Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TDS meters are inexpensive and handy—so get one!
I use mine to check things all the time. For example, I would use it in my organic teas to measure
amounts of certain liquids I add sometimes such as CaMg+ by General Organics, which is a mineral sup-
plement.Iwilladdthistomytea-makingwaterbeforeaddinganythingelse,andIwilladdituntilmyTDS
meterreads60-70PPM,whichisabout11dropspergallon.Myreverseosmosiswaterislessthan10PPM
just out of the filter, and that is great for TLO growing in containers. I will check my pure filtered water
too from time to time to make sure my reverse osmosis membrane is still working well. I recommend you
get one of these if you can, because they are very handy and inexpensive.
Recycling Soil Mixes with high ratios of peat Moss
High ratios of peat moss in a bagged soil mix often work well for cannabis growing, and I have certainly
usedplentyoftheminthepastwithgoodsuccess.Whenyouareplanningtorecycleyoursoilmix,though,
youshouldprobablyreconsiderthesehigh-peatmixesandavoidthem.Ihavenoticedthat,forsomereason
that escapes me, the pH just wants to drop hard and fast when you recycle this type of soil mix. I theor-
ize that it gives the fungi a bit too much help somehow and they tend to dominate the container soil mix,
and of course whenever they take over like that they love to drop the pH way down low. After having this
problem persist and mess up a few plants I decided just to avoid using anything with any big ratios of peat
moss in it and the problem was solved.
Over Compaction and Anaerobic problems
In containers, it is especially important that you understand the whole compaction dynamic. Using a living
soil mix as we do in TLO growing, it is imperative that you grasp the whole concept of organic matter
breaking down, in other words decomposing, or cooking, as I like to call it. Something like coconut coir
fiber added to your soil mix will indeed help to aerate it at first. Then, in the highly bioactive TLO soil
mix,itbeginstobreakdownrapidlyintosmaller andsmaller particles, onitswaytobecominghumus,and
