Cost effective organic dry amendment top dress -Flowering

[Vivid Dreamer]

Hey there fellow growmies. Thought I'd share what ill be doing for my top dress before going into flower. I have been growing in a super soil mix which I amended and cooked before planting. This will be the ladies first and only top dressing. 

 

I am sure there are lots of growers out there who are feeling the pinch of electricity hikes and overall high cost of living. I try to save where i can and diy, making the most of what i have. KNF has been a revelation and im really seeing a big difference this grow using just a little of its practices. 

My initial planting mix, along with other amendments, was tailored for veg so i used the Talborne organics vita veg. I wss surprised at how much power it had...still no deficiencies showing up. 

I inculated some biochar with a mixture of EM-1 (Lab) ,mollases and water at a ratio of 1:1:200. Its been sitting for about one and a half weeks. Hopefully my attempt at a bokashi kinda aid will assist with the breakdown of nutrients. I want those feeder roots to come to the top, dance and have fun with my bennies haha. 

 

The biochar, once innoculated will be mixed with compost(quarter mushroom compost,half vermicompost and one quarter  compost from my compost pile, some left over supersoil. I will then add the following:

- Bone meal 

-kelp meal

-home made crab meal 

-insect frass

-Talborne oragmics Vita Fruit and flower (red bag)

Im not sure whether or not to add soft rock phosphate as its what i have on hand for a different phosphorus source. Id like your guys input. I would like for these amendments to break down and my ladies to finish with a fade. Open to top dress recommendations that wont cost an arm an a leg. 

I have a lovely mulch layer covering my pots of leaf mould from difference areas (my attempt at getting some diverse microbes going).

Im currently not using any bottled nutes. I feed with bio dyne microbes, labs and aloe juice periodically. Id like my top dress to carry me to the end but allow a good flush and fade on my ladies. 

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Vivid Dreamer

[ORGANinc.]

2 hours ago, Vivid Dreamer said:

Hey there fellow growmies. Thought I'd share what ill be doing for my top dress before going into flower. I have been growing in a super soil mix which I amended and cooked before planting. This will be the ladies first and only top dressing. 

 

I am sure there are lots of growers out there who are feeling the pinch of electricity hikes and overall high cost of living. I try to save where i can and diy, making the most of what i have. KNF has been a revelation and im really seeing a big difference this grow using just a little of its practices. 

My initial planting mix, along with other amendments, was tailored for veg so i used the Talborne organics vita veg. I wss surprised at how much power it had...still no deficiencies showing up. 

I inculated some biochar with a mixture of EM-1 (Lab) ,mollases and water at a ratio of 1:1:200. Its been sitting for about one and a half weeks. Hopefully my attempt at a bokashi kinda aid will assist with the breakdown of nutrients. I want those feeder roots to come to the top, dance and have fun with my bennies haha. 

 

The biochar, once innoculated will be mixed with compost(quarter mushroom compost,half vermicompost and one quarter  compost from my compost pile, some left over supersoil. I will then add the following:

- Bone meal 

-kelp meal

-home made crab meal 

-insect frass

-Talborne oragmics Vita Fruit and flower (red bag)

Im not sure whether or not to add soft rock phosphate as its what i have on hand for a different phosphorus source. Id like your guys input. I would like for these amendments to break down and my ladies to finish with a fade. Open to top dress recommendations that wont cost an arm an a leg. 

I have a lovely mulch layer covering my pots of leaf mould from difference areas (my attempt at getting some diverse microbes going).

Im currently not using any bottled nutes. I feed with bio dyne microbes, labs and aloe juice periodically. Id like my top dress to carry me to the end but allow a good flush and fade on my ladies. 

 

I like your style man!  

With top dressing, only want to add nutrients to supplement plants that have outgrown the pot so that they are not wanting during any stage of growth. then also being careful with compost or worm casting, I've had my fair share of compost that has not cured well enough and has adverse effect when applied, this can hinder growth significantly or even halt it completely, so imagine how kuck it would be if applied before flower. You get quality compost of castings you can mound on as top-dress and reap the benefits, but that you got pay top dollar for or make yourself. 

You are adding a few elements and some have a full spectrum of flower nutrients like the talborn flower, so just add small amounts of the other stuff and you should be fine. 

Anyway, I'm keen to see this one through, maybe start a grow diary and update up as you go along.

Edited June 23, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

3 hours ago, Vivid Dreamer said:

Hey there fellow growmies. Thought I'd share what ill be doing for my top dress before going into flower. I have been growing in a super soil mix which I amended and cooked before planting. This will be the ladies first and only top dressing. 

 

I am sure there are lots of growers out there who are feeling the pinch of electricity hikes and overall high cost of living. I try to save where i can and diy, making the most of what i have. KNF has been a revelation and im really seeing a big difference this grow using just a little of its practices. 

My initial planting mix, along with other amendments, was tailored for veg so i used the Talborne organics vita veg. I wss surprised at how much power it had...still no deficiencies showing up. 

I inculated some biochar with a mixture of EM-1 (Lab) ,mollases and water at a ratio of 1:1:200. Its been sitting for about one and a half weeks. Hopefully my attempt at a bokashi kinda aid will assist with the breakdown of nutrients. I want those feeder roots to come to the top, dance and have fun with my bennies haha. 

 

The biochar, once innoculated will be mixed with compost(quarter mushroom compost,half vermicompost and one quarter  compost from my compost pile, some left over supersoil. I will then add the following:

- Bone meal 

-kelp meal

-home made crab meal 

-insect frass

-Talborne oragmics Vita Fruit and flower (red bag)

Im not sure whether or not to add soft rock phosphate as its what i have on hand for a different phosphorus source. Id like your guys input. I would like for these amendments to break down and my ladies to finish with a fade. Open to top dress recommendations that wont cost an arm an a leg. 

I have a lovely mulch layer covering my pots of leaf mould from difference areas (my attempt at getting some diverse microbes going).

Im currently not using any bottled nutes. I feed with bio dyne microbes, labs and aloe juice periodically. Id like my top dress to carry me to the end but allow a good flush and fade on my ladies. 

 

Organic is the waaaayy

your plants seem to be enjoying what you do for them! 

did you amend a super soil by building it or did you buy super soil and further amended it? super soils usually can be used just like that, out the bag, clean water till harvest.

are you aiming for most cost effective or you just looking for a cheap way? you didn't give us any prices?

it cost me a total of R180 to reammend 100L of soil for a whole grow and I only give clean water from begin till harvest, with the exception of 1 or 2 biobloom feeds during flower. if needed.

the R180 goes to a bag of elemental blend, 10L of this stuff will recharge 100L of soil. 

You can plant in a craft soil, give clean water till they start asking for nutes then just topdress with 100g of the elemental blend and repeat everytime it's needed. 

no need to guess what's needed or more of one and less of the other, much less confusion when you just scoop 100g of one thing one time and there you go. 

those 5 componenets you mentioned there covers a broad spectrum for sure, but it's far from everything. 

here is a list of ingredients in the elemental blend. quite a few more things and I bet it's cheaper and waaaaayy easier to use  

[ORGANinc.]

3 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

those 5 componenets you mentioned there covers a broad spectrum for sure, but it's far from everything. 

I dont know what is in Talborn Flower, but im sure it has more than 5 ingredients by itself and its 30 buck for 500g 

[ORGANinc.]

But you most certainly cant go wrong with Elemental blend, unless you put too much, as with anything.

Edited June 23, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

16 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

I dont know what is in Talborn Flower, but im sure it has more than 5 ingredients by itself and its 30 buck for 500g 

that's the first cool thing about the elemental blend, we know what's in it.

would be cool if you could use just the talborne by itself, but there's a reason why we can't. working in the commercial nurseries between 2012 and 2016 we pushed a whole lot of talborne onto anyone, looooong before the big cannabis wave came over. basically, talborne is generic and not formulated for cannabis specifically, though it works well, it's made for commercial use. for Talborne as a company who wants their products to be used by commercial growers they cannot focus on cannabis specifically, they need to cover a broad spectrum of crops so they focus mainly on the macronutrients, with the addition of micronutrients and trace elements that naturally comes with some of the organic compounds they use. as they say they're not a compost, but rather concentrated organic compounds.

elemental blend is formulated for cannabis specifically and using one product is way less of a headache than having to guess between 5 different things. 

✌ 

[ORGANinc.]

5 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

that's the first cool thing about the elemental blend, we know what's in it.

would be cool if you could use just the talborne by itself, but there's a reason why we can't. working in the commercial nurseries between 2012 and 2016 we pushed a whole lot of talborne onto anyone, looooong before the big cannabis wave came over. basically, talborne is generic and not formulated for cannabis specifically, though it works well, it's made for commercial use. for Talborne as a company who wants their products to be used by commercial growers they cannot focus on cannabis specifically, they need to cover a broad spectrum of crops so they focus mainly on the macronutrients, with the addition of micronutrients and trace elements that naturally comes with some of the organic compounds they use. as they say they're not a compost, but rather concentrated organic compounds.

elemental blend is formulated for cannabis specifically and using one product is way less of a headache than having to guess between 5 different things. 

✌ 

This is also why I'm not too sure I would use it, but apparently many people are having great success with it so that's good to know. I'm just a bit picky with what I want in or on my soil at any given time, so I'm always doing my own thing in terms of top dressing and re-amending. 

Now with many batches of my soil that have not been tested i'm basically just winging it in terms of what I add. Its still going pretty darn well thankfully. 

But if someone were to just be like hmmm kelpmeal, bonemeal, dolomite lime topdress, disaster can be seconds away, so I always just give people friendly warnings. 

[SkunkPharm]

I too dress with talborne fruit and flower, Madagascar bat quango and bone meal. One tablespoon of each. Plus 2 handfulls of worm castings. And then I water it in. Apply Explogrow a couple of days after that.  

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

5 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

But if someone were to just be like hmmm kelpmeal, bonemeal, dolomite lime topdress, disaster can be seconds away, so I always just give people friendly warnings. 

this key is golden brother, have made biiig mistakes myself that way  

this comes down to that thing I mentioned long ago, there's big word of mouth in the organic growing comunity of "it's organic, you don't have to worry about it burning your plants" which is the biggest load of bull I have ever heard. the worst marketing tactic ever. I almost got turned off organics thinking I would never figure it out and everyone makes it out to be so easy... 

If you can say "it wont burn your plants" as a marketing tactic without having to say how much you should give and not exceed that amount, does that not also go for synthetic nutrients aswell? or well, with all nutrients for that matter.... 

look at this, I was given some Volcanic Rock Dust this week, first thing I noticed.... 

that last point, "wont burn your plants".... 

got me reeeeaaal excited if you know what I mean, so excited I almost tossed the bag in the bin, but convinced myself I could probably make the best of it. I do gardening other than cannabis growing so more fertilisers always welcome. 

Just below "won't burn your plants" is the application rates and some people will argue that obviously you have to stick to the amounts provided, but that's just my point exactly, if you can say "it won't burn your plants" - ONLY IF YOU USE THE PRODUCT AS ADVISED - then the same goes for synthetics.   

[SkunkPharm]

A little goes a long way

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Just now, SkunkPharm said:

A little goes a long way

that's what they should be saying instead of "won't burn your plants"

muuuuuuch better marketing tactic if you ask me, but if you tell your customers to not use much of your product it takes longer for them to get back in store to buy some more. which I find is kak dom, cause if I use a product and it fucks up my plants cause of advice given on the bag, I am not using that product anymore. 

a little goes a long way, damn man if I heard that back when I started out I would've saved myself so much time and resources. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I recharge and topdress with one single product - Elemental blend.

recharge post harvest, 100g topdress when needed.

clean water from begin till end, one product, one move. 

[Ill_Evan]

3 hours ago, SkunkPharm said:

A little goes a long way

[Vivid Dreamer]

5 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Organic is the waaaayy

your plants seem to be enjoying what you do for them! 

did you amend a super soil by building it or did you buy super soil and further amended it? super soils usually can be used just like that, out the bag, clean water till harvest.

are you aiming for most cost effective or you just looking for a cheap way? you didn't give us any prices?

it cost me a total of R180 to reammend 100L of soil for a whole grow and I only give clean water from begin till harvest, with the exception of 1 or 2 biobloom feeds during flower. if needed.

the R180 goes to a bag of elemental blend, 10L of this stuff will recharge 100L of soil. 

You can plant in a craft soil, give clean water till they start asking for nutes then just topdress with 100g of the elemental blend and repeat everytime it's needed. 

no need to guess what's needed or more of one and less of the other, much less confusion when you just scoop 100g of one thing one time and there you go. 

those 5 componenets you mentioned there covers a broad spectrum for sure, but it's far from everything. 

here is a list of ingredients in the elemental blend. quite a few more things and I bet it's cheaper and waaaaayy easier to use  

I heard good things about Jamies elemental blend. Nice diversity of amendments lik3 a buffet and seems simple enough. Im in johannesburg and with petrol increases - shipping rates and even product prices just shot up. Its R235 excluding shipping. Willl defintiely give it a try in the future but for now will use what i have. and keep some cash for some new genetics. 

[Vivid Dreamer]

3 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

that's what they should be saying instead of "won't burn your plants"

muuuuuuch better marketing tactic if you ask me, but if you tell your customers to not use much of your product it takes longer for them to get back in store to buy some more. which I find is kak dom, cause if I use a product and it fucks up my plants cause of advice given on the bag, I am not using that product anymore. 

a little goes a long way, damn man if I heard that back when I started out I would've saved myself so much time and resources. 

I learnt it this grow man. Had to give two of my girls a bit of a flush to help with the nute burn. You can def burn plants with these. Alfalfa & kelp...going light is better, these can burn if over applied. Alfalfa prob the most likely to fry your babies

[Vivid Dreamer]

5 hours ago, SkunkPharm said:

I too dress with talborne fruit and flower, Madagascar bat quango and bone meal. One tablespoon of each. Plus 2 handfulls of worm castings. And then I water it in. Apply Explogrow a couple of days after that.  

Thanks a lot for including your application rate bro. Just wondering, do your plants finish with a fade. Last grow i top dressed pre flower with bone meal, kelp and talborne red....my leaves stayed green all the way to the end except for one of my girls that was in a pot too small for its size. I really want to get the hang of this and have a feel for my soil. Its so difficult to guage when my tank(medium) is running low in terms of nutes. Im still learning ny soil....what ive learnt is that it takes so long for things to break down in organics, so almost as if i need to anticipate deficiencies. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Vivid Dreamer

[Vivid Dreamer]

8 hours ago, ORGANinc. said:

I like your style man!  

With top dressing, only want to add nutrients to supplement plants that have outgrown the pot so that they are not wanting during any stage of growth. then also being careful with compost or worm casting, I've had my fair share of compost that has not cured well enough and has adverse effect when applied, this can hinder growth significantly or even halt it completely, so imagine how kuck it would be if applied before flower. You get quality compost of castings you can mound on as top-dress and reap the benefits, but that you got pay top dollar for or make yourself. 

You are adding a few elements and some have a full spectrum of flower nutrients like the talborn flower, so just add small amounts of the other stuff and you should be fine. 

Anyway, I'm keen to see this one through, maybe start a grow diary and update up as you go along.

I'll definitely keep that in mind. I so excited to see how the changes from last grow translates to the quality of the flowers.

[The_StonedTrooper]

I do organic only and use SuperFrass to top dress my grows.

Calsap, and ExploGrow.

Great results on my plants.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

16 hours ago, Vivid Dreamer said:

I heard good things about Jamies elemental blend. Nice diversity of amendments lik3 a buffet and seems simple enough. Im in johannesburg and with petrol increases - shipping rates and even product prices just shot up. Its R235 excluding shipping. Willl defintiely give it a try in the future but for now will use what i have. and keep some cash for some new genetics. 

aaaah shit sorry, silly me I never considered where you at, but yeah that makes a lot more sense to keep the cash for genetics, I'm with you on that one!  

[Bos]

My soil has compost, bonemeal, rockdust and ewc added. The plants respond well to bio ocean kelp pellets during veg (micro) for the potted plants, got our own wormfarms so always do castings for top dress and regular wormtea as well. Apply a sprinkling of woodash during flower and comfrey or banana FPJ's. Keep the bottles for defs.

[Vivid Dreamer]

On 6/24/2022 at 5:22 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

aaaah shit sorry, silly me I never considered where you at, but yeah that makes a lot more sense to keep the cash for genetics, I'm with you on that one!  

Spoken like a true seed junky

[Vivid Dreamer]

On 6/24/2022 at 9:48 PM, Bos said:

My soil has compost, bonemeal, rockdust and ewc added. The plants respond well to bio ocean kelp pellets during veg (micro) for the potted plants, got our own wormfarms so always do castings for top dress and regular wormtea as well. Apply a sprinkling of woodash during flower and comfrey or banana FPJ's. Keep the bottles for defs.

Thanks for sharing. Im still trying to up my composting game. Im fairly new into it. I made my own from some repurposed plastuc boxes. One fitting into the other with drainage holes. When i started, i had no idea how much space i would need. So before the season starts, im planning to have a compost pile set up in my garden. Currently just prepping the space. My plants and veggies love the worm juice. 

[Bos]

On 6/26/2022 at 9:23 PM, Vivid Dreamer said:

Thanks for sharing. Im still trying to up my composting game. Im fairly new into it. I made my own from some repurposed plastuc boxes. One fitting into the other with drainage holes. When i started, i had no idea how much space i would need. So before the season starts, im planning to have a compost pile set up in my garden. Currently just prepping the space. My plants and veggies love the worm juice. 

Lekker man. Struggled to find decent ewc for my soil mix and AACT. Decided to sort the problem, plus I do enjoy a bit of guerilla diy engineering, you just make it work with what you have lying around. 4 old totes, some plastic fittings and silicon pipe...

My worm farms operate on the same principle as yours I think. Original technique uses 3 stacked totes, but I found that 2 works just as well. Totes are placed at a slight angle (promotes tea drainage) using bricks, also elevates them away from the ants-pita.(they can kill a worm farm)

Fill up the bottom tote with bits of cardboard, old soil, kitchen scraps and other compostable material. I give the worms about a month to do their thing, then place the 2nd tote inside the 1st tote(10mm holes drilled in bottom) The worms migrate up through the holes into the top tote chasing the new fresh food. Screwed in 2x small "garden sprinkler" fittings into the bottom tote with silicone pipe to collect tea. 

Works like a charm.