The Dassie Grow Diaries: Getting Caught Up in the Bottle Nutes Hype

There’s something about organic growing that sounds wholesome, and guilt-free. Having an integrated biological diverse ecosystem within your plant’s container is just so satisfying to think about. It’s not just some brown dirt, but a carefully balanced biodiverse sanctuary where wizardry takes place, you only have to flip over some mulch to see it. 

The real world is not as rosy as one might think it to be. Growing organically is hard work, it takes time and plenty of patience, but most of all it takes an incredible amount of knowledge and experience to get it right. We’re living in a time where instant gratification is prioritized, things need to happen and they need to happen now damit! It’s  2020, we haven’t got time to wait around, I’ll have my coffee served at a drinkable temperature thank you very much.

How crazy is that?

It’s because of this need for instant gratification that we may fall into the trap of using bottle nutrients. They’re 100% organic right, it says on the label so it must be valid. Just use some nice earthy colour tones on the label, nothing too brightly coloured and I’m sold. 

I just want to try the one and see how it goes…”Oh you need to buy a whole set?” “You can’t put a price on good cannabis you know?”. R3000 and 6 bottles later, thinking about those fat buds swaying in the breeze with so many glistening trichomes that one of Elton John’s outfits would be put to shame, it’s going to be great!  

Don’t get me wrong, bottle nutrients are an amazing way to get quick instantaneous results, if you don’t mind spending the cash then why not right? A lot of people claim they grow organic but they throw away soil after every season, and what about all those empty plastic nutrient bottles? When you’re contributing to the world’s plastic pandemic, is that really organic?

Don’t fall for that trap, marketing these days can be very subtle. It’s not like it used to be with traditional media where you knew when you were being sold something and you knew what you were getting yourself into. 

Empower yourself with knowledge – growing organic is incredibly cheap, it’s sustainable and it’s great for the environment. I highly recommend reading books, the internet is great, however trying to find the correct information is becoming increasingly difficult, as anyone who has two cents is pushing content out there and sometimes with their own agenda. If there was one book, and only one book I could recommend, it’s a book called Teaming with Microbes, your mind will be blown and you’ll never look at soil the same again.

So next time you’re at the grow shop thinking about parting ways with some Mandela’s to procure the latest addition to your favourite organic nutrient line, maybe take a step back and think, are you really feeding the soil? Or are you looking to spend bucks for a quick win?

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