Hello everyone.
Well I just thought I would get started on the MG Soil tests and begin by doing alittle reasearch and contacting Scotts and elsewhere.
I did manage to find out some truths about it that I was not aware of.
I would like to relay all of my findings on this little project of mine to all of you.
Ok, First things first. I do know from personal experience that Marijuana can be successfuly grown and believe it or not grown well in the MG potting soil mix. BUT................. There are some rules to follow and a touch of alittle more personal involvement than just dumping it into a pot and growing pot. Naturally they arent going to put directions on how to prepare and maintain MG for growing Cannabis. I have found this comes with both research and personal errors. Heck who dont make mistakes? Ask any serious experienced grower in here and they will admit they still make a goof every now and then but it takes a "goof" to get the solution. Now for what I have discovered about this Soil Mix.
(mix is based on a 2.0cf bag of MG Potting Soil)
1)Miracle Grow comes from the factory with fertilizer already in it that is a slow release formula in the form of tiny osmocote type pellets as well as a spray type nitrogen application at the plant.(we can all do without these). DO NOT ADD ANY NUTES IF FRESH!!!!!!!!!
2) MG soil isnt Ph balanced so add 1/2 Cup Dolomite or garden Lime PER BAG and it just helps condition and decomp the mulch that is added.
3)Throw in 10 handfulls of good Perlite(CAUTION- handle this with care and wash your hands before AND after you touch it and for gods sake DO NOT rub your eyes or face or any other unprotected body part. If you get it in your eyes you can flush em for an hour straight and lemme tell ya it dont help and your day and evening are gonna be spent in misery. It's worse than a Welders Flash Burn)
4)Mix that up(I use a wheelbarrow) with a hoe or rake or if you have gloves and long sleeves on use your hands and mix it up.
5)Find some CalMag or get some Epsom salts because youll have close to zero Mag and Cal for the first month in this soil.
6)Dont water the soil mix till you get your seedlings transplanted.
7)Use one container ALL the way from Veg to Harvest!!!!!!( The reson for this is the fertilizer already in the soil. It has very high Nitrogen which you want as low as possible for flowering. After 30 days this Nitrogen is nearly depleted and you can safely flower without that problem.
8)After vegging for at least 30 days you can safely add nutes to it without burn according to nute directions and close attention.( this is based on a solid watering schedule for total dissolvement)
9)REUSE THIS SOIL!!!!!!!!!! After one grow it has all of the fert out and you can add nutes from germ on safely and it is very good quality soil after it's broken down.
10)After 30 days you can add a few handfulls of wormcastings which provides good aeration to the soil. Stores your nutes longer as well so they are available to your plant at anytime it wants it.

Well guy's I know it aint much but I am still going and i'm gonna find out even more about how to make this inexpensive mix a great one available to anyone nearby. If any of you have any more advice for making this soil a good one for our Herb of joy lemme know please.
Thanks and Peace,
Med

thanks med, this is a great thread.

If they'd sell the mix without any of their nutes in it I'd be a very happy and long customer.LOL I wanna add my own and i'm gonna nail this stuff down till I can do it safely and let everyone know. I cant wait to try it as a reuse and add my own veg nutes.
Peace and thanks,
Med

Hey Med, I hope you don't mind but I am going to copy this post to the DIY thread for growing on the cheap. This could help many people trying to grow their own meds cheaply and eaisly. I will come back and post that link so others can add to both threads.

peace

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Life,
j-angel

aka GP purrie kittie attack cat!


My Little Grow LST'ing w/Hardware

My Outdoor Odyssey 2008 BONSAI MUMS

My Little Grow Indoor To Outdoor 2009

I dont reccomend MiracleGrow products for starting seeds.My first few grows I tried it and just fried my seedlings.Your results may vary

Thanks for taking the time to share all that with us. Great Job...
One thing I noticed, you suggested adding epsom salt for cal/mag.
Just wanted to let you know that the dolomitic lime is a source of cal/mag .
So you may want to adjust your recipe..

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Cheers!!!!! Shinningwind
current log @ HGS
Shinningwind's Outdoor Adventure/09

It is also a buffering agent and helps adjust the ph of the soil to what mj likes. The problem with lime as Cal/mag is that it takes time to break down and if the plant needs it for cal/mag, it takes too long to become asccessable.

Peace

__________________
Life,
j-angel

aka GP purrie kittie attack cat!


My Little Grow LST'ing w/Hardware

My Outdoor Odyssey 2008 BONSAI MUMS

My Little Grow Indoor To Outdoor 2009

Very good point Jangle.....

I've noticed this past week, while preping a large amount of potting soil, that some of the bags of the MG Soil have a inconsistancy of the fert balls. I opened one bag and it was chock full of them, and then another bag had very few. Maybe one was older than the other...I dunno. Not a big deal to my situation...I just found it odd. Not surprising...I imagine Its hard to get a perfect ratio all the time.

I think another problem with the inconsistencies that occur during storage at the retail location. A supercenter near me gets massive amounts of MG soils in spring, so much that they store pallets of it in the parking lot.

Well the bags have small holes and i'm sure that the rain and weather effects it. I imagine that by fall the nutes have been somewhat flushed but i suspect that the nutes are actually consentrated prior to that. Really i suspect that it may even vary from bag to bag at the same time on the same pallet due to different bags being exposed to more or less water from rain. All these factors make it even harder to use MG soils and know what to expect.

Two things i reccomend when using MG soils are to mix everything in one large batch as opposed to mixing it on a bag by bag basis to equalize any inconsistincies possibly present in the individual bags And adding a granular benificial fungi to the mix aswell. They are relatively inexpensive and always a good thing in my experience.

I think that the biggest problem w/ mg soils is PH which the OP addressed by adding lime. I prefer to monitor the PH of the runoff and adjust the water going in accordingly but i have little experience in using lime in containers.