Organic Living Soil (Coots Mix) - Grow 1

Monday and Tues 14+15/09/2020: --------------------------------------- I am still experimenting with the placement of my humidifier. First instinct was to place it in the tent for more instant control, but it appears treating the humidity of my bedroom (tent in bedroom) is a better method of control with less severe swings. I questioned this at first because my window AC unit seems to only be able to change the temp of my grow tent to about 6 to 10 degrees higher than what its set at (main room set to 68 degrees will bring things in the tent to around 76 to 78 degrees, sometimes 74 if left going long enough. So I felt that keeping humidity controlled from outside might be too much on the small 5L unit. Turns out once my bedroom managed to fully adjust to the new humidity the grow room followed easily so I made the right choice. It might just take you a few hours for the room your tent is in to fully adjust first. The slight difficulty in controlling temp makes me question if I have adequate make up air, as I expected the tent to essentially be closer to the same temp I would set the AC at, however I have a 100+ cfm computer fan on a 6 inch intake and a passive 4 inch intake. My 3x3 tent doesn't need much air moved and my exhaust is 6 inches running at around 240cfm minus carbon filter and some bends in a duct (lets say conservatively its getting half , around 120cfm) so I assume it should be enough. Luck is on my side because I didn't realize the dehumidifier has a little while light ring that turns on when it activates, if I had not moved it out of the tent and noticed, this could have been a major problem when lights are off. Given the warmest days of the summer are over, I have a feeling I won't be too worried about it getting too hot. Hopefully my dehumidifier/heat will be up to the task come fall when it rains out and humidity rises while temps drop everywhere! HAH Wednesday 16/09/2020: ---------------------------- The seedlings are coming along just fine. The cement shoes has shown itself just above the soil! So it shall be a week behind the rest, but might very possibly finish at the same time the others will anyway. I am fairly certain it shouldn't be too hard to find a happy medium when the time comes :) Seedlings are getting bigger and have developed a second set of true leaves beyond the cotyledons. They are a week old as of Tuesday. Doing my best to keep the organic soil in the pots moist and thriving until the seedlings are ready to go in them within the next couple weeks. I have been using a mix of non PH adjusted dechlorinated tap water, and some water with molasses (1/2 to 1tbsp for 5 gallons) that lowers it down to a normal range (6.5+/-) as it is 8+ PH straight out the tap.. Not sure if using molasses water on soil without a plant in it is a bad idea that will throw bacteria/microlife out of balance. I hope not. I know common advice is PH won't matter in organic soil, but I have witnessed a few other folks with similarly high PH end up having problems later in their grows, remedied by fixing their PH and I wish to avoid any complications in regards to basics like that. Also I intend to reuse my soil and re-amend it, so I have concerns about long term PH drift from constant use of high PH water/solutions. Previous to using the molasses I used tiny amounts of absorbic acid (vitamin c) to lower it. Forums seem to be full of contradictory advice about if/how much vitamin c may effect micro life or not. Molasses feeds bacteria so I felt it was a better choice. Unless of course they take over the micro herd and cause a kind of ebb and flow population problem (think AACT that has been brewing past its peak point). I will be researching this and will adjust my methods accordingly. Friday 18/09/2020: ----------------------- Everything looks good as far as I can tell, more leaves forming/ They seem happy to my untrained eye. The blurple lights are hell to get good pictures in but I am trying my best. Won't be winning any contests with my them that is for sure LOL. Hopefully I will figure out a better way for photographing them, as it will be important later on if I need help diagnosing a problem, pest, or deficiency. Cement Shoes sprout is coming along nicely as well, can't wait to see what it is like in another week or so. Saturday 19/09/2020: ------------------------- Same ole same ole, just keeping them moist (not wet) and keeping the large pots moist as well. Obtained elevators for the pots from their trays which should aid in keeping the bottoms of the smart pots from getting water logged should I water a bit too much. Also purchased some Kelp meal for future teas. Would have gotten a couple lbs of worm castings as well, but will need to go back at another point to obtain that. In the mean time I shall be researching when and how I should schedule teas and top dressings in between normal watering. With any luck I can find something simple that deals with the items I have on hand (Alfalfa meal, kelp meal, molasses, fish hydrolysate, and eventually worm castings or compost of some kind). I have found several recipes that seem to be very close to one another, also tried and true, but not much in the way of how often they use them and when. Time to look into peoples grow/feed schedules when dealing with indoor organic soil. Sunday: 20/09/2020: ------------------------ More business as usual. Added some pics of the group together as I got a new phone! Hopefully better pics will come with that despite the blurple lights making it seem impossible! Took the Cement Shoes out from the dome. The tent is in full on Veg mode already anyway, so hopefully that should treat it well. I waited for the Banana Bombs to get a little taller, but it seems like it might be a shorter plant anyway. Will keep an eye on it on the off chance it really wants to go back into higher humidity, but I think it should do ok.

I started a new job, so detailed comments will come shortly once I get some time to fill things out. Mostly I just transplanted at week 2 for the Banana Bombs and week 1 for the Cement Shoes... Honestly the Banana Bomb were already looking kinda root bound in their solo cups by the end of 2 weeks, so the advice that the leaf length to cup diameter seems accurate as they were definitely growing out past the cups. The Cement Shoes had decent enough root development that I had no issues with the transfer, but I also may have been able to wait 3 or 4 more days. It doesn't seem to mind one bit though and if anything appeared to have the least shock and quickest recovery time. Just have been watering and keeping to the light schedule. I sprinkled some diatomaceous earth on the top of the pots on Thursday as a kind of potential preventative. I saw a flying bug go into my tent from my room and was unable to smack it, and the last thing I wanted was it getting some ideas to lay some eggs. Hopefully the two days it was on the top of the soil before I watered deterred it, if it even was a bug that would cause issue to begin with (I had no idea but taking no chances). I will introduce molasses and maybe some other botanical or compost teas in the next week or so, possibly with the addition of some malted barley top dressing. We shall see what time and money allows. I also wish to start some kind of IPM with neem, azamax, sm90, Spinosad, D-limonene, or essential oil mixes. Wanting to stick to organic control of course, so options may not include some things or others. If I can afford predatory mites or nematoads or something to toss in the soil, that might be good too. More research must be done.

Banana Bombs showing different plant morphology between at least 1+2 and 3. One being more sativa looking the other looking more indica in shape and form. The cement shoes has a weird way of growing. It def is resisting being tall in any way shape or form which may be expected, but I am still a little surprised at how much smaller it seems comparatively to the BB at the same age. Bound to be bushy I imagine. May have to take some detailed pics sooner than later if its leaves keep growing funny on the off chance there is something wrong with it that can be fixed or worse something that could infect or spread an issue. Just seems like a weird little goblin though atm so that may be all it is. Saturday 10/03/2020: All coming along, will top the banana bombs in the next coming couple days or so. They all will get their first compost tea on Sunday night for watering. Bakashi, Worm Castings, Compost, Kelp meal, Alfalfa Meal, molasses, and a dash of fish hydrolysate. Damaged part of a fan leaf on the Cement Shoes, but it doesn't seem to care. Its new growth does and has looked kind of weird to me compared to the other plants, sort of bloated or wrinkly. Once the leaves mature it seems to clear up though. Another thing to look into reading about or keep an eye on. So far nothing has happened to cause me to worry or have to act fast though. I hope my whole grow manages to stay fairly managed... Main thing I should focus on might be better pest prevention/management. New job is making some good daily tips so I should have plenty of loot for a few choice anti pest products/substances soon.

08/10/2020: Topped the plants at the second node (or what I think is the second node) to get around 4 main colas to grow. Watered with a small amount of BTi as I had seen some flying insects in the tent, despite looking like fruit flies finding their way from the kitchen, I wanted to be sure they were not fungal gnats and if so to combat them. Yellow sticky cards on the way to trap and better Identify. 09/10/2020: Accidentally mixed some neem water solution into my normal water, then potentially made the problem worse by spraying the recovering topped plants. 09/11/2020: Plants seem recovered and happier than before. However now I found a couple leaves on BB#1 that are showing rust spots... I am unsure of what the problem is... it could be that I stopped adjusting my PH due to "organic soil", a fungus infection, some pest I have not noticed yet, neem/leaf burn from spraying them down with lights on... A deficiency or who knows... I am going to keep a close eye on the plant and see if it spreads/gets worse, or if its resulting damage from something I did and will not get worse. My first plant problem! Not even into flower yet either.... should I be happy or sad?

This week I started adjusting the PH of my water via the use of molasses (down), citric acid (down), and potassium bicarbonate (up) to be around 6.6 or 6.7 PH. Despite doing "organic living soil" I have obviously had some issues and though I would prefer to assume it was based on something I was doing wrong, the first step to figuring out what exactly is going on would be to eliminate easy to fix possibilities. I use the citric acid for when I want just plain water, and molasses when I want to try to feed the microbes some junk food. Sometimes I go a bit far so I use the potassium bicarbonate to adjust it back up a smidge, barely a pinch works in either situation keeping the PPM's down. So far the plants seem ok. There are some various oddities from a leaf here or there, but nothing to note or track down for now. I top dressed with 1 cup of the same amendments I used to make the soil in an attempt to add some more PH balancing and potentially add back some minerals or other nutrition that may have been inadequate. I came upon a "clackamas coots" watering type schedule which isn't using compost teas or any such thing. More a switch up between aloe/coconut water and some silica, and maybe some kelp meal teas? Either way I am going to plod ahead with this grow as I have and see what I can get away with, and then try to adjust my methods next time. I just hope that the plants can make it through flower without anything too insane going on deficiency or pest wise... Monday the 19th Oct 2020: I tired down all the main branches to some stakes, Looking back I realize I tied them possibly a bit too close to the top and as a result really made them quite horizontal which made/makes watering a pain in the ass, and also made choosing a good place to prune out bottom growth confusing as I am unsure just how much the branches will raise or grow vertically later for pruning. We will just have to see... All the pics this week are crappy and I didn't make much effort to use my daylight CFL's as a kind of highlight, so I just used photoshop to take out some of the pink of the blurple lights. I noticed 1/3rd of the lights on one of the units are burned out so that kind of sucks, but they are old lights on loan from a friend so I cannot complain. My next major purchase will be good Quantum Board LED's that use very little energy and produce little to no heat. They also will allow for proper photos... maybe I will get them by mid flower and switch over. Will have to watch my finances to see if they will allow new lights before this grow is over. Not that it matters entirely as this whole thing is just for me to try to document my own progress. I intended to keep a day by day or weekly detailed log but life has gotten the better of me this time, and I have not been sticking to much of an official schedule... Once again.... maybe next time? Tues 10/20/2020: Already feeling better by the looks of it after the tie down. May flip to flower in a few days.

Flipped plants to flower on thursday the night of the 22nd. I removed their bonds/tie down after the first day of flower as I felt they were too vertical and tied too close to the tops for proper shaping and pruning an "under canopy". I only had them tied for like 4 days or something... haha it actually did still help them spread out quite a bit at any rate. Hoping they actually grow a bit taller vs outward despite topping, as I figure despite looking fairly small atm, once they double in size I will run out of room to work fast. I have an oscillating tower fan coming which will replace the humidifier I had placed in the tent... More air flow and less humidity needed seems pretty obvious. We also had a temp drop recently which affected the tent temp way more than I expected so a radiating oil heater is on order as well to keep the room at least around 70 degrees and make sure nothing gets too cold. Will be interesting to see how much the heat effects the humidity... will it go way lower than I want? The ole battle of proper humidity vs proper temp oh boy! Anyways there are a few pics of them still tied down, from thursday the 22nd of Oct before I removed them and changed lights over to flower. Then some pics from yesterday of their second day going into it.... They seem fairly happy despite the few weird things that have come up here or there. Lets hope it keeps going that way! Quick ugly blurple photos for now... Maybe I will try to get some proper lit shots in the next few days now that I have some time off work.