Autos In living Soil

ThomFoolery 11/26 Starting a new run of 4 auto flowers using the SF auto watering system and Living soil. I am going with the wick fed auto water system in the hopes that it will increase yield, make my life a lot easier, and keep the plants happy and purring. I am waiting on my soil concentrate to finish curing. It's a long process that usually takes nearly 3 months, so I decided to try NLS this time. This is some rank smelling stuff man. My concentrate is a bit funcky too but not quite as profound. They make really big batches that prorbaly are a lot stronger. Mine is really good, but I'm wondering if its as good as NLS. We shall see.. I'm hoping for a mostly "just add water", a little compost tea once or twice. I saved about a pound of the NLs for this. I wanted to go 7 gal bags instead of 5 because it means a tad more soil to carry a little more food. But I packed the 5s as full as I could. I mixed in some lava rocks (1/4") and some grade#4 perlite. To battle compaction and allow me to pack on the soil. And I did.. I packed the 5gals full as f***. Might as well be 7gal because in all honesty, I put almost the same amount. But I would have ran short on the 7s. I'm hoping this round will not see me with any stunted plants. I started an extra chocolope and a blue cheese auto in case some shit goes south ... I have them in solo cups and if no one gets stunted, I'm going to see how far I can take thwm in solo cups. I'm not just going to kill them. Well, not at first anyway. 11/29 This pretty much starts week 1. They all came up on the 29th. 12/2 Well... Had to pull the Apple Strudel. It was weak and barely even standing up straight. I domed her in hopes she'd return but 10 hours later she was even worse so I pulled her and it was just a bad seed. I knew I should have started backups earlier. I do have some but haven't came up yet and they will be about a week behind, but they will fill in eventually. I just don't want to grow less than 4 different strains. I'm trying to restock and we need variety. I smoke so much that I get burned out on the same shit after a week. The backup will work be Blue Cheese Auto or another chocolope auto. I'll do another Blue Cheese run. That is some phenomenal smoke man. Makes me so happy and ready to get sit done. Surprised it still has that effect.

ThomFoolery Week 2 12/ 6 ------------- Watered: 1cup each applied in a circle about 3" from the plant. We want the roots to search for water. Next time I'll go farther out. 12/8 ----------------- Let's see.,.. Looks like they are all pretty strong. The BCA is ~8 or 9 days behind. It is what it is. Watering with pH adjusted dechlorinated tap water. Adjusting the pH is irrelevant at this point, unless it's really off. It's about 8.0 out the tap. As soon as the water meets the Rootzone it adjusts to the pH of the zone. Not the other way around so it's not realy an issue with living soil. The biology will handle the heavy lifting. 12/9 Growing very well. Especially the Godberry. Praying and everything at 2.1 sets of leaves. These could probably handle being topped, but I'm not willing to chance it. So soon I need to start bending them over. 12/13 End of the second week. They are really happy and growing well. I have not turned on the water yet. Another 2 weeks and I will. Still trying to make those roots as strong as possible they pull the water up equally. I'll have to h Keep the BCA away from the wicks till it's also ready. Should be interesting. Check out the little plant in the solo cup in the [diary](link.here).

ThomFoolery 12/15 Coldest day so far this year and these guys are chillin like it's spring. All are looking very happy and I got them while they were praying. Well, all except for the little fill in Blue cheese. This is a different looking pheno so far. The radish fell on it the other day and bent it. I am not touching it because I plan to tie these down anyway. But I hope that it wasn't too much stress for an auto flower. At least we still have 3 nice eager plants. I am raring to turn on the water works man... These bags of soil get so dry at the edges.... That reminds me, mulch!! I need to get something I can mulch the tops with. Seems like it would be beneficial. About 2" from the stem. Ok.. I found a smallish bag enough for indoor containers that is hopefully, somewhat clean of pests and Infestation. This should help the watering system as well. 12/16 Couldn't be happier with the progress these girls are making! The little straggler is even perking up. Got mid afternoon photos of them when I got up for work (their time frame) and they are all perlite and praying just basking in the sun! Now, I hope I find t just jinxyaelf but I'm impressed with this soil so far. Had one grass sprout come up. Usually a good sign. The godberry is exceptional. Very strong and I could probably top all 3 of these for but I need the yield. I'm trying to get stocked up and we need these darlings to put out. So I'll tie her over if I have to. I'm already getting a lot of growth on the sides so I may not have to. Can just super crop the cola so it lays down with the sides. We'll see. Once I get my shelves loaded I'll start to top autos. All I've had to do is water them. 12/17 It's about time to bring the wicking system online. I filled the res to let it settle and check for leaks.. again. I used Teflon tape on all the threads theast time and it seems to have fixed any minor issues. Well wait another day while I decide exactly how I'm doing this. Do I pre wet the entire contents on the bags? Or is just the top half enough? Should I add a little sledgehammer so that it breaks through faster? I have a lot of questions and I dont want any over watering to stress these plants out. They are auto flowers. So far I'm good with pre wet it all but very slowly. It's goimg to take 2 gallons or more to get all the way through... I'll donit weight and do it over several hours. 12/18 Watered last night after 6 days. They didn't need It. This batch is extremely hardy.... So far. I fired 8 cups each into the 3 largest, and 2 into the youngest. I am bringing the automatic watering system online tonight, so I wanted to make sure the entire soil column was prepped for that. So I slowly applied the water in circles only till about 2" from the stem in 2 goes. The run off was minimal just enough to wet the top of the plates when the plant was lifted so I know it wet all the soil. Then I topped them with mulch, again about 2" from the stem to allow for any off gasing that will occur with biology. They look good VPD ~0.65-0.8 temps 76-78 day, 71-73 night. Ringt now they are sitting at about 300-320 ppfd/par. It's the beginning cycle they will grow into the light so we'll probably have to move the lights up soon. I'm tryig to satisfy the entire tent. The 2 youngest are only a week behind so soon it won't even matter. 12/20 Very happy girls today. Very happy. I brought the water system online and I am using both wicks on the larger of the 3 and 1 on the smallest. Wow... I am a bit worried that 2 may be too much, so I'm being careful. Any sign of droop and I'll pull them off then revert to 1 for a couple more weeks. But damn y'all, as healthy as they look and how they are growing... They should be ok. Nothing but water. I am still cooking/curing a 13qt batch of my soil but it will take this entire grow before it's ready and the NLS is amazing. The plants tell you all you need to know. Next step... LST. More to come...

ThomFoolery Week 4 12/22 Coming along very nicely. I am doing some major tucking on the 2 that are trying to spit out their side branches. The godberry, and the chocolope were good candidates for tucking because their shots were really trying to get to the light. It took everything I had to NOT cut the huge fan leaves that were covering the shoots like umbrellas. But I was able to tuck. My hopes are the extra libit will help them to grow over the fans. Now I did fuck up and top the strawberry 🦍. I regretted it as soon as I heard the snip. The plant is super strong, I just hope it didn't stunt it, and if it didnt that there is enough time to get some decent nodes on the new tops. The SIP seems to be doing gits job and the plants are direct evidence of that. I'll definitely use this system for years to come. 12/25 Merry Christmas everyone!!! It's 6:08 am and the girls are just doing so well I can't get over it. Is it all because of the SIP? The soil? VPD? It's all of it. And they couldn't be happier. The only issues I'm having at present is it's warm here so the heater is no longer needed and this is causing my humidity to spike during lights off. Luckily, that isn't really bad at this point in their life. The VPD will go down to 0.65 if I let it and that means humidity in the upper 60s and lower 70s.. they should be fine. We aren't flowering yet. However. I am almost positive that the Blue cheese has started to flower right before week 3 and will be stunted as a result. That's ok. It really is. She is still a beautiful and happy plant and I'm just glad I got her on the roster when I did. Not to mention the extra chocolope I have on a drip line. 12/26 Bushy! The 3 are little bushes vigorous growth, lush colors, and a whole lot of tucking going on.. I can't wait to cut the bottom leaves off these things. They are thick! That makes me worry about powdery mildew. Humidity is still in the 60s in the upper 70 temps where I'm at currently. VPD is ~1.0-1.10. more on the lower end. Good airflow though.. they're dancing a little. Fucking little Blue Cheese stunted on me. Looks like a bonsai. Tiny little fan leaves and all. I'm not that upset, it's going to remind me the next time I think about growing these whiny ass autos. All n all I've grown them only 2x so I don't know what I'm talking about. I still expect 10+ ounces on this.. unless the other 3 start flowering in the next few hours. I don't want them to stretch now. They aren't stacked for shit so they need some more time. Another week and that will put them starting about 4.5 weeks. I really regret topping that strawberry gorilla so damn late... Jeez... She can still pull out. She might pull out? Well see... 12/27 I'm getting worried.. a bit. We are having a weird ass heat wave and it's wreaking havoc on my environment. The heat is no longer coming in in the house so the humidity is in the 60s. With all those fucking leaves and the spikes at night.. it's a battle. I have to set the dehumidifier down to 40% and run the exhaust on 8 to mitigate the humidity and it just does work... But it works . I can hold it a bit over 1.0 but 1.10 would be ideal. Trying to head off any mildew issues. So... I am about to start some mild defoliation. Just at the bottom for airflow, and 1 or 2 each of the big ones. If they started flowering now. I'd be happy, and I don't know if they can still stunt? Would it even matter at this size? I am moving out all the extra stuff I've been running experiment's on. The radish will be done in a few days and I've had a ball with that. But it's time to prioritize the cannabis. I am maybe going to disconnect one plate and only have one. Then I can raise up the stunted plant and hand water it. One won't be a big deal. More to come.

ThomFoolery Week 5 1/1 Been a while almost missed the entire week without a post. They are doing really well. Had to get clever with the SF SIP. With the bottom feeder that lives by a separate reservoir, you can't move the plants vertically. So I had to buy some longer wicking material and implement risers via an old pot and a bucket. I'm hoping it works. So fAr so good but I fear there are bugs to be dealt with in there still. Blue Cheese Auto is the same pheno. I grew a seed from the same batch of blue cheese last grow it had these 2 lateral branches opposite each other that had double buds on the tip. I thought it was an anomaly but this one has the same feature! How cool is that. Genetics at work. I'll be sure to let this one mature this time. I was close. And the smoke is really good. It it was early. Strawberry gorilla is stunted. She just refuse to really do much of anything. Just lush and beautiful but not stacking and not trying to flower. I think God Berry and chocolope have started. I'm not fucking with autos again. No idea if they will all start at the same time and they are so damn temperamental. I just hope these don't exhaust the N base before they start the damn stretch.

ThomFoolery Week 5 first week of flowering cycle. 1/5 They definitely flowering now! I have 2 Chocolope and the GodBerry are about neck and neck same size both flowering a out the same. They actually started last week. But in the middle. The blue cheese is gettig Nice and plump, and the Strawberry gorilla... Man, idk. I really freaked it out obviously. It almost stopped growing. But I prioritized about 8 good tops, and that's how I'm going to play it. They won't stack very well.. live and learn. I took the last round of leaves . I waited as long as I could. I was getting a really nice swamp cooler effect from all the leaves and since I upgraded to a 6" fan and 8" scrubber, before the defoliation my inner temps were 5° under the lung room temps. That fan made a huge difference. After the defol, yesterday, it decreased a bit but it's still about room temp. Which ain't bad with lights going.! I like to take a few leaves here and there till I get what I want. If a top isn't going to make the canopy I pull it. I also don't want leaves all over each other as much as possible. So I think we are in the clear. They were also drinking something like 10L a day between all 4 of the big ones. 1/7 Think I am done carving out the top buds. The 2 bigger of the 4 both came out how I planned. The cola is still prominent but the others are still in the zone to get nice and fat. With these 2 lights each plant gets a canopy area of about 1.5 x 1.5 and about 6 to 8 inches deep. I try to get rid of anything that doesn't fall in that area (with anticipation of the stretch) but I'll leave a few side stragglers if they aren't in the way or falling onto anything else. We won't really see this take advantage until I turn them up to 80 or 100% and raise them about 20" over the tops (after the stretch) so the light ppfd is a bit more uniform all across the tent. That will mean getting the 2 short ones up to canopy level. This is key so that the two fixtures work together. Id love to find more strains that don't have so many leaves. The blue cheese auto is a perfect example. I have only taken about 4aybe 5 leaves off the entire plant. Last run was that way too. That is a good thing with autos. Right now this crazy fucking winter weather in the 60s and 70s is starting to piss me off. The winter is so easy because the heat squashes the humidity but now it's all over the place. This is forcing me to retrofit the AC exhaust vent so that I can use it to exhaust the tent air. I mean.. it was going to happen sooner or later. It's a good thing.