Cal mag+ in TLO..

Sidvicious1 said:

Holy shiiiiiiitt!! Thanks for all the great advice! U answered probably 15 questions i had.. yeah, I got down to earth neem seed meal a few weeks ago and added some to my cooking mix.. oh yeah, I've read nothing but great things about it.. yeah from what I've been reading about TLO is that it seems a to be a pretty simple process it's just choosing which amendments u want to add to your soil to get the process going. When ur just starting to learn about living organics you read all these different things people are doing to prep and amend there soil it seems overwhelming at first but I've started to realize once the soil goes through its cooking cycle and balances out it's basically about just watering and letting the soil do what it does best... that being said this is still my first living organics grow so I'm still taking in tons of info..

im not sure why my mix is staying as high as it is. It's been cooking for about 6 weeks total, I added more peat to it almost two weeks ago to maybe bring the ph down a little. I also added some neem seed meal, not to try and bring the ph down (though I figure it might bring it down a touch) i just added it because it's awesome shit.. I havnt checked my ph In a week or so but I'll check it when I get home today.

So hypothetically, if u had the mix that i posted on this thread and ur mix was reading around 7.8 And I still have probably another 3 weeks or so before I transplant with it, what would u do to try and correct the ph?
And yes, when I get the ph stable, I'll just be doing some light top dressing and acasional ewc tea..the one thing I see alot of people useing that I don't have is guanoes.. it's one amendment I didn't get.
Thanks for the help..

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Well, to be completely honest with you I've never actually tested to pH of any of my organic grows before. I've always been told it wasn't necessary so I never have

Your pH definitely has me stumped for sure though, not entirely sure why it would even be so high in the first place.

Fortunately you still have 3 weeks to go, which is a pretty decent amount of time. Epsom salt or cottonseed meal are capable of lowering your pH but epsom salt will mess things up if you use too much of it because you'll end up having too much magnesium in your soil. Cottonseed meal could also cause problems because you already have a lot of Nitrogen sources in your soil, adding more could also potentially cause issues. On top of that, I'm not entirely sure the exact amounts you'd need to reduce your pH in the first place unfortunately.

If it were me, I'd try going the epsom salt route because I'm not really seeing a consistent source of magnesium in your soil mix anyway now that I'm looking at it. Perhaps try mixing in 1/4 cup of epsom salts into your soil, mix it up and continue cooking it as normal and check the pH a few days later. If you don't notice any results within a week, at that point you may want to look into adding some cottonseed meal into your mix. I'm thinking that a combined mix of cottonseed meal and epsom salt should help buffer your pH to where you want to be, but I can't say for 100% certainty. If you do end up adding cottonseed meal to the mix, I'd add half that amount in extra fish bone meal so you aren't too high in nitrogen. If you use 1 cup cottonseed, perhaps consider adding 1/2 cup of fish bone meal.

I'm really hoping that works because I have no idea what would be making your pH so high. Perhaps try giving that a go and report back on what it does for your pH and we can try going from there.

And if you want some good information on organic soil I have some recommendations. There's a thread called True Living Organics by Rrog on here that has quite a bit of gems of information in it. There's also a thread on Grasscity by Mountain Organics about organic growing, Mountain Organics and Clackamas Coots both drop enormous amounts of information in that thread to the point that I'd recommend a notepad and pen for taking notes. I learned most of everything I know from that Grasscity thread, well over 200 pages in it so it will take quite a bit to read/sift through but it's well worth it.

Hope you get your pH sorted out my man.

Sweet, that's exactly what I'm looking for. A ton of info about all aspects of the living organics grow style.
The first set of leaves on about 3 of my plants have turned a little yellow. This one is the worst of them but could u tell me what u think of the browning of the leaf on this one? Possibly over water? Also I'm going to go get another ph test kit today. I'm just not sure about the meter I have. I'm going to send a pic and show u what I'm talking about..
U see where the ph numbers are on the meter? It has a red block under them all the way up to 7. Under the number 8 Is the green block to let people know about where they want to have it.. now I know 7 Is stable and where I usually want to have it, well actually about 6.8 or so is what I here is best for organics.. anyway.. it's reading past 7 but a little under the green marker so I'm not sure how to read it. I'm just going to buy a kit that uses the water solutions to get a more accurate read.. anyway just thought id I'd put that out there.. I'll check back with u once I've checked everyrhing.. hell, my ph might be right on the money, just an inaccurate meter..