Pizzajedi's First Grow - Soil - Indoor - Blue Cheese

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

yikes! lets hope i can learn from the collective knowledge and not murder my children haha. im still waiting to water after my flush 2 days ago, the soil is plenty moist and i dont want to waterlog them. but my soil's fine? its pretty damn close to that range according to my tester. as soon as i water though i will be checking the runoff. should i keep the water as is at 7 to test runoff, or balance it to 6.5? i know something is going on though, ive got stems turning red and leaves yellowing over the place! looks like a combo of manganese and sulphur deficiency, possibly Nitrogen. hm......
DISCLAIMER: I AM A CHRONIC OVER-THINKER. if all this sounds normal (i am LST'ing and i heard that can cause red stems) please tell me to shut up, calm down and relax. i could probably use it. for some reason i cant upload more photos to show you the stems and how theyre progressing? as soon as i figure it out ill post some pics.

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

figured out the pics. heres how the ladies are doing:
blue cheese #1

blue #2

UW

and now for some of those red stems (below) and yellowing leaves (above) i was talking about:

i think itll be safe to water tomorrow and ill be checking the runoff ph. fingers crossed.

 

[smacsidhe]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

You should wait to water until the soil feels dry down to your second knuckle, or until the pot feels as light as a pot of soil fresh from the bag, either works and will get you to about the same frequency. When you flush you want to put through at least three gallons of water for each gallon of soil, but when I'm flushing because of nut-lock I do a 5 to 1 flush. Then wait til the soil is dry to begin feeding at 1/2 strength, building up to full strength slowly.
It does look like nut lock caught very early more than a PH problem. You should be fine now. Most of the time, if you use any of the sponsored soils as recommended, and use the same brand of feed as directed you won't have PH problems unless your water is extra hard or soft. Using RO filtered water is the best bet then, rather than trying to do too complicated a fix. Often the PH in well water will fluctuate as the water table rises and falls.

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

i would adjust your pH to 6.5 and wait until your plants are dry enough to water again. the purple stems are most likely from a pH imbalance and should recover. the purple stems usually indicate a calcium and magnesium deficiency.

here is a nutrient availability chart

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

hey guys, thanks for all your input. it was safe to water today and i watered with H2o balanced to 6.5 and my runoff was at 5.2! son of a whore!!! i tested my soil after watering and its at 5.5. that would explain the Mg/cal deficiency (thanks again for that chart KingJohnC). looks like i should have stuck to my instinct and continued to water with 7.5. damnit. oh well, such is life and i can tell you, im learning all sorts of lessons here in the cold rainy pacific northwest. hopefully i dont stress these ladies out too much...im running low on meds and funds. wish me luck guys, ill be posting another update in a few days when i water again...

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

ah yes, forgetful me, ripped out of my gourd... i forgot to ask you fine folks a question. im pretty sure during these lockout issues i should be foliar feeding with a feed balanced to 6.5. i believe i read that somewhere in one of the nooks of this site but i cant find the thread for the life of me. any thoughts/ knowledge on this? ive going to start brewing an organic foliar feed with alfalfa meal, kelp meal and molasses (im pretty sure i mentioned this in one of my first posts but im trying to only feed organically as ive managed to garden outside organically for a few years) but i am more than apprehensive about doing anything until i get this soil ph back up to a reasonable level. speaking of my soils 5.5 ph problems, im debating some options:

OPTION 1
get my lazy ass on my bicycle, ride the 8 miles to the nearest home depot and just buy a small bag of dolomite lime (a 40 lb bag would be a little ridiculous strapped to my back) sprinkle that shiz on as a top dressing ( 1 Tbls/ per gallon of mix, so 3 tbls per pot in my case) and then...wait. check ph every few days, water then wait some more, then once im all set start feeding 1/2 strength and hope for the best.
OPTION 2
buy ingredients (which include dolomite anyways) for a supersoil, build it and make sure i build it RIGHT, and transplant the ladies. aaaand then hope for the best. i feel like im stressing my plants out too much, but who knows. smacsidhe says blue cheese is resilient and ill take his word for it.
OPTION 3
get more teen clones and pretty much go immediately into flower now that i have my closet mostly ready (my patient/friend is anxious for a harvest. i keep telling her "im new, im still learning"...sigh) and continue to treat these ladies in veg until theyre nice and bushy.
or
OPTION 4
all of the above.

think im heading in the right direction? ive been reading, reading, then reading some more and i feel that any of these should solve my woes, at least for the time being. any how, i just realized that its taken me 2 hours to type this and i think i might be a little too high (a mixed pipe of harlequin and Hindu Kush is the bees knees). but the questions still stand!

thats all for now folks. til next time.

 

[smacsidhe]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

It's pretty easy to keep your pH good when you use a premix, harder when you build your own soil. Did you figure out which ingredients in your mix had your pH so high?
I would let then rest a few days before transplanting, let them get healthy before the next stress. It's much easier for them to recover from several little stress's than a couple big ones. The Blue cheese is a fairly hardy strain, but any plant will need a recovery time after serious pH problems and nute lock. Going into bud too quickly after that will reduce the size and density of your buds.
Remember, This plant is hard to kill, and very forgiving when you give it time, but just like any girl, stress them out and then rush them and they will get even with you down the road when you think everything is fine, in what they are willing to give back to you. I'm pretty sure I would have yielded twice as much weight in bigger denser buds had I waited a week and let my girls build up an overload of flower hormones and then put them into bud instead of rushing the second they looked healthy again. As it was, while their foliage looked healthy, they were still busy filling the tank, and I sent them down the highway with a quarter tank.

 

[smacsidhe]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

Oh, one more thing... It's likely just fine that you adjusted to a little low for a little short time the first time through, as the plants still had an abundance of the nutes that the low pH blocked, and it allowed the other nutes that the babies were starved for to be picked up cleanly. Just adjust your water back up next watering and you'll be fine.

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

thanks smac (can i call you that?) i needed some encouraging words. i did some work today on the garden cause i got injured at work yesterday and have to take a few days off. my plants are starting to look better, bushier at least, and the green is coming back. my patients invested some money into the grow today (bless them, they didnt have to) and i went out to buy supplies to start my way towards being a proactive grower instead of a reactive one. itll take time, but ill get there. i did find out what was making my mix so acidic, its a mostly peat mix and the peat/everything else ratio is really high. whoops! shoulda known better. but heres the photo update:

i borrowed my roommates car and went to home depot and got me some lime. its dolomite, baby! ( any futurama nerds in the house?)

after that i went to my local hydro shop and picked up the necessary supplies for any number of teas and feeds (worm castings&molasses not shown). my pops called it my cocktail bar.

after way too much driving for someone who rides a bike everywhere, i got home and started top dressing my established plants with the lime and transplanted my 2 dream queen clones into their final 3 gallon aero pot homes (lime premixed in).

Transplants:

top dressing:

the UW (third photo on the right directly above) is looking bushier and greener everyday. i think with the lime and the tender loving care theyre receiving theyll be just fine. thanks for all your help guys, ill be posting again after next watering. im going to wait 2 more weeks until i start feeding them as they still have only been in the soil for about a week and a half (11 days to be precise), or do you think i could get away with starting earlier at 1/4 strength cause im only using organics? let me know your thoughts. til next time.

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

your plants appear large enough to introduce them to 1/4 strength nutrients. I would gradually over several waterings increase by 1/4 strength until you are at full strength nutrients.

 

[smacsidhe]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

your plants appear large enough to introduce them to 1/4 strength nutrients. I would gradually over several waterings increase by 1/4 strength until you are at full strength nutrients.

I agree, I'm in soil, and went up by 1/4 every other feeding when starting clean. , with a feed - feed - water, feed - feed - water pattern, increasing it every cycle.

Hey, Jedi, What part of OR you in?

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

im up in stumptown, living the city life and slaving away in the service industry.

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

ORGANIC NUTRIENT TEA!!!!! is it weird that i kinda want to drink it cause it smells so good? haha maybe ill grow up big and strong. (dont worry folks, im not gonna drink it.)

 

[trichifingers]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

pizzajedi

Looking good, and glad you got to get what you feel your girls need.

I am curious how you got the link to your grow in your sig to work?
The setting in my identity for url is turned off and I cant seem to change it.

King John
Same question about links to grows in sig? I'd love to have a link to my grow in my sig

trichifingers

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

thanks trichi! theyre looking much better after a 1/4 strength organic tea feeding, ill be posting some pics here in the next few days. as far as the link in my sig goes, all i had to do was copy my journal's url and paste it in my signature on the settings edit page. hope that helps, i dont know how to change the url settings on an account. maybe ask one of the admins to change it for you?

 

[trichifingers]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

thanks trichi! theyre looking much better after a 1/4 strength organic tea feeding, ill be posting some pics here in the next few days. as far as the link in my sig goes, all i had to do was copy my journal's url and paste it in my signature on the settings edit page. hope that helps, i dont know how to change the url settings on an account. maybe ask one of the admins to change it for you?

I'll try the first copy/paste option thanks for your reply.

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

your signature is working now.

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

hmmmmm. so i fed with 1/4 strength organic tea a few days ago and now this is happening:

leaf twist like crazy! im wondering if they still have too many nutes. or could it be a cal/mag issue? i wouldve thought the lime would have taken care of that though. any thoughts? i dont think its a ph issue at this point cause my soil is at 6.7 and runoff is around 6.0-6.5. so far its only showing up on my one UW plant and not the blue cheese so maybe its just more sensitive? thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[KingJohnC]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

the leaf curl in your photographs appears to be from pH fluctuation.

 

[pizzajedi]

Re: pizzajedi's first grow (soil/indoor/ blue cheese)

John, i was hoping it had something to do with the ph moving back up to stabilize. awesome! theyre looking nice and good today, here are some pics:
here's the UW, nice and bushy. does anyone know of anyone else who has grown this? its a clone only strain and i cant find anything about it on here. perhaps ill be the first person to write a strain review....if i can keep it alive lol. (sorry for the shitty photos)

and heres the 2 blue cheese ladies.

i think theyre looking good with the exception of the leaf twist. i might actually be figuring this stuff out, many thanks to you fine folks. til next time.