question for soiless users

lemmis

Well-Known Member
hey. trying to work thru dilema. experimenting with peat based soil and not having good results. for u guys that use this stuff, how do you keep ph balanced? peats ph is very low, so do you use water on the alkaline side to balance it out or just use lime or some other buffer to keep ph balanced?
 
What "peat based soil" are you using? Most are already balanced unless they are labled for acid loving plants. What are you results? Pro-mix or something as such should work fine without adjusting PH.
 
it's cheapo walmart crap with nutrients in it. i know, i know, but i flushed the crap out of some of this stuff, and have a seedling doing well in it. when i transplanted my girls into it i forgot to flush the soil and they started to look all nutrient burned, ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! since i water with a stable 6.5 ph'd water, i figured something in the soil must of pulled ph down into nutrient lock. don't have soil ph test tho.
 
know what you mean, i use MG Organic garden soil, mighty low ph
dolomite(1 tbsp per gallon) seems to make a huge difference, really sweetens those sour soils
 
...rapid lime ...one tbls per gallon...you can top dress and water in as normal,or premix before planting.
...flush your plants with reverse osmosis water until you can catch the runoff from the bottom of the pot...test the pH of your runoff...keep flushing until you get the desired ph runoff (6.5 for soilless) to get a good control of your medium's ph balance. Also, if your using chemicals in soil/soilless...you need to do this very often when in a buffer like petemoss/vermuclite to avoid the salt buildups from the chemicals. Good luck.
 
thanx for responses. looks like i learned something new. i was missing a buffering agent in my soil. trying to create the worlds easiest grow with as few components as possible. don't think i can pass on lime or equiv. tho.
 
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