Almost a new year and I've made some upgrades to the setup. I now have 2 Earthboxes (14gallons each) I have been experimenting with, and holy shit these things are fantastic. I've grown some of the healthiest plants I've seen and with the extra size on the Earthboxes I can throw a ton of stuff at them. There are next to no purple stems, nothing but pure green all over. The soil has a ton of life in it, predator mites, worms, a ton of nematodes and microbes, and fungi. Needless to say, I probably won't be using smaller pots again.
Had a lot of fungus gnats for the first little while but I hit them a few times with BTI(Mosquito Dunks) and EM1, which pretty much destroyed them. Still get the occasional few but they're very much under control now. I also have a new grow light, the Viparspectra P4000. Puts my old Mars Hydro TSW2000 to shame.
I highly recommend the grow series from Jeremy at BuildaSoil ---> https://www.youtube.com/c/BuildASoil/videos
He really knows his stuff when it comes to growing organic, and using the Earthboxes.
EM1(Essential Microorganisms) used recipe 1: https://zenyrgarden.com/how-to-make-em1-effective-microorganism/
Lactobacillus recipe: https://growingorganic.com/ipm-guide/how-to-make-lactobacillus/
FFJ (Fermented fruit juice) : https://growingorganic.com/ipm-guide/using-fermented-fruit-juice/
Been doing a lot of experimenting in Veg and originally wasn't going to make any diaries for these, but things are going so well I thought, why not?
Each Earthbox has the following:
(Earthbox reservoirs get only de-chlorinated water)
25% Happy Frog
25% Ocean Forest
10% Seaweed Compost
10% Mushroom Compost
10% Worm Castings
20% Rice Hulls
I use the mulch covers and top dress only, with the following every 4-5 weeks in Veg(most nutrients are from Gaia Green):
(all dry ingredients accept for the compost, are added to a jar and shaken to mix)
1 Cup Seaweed Compost
1 Tbsp Gypsum
1 Tbsp Basalt Rock Dust
1 Tbsp Glacial Rock Dust
1 Tbsp Insect Frass
1 Tbsp Alfalfa meal
1 Tbsp Oyster Shell Flour
1 Tbsp Crab/Lobster shell meal
2 Tbsp Kelp meal
1 Tbsp Langbenite
1 Tbsp Mineralized Phosphate
1/2 Cup Karanja cake
1/2 Cup Bokashi
1/2 cup Malted Barley (Ground)
1 Tsp Yukka
1 Tbsp Gaia Green All Purpose
Then watered in with De-chlorinated water, Molasses, Fishshit, TM7, EM1, LAB (Watering in consists of spraying the top dress with about 1/3rd gallon of liquid)
Flower top dress:
1 Cup Seaweed Compost
1 Tbsp Gypsum
1 Tbsp Basalt Rock Dust
1 Tbsp Glacial Rock Dust
1 Tbsp Insect Frass
1 Tsp Alfalfa meal
1 Tbsp Oyster Shell Flour
1 Tbsp Crab/Lobster shell meal
1 Tbsp Kelp meal
1 Tbsp Langbenite
1 Tbsp Mineralized Phosphate
1/2 Cup Karanja cake
1/2 Cup Bokashi
1/2 cup Malted Barley (Ground)
1 Tsp Yukka
2 Tbsp Gaia Power Bloom
Then watered in with de-chlorinated water, Molasses, FishShit, TM7, EM1, LAB, Rezin, Chitosal, Fish Hydro (Watering in consists of spraying the top dress with about 1/3rd gallon of liquid)
Next week I start adding some FFJ to the mix.
Happy New Year growmies!