Back in Stock: Bloom/Yellow Bottle Silica

After having been backordered since August, Bloom (also known as Yellow Bottle and/or Advanced Floriculture) Silica is finally back in stock.  Potassium silicate plays an important role in your plants' structure and overall health, strengthening cell walls, creating thicker stems and branches and allowing your plants to naturally protect themselves against pests, disease, heat and drought.  Silica can also be used in place of pH Up, so not only will your plants be benefitting from the product itself, you will effectively be adjusting the pH of your water and nutrient solution.  With an NPK of 0-0-31.2, and 21% Silica, this is by far the strongest, most effective and most economical potassium silicate product on the market.  Compare with Advanced Nutrients' Rhinoskin (0-0-0.4 / 0.15% Silica), Dynagro's Pro-TeKt (0-0-3 / 7.8% Silica), Botanicare's Silica Blast (0-0-0.5 / 2% Silica) , even the new General Hydroponics' Armor Si (0-0-4 / 10% Silica) and Hydrodynamics' Silicate (0-0-5 / 11% Silica).

Canna's TERRA line of nutrients

With the outdoor gardening season officially here in the northeast, most people are turning to soil as their growing medium.  With so many options for fertilizing, it can get confusing.  Some people choose to build their fertilizer into their medium (with guanos, "meals"- bone/blood/fish/kelp/alfalfa etc., earthworm castings, compost, or a time release fertilizer).  Other people choose to stick with a liquid nutrient that they mix into their waterings.  For that option, Canna has designed their Terra line of nutrients specifically for use with soil.  Terra is a one-part base nutrient (you use Terra Vega in the vegetative stage, Terra Flores in the flowering stage).  Whether you use it as a stand-alone nutrient or in conjunction with Canna's additives (check out their Grow Guide to make your custom feeding chart), it is excellent for use with all soils.  If you're looking for an organic option, try their Bio Canna line (made with no animal ingredients whatsoever).

Back in stock: Advanced Nutrients' Connoisseur

After being sold out for a couple of weeks, Advanced Nutrients' Connoisseur ("pH Perfect" formula) 2-part flowering-stage base nutrient is fully restocked in both stores.

Back in Stock: Nirvana from Advanced Nutrients

After being backordered from the manufacturer for the last few months, Advanced Nutrients' Nirvana is back in stock at both stores.  It's a good all-natural additive to any nutrient regimen and for use with any growing medium.  It's also part of the Advanced "Professional" feeding schedule.  Nirvana is full of beneficial organic ingredients:  Humic acid acts as a catalyst for all other nutrients you're using allowing for easier uptake, whey protein is an all-natural bloom-booster due to the fact that it stimulates amino acid production (plus Nirvana contains a bunch of different amino acids, and B vitamins derived from seaweed extract), alfalfa extract helps to accelerate CO2 intake, plus azomite (made up of TONS of trace minerals and elements), yucca and Chilean soap bark extracts (natural plant surfactants), earthworm castings, bat guano and more.  

New Product: Phresh In-line Carbon Filters

The traditional carbon filters that we've all been using for years had one main limitation: you couldn't run them in-line.  This was especially a disadvantage when running air-cooled lights.  The proper way to air-cool your lights is to Blow air through them with an in-line fan and ducting, rather than Sucking air through them.  This is to protect the motors of your in-line fans and also to limit the amount of negative pressure in your ductwork so you're not drawing air out of the growing environment through your lights.  That way, you're not losing much Co2 if you are enriching your environment with it, and also so that the air leaving your lights is clean and free of odors/particulates from your growing environment.  Unfortunately, air-cooled lights are only sealed SO well.  Even if you are blowing, not sucking, and you tape the edges around the glass and where the ducting and flanges meet with duct/aluminum tape, you will still pick up some air from the room anyway.  In the past, your options were to exhaust your lights into another space/box and filter that air, or to use Ozone Generators which have their own risks and downsides (the biggest one being the main purpose of the unit: to transform oxygen into ozone, something that we and the plants shouldn't breathe).

We first saw Phresh Filters' In-Line Carbon Filter at the Colorado Maximum Yield trade show in April, 2011, so we've been waiting patiently (or not-so-patiently) for over a year for these to finally hit the market.  Now that they're available and we have them and have tried them ourselves, our two main questions have been answered:

- They can be run either way, by blowing or sucking the air through them.

- The flange on one side is slightly smaller than the other side to accomodate ducting (the larger side was designed for the fan) but you can use it however you want.

We received our first shipment of them last week and we're currently stocking the 6" and 8" sizes at both stores (the 10" and 12" are available for special order) but, depending on the demand, we might begin stocking all sizes.  

BIG Advanced Nutrients Sale (literally)

Right now we're having a sale on all large sizes of Advanced Nutrients' products.  Most of our AN products are already offered below MSRP so stock up for even more savings.

All 23L's (6 gallons) and 2.5kg (2.2 lb) products are 15% off (except Jungle Juice).

Piranha and Tarantula 2.5kg's are 50% off (MSRP: $675.62, our normal price: $655, NOW $327.50)

This sale is only while supplies last so call or stop by for stock inquiries.

We Heart Astoria

The other day we had a visit from WT and Erich from Gardenfreude, who were guest blogging for WeHeartAstoria.com. They featured our Queens store in an article for the blog, check it out!: Guest Bloggers Gardenfreude Dig Up Great Garden Resources. Besides our store, there are a bunch of other awesome gardening resources for Queens locals.