Top dressing is simply sprinkling the dry fertilizer on top of the soil, maybe scratching it in a little and watering.
Over several waterings the fertilizer will incorporate into the existing medium and be taken up by the plant.
It’s not a lot different than simply mixing a powder w/ water and pouring it into the medium.
I use
Gaia Green in my grows. They have 2 primary products, their all purpose which is 4-4-4 and their bloom that’s 2-8-4. The 4-4-4 I use through veg and about halfway through flowering. I’ll begin to blend in 2-8-4 after flowering is underway.
I follow the recommendation on the label and use 3 tablespoons per gallon of medium for the initial mix. Then when I need to top dress, it’s 1 tablespoon per gallon.
I’ll usually need a top dress every 30 days or so.
Gaia Green is my choice and the results have been outstanding but there are quite a few other brands of dry organics that are just as good. Fox Farms has a line….I believe it’s called
Happy Frog. There are many others as well. Dr. Earth is popular and available in every Lowe’s and wal Mart.
The concept is simple. There is an all purpose for the veg stage and a bloom mixture for the flower stage. The veg stage will always be close to equal N-P-K or a little higher N, because the plant needs more N during veg. Just in case u don’t know….a fertilizer will always express its makeup w/ a 3 number indicator.
Gaia Green all purpose is 4-4-4. The first # is Nitrogen content, 2nd # is phosphorus and 3rd # is Potassium.
The bloom ratio is generally a bit lower N and higher P and K, as the plant needs more P & K in flower.
I will point out that my grows became much more problem free when I learned that the plant still needs a fair amount of N (nitrogen) during flowering, particularly in the first 3-4 weeks. I’ve attached a chart that I used as my Bible and clearly shows the plant needs during each step of the way.
If I was using your medium of those 3 substrates, I would add the all purpose (4-4-4 in my case) along w/ about 10% worm castings and some extra perlite or rice hulls and some Myco (there are many brands for this as well).
At that point you are pretty well set for a while, where all you do is water. I’d PH my water to 6.0 to 6.5. About every 3rd watering I’d add in ReCharge or some type of Microbial tea. Stump Tea is a brand that I’ve used and it works well.
I always follow the same steps of transplanting from small to larger pots.
My seedlings grow for a couple weeks in a solo cup. U don’t want the amended mix for a seedling. Plain old
Happy Frog soil is good for seedlings.
Once my seedlings have gotten to a good place, I’ll transplant to 1 gal pots. The 1 gal pots have the amended pre-mixed medium. And boy is it important to gently and cleanly make the move and not disturb the roots.
They will stay in the one gallon pots for 3/4 weeks and need nothing but water and ReCharge.
Then I move them to 5 or 7 gal pots of the same pre mixed medium. From there, I’ll veg anywhere from 2-4 weeks, then flip to 12/12.
Once they’ve been in the 5 gal pots for 30 days or so, or 40 days for 7 gal, I’ll top dress. This is usually right about the time I flip or just after. With this first top dress I’ll use mostly 4-4-4, b/c the plant needs just as much N at the beginning of flower as it did while vegging.
The top dress amounts are 1 tablespoon per gallon of medium. So for a 5 gal, I’ll usually give 4 tablespoons of 4-4-4 and 1 of the bloom (2-8-4). I add a small amount of worm castings + myco.
This will bring the plants to mid flower or around week 5. At this point, I’ll do another top dress of 5 tablespoons of bloom + worm castings+ myco.
This will carry it to the finish line.
U wanna keep the plant fed, green and healthy as long as u can…..although a little fading in the last couple of weeks is to be expected.
No need to flush or any other silly bro-science nonsense.
I’ll use ReCharge until about week 7/8 of flower and then stop.
I’ve messed around and tweeked things over the years, but the method/recipe I’ve described above has yielded as well as any of my alterations.
I don’t mean to push my style of growing onto you or anyone else. I just know that I flew by the seat of my pants for a good while before I stopped piece mealing bits of input from many different growers.
Thanks to one fine fella on a different forum, I began to focus on one way of doing things and suddenly things fell into place.
There are many ways to grow top shelf stuff, as long as you have top shelf genetics. This is what has worked for me and maybe I can save someone the hassles of 5 or 6 grows that don’t go so well, before they finally figure it out.
So good luck and please reach out if u have any questions or need anything at all.
The pic is my last harvest….
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