For containers, I use Dyna Gro products, either Foliage Pro or GROW. Both offer a complete range of plant nutrients including all necessary trace elements. Few other liquid ferts offer the same.

Inground plantings seldom ever require any fertilization as I mulch routinely with a compost product.

I wouldn't use any of those Fox Farm products unless you like paying for mostly water. It's almost like homeopathic fertilizer.

I just get a water soluble granular fertilizer and mix up a concentrated stock solution. Then you just need to dilute as needed. No reason to pay for water to be shipped when you have it coming out the tap.

The only ratio you need is setting close to 3-1-2 or some factor thereof. All that bloom booster stuff with high P and/or K is complete BS. It's a marketing scam that just pollutes the environment when you use it. No plant ever needs P in that quantity.

are you sure.. you really need to be fert'ing.. as much as you are???

what are you growing... that requires so much fert??

since you are rethinking what you are using.. perhaps you ought to rethink the need for so much ...

plants are not children.. they do NOT need to be fed like children ... if you were growing in mother earth.. we would tell you to build your soil ... rather than use ferts .... plants can get what they need from a good soil ....

its all complicated in pots.. you need to replace the nutrients you flush out the bottom if when you water ... you flush such thru the pot ... but if you dont do that.. then why would you need to fert so often ...????

and with that logic.. i agree it just boils down to marketing.. and trying to separate you from your money.. to take care of your babes ...

when i grew a lot of indoor potted plants.. i just took a gallon plastic milk jug.. sterilized it with a 10% bleach .. and then used a 25% dilution.. of the cheapest water soluble fert i could buy.. and just used it with each watering ... i am still working out of the 5 pound canister my dad bought at kmart.. about 25 years ago ... lol ..

ken

Well when the NPK ratio is expressed in decimal numbers below 1, you need a lot of it. Lol

Ken, any containerized planting will require routine fertilization. There are no nutrients in potting soil (unless you purchase the types that are infused with ferts) so they must be provided by the gardener. And they don't hang around for any length of time - they are flushed with every watering - so need to be replaced frequently. Tpically on a weekly basis at least (weekly, weakly) or with every 2nd or 3rd watering.

And there are differences in products....cheapest is not always best :-) Few commercial fertilizers offer a full range of plant nutrients. Most just offer NPK but successfull container culture requires a bit more than that.

My preferred approach is a CRF like Osmocote supplemented with the Dyna Gro liquid solution. But the OP just asked for a liquid product and it's very hard to beat Dyna Gro!!

here on the east coast it's the cannabis growers' choice for fertilizer.

I've seen some pretty good reviews on Dyna Gro -- does this need to be "flushed" like FoxFarm? That's the main issue I have with them.

Cannabis growers are known for believing all kinds of ridiculous woo when it comes to growing plants. Having known quite a few, I would not use what they think is great.

All fertilizers need to be flushed periodically but you only need water to do it. Fox farms is scamming you.

Hah. I found our local hydroponic store last year and can't imagine the patrons whom i see shopping there are really growing lettuce in their basement. It was amazing to walk in and see two aisles solid of different fertilizers. I will say the artwork on their labels is fun.

PS: I am shopping there for large bags of perlite for my carnivorous plants!!! I'm legal!

I always liquid fish emulsion. Sprayed it on the leaves. Roses and herbs seem to like it.

For indoor plants, I use DynaGro. For my outdoor container gardens, my favorite is Age Old Bloom and Age Old Grow depending on the situation.

And I have to add to gardengal48's comment about the legalization of canabis being an advantage to those of us who garden anything else. In Colorado, there are now an amazing array of soil, amendments, and fertilizers readily available to us that never were before!

Totally agree with both of you, gardengal48 and popmama, though now i'm overwhelmed by all the choices! I might pop by my nearest hydro store and just ask for their recommendations, though dyna gro seems to be the general favorite.

There are so many options because cannabis growers are the most gullible growers. It's not because of any rigorous scientific research that led to their development. The only published research on cannabis nutrient requirements is in relation to hemp and even then the research is sparse. Hydroponic tomato growers have produced a much larger body of research when it comes to fertilizer protocol development.

I wouldn't ask your local hydro store either. They are out to get your money juts as well. In fact, mines does not even sell Dyno-Gro Foliage Pro which is my main fertilizer. Now I have to get it on Amazon and a lot cheaper too.

All the stuff they recommend to me in the past was non sense in comparison. One simple fertilizer with all you need)

Don;t forget to make sure that you acidify the fertilizer solution for most plants of even this fertilizer could be useless..

Mike

Maybe some are gullible and some indulge in their crop more than is probably appropriate, but that's a pretty broad brush to tar all cannabis growers with!! Those who grow for the medical or legal recreational cannabis industry - a highly regulated activity for any number of reasons - are conscientious farmers who do look into various soils, amendments and fertilizers to increase their yields and quality of their crops just like any other farmers do.

One of the best commercial potting soils I know of - and those are very few and far between - was developed specifically for the cannabis growing market. And works equally as well for most other container culture as well. Dyna Gro was actually first formulated by and for cannabis growers!! And yes, there was considerable scientific research involved.

Various different crops do vary in their specific nutrient requirements. And the mineral content of the irrigation water used and the potting medium or natural soil involved in each different situation determines which particular fertilizers will be most effective also. With the fact that the aforementioned hydroponic tomato culture for instance involves growing the plants only in water having a very significant effect on the approach to fertilization used.

Hydroponic tomato culture is not a water culture. It's a 'to waste' system in pots with an aggregate medium.

The presence of the aggregate does not affect my point. A point which continued on from the point you made when mentioning hydroponics in the first place.

I use organic fertilizer. Neptune's Harvest organic liquid.

Neptune Harvest Rose Formula

Been growing cannabis for 2 decades- indoors but not hydroponically (ugh!)...and I now use Maxicrop...which is easily as effective as the expensive Dynagro, Bloom, Plagron et al. Hydroponics is a whole 'nother thing (and yep, you do need to flush)...but not with soil buffering and organic fertillser. Yield is controlled by the genetics (sativa/indica and strain), the amount of time spent in vegetative growth, the pruning (there are numerous methods including 'sea of green'), the lighting (with emphasis on the different spectrum lights at different stages of growth and the wattage) and, of course, the potting medium - with soil grown plants, the type of fertilser is just another variable determined by the law of limiting factors - you can throw the most amazing fert in the world...but without light, water, oxygen and most of all (with cannabis) the genetics, spending heaps of $$$ on fancy brands is,, I think, a bit of a waste of money.

The law of limiting factors holds for all of horticulture though. Any plant can only grow as well as the least efficient variable will determine...since the whole growth cycle is dependent on a balance of all necessary criteria being met, with feast being as damaging as famine.

You use soil in containers? Hardly anyone has done that for decades. I only know of a couple wholesale growers that use soil in containers and their nursery stock sucks because of it.

Yes I do use soil. I am not a wholesale grower, but I beg to differ regarding the growing of plants in soil. At one time, perennials were field grown, dug up as bare-roots in autumn, and sent out. This is still done for some perennials and many woodies but rowing in containers is the absolute most common method of herbaceous plant raising here in the UK...even many tree nurseries will maintain an inventory of strictly container grown trees...in soil.

Might be worth defining what we mean by 'soil'.

Yep, many nurseries will use a short term soilless compost, based on coir, peat, bark and so on...but I use a LOAM based mix of sterilsed topsoil with added base fertilser (plus perlite, grit or other aeration and drainage additions)...for both my own ornamental and edible plants...and my cannabis...and many (better) nurseries will also use a loam based potting medium as the structure is more stable, nutrient buffering has better equilibrium. and irrigation levels are easier to maintain...especially if the plant is going to remain in the container for more than 3 months.

Incidentally, it is a somewhat bizarre assumption to make regarding cannabis growers..as well as being wrong. Not only in the fore front of conducting rigorous research on experimental (and innovative) growing methods (tomatoes were not exactly in the vanguard here), the sheer accumulation of data regarding breeding for example ( cannabis is an interesting botanical oddity as a dioecious annual ), not just regarding hermaphrodism, selfing but also separating compounds in the plant (again, it has an immensely long and fascinating history as well as complex alkoloids, terpenes and other phyto-active substances. It is fair to say that there has always been a heap more $$$ involved in the cannabis industry (both legal and illegal) than in tomatoes. And more than anything, money now drives research...but not always in a good way.

You can get away with using soil in a pot for such a large and fast growing plant like cannabis. A pot sitting in dirt will wick into the ground, my pot on my deck, however, will not. I certainly wouldn't use garden soil for a small, slow growing Japanese Maple!

I grow Salvia Guaranitica that I started using the 5-1-1 on, but in 90+ weather, being in direct sun 15+ hours and being in a bit of a natural wind tunnel, they will wilt daily. I adjusted it to 4-1-1, then 3-1-1 (or similar) next year I'm going to do one pot in the Miracle Grow I swore I would never buy again. Cardinal lobelia in garden soil, sitting in a 6" pot with no drain hole will flower like mad!

gardengal48, you wrote "One of the best commercial potting soils I know of", would you mind sharing what that soil is?

There are 2 - both Fox Farms products. Ocean Forest potting soil and Lucky Dog Grower's Blend.