With the trends of the world leaning heavily towards being healthy and environmentally friendly more people are choosing to grow their own fruit and vegetables organically. Growing fruits and vegetables organically outdoors is pretty simple. Once the plant is in the ground nature will water the plant, and feed it nutrients from the soil, while the sun provides the light. Organic gardening becomes more difficult when the garden is indoors.
When fruiting and flowering indoors the gardener takes over for mother nature and must fulfill all the plant’s requirements if it is to thrive. Bringing soil inside the grow room will invite pests and disease. As a result indoor gardeners have chosen to grow in soiless mediums or hydroponically. Most soiless mediums are inert, and so indoor gardeners have come up with some ingenius ways to deliver the proper organic nutrition to their favourite fruiting and flowering plants.
There are certain types of products that can provide the optimum nutrition for exceptional plant growth throughout the flowering phase while staying organic and natural. Using products such as bat guano or a quality hydro-organic fertilizer will ensure that the fruit and vegetable produced are of the highest quality and nutrition to whomever consumes them. Flowering organically will also guarantee that they are the most delicious and best smelling fruits and vegetables possible.
Let’s begin with nutrients and supplements that are best used if you are growing in pots and using soiless mediums. Soiless mediums usually do not contain nutrients like soil does. This means plants will need to get their organic nutrients elsewhere.
One of the best additives to a soiless potting mix when fruiting and flowering organically is a product called worm castings. Worm castings are organic material that have been digested and excreted by worms and composting bacteria. This product should be mixed into the soiless medium when planting for the maximum benefit. Worm castings can also be top-dressed in the medium and should make up 10%-20% of the soiless mixture. At this amount the structure of the potting mix will be stable and retain the adequate amount of water and oxygen. If the amount of worm castings exceeds 20% too much water will be held and the plants will not receive enough oxygen and drown.
Worm castings are not rich in macronutrients. They contain a small percent of soluble nitrogen and usually no phosphorous or potash. The true benefits of using worm castings come from the many available trace elements and beneficial bacteria. There are also auxins and hormones, such as gibberellic acid, which regulates plant growth, in quality worm castings. It is also understood that adding the right amount of worm castings to a soiless mix can greatly increase the plant’s ability to make use of all the other organic nutrients that it is being fed. The beneficial bacteria present in worm castings will help to breakdown the organic nutrients making them readily available to the plant. This symbiotic relationship between plant and bacteria occurs naturally outdoors and can make a big difference in any indoor organic garden.
Kelp or seaweed extract is another excellent source of organic plant nutrition. Kelp extract come from a plant-like organism that contains good levels of phosphorous and potash, 60-70 trace elements that are readily available to plants, as well as vitamins and plant hormones. Kelp and seaweed extracts are best used in conjunction with an organic bloom fertilizer and will greatly increase the effectiveness of any products it is used with. Using a kelp based product can actually mean that the concentration of the nutrient solution can be increased slightly since the plant can now absorb more of the solution. To increase the plant’s efficiency further, use it in conjunction with humic and fulvic acid. Both humic acid, commonly labeled “Black,” and fulvic acid, commonly labeled “Gold,” are derived from organic sources and will improve the nutrition, taste, and smell of the fruits and vegetables.
The best possible base nutrient to use when flowering organically in soiless potting mix is certainly bat guano. Bat guano is so effective when fruiting and flowering that it is commonly referred to as an organic “superbloom”.
This organic “superbloom” consists of the excrement of either fruit eating or insect eating bats. Old deposits of these bat droppings are very rich in soluble phosphorus, while newer deposits are high in nitrogen as well as phosphorous and are better for the grow phase of the plant’s life.
Bat guano is mined in sheltered caves. This is why bat guano is such a unique and effective organic bloom fertilizer. The sheltered caves allow the bat guano to dry on the cave floor with minimal decomposition and exposure to nutrient stripping elements. This means that bat guano retains its nutrient composition. The bat guano that is harvested from the caves can in fact be thousands of years old.
Bat guano usually comes in a powered form, which can be mixed into the soil, top-dressed onto the growing medium, or diluted into a compost tea. Remember that bat guano is a concentrated form of organic nutrient so one must use it moderately. If you have decided to top-dress your plant or mix the powdered bat guano into a potting mix, do so 2-3 weeks prior to the start of the flowering period. Diluting the bat guano into a tea is the best way of delivering the organic nutrients to your plant. This way the nutrients are available more quickly to the plant and therefore watering with a diluted bat guano tea can begin at the first signs of flowering.
It must be mentioned that some care should be taken when handling powdered bat guano. A dust mask should be worn. Inhaling the powdered bat guano can cause nausea and irritation to the throat.
Using a hydro-organic fertilizer is probably the simplest and best way to feed your plants organically during flowering. A hydro-organic fertilizer is a one part base nutrient that can be used in soiless mixes, hydroponics, and aeroponics and is a water- soluble organic solution.
A quality hydro-organic bloom fertilizer will contain nutrients from an abundance of different organic sources. It should be a concentrated compost tea made from kelp, worm castings, bat guano, and other organic sources. This gives the plant the best combination of all the best organic nutrients, at the proper rates. This takes out the guess work when it comes to feeding plant organically and can be appreciated by beginners and professionals alike.
When flowering organically in hydroponics or aeroponics, hydro-organic fertilizers are the only way to go. It does come with its complications though. Taking exact EC and PH readings can be difficult with hydroponic organics. Organic nutrients have a complex structure and can react poorly with other nutrient, organic or not. It is best to find out from manufacturers how stable the mixture is since it can vary from product to product. Most quality hydro-organic nutrients are fine to use, but always test any new product on only a few plants at first to see how they react. Most gardeners will be happy and surprised with the quality of the finished fruits and veggies that have been fed with a quality bloom hydro-organic fertilizer.
This trend of organically grown food is snowballing. Every major grocery store has an organic section and all organic stores are springing up. With organics hopefully becoming a permanent fixture in our society, more people have chosen the healthy, earth friendly option of growing their own food organically indoors. With the benefits ranging from improved nutrition of fruits and vegetables, to greatly improved colours, tastes, and smells of fruits and vegetables, there is no reason not to flower organically. There are so many amazing products on the market today to flower organically, and more being discovered each year. Try one out, you will taste and smell the difference.
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