in WA (please don't tell me either way - secret squirrel:)) but if you are, I would be all over this compost too:

http://www.intuitearth.com.au/

 

they are from the same area roughly as the myco mob.

Not in WA [emoji6] Edited March 11, 2018 by evatil