My last few grows I have not had the best luck, though I think I am figuring out where I went wrong and soon I expect some good progress to be made. First it was the gnats, I got those taken care of. Then it was the light intensity, got that handled... and now I am learning my soil was junk.
When I started my indoor growing season this fall, I got all new dirt. A new brand I have never used before. Well this came with lots of gnats, and later on I learn many have had similar problems to me using this garden soil. Seeing reviews online seems this soil is really bad.
So I decided to start over once again, pulling up my nearly a month old seedlings. They started doing the same thing as the previous failed seedlings.
Now I have a few new changes, I added a low wattage LED grow light above where the seeds should emerge. I can raise the netting up or down to adjust the lighting. Eventually I will go back to using my powerful metal halide light. But for now I just want to get them going again without worrying about too much light.
These LEDs need to be kept much closer to the seedlings due to their low intensity. But previously I had to bring my powerful light up to the top of tent to achieve the same LUX output.
For for now I will leave off the 600w MH bulb. But once they get big I will switch it back on. And put my more powerful 1000w light bulb when they really hunger for more light. But for now I will keep it simple for the seedlings.
Still got the fly tape up, but I have not seen a single gnat in over a month. So I think my BTI water along with the sticky traps really helped.. Along with watering less often and with less volume.
As for the junk soil. I amended half of it with seed starting mix. Hopefully this will be a good medium now for the seedlings to grow.
Making more BTI water, though I only use less quarter cup at a time with these seedlings. I need more of it for my plants I have growing downstairs in the seed starting area.
Making it I strain out the "mosquito bits" after soaked in the water for many days.
Eventually I need to replace the bits with new bits.
And now I have another jar of water that the gnats handle, killing them if they drink it.
But honestly my last two grows may have had a lot to do with the poor soil. I did well previously with my indoor grows using miracle grow. But since I am introducing beneficial fungi and bacteria into the soil I decided to skip them this time for my soil. And I guess I messed up and got some really bad soil.. basically just fine mulch in a bag.
So I hope by adding seed starting mix to all the pots and mixing it up well now I will be on the right track with my new soil. Time will tell, hopefully the seeds will emerge any day now.
