A SIP Grower's Guide To The Galaxy

[Buds Buddy]

Stress training day. I cut 2 giant fans off of each plant, then gave em the gangster lean! Now some of those lower branches get some camera time. Check that stem, thick little joker didn't want to bend.
Bonus: BB-room progress pic.

Nice LST job. I never could LST / Bend a plant over like that without breaking the stem. That's why I quad-line instead.... lol.

 

[ReservoirDog]

Thanks Hobbes, I'm going to have to try it. I give up, what's LOS/TLO? Living soil?

yup.

 

[ReservoirDog]

I just ripped off the standard design I found on Google. I split 4 inch perforated drain tile in half and used 3 runs of it across the bottom with a 2in pvc fill tube. I believe the reservoir is around 4 gallons, I haven't filled it to the brim yet though. The way these sips grow weed, you'll be up to your eyeballs in tomatoes and beans if you start your garden in em.

Never understood why a pipe is called a tile, in this instance.

SIP veggies is how I started SIPs. I had a 27 gal SIP tomato planter that once put out 1000 (little) tomatoes. Beans will hyperproduce in SIPs too but my fave so far, after canna, is cucumbers. SIPs are perfect cuke-growers, they grow so fast it's ridiculous, and all without grow lights or expensive doo-dads. I grow two cuke plants on one tomato cage centred in the SIP because tomato cages don't grow on trees, but it works really well for my varieties to share the cage as they tend to be short-season types that don't grow a mile long.

SIP production drives the neighbours mad; I let lotsa people figure out for themselves what's happening in my SIPs, and they always think it must be my worm castings. They did last year anyway.

Maybe I should just roll with that and start selling the castings for some extra cash, and never tell anyone it's the hidden reservoir onboard! "Step right up..." lol

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

Nice LST job. I never could LST / Bend a plant over like that without breaking the stem. That's why I quad-line instead.... lol.

I've never done a quad, I'm working on my first flux-training in another grow. I'll have to give the quadline a shot on the next run and see what its all about. The stems on these plants are as thick as my thumb, Carhooks aren't real enough to snap em, they just pull out of the dirt when i twist the wire tighter. Or maybe my dirt isn't tight enough to hold the Carhook? I've started sticking them in at an inverse angle like a tent stake to try and give em more leverage.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

If I hadn't spent a ton of money and time building a 14×25 garden extension, I would put together a squad of SIP planters for my summer crops. These things are ridiculous the way they grow plants. Got me thinking of trenching the garden and burying some drain tile. (I can only assume it's called tile because it's laid at the bottom of a French-drain system)

 

[Melville Hobbes]

Thanks Hobbes, I'm going to have to try it. I give up, what's LOS/TLO? Living soil?

Living organic soil, and true living organic, if I remember correctly.
I've been meaning to try it out, but unless you go with premade mixes you need space to store the amendments.
I'll be trying out a SIP myself in a future grow, but I'm going the DIY route.

I've never done a quad, I'm working on my first flux-training in another grow. I'll have to give the quadline a shot on the next run and see what its all about. The stems on these plants are as thick as my thumb, Carhooks aren't real enough to snap em, they just pull out of the dirt when i twist the wire tighter. Or maybe my dirt isn't tight enough to hold the Carhook? I've started sticking them in at an inverse angle like a tent stake to try and give em more leverage.

I put them in at an angle too, but when my outdoor plants get big enough the hooks just don't have enough leverage for them.
I'm looking into thin steel bar (coated) for that since the dowels weren't strong enough for last summer.

 

[LKABudMan]

I've never done a quad, I'm working on my first flux-training in another grow. I'll have to give the quadline a shot on the next run and see what its all about. The stems on these plants are as thick as my thumb, Carhooks aren't real enough to snap em, they just pull out of the dirt when i twist the wire tighter. Or maybe my dirt isn't tight enough to hold the Carhook? I've started sticking them in at an inverse angle like a tent stake to try and give em more leverage.

Make sure the hooks are at the tip of the skewer so you get more skewer in the dirt. Those SIPs sure do make some big stems.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

These girls are growing wild. The size difference is crazy because they have the same amount of nodes, just differently spaced. I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with these fans. They're over 10 inches wide, my hand is completely spread and I couldn't even hold up the widest parts of the leaf. Makes LST a real chore, they don't bend good and I feel bad cutting em off. Other than that, its all good. We'll be seeing fuzz in no time!

 

[Weffalo]

Wow the size of those leaves !!

It certainly looks cramped in there but I think that beats the alternative I like the angled fill tubes, I didn't angle mine like that and I have a huge leaf growing over the hole

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

Wow the size of those leaves !!

It certainly looks cramped in there but I think that beats the alternative I like the angled fill tubes, I didn't angle mine like that and I have a huge leaf growing over the hole

It Is cramped bro! 3x3 just isn't real enough for SIP plants. I was trippin, thinking 36 days wasn't enough veg time, I should have flipped at 30.

 

[Carcass]

they don't bend good and I feel bad cutting em off.

I don't like to remove them either, but sometimes, you don't have much choice..
Something you can do is to just remove the "fingers" on the leaf that are blocking budsites- like if the middle three fingers are doing the blocking, cut just those off and leave the rest of the leaf.
Not really sure if it helps much, but it doesn't seem to hurt, either..

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

I don't like to remove them either, but sometimes, you don't have much choice..
Something you can do is to just remove the "fingers" on the leaf that are blocking budsites- like if the middle three fingers are doing the blocking, cut just those off and leave the rest of the leaf.
Not really sure if it helps much, but it doesn't seem to hurt, either..

Brilliant. Dissecting the leaf had never crossed my mind...I dunno why. I'm gonna pop some fan fingers off and let the light in!

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

I was going to post another photo, but they look the exact same only slightly bigger. Tomorrow should be clone and cleanup day, but I'm beat to hell from a stomach virus, so we'll see how I feel.

 

[ReservoirDog]

Feel better Rhino.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

Feel better Rhino.

I'm back on top bro! I'm at a solid 94% functionality, once I kick this nasty sniffle I'll be golden.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

Had to go smoke a doober to help get to bed, took a pic of my girls while I was stomping all around the shop.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

In hindsight, probably should have either stuck to 1 plant, or flipped 10 days earlier. Gonna have to trim a divide between em.

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

I ordered a shit load of seeds from True North Seed Bank. The order process was decent even though it took 24 hours to get the PayPal info. But shipping is slow as hell and now my Shit in stuck in Customs!!! Been there a damn week! I'm pulling my fucking hair out! (My beard, cause my head is shaved)
I want my seeeeeeeeds!

 

[Weffalo]

I ordered a shit load of seeds from True North Seed Bank. The order process was decent even though it took 24 hours to get the PayPal info. But shipping is slow as hell and now my Shit in stuck in Customs!!! Been there a damn week! I'm pulling my fucking hair out! (My beard, cause my head is shaved)
I want my seeeeeeeeds!

Hope they arrive soon mate, pull on a fat joint or pipe instead of your beard though

 

[RedskinnedRhino]

I typed a message to my helper on here accidentally. Ignore the previous text if you saw it.