Starting an outdoor grow in southern Nevada. It’s my First grow I’m planning to do 3 plants in 5 gallon fabric pots. And 2 more as bonsai grows for fun. I found a good amount of info for making your own soil but I don’t have the time or resources to make my own compost and such. What potting soil would you use? Due to the extreme heat I will be shading the pots to reduce heat to the root system as well as occasionally shading/moving the plant. Any other recommendations for high heat outdoor growing?
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Be sure to put on wheels, they will be heavy to move around. I use ffof. it has enough nutes for up to 6 weeks. The heat there is brutal. Some others will pop in to help.
Welcome to the neighborhood 
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Coast of maine stonington blend holds water pretty well and has lots of great organic fertilizer in it. You’ll still need to feed the plants though if your using a 5 gallon pot.
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I grow outdoors in NorCal and it stays over 100 for over 10pm days… I just use Recipe 420 blend but add extra perlite for water retention and I pull a sun shade over them when it gets really bad. I also use the sun shade to block wind if needed
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In my experience growing with grow bags or fabric pits is that they will dry out if you don’t keep an eye out. If you can keep a drip on it you with have great success.
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What do you use to feed them are you talking adding nutes to the soil or adding nutes to the water? I have seen some type water mixes with things like bat guano and worm castings
That’s definitely an option depending on how much of a drip? I have drip iragation for the whole backyard so I can use a couple lines. I honestly don’t even know the amount of watering necessary at the moment.
I use a drip system. My plants are either in 30 gallon wine barrels or straight into the dirt of the raised bed garden.
In the summer, it will probably get watered twice a day.
I too dress with all sorts of stuff LOL. My new friend is the Recipe420 dry amendments… then there’s worm castings, bone and blood meal, kelp, bat guano, etc…
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Do you only water using the drip or you water twice a day plus the drip? Also Do you only use recipe 420 for dressing or do you ocationaly add those other products?
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If you’re going organic, everything @Caligurl said plus I like to use langbeinite. I also use a non organic bloom booster when flowering like fox farms cha ching, beastie bloomz and open sesame. I’m still pretty new to growing so definitely listen to others 
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Watch out for too much nitrogen during flowering. I use a kinda living soil and only add water till I top dress about 3 weeks before flowering and around 30 days later top dress again to get me the rest of the grow. Different areas of the states are hotter than some but I drip 1/2gal hour long n a ten gallon fabric bag plus fill my drain pans for the plants to suck it up from bottom. If inside a good way to knock out your knats is feed/water from the bottom. Man there must be inless ways to grow the sweet leave!!!
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And perlite doesn’t hold water retention it let’s it pass thru to help drain. Vermiculite holds water retention and also has silica.
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You may not need wheels either for the 5 fall bags. They aren’t that heavy at 5 gallon. Pick my 10 galls up and move them around and it’s not back breaking. Lighter than my plastic 20 gal containers. Go to green sunshine light company and check out their substrate mixture. It’s gararnteed
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I haven’t decided on organic or not yet all I know it that ocationaly using non organic can kill stuff in the soil. As a total newbie I’ll definitely be taking any advice Available!
Thanks grow bro that info will definitely go into my notes! And there has got to be a million ways to grow and like pokemon gotta grow them all!!
This could be a silly question but What do you use to test nitrogen levels or do you just focus on the ph level and adjust accordingly?
Salt based fertilizer killing microbes is debatable. I don’t pretend to be an expert though.
I just think too much of anything is going to be bad for the plant and soil so I use in moderation. I used half the recommended dose or less last season since I’m already using a rich soil.
https://www.gardenmyths.com/salts-dont-kill-plants-or-microbes/
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Yes to the drip but I might mix up a treat for them occasionally. And I will top dress occasionally as well
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As I look more at my current system outside I would prefer to get something for just those 3-5 plants what system do you use?
Me myself I don’t worry about the ph so much in my substrate as there are items you can use as buffers for that. Not saying I never check it just not as much. However, I do check my water as sometimes it’s a little off sometimes as it will run from 6.2-7,0. Some may say 7 is high but I really don’t worry about it. Veggies growing great.
I do however check my substrate for NPK values with a simple soil tester
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