Personal Organic Grow with Mars Hydro

<whiney voice> but i want the photos nowwwww </whiney voice> :)

Hey rifleman I'll get them up asap but I really needed to grab some sleep then as it was 3am and I was shattered. I'm on my phone at the moment so I don't think I could manage a full update if I tried, I will write up though as soon as I get back to my PC :)
 
Hello and here is a little update on the organic girls.

In the veg tent the two Dark Devil Auto's are growing, the one planted directly into CTP is still quite a way ahead of the one which wasn't. Just like all the majority of the other plants that were planted in bog standard soil the one that wasn't planted in CTP seems to be weak, in fact I had to pick it when I went into the tent and it feels very flimsy indeed with a much thinner stalk than the other and it doesn't seem to be able to hold it's own weight too well. If needed I will prop it up with a splint until it is strong enough to survive unaided when the lights come on tonight, for now though just moving the soil around the base of it's stem has done the trick.

Here are the pictures of the two Dark Devils, there is no need to name which is which as it's quite apparent as of now:

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Each of the two Dark Devils were fed with rainwater along with some black treacle and Epsom Salts. I know that it's early to be feeding and I hope I haven't made a mistake but I felt that with them being grown under LED only that it was the right thing to do. I noticed a slight darkening of the veins on the leaves along with what looks like the beginnings of paling towards the outer. Let's hope that doesn't come around to bite me on the arse.


The Incredible Bulk looks to be showing either signs of deficiency or overfeeding, I'm not sure which as of yet but I thought that it was hard to overfeed plants that are grown organically, but if anyone can do it I'm the man for that :) She was also given a feed of rainwater along with Epsom Salts and Black Treacle. She is losing her lower leaves which leads me to believe that she is becoming Nitrogen deficient, this could well be the case as this is the soil mix that I made up myself. Strange though as I thought I had Nitrogen covered just by the CTP base that I used. If it does turn out to be the case then I have access to plenty of coffee grounds which I've been adding to my compost tumblers, I'll be getting some next time I head into town:

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Any ideas as to whether that's a Nitrogen deficiency as I think it is or have I made the soil too hot? I'm not particularly worried at this stage as I think that it can be rectified, and if necessary I will leave the plant in vegetative state for longer.

The poor poor LSD is in a sorry state, the transplant hasn't worked wonders for her yet and she is reminiscent of the last LSD that I tried to grow under the Reflector series last time. I'm kind of at the stage where I think I may have been unfair on those lights, this seems to me to be a strain that really does need something extra with LSD, although they didn't do too well under the HPS either. The great thing that has come from this strain though is that it finally persuaded me to join 420Magazine instead of lurking in the background. THANK YOU LSD, your work here is done. Now f***off I never want to see you again lol. In all seriousness I will never grow this strain again personally even though others somewhere are surely having success with this strain, it's just not for me.

Even though she seems to be heading towards senescence I did give her a feed the same as the rest of the plants in this tent got, I'm hoping it will work as I don't want her keeling over on me if I can help it, but I do seem to be running out of options with her. I'll give her a week and failing that she will be in the dustbin, I'm not risking putting her into my compost:

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I would think that she was nitrogen deficient looking at how weak and spindly she is, but this is exactly how the other plant looked. I could have made the same mistakes twice though.

I won't be writing about any of the other plants as they are chemically grown and I would like to keep the two journals completely separate. I may still continue to grow chemically for awhile just to double my chances of survival and at the moment I really do need those extra odds. Hopefully though I will be purely organic as soon as possible, I'm just taking it one step at a time (or two steps forward and one back) and once everything falls into place I will be helping the life in the soil rather than destroying it. Even saying that sentence wants me to go fully organic now, but I need the time to adjust and get things together.

If anyone would like to comment regarding the way I'm treating the plants by all means please do step in. I take criticism well and I'm open minded to all advice and opinions, in fact I appreciate any input that is constructive.

On that note I will wish you all the best and hope that your gardens produce bountiful beautiful buds. All the best and I will share a pipe now that I'm finally done ;)
 
Hello Kriaze. Started following your other journal mid way but still not caught up. Good to join you here from the beginning. Organics more my approach anyway. Everything's looking good!:Namaste:

Hey brightlight thanks for joining me on my foray into organics. Hopefully between us all we can make it a success, glad to have you along :thumb:

Hi, Kriaze! Like Weaselcracker, I'm moving very slowly to wanting to do an organic soil grow, so your journal really interests me. Hope you don't mind if I follow along?

Hey glimmergrass I don't mind in the slightest. In fact it's my honour, welcome aboard :thumb:
 
Hey hockeybry2 she's not keeled over on me yet which is a plus but I'm still unsure whether she will pull through. I'm just waiting on my rainwater melting and getting to room temperature then I'll be giving her a water with some added Epsom salts. My wife thinks she looks better but I'm not getting my hopes up again on this girl until I see her picking up her pot and going watering herself :)
 
Hello everyone it's time for a little update from the organic side of my grow.

First of all I would like to say that I'm pretty convinced that there is something wrong with the old soil that I was using, as no matter how good an specific MJ soil is I would not expect so much of a difference as I am about to show you. Both the Dark Devil Auto's are alive and kicking, planted on the same day with the same feeding regiment in the same tent and under the same lights. Here is the difference that I'm talking about:

Dark Devil Auto 2 had a slightly longer tap root than Dark Devil Auto 1 so as she was showing to be the strongest I put her in the bog standard soil that I bought from B&Q. Bear in mind that everything I have grown in this soil has gone to shit apart from the Incredible Bulks, and one of those is now showing signs of problems, although I'm hoping that I may be able to resolve them without too much impact on the quality of buds they will produce. I never aim for yield, it's all about the quality for me...I wanted to get away from the lucky dip of buying street weed and also from associating with the 'dealer' types that would be in the flats where I used to go, trying to offer me cocaine and such while I was just after a nice smoke. Call me grumpy and old but it used to cause friction when I would tell them what they could do with their other drugs. Anyway enough rambling let me show you the difference between the two seeds in different soils and you can make your own mind up :)

Here is the Dark Devil Auto 2 (called her two as she is not proving worthy to be number 1 ;) ). She is now in Plant Magic soil but her roots are still not through the bog standard soil that she was first planted in. I wish I could dig her up and shake it all off but I don't want to stress her. I'm not expecting too much from her as she has had a bad start in life the poor thing. I can only nurture her as best as I can, but damn that soil has got my goat up:

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She is weak, thin stemmed and I have to pack soil around her everytime I water to get her to stand back up again.


In comparison here is the Dark Devil Auto 1 that I planted directly into Canna Terra Pro (Mr Am4zin I used my lighter to highlight the differences in size so that you could compare them to your Biobizz soil as well as just my own comparison. I hope it helps you make a decision). She has a much thicker stem than DDA2 and although I'm not keen on the stretch she is showing I don't want to lower the light and have issues with heat stress or light burn. I'll take her as she comes as these were only planted to give me some quick backup smoke as my supplies are running low due to giving a lot of my last batch away thinking I had plenty:

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Quite a difference eh? I know how important it is to dial everything in correctly for auto's as they don't live for very long. I'm expecting possibly double the amount from her than I will get from DDA2.

Here in comparison is the Incredible Bulk 3 that was planted a couple of week previous to that, she was transplanted at 14 days into my own soil mix, which kind of disappoints me as I thought I'd done a pretty good job of mixing the right amendments in. Still she hasn't keeled over and gone to MJ heaven yet and she shows none of the problems that I had with the bog standard soil so although it's not great, it's an improvement and that is what I am striving toward. She's bushier than the DDA1 but not as tall:

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I won't be showing many chemically grown plants on this thread but again as a comparison I would like to show the White Widow which has spent all her life in the bog standard B&Q soil. She is still having issues although I believe I am getting on top of them now:

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The LSD plant which almost reached senescence and was nearly chopped down so many times has also improved has now settled into her Canna Terra Pro and is growing new fresh leaves which are looking much better. She's still the worse for wear but she has now improved so much that I have moved her from the corner of the tent into a more central position so that she can get more light. I really was expecting to chop her but she has shown tenacity and resilience and I think she could actually grow into a reasonable plant given enough time in the vegetative state. Quite an eye opener for me. Here she is as of today:

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So what are my conclusions from this? First of all I haven't quite got my own mix right yet, it's missing a little 'je ne sais quoi', but it's a step in the right direction.
Secondly, I'm not great at caring for plants with issues in bog standard soil. In fact I'm not great at growing MJ (yet) full stop, but the learning curve is in front of me and I am climbing it. If I can have a head start by using a good soil that helps the plants, then by all means I will do that in the future.

As a note to myself all the plants in the organic tent (mainly apart from the WW) were fed with water alone along with Epsom Salts yesterday. This will continue to be the case until they show me they need more of anything else. I hope this has helped someone in some way as writing this journal is helping me. I wish you all the best and I hope all your buds are beautiful and bountiful :thumb:
 
Hey Mr Am4zin, I have two compost tumblers full of my own compost cooking in the back garden as we speak. I'm hoping that eventually I will just be able to rotate between one and the other for my grows. I want to get them perfect first though so it will just be a one pot grow of that each time until I'm happy with the results :)

Did you notice whether there was any perceptible difference in growth rates between the CTP and the BioBizz? That's something I'm interested in too, maybe I'll run that test in the future but I want to do a proper test between the CTP and the Plant Magic Plus soil first, as this time around I didn't plant directly into Plant Magic Plus.

Also I forgot to do the obligatory family shot in the tent, so here it is.

From the top:

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From the side:

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All the best everyone. :Namaste:
 
Wow, the difference in th e 2 DD. Stuning my friend, I had issues with every flower in cheap soul which is why I went to the biobizz, closest to organic I could get without making my own soil. I will do that next year I will, I will.

Mr. Am4zin....you can supplement bag mixes with your own ingredients as you accumulate them. Something for N like guano, feather meal, something for P like soft rock phosphate, some K like kelp or my fav langbenite aka Sul Po Mag, some minerals like kelp, greensand, or azomite, some calcium like dolomite lime or bone meal. You get the idea...just cover the bases & add as you go. Bulb food is premixed & great, usually ~4-6-4. Dive in brother, you'll enjoy it.
:Namaste:
 
Morning Kriaze :)

I wouldn't worry too much about changing your own soil mix just yet. The IB3 might be shorter than the DD1 but that could be genetics. Looking at the color and growth of the IB3 she is good and healthy and for training purposes, that compactness is perfect :thumb:

How old are the IB3 and the DDA1?
 
Morning Kriaze :)

I wouldn't worry too much about changing your own soil mix just yet. The IB3 might be shorter than the DD1 but that could be genetics. Looking at the color and growth of the IB3 she is good and healthy and for training purposes, that compactness is perfect :thumb:

How old are the IB3 and the DDA1?

Hello Robert it seems that your post may have been lost with a page refresh or something and I missed it. I can't answer that question as of yet without going back through my journals but I will have a look later. The IB3 is indeed looking fine as of today, the growth seems to be improving but I shall tell all in this little update that I am about to do. Apologies for the delay in my reply, I don't know how I missed your question but you know I would never ignore a post intentionally. Let me pass you this :passitleft: to smooth things out before you get tempted to kick me from the forums, cross me off your friend list and ban me for life :rofl:

I hope you are well ;)
 
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