new grower first grow question with soil mix

[dhll999]

With my first grow i will be planting my seedling into a 5gal with a mix of ocean forest and happy frog I have a 12 Quart bag of Happy Frog and a 1.5 Cubic Foot bag of Ocean Forest and I can also add a 8 Quart bag of Perlite if needed
What do you all think

[dhll999]

Sorry more info I will be doing white widow autoflowers in a inside grow room

[Xena]

Too late in the day for math so I’m not sure how many quarts are in a cubic foot but I mixed one 8 quart pearlite for every 16 quart of soil.

[ChadWestport]

FFOF has perlite in it but it can get compacted after a month or two of watering. The Happy Frog I haven't had much experience with, but it seems very similar to OF with the exception it has microbes. Adding a little perlite in the mix wouldn't be a bad thing to help create more air pockets in the root zone.

[FunkyButtLovin]

Happy Frog has perlite as well but slightly less than Ocean Forest.

[Cali]

Not familiar with those soils but if you want to add aeration I would recommend pumice. Perlite floats to the top pumice will stay where you put it.

[FunkyButtLovin]

Fill the pot halfway with Ocean Forest, pour in about 1/4 of the bag of perlite and mix thoroughly then fill the rest of the pot with Happy Frog and add another 1/4 bag of perlite and mix that perlite into the top half.

[CaptainWiese91]

Use leca stones. They are much bigger than perlite and give much better oxygen to the soil.
At least 40% Leca or perlite in the mix.

[CaptainWiese91]

Perlite cost more where I live

[FunkyButtLovin]

I wondered if that was the case. After a tiny bit of research it appears that other than in Greece who happens to be the #1 producer, not much perlite is mined in Europe. We mine a lot here in the western US and also import a lot from Greece.

[CaptainWiese91]

Leca stones is from volcanic stones.
They are so light, it’s crazy.
And have a lots of air in them too.
You can choose different sizes, I always choose the biggest.
And I can see the difference between the big sizes and the small sizes in the plants life.
They didn’t have enough big, when I bought last time. So I bought a bag with smaller sizes and they are not doing the same thing as the big ones.
I’m he big one in my 30 Liter pot, 1 liter of water and I already have run off water. I need 2,3 Liter to get run off with the smaller lecas

[quirk]

I know it takes 7 heaping shovel loads to fill my 5 gal air/fabric pots. My ratio with your mix would be one of each FFOF/HF/perlite. Last shovel load - pick 'em.

[dhll999]

my main concern is burning the seedling using all Ocean Forest and wanted to water it down a little bit with happy frog thinking it would lower the chances of burning the seedling and adding some perlite for a little bit more drainage or I could fill the pot with OF and put a cup size hole in the middle and fill it with HF and plant the seedling into that so it will grow into the OF soil I wanted to stay away from transplanting to cut down on stressing the plant

[FunkyButtLovin]

That's why I recommended putting the OF on bottom and HF on top. The roots start out in the high microbe, low nutrient Happy Frog and by the time they reach the Ocean Forest the plant is ready for the increased nutrient levels. Plenty of people (myself included) have had success using 100% Happy Frog or Ocean Forest but I do see reports from time to time about OF being a bit hot for seedlings (hot batch?) and although it hasn't been my experience, there are enough to justify caution.

[dhll999]

I am retired on social security and do not want to waste seeds trying different things suckers are not cheap I cant afford to buy a bunch of stuff 30-40 bucks is a lot of money to me so I wanted to do the best job I can

[ChadWestport]

You found the right place then. Lots of helpful and knowledgable people on here.

[dhll999]

great advice thank you all

[dhll999]

Funkybuttloven now thats fun to say, has a good idea of what I am thinking about...Thank you

[Cali]

CaptainWiese91 interesting about the rock size. In my soil if I use rocks bigger than 3/8 I get poor soil. It will compact and that’s not good for roots. Also in my opinion the smaller the aeration the better for the roots for oxygen. In my case when I added the small rocks my soil and plant life improved.

[CaptainWiese91]

I have quite the opposite experience 👍🏻
Too small stones make the soil more compact.