Groundtop
Well-Known Member
I use foxfarms grow big and tiger bloom for my plants. Should I feed with every watering?
Feeding
- Thread starter Groundtop
- Start date
Hey Groundtop!
can you drop us a pic and let’s see what you’ve got??
FF used to be a 3 bottle solution and you still needed a cal mag supplement, but IIRC Bluter said they had 2 bottle solution… anyways check for an updated FF feed chart
But yes to answer your question you can do feed then in next session do a plain water run. It’s also possible to do F/F/F/W but if you are either new or not good at reading plants just yet then I’d stay on the safer side until you get your sea legs…
but before we go further what’s your grow media?
can you drop us a pic and let’s see what you’ve got??
FF used to be a 3 bottle solution and you still needed a cal mag supplement, but IIRC Bluter said they had 2 bottle solution… anyways check for an updated FF feed chart
But yes to answer your question you can do feed then in next session do a plain water run. It’s also possible to do F/F/F/W but if you are either new or not good at reading plants just yet then I’d stay on the safer side until you get your sea legs…
but before we go further what’s your grow media?
- Thread starter
- #3
no it isn't. it's a soilless buffered media.
if you're running coco lcoco you're missing at least one part of the feeding trio. you'll also need calmag. check the fox farm guides.
If using FF nutes you need Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom, plus Bush Doctor (cal-mag). That’s really all you need. There’s a ton of add-ons and “finishers”, but save your money, those three and cal-mag will grow great pot!
That is what I used to think but the stuff actually is a typical potting soil just like any other mix containing compost and/or worm castings.
Looking at the traditional mix we have about 1/3 compost or similar, 1/3 aeration like Perlite and 1/3 peat moss to form the base. Amendments can be added or the mix could be used as is.
What Fox Farms did was remove the peat moss from the basic recipe and substituted a coco coir. It is a soil mix and soil rules apply. The incoming water should be a pH of 6.3 and not the 5.8 that is used for soil-less mixes.
The major ingredients in the Coco Loco include the coco coir plus "aged forest products" and earthworm castings as the compost/soil portion and Perlite for the aeration. The amendments that the company adds include bat guano, Norwegian kelp meal, oyster shell and dolomite lime. The dolomite lime not only helps to maintain the soil pH the company wants but it is often recommended as a way to get Calcium and Magnesium into the mix. All this sounds pretty much a mix like a lot of us would be doing if building our own super-soil.
I am expecting that over the next few years we will see more companies coming up with similar mixes as the hobby gardening and commercial gardening supply community continues to move away from the use of mined peat moss. The EU had already 'banned' the future use of peat moss for home or commercial growing several years ago. The industry there has moved to using coco coir as the substitute. This change in the mix recipe in Europe was something I picked up here on this msg board several years ago when growers were confused by the new mixes in the stores but they seem to have adapted.
When I see Fox Farm's "Bush Doctor Coco Loco" I feel that I am looking at the future of hobby and commercial potted plant gardening & growing.
As the others have mentioned pick up what you need for the complete trio.
You are missing the Big Bloom, probably because it is not a traditional fertilizer the way many think of fertilizers having some decent NPK numbers. Actually it has minimal amounts or just about next to nothing in the NPK nutrients. What it supplies are the microbes and other micro-organisms that help to break down the fertilizers and the existing nutrients tied up in the organic materials and minerals in the composts. And, it supplies some of what the microbes need to stay healthy and reproducing. On top of all that the Big Bloom is the only one of the three that is feed each and every week through out the entire grow from seedling to harvest.
I have seen some impressive looking plants shown in msgs here on this message board posted by growers who have followed the dose amounts and the water and fertilizer schedule that Fox Farms has on their web site or will mail you. They have some green healthy plants which have massive buds within a few weeks of the start of the flowering stage. Often those grower have some decent lighting set-ups which is also helpful so keep that in mind.
Download the proper feeding schedule from their web site. Or call them and ask for a paper copy which should be in your mailbox within a couple of days. Problem with downloading the Fox Farm schedule found on most other gardening and Cannabis growing web sites is that some of them are older versions and did not get updated when the new one was released.
As to your question I am pretty sure the answer is to feed up to twice a week. If you water twice a week then it is "feed with every watering". But if you water three times a week then two times the fertilizers will be mixed in. It is not set in stone since they do say "up to twice a week" so sometimes the grower might skip a fertilizing but I do not see where they recommend more than twice a week.
Call them if you have questions. I have had some fun and interesting conversations with them on growing just about anything plant related.
coco base and ph'd to a 6.3 standard means it is buffered making it a buffered soilless media. yes, soil rules apply since it is buffered, but it is not a soil per se, it's an amended soilless media. if it contained the peat, it would still be considered soilless, just like the various types of promix.
