Magash said:

It does help but if you have good soil it's not needed.

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drumma said:

you'll probably find a lot of mixed feelings on this one.

I don't add anyting to the bottom of my pots but I do use a soil that is mixed with a lot of perlite and vermiculite. i find that provides a nice loose mix  and allows a lot of air to the roots and provide good drainage.

when you water if you can see water come out of the bottom them you're ok.  if you never see water come out of the bottom and the soil doesn't get dry between waterings you might need to put a few extra holes in the pot.

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tophernotsocool said:

i use good sized rocks at the bottom of my pots about 3 inches worth, prevents water log. but i do it with the last set of pots only, because the transplanting procedure sucks when rocks are falling everywhere, messy. and well its still messy when harvest is over and you try to get all your rocks back if your cheap, and they get embedded in the dirt and roots bound to them. up to you.

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Quote:

I bought miracle-gro organic choice potting mix.

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tophernotsocool said:

if your just trying to prevent over watering or something related, it would be easier to make your soil airy, i use vermiculite in my soil, 80% soil 20% verm, always drains and dries out in a set amount of time no matter how much water i pour down, works for me, plenty of ways to make your soil drain.

and experiment, use diverse methods without too many adverse effects and keep it around the standard guidelines for growing. if you keep fine tuning you can find and balance what will be easiest for you as well as what the best is for the plants.

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coda said:

Quote:

I bought miracle-gro organic choice potting mix.

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any chance you can get better soil?  Miracle gro is crap for cannabis cultivation.

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SpaceMonkey said:

Miracle grow soils are usually to hot for cannabis!

They ad to much of there fertilizers in the soils. While it will work, you will end up with plant burns and is hard to really judge when to start a feeding regimen of your own.

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jwes420 said:

I used 1/2 MG 1/4 SphagPeat 1/4 Perlite. W/ 2" scattered rock on bottem, in 1 gallon pots until they were brought outdoors. +FoxFarm nutes the whole life of the greenery. No problems }=)~

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ganja_fan said:

SpaceMonkey said:

Miracle grow soils are usually to hot for cannabis!

They ad to much of there fertilizers in the soils. While it will work, you will end up with plant burns and is hard to really judge when to start a feeding regimen of your own.

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You are right.  I have been realizing this as most of my sprouts have burns to some extent, though some of them are quite beautiful.

However, they have been growing in regular miracle gro soil and are about to be transplanted into the organic miracle gro soil I mentioned above.  This soil contains no fertilizer and seems pretty basic.  I could customize the plant food for it and also start figuring out how to do that ph and ppm stuff I've been reading about everywhere.

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Quote:

Idk what "nutes" means =( lol, but it must be good because foxfarm seems to be the favorite around here.  I'll have to hunt it down and try it sometime.  But it has bat poop in it, lol...creepy...it must be extra effective.  Is it?

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Nutes = Nutrients = NPK value(Nitrogen, Phospherous, Potassium. There are many other as well. Check these under Diagnosis->Must read, there are good descriptions of what each does, and what might be happening if imbalanced.
Amazon has fair deals on Fox Farm Nutes, 100% Organic, made by good people who know WHAT you are really growing. There is even a feedng schedule to follow that really helps out, as Fox sells a six-step regimen. It costs about 100 dollars but you can use it for quite a few grows, just double up on the "Grow Big", and make sure you select either Soil or hydro for all of them.