Think I need a little lime in my soil

So i picked up a $3 bag of pulverized lime powder. You could snort this shit.

I don't want to alkaline burn my plants to death, what's a safe way to add it. Mix with water? Put on top of soil and water over it? Poke holes, water it into the holes? Pour the whole bag right on the plants?

i use 1-2 tbsp per gl of soil

I use hydro and there for correct the water to 5.9 or 6.0 in ph after i put the nutrients in and im good, but in your case i would ask that you find the ph of the soil and then disolve the lime into the water, mix it then let it sit for 15 mins after a good shaking or mixing. Adjust the ph of the water so that when it mixes with the soil its around 5.9- 6.2 in ph, unless you have a chart for measure the ph i would just do little drops at a time till the right acidity and if you go over just fill with tap water. tap water is very alkaline usually.

edit--------- use a small sample of the soil like a cup full (8floz), then mix with different ph leveled waters till when you test the soil it is around 5.9 6.0, this is a tedious but precise way, plants are beings and they want your attention so you cant spend too much time on um if your doin it right.

do you know the pH of the soil before you add it, are you in pots or the ground?

you mix it in the top layer of your soil. you cant really add too much. all it does is bring your ph closer to neutral or 7, not really alkaline, just less acidic. if you cant mix it into the top of your soil because of roots and such, mix a bunch in with a new layer of soil and want. also it doesnt raise your ph right away but slowly over time. if you have a major ph problem it might be better to just flush.

personally i use fox farm soil. i add roughly a cup of lime to every gallon of soil.

skiweeds said:

you mix it in the top layer of your soil. you cant really add too much. all it does is bring your ph closer to neutral or 7, not really alkaline, just less acidic. if you cant mix it into the top of your soil because of roots and such, mix a bunch in with a new layer of soil and want. also it doesnt raise your ph right away but slowly over time. if you have a major ph problem it might be better to just flush.

personally i use fox farm soil. i add roughly a cup of lime to every gallon of soil.

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WHOAAA that's way too much lime more like a tbsp a gal.,maybe (i would only use that much with a 1.5 - 2 cu. ft. bag of soil)

I'm indoor, in pots. Growing in 50/50 MG organic choice potting mix (I know.. I had 4 bags though and the seeds aren't valuable) and half perlite. I have a layer of hydroton on the bottom for drainage. I'm not exactly sure what the soil ph is, but runoff is around 6 I'd guess, but my water going in is probably close to 7.5 I've got one of those 10 dollar jobbies that tests moisture/light/ph and it seems to actually work I think. I tested several spots in each pot and was getting 6.8-7ishish. I then took a sample of soil, blended it with water, filtered it and it came out just under 7 I think.

I know I need a digi... but that's coming later when I can afford it. Nothing seemed too out of whack but I think I did have pH problems early on with a little leaf twisting and lockout but since I've been using pH UP/DOWN as needed to get water as close to 7 as a I can. My water is also really hard... 350+ ppm so I'm sure it's loaded with limescale already.

Maybe I can skip the lime and just adjust water and nute solutions to around 7?

I've got some spare soil.. enough to add 1-2" to each pot. So maybe a tbsp or two per gallon that I add, put it on top and water? Wouldn't hurt anything there?

"if it ain't broke, don't......", adding things just for the sake is the fastest way to f' up a good thing, with the MG soil(eww!) i wouldn't add any nutes till the plant starts showing a few yellowing leaves at the bottom;then because your water is high in ppm i'd start with 1/4 of the dose on the bottle and then work your way up a little at a time.(i never give plants the doses they say on the bottle)

That's what I did in solo cups. I left them in until the single spear leaves yellowed and died and then transplanted (plus gave them nutes) which was a bad idea. The nutes gave them a surge into the new soil and they got a little overfertted with small small brown tips as they had nutes and fresh soil at once. They've had no nutes since the transplant and are still green and healthy. They've been flushed recently and look good. I may just go with what I have and not try to amend the soil. I'll just pH water more accurately and next soil grow I'll mix lime in before I begin.

ULMResearch said:

Maybe I can skip the lime and just adjust water and nute solutions to around 7?

I've got some spare soil.. enough to add 1-2" to each pot. So maybe a tbsp or two per gallon that I add, put it on top and water? Wouldn't hurt anything there?

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Forget adjusting the water and nutes, unless you really like doing things the hard and complicated way.

You could just top dress with the lime, or add it to a bit of fresh mix to put on top. Either way will get you where you want to go. Just mix it up for each container individually, 2tbl/gallon of mix. I mean, if you have 5-2 gallon pots, don't mix up 20tbl of lime and dirt and try to parcel it out. LOL Or, you could put the lime on top and just cover with some fresh dirt. Myself, I just sprinkle it on top and let regular waterings take care of it. It's added to the mix of course, but starts to get depleted after 6 weeks or so.

I don't pH anything with a well limed mix. There is just no need.

Wet

symbiote420 said:

WHOAAA that's way too much lime more like a tbsp a gal.,maybe (i would only use that much with a 1.5 - 2 cu. ft. bag of soil)

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sorry meant to say half cup. you cant overdo lime. unless you had maybe way to much lime per soil ratio. its neutral and wont raise your ph above 7. i did a soil ph test last night and most were around 6.5. 1/2 cup is a rough estimate of what i use. i grab a big handful for every gallon of soil. seems about a half cups worth. probably a bit less.

How fast will pulverized lime start working? I know it's faster than pellets but it won't last nearly as long. I have 40 lbs of the shit so I can always add more.

Do I count the perlite in the amount per gallon or just the soil only? If I have 2 gallons of soil left and 2 gallons of perlite, can I just mix it all together with like 8 tbsp of lime powder and then evenly distribute to the top of the plants and then water? Or would it be 4 tbsp for the soil and ignore the perlite?

My last grow of ffof I had burn and ph issues real bad so I added 4 cups of lime to 5 gallon pots ffof 1 cup at a time mix in the top soil the best I could If you wanna look at it video here it is~


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1F-ppaR8Vg

skiweeds said:

sorry meant to say half cup. you cant overdo lime. unless you had maybe way to much lime per soil ratio. its neutral and wont raise your ph above 7. i did a soil ph test last night and most were around 6.5. 1/2 cup is a rough estimate of what i use. i grab a big handful for every gallon of soil. seems about a half cups worth. probably a bit less.

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Too much lime can equal too much calcium which equals nute lockout. You can have too much. And OP make sure you have dolomitic lime.

ULMResearch said:

So i picked up a $3 bag of pulverized lime powder. You could snort this shit.

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hahaha. i almost shot bong water onto my computer screen when i read that... big fan of dolomite lime good choice man

and its pretty hard to use too much dolomite, as long as its powdered and its mixed in well. it should start to work right away to begin fixing ph problems. lime saved me so much confusion before when i used to get the ph twists.

ULMResearch said:

How fast will pulverized lime start working? I know it's faster than pellets but it won't last nearly as long. I have 40 lbs of the shit so I can always add more.

Do I count the perlite in the amount per gallon or just the soil only? If I have 2 gallons of soil left and 2 gallons of perlite, can I just mix it all together with like 8 tbsp of lime powder and then evenly distribute to the top of the plants and then water? Or would it be 4 tbsp for the soil and ignore the perlite?

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8tbl. I count the total amount of mix.

Wet

I just finished making my mix actually. Turns out the problem with MG Organic Potting Mix is it's pH 5-5.5 right out of the bag. Took like a cup and a half or maybe 2 to bring up 10 quarts of 50/50 mix to 6.5-6.8. Going to topdress my soil pots with 1-2" inches of this soil and water through it. Hopefully that will give me a bit of buffering.

Took the mix, added like 4 tbsp and soaked it and stirred. Tested the pH and it was still like 6. Added like 4 more and now it's perfect. Soaked it again, stirred it up, going to let it dry a bit then add it. Sound horrible or okay?

Well I wound up need liking a cup and a half to bring the hot pH 5-5.5 soil up to 6.8. I let it dry and sit and tested every corner. Resoaked, stirred and dried again and same result. Top dressed all my pots with it, gave each plant like a quart of water just to push some of it into the old system without running it off.

This morning they look great. Flower starts ASAP. Thinking tonight. They will be close to 6 weeks old after the weekend. Gonna give em a little pH'd water today, switch to flower and in about a week start hitting them with the GH Micro/Bloom now that I have great 6.8pH soil with some buffering action.