I’m a first time indoor grower. I’ve grown outdoors for years and had huge success with plant it and forget it. Only fertilizer I use is cow/horse/rabbit manure and water when I think of it. I have been challenged by a breeder to see what I can do with an indoor grow of an auto seed and have no idea where to start with nutrients. I do not want to use any chemical fertilizers. Any help with natural fertilizer and what stage to apply would be appreciated. They popped out of the ground 2 days ago and have had a small shot of Epsom salt water. Grown in Agro mix G6.
One thing you can do is use some composted (fresh will be too hot) manure and make a compost tea with that and unsulphured molasses as a food source. You can add in what ever you’d like to the tea. For me I run worm castings, chicken manure compost, few squirts of seaweed extract and let that brew for 24-36 hours. Right before I’m ready to water I’ll toss in 1/4 tsp of aloe flakes and 1 tsp if yucca extract as wetting agents
I’ve also heard of using banana peels as a tea for magn and iron
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I don’t know how to get all nutrients but here’s a small list. As a seedling, it won’t need much. Once it hits vegetative you can start. Note that everything starts SMALL. You can still easily nutrient burn a plant even without chemical nutrients. Start small, as it gets bigger you can add more. Note, I say “soil” but that’s just what I use. Any of these can be made into a “tea” for watering as well. I recommend a food processor or blender to mix everything:
- Nitrogen: ground up some clover leaves and stems in water. You don’t need a lot and only if the leaves are yellowing. When small all you need is literally 4-5 clovers for 2 cups of water. it doesn’t sound like a lot but clovers are absolutely rich in nitrogen.
- Phosphorous: Dried beans, ground up into almost a powder, in the soil. Beans also add iron. Eggshell is another backup (bringing a lot of calcium with it)
- Iron: grind up dried beans and peanuts into almost a powder in the soil.
- Potassium: I literally break off a piece of banana peel and plug it in the soil.
And in flowering stage, Calcium and Magnesium are the big issues. Pumpkin. But be warned, pumpkin is very nutrient dense so it can be easy to overdo it. Pumpkin is huge in magnesium, magnanese, and a bunch more. With some crushed eggshell for calcium, this alone can handle all your Cal-Mag needs in flower stages since that’s when Cal-Mag deficiencies seem to be the biggest issue. Just dice a few chunks and put them in soil. Again, not too much. I only put one piece about the size of a 20-sided die in the soil of my pre-flower plant a few days ago when we did jack-o-lanterns and it’s already looking happier and the pistil hairs are getting much longer. Grind up dried pumpkin seeds for a bit of Copper, Magnesium, Phosphorous, and Zinc.
The pumpkin/eggshell alone offers calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, magnanese, potassium, and even trace amounts of copper and iron
Don’t add all these at once and pay attention to what has more than one nutrient source so you don’t overdo it by adding another nutrient source (example, adding pumpkin AND banana would be an overload…use banana in younger stages when it needs potassium but not as much Magnesium, then stop using banana and use pumpkin instead when flowering because pumpkin has potassium too but the plant needs less of it but needs more magnesium so pumpkin is a WONDERFUL next step AFTER banana when it starts flowering.
Hope this helps and anyone else can feel free to add to it.
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Welcome @weed_witch. A lot of good natural stuff has been mentioned here but I have to ask; by natural, do you mean stuff you can harvest and process or commercially available nutrients? How big a container will the plant be in or are you planning on a feed/water schedule?
If you can score that rabbit manure, grab it. That stuff is gold when it comes to plants and it will not burn even when used fresh from the poop chute. There are plenty of beneficial plants that can be processed for use:
Organic Fertilizers - Composition
@PB65 has a nice auto grow here. Water only but I believe it is in a 7G pot.
Cheers and keep us posted on what you decide.
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Thank you all for the ideas! I should have been more clear about natural. I’m talking stuff that you would have in your house or easy to get hands on. Banana tea, pumpkin and clover are easy to use. I raise rabbits so I have access to (a lot) of manure, have a milk cow and horse so that is easy to get plus i have a fish pond full of goldfish. I don’t want to use any of the fertilizers you can get in a bottle or stuff like miracle grow. (nothing against it, it’s just not something I use any other year). I am growing in a 4x4 Mars tent with a Mars Hydro light. The ladies are in 3 gallon pots (stipulation of the grow challenge). I haven’t set a specific watering/feeding schedule so i am open to all ideas.
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Fish manure is amazing for plants. You could use the pond water as your base for teas or just use it as a water. Will have plenty of beneficial bacteria in there
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Hi @weed_witch , welcome to the community, great topic, I’m getting great info here from you guys!
@Abominabibble Nice tips there,
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I would set up a little worm bin under the sink area shread organic food in blender feed worms to make you own casings or you can feed cornmeal or masa is what i use only has corn and hydrogenate lime in it.
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Welcome to the community!
its hard to specifically tie down a feed water schedule feeding and watering shud only b done when needed ie looking at ur plant the leaves will tell u when it wants water and food
Not always the case. When using living soils you want to maintain a moisture level between 3-7 (1 being bone dry and 10 bring sloppy mud). The beneficial bacteria in a living soil need to be suspended in water for the plants to be able to uptake them and they hate dryness. When the soil gets too dry the bacteria will either die or go into limbo
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I use specifically dry amendments. Im reading a lot of things that Id consider throwing into my compost pile, but not to feed the plant.
for example, egg shells Im sure works fine, but youd literally have to ground it down to a powder to make it accessible to your roots any time soon. i have egg shells in my compost pile from 2 years ago that have not yet broken down.
personally, I roll with a modified coots mix.
make sure its properly aerated because your soil can get heavy
best stuff to use is obviously up to the beholder, but i use some blend of the following
compost/earth worm castings
kelp meal
alfalfa meal
glacial rock dust
bat guano
seabird guano
crustacean meal
fish bone meal
aloe vera plant(the correct species)
neem meal
karanja
insect frass
bone meal
gypsum
oyster shell flour
malted barley flour
100% real coconut water
UNSULPHERED molasses
biochar
these are what i use or have used. you definitely have access to the manures which are all great, but id be so worried about burning my plants at the same time. i prefer to use manures as a good starting point to my compost.
good luck
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Thank you all! I am getting such good info here. so far I’ve only used pond water on them a couple of times. my husband installed a CMH light on them and took down the blue/purple LED lights and they have exploded! in 2 days they have doubled in size. @Qbsillest1 I have 4 pile of composting manure (rabbits produce a lot) and I know cows will burn. I may go get some out of the rabbit pile before the snow flies. When do you suggest the molasses? I used it on my outside plants but it was well after they started flowering. I have bone meal and someone suggested diatomaceous earth but i can’t remember what it did.
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The blue purple light is great for the beginning, it helps keep the plant short so it can focus on root growth good idea to switch it out now. As far as the molasses goes, I only feed it when doing a compost tea and use it as a good source for the bacteria in the tea which I do once a week
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Well what works for one might not work for another that’s how I do it
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I would use molasses (mag sulfer ) from week 4 of floweing
That is the biggest point to make here lol no 2 grows or environments are the same. What works for me may not work for you
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Hey man, I recommend using he’s very well known company for over 25 years that I am using and that’s all organic it’s called “Biobozz” nutrients. I also use their soil “Biobizz Light-Mix” which comes with minimal microbes and you’ll have the controll of adding all the nutes you want and as much as you want. If anyone is interested i can share my feeding schedule from seed to harvest using nothing but top shelf organics. Your plants will show a lot more trichomes and will be much frostier than using Success nutes or other chemicals that are available immediately unlike organics that need a little time in soil before nutrients get chelated or up taken by the plants roots. organic feeding is not for beginners because you have to be able to spot any deficiencies if any occur or just follow my schedule and you should not have an issue 
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