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Welcome to another grow of mine.
I don't enjoy this nutrient thing and constant feeding so I decided to try out a water only approach with living-soil. I was going to buy the "Indoor Organic Soil For Life" starter kit but decided to save my money and mix my own rich soil and water only with some echothrive life-cycle top dresses every few weeks. Don't see why it wouldn't work.
So went to local grow shop to see what i can get there and they recommended stuff, I bought some and mixed:
biobizz light mix
bat guano
palm ash
rock phosphate
white shark
chicken manure pellets
Mixed the lot and potted in 40L pot, watered well, sprinkled with alfalfa then covered with some hay I bought from the pet store.
2 weeks there was still not sign of any alfalfa, I moved the pot and noticed that the saucer was full of disgusting brown smelly water, smelled like sewage :( I had overwatered the soil and it stayed in the run off. Threw the water away, moved the pot outside to rinse the smell a bit and put the pot back in the tent a day later.
I covered the top with more alfalfa seed as I assumed the ones I put in had rotted and covered with the mulch again.
After another 2 weeks, the alfalfa was finally showing, it was ready for some cannabis plants.
I wanted to try growing a photoperiod, possibly taking clones from her to have more plants, so I will probably take some clones off of this girl.
I had received a Kritikal-K sample when I joined the UKCSC and decided to make use of it in this grow, seems like a good high yielding strain.
Popped the seed in some water until it sunk to the bottom ~24 hours later. Then dug a small hole and planted the seed and covered with the mulch.
After 4 days, there was still no sign of the seedling, so I decided that maybe it was a bad idea covering the seed with the mulch so I removed the mulch off of the spot with the seed and one day later there she was!
Today is day 7 and the 2 leaves I have are getting wider but still no new leaves, looking well so far.
So I was mowing the alfalfa to get its benefits into the soil by the time proper vegging, and I don't quite understand how I've done but I managed to loose a leaf of this girl :( here she is mid week after I cut the leaf. She is still growing, and will overcome, sloppy :S must have missed her although i was careful not to cut too close to her.
No update in a while, had some personal issues and had to leave the plants under someone's care for a few weeks.
When I returned on week 5, this girl looked quite well, had a couple white spots on one of the lower leaves and dry so gave her some epsom salt and couple table spoons of ecothrive life-cycle. The alfalfa was overgrown and higher than what I would have liked, I mowed it all again and left it as mulch.
She is looking well but growing slowly, I thought she would be bigger by now.
At day 42, there were 6 nodes and I topped just above the 4th node. Since I have that cut top I decided to try to start it to clone. Will start diary for that next week.
Plant is looking well, growing really slowly I am guessing it is because of the cold. Brough the light closer and ordered a new heater. Defoliated the big fan leaves to give light to bottom branches.
Installed new heater and temperatures are back to normal. She was not growing at all from the cold, she finally started growing again.
She was looking well so decided it was time to train her, tied all the branches to open her up to give more light to lower branches and to increase my chances of an even canopy.
I defoliated some leaves but left the smaller branches forming in the middle of the branches as I'm hoping to get some clones out of them.
Mawed the alfalfa down and left as cover crop.
Fed the soil today:
1/2 tablespoon ecothrive life-cycle
1/2 tablespoon epsom salt
1/2 tablespoon fish blood and bone
Sprinkling of mycorhizal
Sprinkled on top of the mulch, then watered with 2 litres of water. For the water, I squeezed the gel from the leaf of an aloe vera plant we had.
She is looking really hope she takes well the to the training and grow a little
Trying it differently. Will post update when the week start as opposed to when it ends. This is the first week I am doing this. Day 57 (first day of week 9)
It saddens to say that my son's newt died yesterday. RIP. With that we had to get rid of a few worms which we were keeping to feed the news. As it goes, One man's trash is another man's treasure :D I've put the worms into the pot along with the worm casting they had produced. May they live long and prosper.
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End of Week, the girl is looking well, I was hoping I would be able to take those clones and flip her this week, but due to sulphur excess growth has slowed down a bit :S maybe next week.
She only got 1 watering with 3 litres of water this week.
I adjusted where the brnaches are tied to bring down the new growth
Started seeing burning around the edges of leaves after foliar with aloe vera. have my own mixed soil with palm ash, bat guano, rock dust, chicken manure and epsom salts. I added some ecothrive life-cycle 3 weeks ago. Is it nutrient burnt? Shall I do anything? Or wait it out?
Light burn or stress is yellowing of leaves and is progressively across canopy toward center of plants. If edges are crispy it is nutrition burn. I looked at wrong numbers earlier. But light is still to close for my preference. In flowering it would be ideal. Maybe still a little close. Do you have run off each watering? If not chemicals will build up in soil causing all kinds of problems from ph to nutrient burn. Good luck. 🌲🌲🌲👊
Ok, Wednesday day 66, she is under 14/10 light schedule and yet today I noticed she has started flowering already. Didn't mean for her to start flowering yet, wanted to train/grow her more and get some clones. Oh well.
Bought some tiger worms and added 200g of live tiger worms to the pot.
Still going off the 3 litres I gave her last Friday, hasn't needed more water
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Thursday day 67
So I had read about schwazzing, and it kind of makes sense. Asked some people I trust and they said they use similar. So decided to fully strip her down today and lst again so top are at the same height. Hopefully she will recover.
Gave a tablespoon of ecothrive lifecycle and more a tablespoon of malt barley powder.
Foliar spray with neem oil
Monday, day 71 - start of week 11.
She has taken well to the defoliation although I have to admit I have seen and expected a faster recovery.
The worms I put seem to have setted i nicely, they left the castings that they were put in and have dispersed around the pot working hard.
The fan that I had broke so she has been without a fan for the last 4 days, new air circulation fan installed today.
I am hoping for an uneventful week, hopefully she'll need a watering again so that I can add some aloe/malt barley poweder (has been 10 days since last watering).
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Saturday day 76 - 15 days since last water but decided to water anyways since I want to fight the fungus gnats.
Mixed some malt barley powder (contains chtinase which should kill those buggers) with 2 litres of water, added the nematodes (they fight the fungus gnat larvae, got them off amazon) and drenched the soil.
Mixed another 2 litres with aloe vera powder and neem oil, and drenched/foliar sprayed the plants with this. Got some run off.
Replaced stickies
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Sunday day 77
She is looking really well. Nice thick pistils growing on the flowers but not really stretching. Wonder if it has to do with the sulphur excess.
Buds are growing well, drinking very little, haven't watered at all this week.
I messed up the timer and she got 2 hours of light in the middle of her dark cycle for 1 night :( Hopefully shouldn't affect her too much.
It is getting really busy in here! So many buds hope I don't get any mold, humidity is not too high and fan is pointing at them so should be ok.
I've started removing a few leaves here and there to get more lights to lower buds.
Posting a couple weeks late, note much to report.
The buds have lots of pistils and looking well. Hopefully they sell up nice coz there is a lot of leaf in there too. I hate trimming
8 weeks flowering time they said :D It has been 8 weeks and this girl needs at least 2 more weeks probably 3.
buds are starting to change colour, lovely smell of melon which I haden't smelled before.
Uneventful week, the random defoliation of a few leaves here and there. The soil is too strong, I doubt it was the epsom I added that is causing this, must be the rock dust? no idea... not going to do about it now, hopefully by the time the next grow goes in this soil it'll be slightly lighter by then
Grew really well with very little issues apart from overfeed because I put too much ash dust in the mix I think.
Bud smells amazing with a strong melon smell, can't wait to try some.
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Dried and left to cure for a couple of weeks.
Funny the smell of melon is again and smells of sweet caramel with some fruity hint.
I like the high, nice and relaxing yet still energetic but turns into falling asleep often :D
Really happy with this grow, I love this growing with super soil and amendments, just adding water.
This girl surprised by starting to flower under 10 hours of darkness, I had planned to grow her more but she had other plans.
I like this training method however it means we dont get the stacking with large colas so no massive buds but all the buds get a decent ammount of light so no small larfy buds. all decent size.
Dude! This looks awesome. My first grow about to complete started before I knew much about living soil... Already set up my next containers in a similar fashion to what you've got going. Looking forward to seeing your progress...
I attended a cannabis cultivation seminar last weekend, Kevin Jodrey shared research that sold me .... Here's a few notes I jotted down!
- "Living soil destroys other growing methods in cannabanoids, terpene, flavanoid levels, and secondary metabolite production.(essentially vaster and more diverse expressions of cannabinoid profiles, not necessarily potency) "
- "Outdoors in living soil, abiotic factors (wind, rain, temp, humidity) force the plant to perform. With indoor Living soil, biological activity in a contained area is the stressor that forces the plant to perform"
- "higher THC USUALLY means lower terpene production
Anyway, living soil just excites me, so even if one of these tips causes a spark in your brain in a positive way, then I am happy!
- GreenGrows :D
@@GreenGrows, thanks for dropping by and your comments! Very good to know, That is music to my ears! Maybe one day it'll be legal in the UK and I won't be paranoid about attending a seminar about it!
I forgot to mention, I also stole a few red earth worms from a wormery my son keeps for feeding his Newt.
This pot was an experiment, I am already plotting/preparing for the next one, here is what I bought already which I think is what I am adding to used biobizz lightmix soil, aiming for 220L which I will put in 4 55L pots:
Willy worms worm castings compost 30L - apparently lots of good in here
Canna coco coir 30L - more aeration
Pumice 30L - even more aeration
Ecothrive life-cycle - seemed to be a cheaper and pre-mixed option for super soil, I am lazy 1.5L
Chicken manure
Bought some companion plants:
Alfala,
Clover (white and red)
Basil
Chamomile
Once my current grow is finished, I'll start on mixing those things, potting and waiting for companion plants to show then I''ll add some worms in here too :) why not
Thanks again for your input and looking forward to watching you grows, there is so much to learn
herbalistssword
