Amy Gardner Of Eden: Forest Adventures With Doc Bud’s HBB

[Bode]

Highya AmyG of Eden,

Very nice explanation. I enjoyed your post very much. I like that you compared last year with this year. I also like that you used lactic acid serum, among other things. What is your opinion of the ladies this year vs. last year? What do you think of the tea with seaweed and nettles as far as giving the ladies a boost? I'd love to come for a visit and chat awhile as I have more questions, but I'll have mercy on you. I'm just so fascinated using natural ingredients to supply plants nutrients. Thanks, Cheers

 

[dynamo1]

 

[Emilya Green]

Amy, this is a wonderful journal, and I am only on page 2! Yours, with your wonderfully gifted photographic eye is already on my list of favorite journals of all time! I will catch up over the next couple of days, but it is taking some time to get through because so many of your pictures are so stunning that I just have to sit there and look at them for a while!

 

[BeezLuiz]

Update: the soil of Eden

Prompted by something Archie asked in Shed’s journal about whether anyone was using @Doc Bud ’s High Brix Blend outdoors, I realise I haven’t said much about the soil in the raised bed, really - except for when I was a bit stressed that the custom ammendment was stuck in customs. Anyway - even if I did, it’s worth repeating

The plants in pots all have first run DBHBB soil, so that’s fairly straight forward - it’s just the same as other kit grows, except outside (although I have mentioned that there’s no ProMix HP here so I had to buffer some peatmoss myself with Doc’s guidance - and I think we’ve got that right now).

The raised bed is the soil I built for my grow last summer (2017-18) and I grew these in it... A CBD Critical Cure

and a sativa dominant hybrid, Professor Chaos

The original soil was a mix of humus from various worm composted sources and lots of little rocks (that are just in the ground here, lots of quartz) and some veggie garden mix from the garden centre and the ‘dirt’ and clay from our forest and around the garden.

I amended it with Oyster shell flour, crushed limestone, basalt and gypsum (aiming for the 6/5/3 ratio), along with small amounts of neem, wood ash and biochar, kelp meal and dead insects, a little borax and a little epsoms.

I used my own-made lactobacillus serum and fermented teas made from seaweed and another from stinging nettle (this was awesome - until i let it go anaerobic and had to ditch it). I foliar sprayed regularly using seaweed and casuarina - which is a big tree that grows here and is equivalent to horsetail so is very nutritious and a great antifungal agent. It was the first time I’d done something other than stick a seed amongst the ornamental garden and water it wth Seasol only for the duration - I was pretty happy with the soil and the grow.

Here’s the interesting part. All along while I did this soil build and grow I was reasearching Doc Bud’s work on developing the high brix kit and high brix farming in general. So, I tried to reduce the amount of compost in my soil mix and lean heavily towards the minerals and other amendments etc. My garden helper at the time was convinced I needed more compost etc. - we “stood off” a bit about it and in the end I compromised and so did he . He thought I had way too little, I thought I had way too much

By the end of the grow (well, by about half way through, actually) I knew enough and had seen enough to know I’d be ordering the kit to work with here and testing the raised bed soil for it as well. Not incidentally, by the end of the season that garden helper was asking me to remind him what I did to the soil

On to this season - I had that soil tested last year to see if it was amendable and one of the results of the test was the strong directive to add no kind of organic matter/fertiliser to the soil! Way too much organic matter for a high brix grow in there already. It was also lacking in some micro nutrients and had too much of others, so not great balances. There’s no way to know any of this without a test.

The soil was still, obviously, amendable though and that’s what you see the Candida and the Critical Mass growing (like the clappers!) in now.

So the results of my soil test, after a full grow and a winter, looked like this:

Doc sent me this report, along with a recipe to do up my own ammendment to make it compatible with the kit (which will take 2 seasons to reach a baseline). I also had the option of having him make it up for me and send it. Seeing as that sounded better and easier and I needed kit supplies anyway, I got Doc to do it

Beacasue of the micronutirent issues, I’m to use Snake Oil - a very powerful booster for such things. It goes in with the brix foliar spray, but only once per month. It’s had one dose through each plant already and another is due next week.

I now, at very little cost including the cost of the soil test itself, have enough ammendment to do it next season as well and then I’ll test again. I also have enough ammendment to do the same amount of soil again, twice, so I plan to dig out - more accurately employ someone else to dig out - the bush pod soil pits from last season (which was the same mix of soil) and i will ammend that and see how it goes, either in another raised bed somewhere or in pots, next season.

So that’s what’s happening in the raised bed. It’s my own soil, previously grown in and then tested and amended especially and appropriately with a custom ammendment in order to grow using Doc’s High Brix Blend system of drenches, tea and foliar spras.

So this, my friends is the becoming of a high Brix Eden in my garden, and considering this is a sub-par year (for a few reasons, one of which is that it’s the first year amending it this way) it’s looking pretty fine to mine eyes so far

Cheers Doc,

Amy, excellent explanation of your soil and thanks for posting the lab results - very interesting and helpful.

 

[BeezLuiz]

Amy, this is a wonderful journal, and I am only on page 2! Yours, with your wonderfully gifted photographic eye is already on my list of favorite journals of all time! I will catch up over the next couple of days, but it is taking some time to get through because so many of your pictures are so stunning that I just have to sit there and look at them for a while!

I wholeheartedly agree!

 

[Amy Gardner]

Highya AmyG of Eden,

Very nice explanation. I enjoyed your post very much. I like that you compared last year with this year. I also like that you used lactic acid serum, among other things. What is your opinion of the ladies this year vs. last year? What do you think of the tea with seaweed and nettles as far as giving the ladies a boost? I'd love to come for a visit and chat awhile as I have more questions, but I'll have mercy on you. I'm just so fascinated using natural ingredients to supply plants nutrients. Thanks, Cheers

Cheers Bode

I know by looking and by knowing that these plants are way happier than last year - even tho last years were awesome and I was very proud

Using all the homemade soil/plant food is a great way to grow and heaps of folks round here do it and do it really well. I will say 3 things about it from my own experience:

1. It’s very rewarding but equally physically and mentally demanding (it isn’t actually a sustainable practice with my physical limitations).

2. As good as it is you’re always going to be guessing to a certain extent (unless you soil test and test the components of what you make etc.). This fine for many, and Conrad does it and achieves high Brix plants - but theres a lot of work that goes into it interms of research that I’m not up for.

3. I’m really down with the high Brix approach to growing, and to farming in general. From that perspective, LOS/TLO approaches, even when mineralised, are nearly always going to involve too much organic matter in the soil for the microherd to be fully powering (they get sluggish on too much food and too much sugar (just like we do). So then I end up with - Doc’s kit: tuned to grow nutrient rich frost encrusted cannabis.

I know that doing it myself the way I did last year was absolutely the best thing to do at the time. I learnt so much.

Doc’s kit and system is far superior to anything I can do myself, though, and it is also massively less taxing - the most demanding thing is the foliar spraying, but I actually really enjoy that.

I think I answered your question

I will say this too. If I was going to do it again, I would use stinging nettle exclusively for the soil drenches (with a lacto serum always) and the seaweed and casuarina in foliars. Stinging nettle is really a magical plant to make FPJ out of. In fact, you can boil it up as a regular tea and feed it to yourself and your plants! Stinging nettle has everything in it and is well balanced.

Doc’s kit is fully self contained so I don’t have to do any of that anymore... for my weed anyway, we’re still using our own seaweed concoction in the veggie garden (the lovely other makes that) and we still use a homemade lacto in the veggie beds as well. The veggies also get leftovers of the DBHBB kit as well - best beans ever!

 

[Van Stank]

Hey Amy, great updates and pictures. Beautiful girls you have going! Congrats on the beans as well! Cheers!

 

[Amy Gardner]

Excellent write up and explainer. Thank you for responding to my call . Were you going to post a link in AW's thread or shall I?

Yeah - I meant to tag him. I’ll drop a link in to him. If you haven’t beaten me to it...

Amy, this is a wonderful journal, and I am only on page 2! Yours, with your wonderfully gifted photographic eye is already on my list of favorite journals of all time! I will catch up over the next couple of days, but it is taking some time to get through because so many of your pictures are so stunning that I just have to sit there and look at them for a while!

Why thank you Emilya! I’m very chuffed to hear that. I confess I gaze at them a lot myself - the plants and the pictures of them So I’m so pleased whenever someone else gets pleasure from them as well.

A hearty to you to my garden. I am very pleased to have you join me

Amy, excellent explanation of your soil and thanks for posting the lab results - very interesting and helpful.

If you want to know more about the kind of test, Doc would be your best bet - or look up AG labs international, they have info about the kind of tests they do.

I wholeheartedly agree!

 

[Amy Gardner]

For an indoor grower like myself, it's always a bit awesome to see a young one out under the sun with all the soil it can use.

 

[Amy Gardner]

By the way folks, I finally started a thread for my insect gardening companions.

Friend Or Foe? Predators Of Eden

I’ll use it for discussions about identification etc. and always report back here what I discover. I also wanted to start collecting them all in one place, so I have a record of what is around here and maybe even see seasonal habits among them as I track the garden over time

 

[InTheShed]

You mean this?
Friend Or Foe? Predators Of Eden

 

[Amy Gardner]

You mean this?
Friend Or Foe? Predators Of Eden

Oops!

Yes! (Edited

 

[InTheShed]

 

[MaddHacker]

brought my own snacks...

 

[Amy Gardner]

Update: State of the garden (week 12)
A pretty feisty new moon is currently waxing in the daytime sky.

My first moon photo... a little piece of us in the sky. Touched by the same light as the trees.

According to moon gardening lore this means an period of accelerated growth above ground - and I certainly have that going on. We’ve had so much rain in the evening the last few weeks, and the last few days in particular. The flowering autos are surviving ok tho - more on them later.

Amongst the rains I gave everyone plenty of plain water with tea

I’ll kick right off:

White Widow
Still an absolute star. This one is coming into flower properly now with pistils starting to show in the top flowers. About 2 weeks later than ideal but I did manage to get a plant through into mid April last year so I’m confident I’ll get this one through too. There’s always the tent and the QBs if it comes to it!

Meanwhile - here’s a few of her enjoying the late afternoon sun. There is full sun blasting on this one from about 830am to 3pm amd then there is intermittent dappled light and direct sun until about 7pm.

I love the shape of it. There has been vigorous growth of all side shoots on all branches with many, many secondary tops reaching up to the canopy. I’m very excited to sit back and watch the flowering stretch, with no care about height

Go baby go!

The pot is 20" in diameter - so that makes the canopy 3' wide. Exceeds expectations.

WhiteWidow-day88(2).jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

WhiteWidow-day88(2).jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

EDIT: in the sun this morning...

WhiteWidow-day89.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

9am

This next one is from the “back”. I trimmed of the lower shoot on this side because, as the sun gets lower in the sky during late summer early autumn, the angle of light will become such that anything on this back side that isn’t tall, just won’t get much direct sun. It’s nice to see some of the structure from this side.

WhiteWidow-day88(2).jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

and then in the sun this morning

WhiteWidow-day89.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

9am

...plants' perspective on the blue sky

WhiteWidow-day88.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

WhiteWidow-day88.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

WhiteWidow-day88.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

And this last pic is taken from where I sit for a lot of the day, when I can. A recent visitor who should know better just didnt spot it for ages! But it’s really in plain sight - if you’re here (so we’re particular about who comes).

WhiteWidow-day88(2).jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

The Rasied Bed
I’m going to to do a seperate feature on Critical Mass, because it deserves it. As a family unit however here is how the amended rasied bed is going.

AmendedRaisedBed-week12.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida (rear); Critical Mass (front)

From above - a bit blurry sorry, trouble holding phone/camera up high enough!

AmendedRaisedBed-week12.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida (left); Critical Mass (right)

And what I see when sitting in front of it

AmendedRaisedBed-week12.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida (rear); Critical Mass (front)

Candida

My theory this week about her tendency to have the dropsy, is actually related to Archiweedies’ thread and collected research on Vapour Pressure Deficit. I haven’t checked the chart against my environs outdoors or anything (although I might, just out of interest) but the question of leaf surface temperature that is part of those equations is what I think could be the issue here.

The dropsy is not related to wet or dry soils, we know that. It happens only in the direct sun, and it doesnt seem to matter what the air temperature is and I can’t see a difference in behaviour based on ambient RH either. So I keep coming back to intensity of sun. Either actual light, which it just can’t be I dont think, or surface temps and that seems more likely.

I’m doing something about it - I have a plan and will update later if I manage to pull it off.

Meanwhile, here’s a few afternoon and morning shots from late last week so you can see the difference.

CandidaCD1-lateafternoon.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

CandidaCD1-lateafternoon.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida-morningdropsy.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida-afternoon.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Yesterday was 24ºC. It was beautiful and at 930 in the morning (so only about 22ºC) there she was all dropsy-ing...

Candida-morningdropsy.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

So, at this time, the surface of the hardwood frame of the garden beds that I sit on to look at them was really hot! Even tho the air temp was comfortably mild - so that’s what made me think - surface temp on the leaf. I havent chased these thoughts down the rabbit hole yet...

It only takes the slightest cloud cover or dappled shade for it to start to recover. These ones are mid afternoon and the dappled shade is just starting to touch it every now and then, and already things are improving.

Candida-230pmrecovering.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

Candida-230pmrecovering.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

And then this is later still, with very thin cloud cover.

CandidaCD1-happyinfilteredlight.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

I’m sure its on the verge of proper flower - it grew more than an inch overnight last night!

This is one of the lowest branches which is racing toward to top! Clearly she is very healthy in general.

Candida-vigorouslowerbranch.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

A Gardner’s helper is coming later today and I’m going to get her to collect the reaming pod frame from out in the bush (where it still is from last summer - only the net was removed). I think we can do something with that and some clear(ish) plastic sheet to ease her light problems. Hopefully without reducing the intensity that the Critical Mss is getting- because it loooves it!

I’ve been thinking about the little surface temp sensor device Archi recommends, and I love a good gadget so i might try to get one.

I’ll tie up this instalment here and continue in seperate posts.

 

[InTheShed]

Love the moon pic, no new lens needed to my eye!

The plants look stupendous and the shape on the WW is like a green chalice, wonderful!

Interesting science on the Candida leaves. Keep us posted on the leaf temp differences.

A Gardner’s helper is coming later today

Most accurate.

clear(ish) plastic sheet

I think window screening would be good if you have any laying around.

 

[Derbybud]

Garden looks to really be picking up now Amy. And who doesn't love a WW nice

 

[Amy Gardner]

Update: The Autos - day 60

MiG29 and a Sucker Punch

I haven’t really tracked what Ive tried to do with these - I’m learning so it’s been enough to just try to do it. Besides - i certainly havent nailed it so it’s better if I just link to the tutorial I have been following rather than try to explain it myself.. so here’s what I’ve been aiming for with these auto’s: Shed’s Auto LST tutorial thread.

SO these are really close to harvest. MiG will probably be later this week and Sucker Punch will a bit longer. I’ll just photo dump them now... its near harvest time so we know that means trichs! All the trich shots are MiG29 actually. I could prolly take it now but I wanto get a GI drench into the soil for a bit before I do. That’s happening today, so another 4-5 days and it’ll be perfect I reckon!

MIG29-day61.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

SuckerPunch-day55-60.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

SuckerPunch-day55-60.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

MIG29-day61.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

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• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

This is lower that i missed trimming off - i think it gets about 5 minutes of direct sun a day

5minutesofdirectsun.jpeg

• Amy Gardner
• Feb 10, 2019

That’s the autos.

I have breakfast coming and then the whole garden needs to be tended with round one of a big hearty Growth Energy Drench - exciting for the garden! But it means well all have to wait for teh final update instalment on the Critical Mass (which I think is a very aptly named plant ).

I’ll see ya’ll in a few

 

[Amy Gardner]

window screening would be good if you have any laying around

I know - I have been thinking about that too. There is some, but it’s attached to screens so cumbersome to manage. The pod frame is curved so whatever I put on it needs to be able to bend a bit I think.

I keep thinking about ways top keep the rain off when the time comes (in flower) as well so I’m wondering if this mightn’t do 2 jobs Like a kind of raised hoop house floating above the raseid bed!

 

[InTheShed]

Plastic would be rain-proof, true. I mean window screening rather than window screens. You just lay it on the frame like you would plastic but you still get the airflow along with a decrease in light intensity.