When it comes to cannabis growing advice, nutrients and organics are among the most popular topics we are asked about.  Too often growers call looking for new clones to replace the ones they just accidentally burned.  When it comes to growing cannabis, we are feeding the soil not the plant.  The plant is looking for a balance of nutrients and it decides when to use them, not us.  Below are some of the best growing tid bits we can offer to help you be successful growing cannabis organically.

Aerate Your Soil

A good aerated soil allows for two very important things.  First, it gives oxygen to the roots.  Roots grow when they are exposed to oxygen, and if they are drowning in water, there is not enough oxygen.  The more aerated your soil, the more often you will need to water though.  Second, flushing your plants.  Think of flushing your plants as planning and installing a fire escape, you need a back-up plan.  If your plants get nutrient burn or lock-out, you want to hit the restart button, Fast!  Pumping good clean water through for 30 seconds will allow for a fresh start free of excess salt build-up throwing off PH levels.  My favorite soil mixture is Fox Farm Ocean Forest mixed with expanded clay pellets, using a ratio of about 90/10.

Your Feeding is Experimental

Cannabis growing advice is just that, advice.  We can only share with you our experiences and those of others.  It is very rewarding for you to experiment your own method within your growing environment.  I experiment every new grow!  Some plants with more shade will require less feeding.  Some strains will perform better with certain sun light and temperatures.  If you grow indoors, your lights might be weaker or stronger than someone else’s.  All this effects the way the plant uptakes water and nutrients and ultimately grows.  There are many other factors effecting the growth of the plant, create a baseline and work around that.  In most cases we follow the feeding instructions and change up the timing of the feed.  Sometimes we find that certain strains require more food than others.  Take good notes each time.

Aerated Compost Tea

My favorite piece of cannabis growing advice is the Aerated Compost Tea (ACT).  In our backyard we can multiply our own microbiology, creating an army of beneficial organisms for our garden.  One of the most extensive pieces of information about Aerated Compost Tea can be found at Microbe Organics.com. In summary, we feed food sugars to a tea bag filled with worm castings, while oxygenating the water for 24-36 hours.  The bacteria eat and multiply by the billions over this time period.  This ACT water is now ready to be released into your garden and provide a perfect compliment and balance to the soil-food-web going on in your soil.  Trust me, you want to implement compost teas in your garden.

Organic Feeding

When it comes to organic feeding, our best growing advice is to keep is simple.  For soil we use Fox Farm Ocean Forest, this is a great base.  For nitrogen / vegetative feeding, we use Fish Fertilizer 5-1-1 available in your local garden section.  Apply once per week as a base, dial it up for plants that continue to have that light green hue.  The first time you grow a plant you are creating a baseline, don’t over feed it or you will kill your experiment.  Better to error on the lower side, increasing dosage by 25-50% is reasonable in my experience.  For flowering plants, I stick to Dr. Earth Bud & Bloom Booster Organics.  This has a solid array of plant food essential for bud and seed growth.  I have had great results applying this just twice indoors.  Week 3 into flowering, and then 2-3 weeks later.

A great way to add a nitrogen boost are worm castings.  A super product in the organic world, add this in the beginning of the vegetative state.  Tip: Fox Farm does not need any additional boost of worm castings for the first 3-4 weeks.

Bat Guano and Bone and Blood Meal are also great additions we have used.  However, these additions are more advanced methods of supplementing your soil.  Fox Farm includes these or equal counterparts.  It’s not until you start making your own soil you might want to consider these supplements.

Bugs in the Garden

No cannabis growing advice would be complete with out discussing bugs in the garden.  Between aphids, spider mites, and caterpillars, you could have your crop wiped out and never want to grow again.  With so many products out on the market, what works and what is safe?  At Balance we research, research again, and then do more research on the products we use in our garden.  Aphids love marijuana, mainly their sweet sap.  They are usually black or dark brown small bumps and attract ants.  We use Neem Oil to combat these pests.

Spider mites live primarily on the underside of the leaf, so when you spot them it is usually after they have a small infestation.  They love temperatures between 70-80 degrees fahrenheit.  Pyganic is an insecticide that will eradicate these spider mites.  Spider mites lay eggs that hatch days later, when you spray you need to spray every few days because pyganic does not kill the eggs.  Neem oil is also a great spider mite eradicator.  We rotate these spray products to create diversity in our bug control program.

Caterpillars and Cannabis

Finally, the infamous caterpillars.  Caterpillars find cannabis plants very nutritious.  They are not eating your buds, their poop lands on your bud and secretes a toxic chemical that rots your bud.  BT Monterrey insecticide is our choice to fight the flowering plant chompers.  Spotting caterpillars is a job by itself.  Spraying before you see caterpillars or bud rot is the best cannabis growing advice.  Starts spraying 3-5 weeks into flowering.  Spray again every 2 weeks and if you notice any damage up your spray to once per week.  Upon eating the chemical, the caterpillars stop eating, turn brown, and die.  This chemical is safe to spray the week of harvest as it should evaporate within a day or two.  Generally we stop spray at least 3 weeks before to avoid bud rot from the residual moisture on the buds.  Spray around 4pm so the sun can burn off the moisture.

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