Quote Originally Posted by WashougalWonder
I vote for holes in the bottom regardless. Emmie is right. Also with all those nutes be awful careful of burning. In miracle grow you don't need any additional nutes, in fact, adding more could easily burn these weeds or cause lockout.
Yeah, good point...I should emphasize that I am NOT recommending the no-drain technique for anyone else, especially inexperienced indoor gardeners. It's just what I do. Moreover, if you are questioning whether you are underwatering your plants, the odds are nearly 100% that you are OVERwatering them...

Your point about not over-fertilizing is also well taken. Miracle-Gro 3-month is pretty weak sauce (.21-.07-.14), and uses a time-release coating. Combined with the fairly weak added nutes I use COULD be too strong, but I keep an eye on them and haven't seen any issues so far. As a prophylactic I have I added a scant 1/4 teaspoon of Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) to the 'tea' I water my plants with to help preclude lockout.

Along those lines, last fall I did an experiment in my sunroom with tomatoes, collards and 2 varieties of peppers. Alaska brand fertilizers recommend 2-3 tbs/gal of water for veggies. I raised that incrementally to 6 tbs/gal before seeing signs of stress in the collards and peppers. Even though I saw nothing in the tomato, I terminated the experiment and flushed the plants (all recovered). Considering that my current regime is 1 tbs/gal, experience with a variety of plants tells me I'm probably in the safe zone. Of course, I haven't yet completed a medijuana grow, so the jury's still out. In any case, the results will be here for all to see.

Quote Originally Posted by emilya
It sounds that you are way more optimized than it first seemed to me. I suspect that you are going to end up with a wonderful crop.
Maybe, but we'll see. In the meantime, Emmie, please do NOT change your routine to mine based on my very incomplete results. That would be bad science! Besides, my grow conditions are very different to yours...yours is an indoor grow under HPS while mine is a hybrid sunroom-indoor grow with mainly natural light. We'll see how it turns out. In the meantime, have that brother of yours enclose the south porch. There's nothing like warm sunlight and the earthy smells of a healthy greenhouse to sooth the soul.