The current girls in flower are using a cheap peat based compost (about two weeks in).

With the time off over Christmas and a lot of reading here I have learned many things which would explain the drop in yield after ditching allmix to a cheaper peat soil and just upping the grow and bloom.

Anyway, the current girls were in their final pots when i learned all about microbial life, rootgrow, rockdust, teas, maxicrop, mychorriza(sp?), trichoderma etc.

I tried to sprinkle some root grow round the edge where the compost had come away from the pot before a watering, same with some rockdust. From what I can understand the microbial life should start off ok, but not survive too long.

Can anything be done to peat based composts to give the microbial life the best possible chance? I was thinking about regular teas (got a pump and airstonre on order), as these should be teeming with life and if they get a dose every week (possible more?) this should help out.

Along with adding maxicrop (also on order) to the feeding schedule (this helps out i believe.

Anything else can be done?

Hi Sharkjazz,

I'm not so sure there's much you can do after the compost has been placed into your pots but you could maybe try a few compost teas like Randalizer or I Zimbra do although I don't know how much that will change the composition of your compost. It certainly won't cause any harm and may benefit

I noticed your thread on adding loam to peat based composts and that's a good start that will certainly put plenty of minerals into it that peat lacks. You could also look at adding some Rockdust, seaweed meal and maybe some alfalfa or comfrey pellets if you wanted to. The rockdust and seaweed meal only needs adding sparingly but really does benefit the bacteria and fungi living around the plant roots.

There are other composts that are not peat based, which is largely sterile and inert and far less damaging to the environment. Coir (used cocnut shells) make an ecellent base for composts as it holds water well and retains air even when saturated. It's a very lightweight compost so doesn't compress in the pots and rewets really well even when totally dry and that's something peat always struggles with when it dries out. Coir doesn't shrink away from the sides of the pot when dry either, unlike peat based composts.

Westlands have a compost called Advanced Plus that is made up from peat and composted wood chippings. This is another very lightweight compost but must have loam mixed in or plants tend to get a lot of leaf fungal infections. Roots seem to love this compost as it's so lightweight and seems to retain lots of air, one slight problem with the compost being so light weight is telling when your pots need water by weight.

Thanks for your reply.

I have a tea coming up for 24 hours bubble, going to give it another 24hrs then give it to the girls.

Regarding the mixing your own compost, is there any brand, type of seaweed meal / alfalfa /comfrey pellets / coir recommended? Are these standard products in a garden centre? b&q?

The plants at the moment have some Westlands advanced plus mixed in with the cheaper compost. Probably 3:1 (cheap :Adv +) Am looking forward to get these out of the way so can do a proper job start to finish on the next lot. Am interest to see how it all compares.

I order most of my stuff from The Organic Gardening Catalogue but I've read here that you can get organic Alfalfa pellets for feeding horses and those are cheaper.

Good luck with the next grow.

Hiya SJ,

There is no point in using rootgrow unless it is definately in contact with the root mass, it has to make contact with the roots to establish it's self, so when you pot up on the next grow sprinkle it in the base of the pot and the mycorrhizal fungi will be there for the whole life of the plant if fed with bio bizz or any decent organic nutes, you can even buy rootgrow root food now, which according to rootgrow is all you need, but I'm using rootgrow root food one week and bb grow the next for the first time so will have to wait until the end of this grow to see if it's good or not. There is also rootgrow in gell form for bare root plants, but I would imagine that this would be the easiest to try and water in, but remember it takes approximately 3/4 weeks for the friendly fungi to establist, but looks great when it has, it's like a white stringy net work through out the compost. Organic molasses is also good for feeding the friendly fungi. But any thing like hydrogen peroxide will kill friendly fungi. The only ingredient I need to source now is decent organic compost and then I will be fully organic.

Peace,
GG

I thought a bit of rootgrow around the edge would (not alot but some) come into contact with the roots. But it appears I was wrong, not noticed any extra roots at the pot holes. Now a couple of plants that were left over and were treasted properly, wow. I have never seen so many roots out the bottom of the pot. Live an learn. I have been giving some treacle in the feed, two table spoons per 10ls every 10 days. Can't really notice much difference, but am sure is doing some good

Interesting thread which I think applies to me too at the moment. For all intent and purpose I should have a thriving microherd population and diversity as I didn't bother sterilising any of my ingredients which came from the garden i.e. well rotted cow manure and topsoil from the veggie patch which has been manured for the last two seasons. I suppose only time will tell if I've made a fatal error or not. The thing is if in not sterilising the ingredients prior to potting on helps the beneficial fungi etc. to become established then I won't need to bother inoculating with something else later on. As for the matter of weed seeds germinating in the pots well they're easy enough to keep under control as are bugs. As far as I know the Borg, thrips and white fly aren't around at the moment, well I haven't yet spotted them in my garden. Then again this is Africa and there are probably plenty of other exotic pests to take their place. Have for instance noticed a lot of aphids and mealybug (which is a proper pain in the behind in these parts!).