Growing Tips for Indoor Fruit, Flowers & Veg
Growing Mediums
Recipe 170% Coco-Coir (I recommend Fertile Fibre's Biodynamic Coco-Coir)
20% Worm casting (I recommend Pete's Peat Free Compost)
10% Lava Rock Granules/Pumice/Perlite/Vermiculite
+
10-20ml Dr Forest Micro-Nutrient Mineral Mix per litre of Soil. If you don't use the mineral mix you will need to supplement more with cal-mag.
The mineral mix adds calcium, sulphur, and trace minerals, including silica, to the soil mix. The trace minerals help to improve the flavour of the finished product. It will also increase the nutritional content of the produce.
Recipe 2
33% Worm castings (I recommend Pete's Peat Free Compost)
33% Coco-Coir (I recommend Fertile Fibre's Biodynamic Coco-Coir)
23-28% Lava Rock Granules or Pumice or Perlite or Vermiculite
5-30% Activated Bio-Char - biochar activation recipes. (I recommend Earthly Biochar). Can be substituted for lava rock granules.
+
10-30 ml Dr Forest's Micro-Nutrient Mineral Mix per litre of Soil.
Recipe 3
16.5% Worm castings (I recommend Pete's Peat Free Compost)
16.5% Compost (I recommend Fertile Fibre Bio-Dynamic)
33% Coco-Coir (I recommend Fertile Fibre's Biodynamic Coco-Coir)
23-28% Lava Rock Granules/Pumice/Perlite/Vermiculite
5-10 % Activated Bio-Char - biochar activation recipes.(I recommend Earthly Biochar). Can be substituted for lava rock granules.
+
10-30 ml Micro-Nutrient Mineral Mix per litre of Soil.
Prepping for transplant
Take soil recipe 1, 2 or 3.
Mix with 5-10ml of Veg 4.4.4 per litre of soil. I recommend starting with 8ml per litre of soil.
(5ml = 1 teaspoon. 17ml = 1 tablespoon).
For larger quantities, I find it helps to use a 500ml measuring jug.
Use at least 20-litre pots for best results. I recommend using 30 or 50 litre pots.
Add fertilised medium to pot. Leave for 2-3 days, preferably covered. If not covered, moisten soil surface each day.
You can also use a Jadam Microbe Solution treatment at this stage. Cho (the founder of Jadam) recommends using this three times before planting. You can find the recipe online. I also have the Jadam pdf in "openforest" on my website with all the recipes. You can find a video about it here. It is cheap and easy to make. You can also use a compost tea/extract or other microbial innoculants.
Dig hole for transplant. Sprinkle with mycorrhizal fungi. Transplant and water.
Top-dress with 1-4 ml Veg 4.4.4 every 2 - 6 weeks. You can also mix with an equal quantity of worm castings before top-dressing to aid breakdown of nutrients.
As a rule of thumb, I recommend 2-3 ml per litre every 2 weeks. The larger the pot, the more fertiliser you can add and the longer the plant can go between feeds. Think of the soil as a battery pack: the larger the battery, the more charge it holds.
Then when the plant is starting to show signs of transition to the flowering stage of plant growth, or when you change the lights, you can switch to the Bloom Fertiliser.
Some growers prefer a little extra nitrogen for the initial Bloom phase. You can do 50:50 Veg and Bloom. So if you have been using 2ml per litre, do 1ml Veg and 1ml of Bloom for the first top-dress.
Depending on pot size and soil recipe you may need to supplement with some cal-mag. I use the powdered cal-mag I sell. I add 0.5 - 1ml per litre with every 2nd feed or as needed. If using soil recipe one you will need to double that,
Bloom Fertiliser
The most popular choice of Bloom Fertiliser is the Bloom 2.8.4, which is high in phosphorous. I also do a Bloom 2.4.8 - which is high in potassium. I use this for my chilli plants and other vegetables. I also do a Bloom 2.8.10 which is high in both potassium and phosphorous.
Recycling the Medium
It is advised to leave the pot for 2 weeks - 4 weeks while keeping moist before re-planting. You can also use a compost tea/extract or Jadam Microbe Solution to help with this breakdown of residual nutrients.
You then simply remove the root ball, sprinkle with mycorrhizal fungi and transplant back in. Then follow the previous method outlined above.