triumph2134
Well-Known Member
Welcome all to Amy Gardner's first grow journal
First I'll get some particulars on the table - much is still in flux (no pun intended), but the known quantities so far are:
Strain(s);
1 x CBD Critical Cure (Feminised - Barney's Farm), Indica dominant (80%/20%) | THC 5.5%/CBD 8% | this is largely for meds, a supply of oil for treatment of pain & PTSD | this one is going in the garden enclosure.
1 x Professor Chaos (Regular - TGA Subcool), Sativa Dominant (65%/35%) | Relatively short flowering (50-60days) | I bought this before learning more about strains and about landrace. In the future I'll more likely go for a Panama. But I'm hoping to plant this one out in the forest, it's going to be fun to see how the Chaos goes out there in the wild.:icon_cool
1 x Money Bush (Feminised - Heavyweight, freebie from Herbies), Indica dominant 80%/20% | THC 21%/CBD3% | this is going in an experimental location, to see if it's a viable spot. The strain doesn't particularly excite me, but it was free which is great and it will do a great job for me testing this spot.
Veg or Flower? Nothing in veg or flower yet - i'm preparing to get soil ready (and waiting for protected enclosure to be built - finished any day (or week) now!)
Environment: All outdoor
Medium: Soil - this is being worked out now. Some kind of 1 : 1 : 1 plus amendments arrangement. The rest of this opening post will begin a discussion and ask for advice about my soil. See below!
Container: 1 or 2 in pots - hopefully a 30L and 1 straight in the ground (in a slightly amended spot)
Light: The Sun
Air-cooled?: The nor-easterly breeze
Temp & RH - Our summer's can get pretty hot and late summer can be humid. Can't control it, will just monitor and try to build strong plants!
Any Pests?: Hopefully not! and let's hope the plants are strong enough. I've grown in the area before and not had any.
How often are you watering? As little as possible at first and then as much as they seem to want.
Type and strength of ferts used? All natural - what's available. Seaweed, some compost teas, worm castings topdress if needed.
I really don't know what to expect and that's the most exciting part. It's the first time I've tried more than one plant at a time and a more serious (but in a kind of frivolous sense, not serious, just more serious) approach to growing than I've taken before. It's my place here so I am experimenting with different sites around the garden (but anything outside the enclosure needs it's own wallaby/possum proof fence, so there's that to consider).
I had originally planned to drop the seeds with the new moon at the end of this week (I do things by the moon as much as possible) but the enclosure is delayed and now I am taking a trip away for a week that can't be helped - so I plan to drop seeds about the 27th which is a bit late in the cycle but still waxing, so should be ok.
This is my 4th grow. Each previous time has been a grow of only one plant, 3 different locations over the last 6 years. The first one I grew when I wasn't smoking much and it lasted years! I have no idea how much it was in weight. The second I grew was this one (different user name - it was me!) and she was a beautiful plant but she lost the sun too soon in the season (behind some tall trees) and being a sativa this didn't go well - plus, in the last 5 weeks of flowering we had about the wettest autumn on record and it rained and rained ... i was so dedicated - out there every morning shaking her down and cutting off the rot! I had the craziest rig of clear (milky) plastic and supports trying to jeep the rain off her. Anyway - she got pulled too early but I still had smoke from her for a long time and it was a nice smoke, good for me and the occasional friend, and occasional bonus for the folks who come to work here.
Currently I'm growing an indoor for the first time - mostly because I was getting impatient for summer and the garden enclosure we're having built is, of course, way behind schedule.
SO - onwards!
I'm trying to do what I can with what's here and whatever amendments are deemed essential.
I need to talk soil with you good folk!
I've been reading a lot - and some of it has sunk in and been understood, some of it has sunk in and confused me and some of it I've very likely missed. I haven't read all of the earlier journals of DocBud and Conradino23 that i'd like to yet so I'm missing some stuff there I think, but i'm still reading. I've read a bit about CEC and the base cations etc. and still digesting this crash course is soil mineral science! So to be clear from the outset - I'm not equipped, or inclined actually, to do a no-till situation. I also will not be going down the full LOS pathway that involves lots of grain hulls, teas, cover crops etc, although many of the principles and ideas are certainly in play (and I might try some chamomile and or clover in the pot - maybe. Maybe not.). My main take away messages from the reading I have done have been more to do with mineralising the soil. I'm a big fan of the DBHBB kit (and a big fan of what it grows in good conditions!) but it's just not in my financial ballpark (especially when I'm still cutting my teeth = higher risk) so let's see what I can do here on my own, eh? I know I need Myco, and minerals and compost. I'm heeding the warnings of hi-brix growers like DocBud and Conradino23 to not have too much organic matter - which can overwhelm the bio-community (at least that's my understanding of it) and slow the whole web down (the same thing happens to us if we eat too much and don't get enough minerals)
OK - what I have is:
A load of compost is coming for the veggie patch from a local garden supplier - it's good so I'll be using some of that mixed with some of our own compost (we're only 2 and we fast a lot so there's not a lot of food waste to compost!). I'll contact the supplier and see if they can tell me a bit about their compost. I'll include worm castings if i can source them easily. (Easily means - very locally, and cheap)
The PEAT or COIR question.
I had been thinking I'd get Peat moss. The same business that sells the Myco sells peat and there's another options too - but all require shipping. But, we're going to be using CocoCoir to make seed raising mix and potting mix for the veggies etc. and I'm thinking it'll be easier and cheaper for me to go with this. The coco we're getting is good - for organic gardening, not full of salt etc. We're being careful about this.
So my question here then is can I do a good 11 mix using coco, compost and aeration? And still have a good soil community? And regarding aeration, is perlite the only option - and is it as much of an issue outside (one or 2 will still be in a pot, 1 in the ground)? I.e - will I need 1/3 perlite outdoor? It's not something I remember Conradino using - but i've more to read.
We have this really good looking clay here and the holes dug for the enclosure have unearthed heaps of it! I'm spending this morning researching what it is exactly. This is the hole it comes out off followed by pics of what it looks like up close.
Nice huh? I'm certain it must be full of good minerals (hopefully incl. cations) so I'll be on the phone trying to find out the composition (found nothing so far on local gov website). Some of it is greyer and some of it is more mustard kind of colours. (pics will get greener as we go along I'm expecting - in the meantime, I love the colours in this clay!)
And I'm looking at the following amendments:
Myco - I can get this from a business here (an 'organic garden solutions' supplier). They call it AMF (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) and it seems the goods. From what I can tell (they sell Coots style compost etc.) they're geared towards canna growing without actually mentioning that, as they have all the usual suspects for folks doing notill and LOS. This will be used as an amendment to the soil mix and also for sprinkling during transplants. (and into the veggie soil too if I can convince the other gardner.)
Either Basalt or Volcanic rock dust (the place that has the Myco also sells the volcanic rock dust, but I think basalt is better from what I've read, so if I can find it... (maybe my clay already has it?!). The ogs supplier I mentioned includes Basalt and Gypsum in their 'complete nutrient' mix, but they don't sell it seperately.
Crushed eggshells go into our compost all the time (not exactly powdered tho) but I'm thinking I will make a dedicated cup full for my 'special' soil mix, by using the heavy duty mortar & pestle and trying to powder it. I recently did this to feed the soil in my indoor grow and it was a bit taxing, so I'll see how I go with that particular DIY.
Crab/crustacean meal: I haven't looked into sourcing this yet. My question here is - s there a way to get chitins into my soil community without crustacean meal?
Oyster shell flour (mixed with the eggshells as I'm not sure I can eat and crush enough of them in the time!). I've heard outer farmers use black tar to attach the shells to the host post or base... hoping I can get flour that's guaranteed not to have tar in it! The organic place that sells the Myco has this as well, but my budget there is getting tight.
For looking after things during the grow I have a plentiful supply of seaweed, kangaroo poo (for making a compost tea) and an LAB starter that I'll be learning how to make use of (thanks MerryAnna). There'll be worm castings for topdressing, some mulch (lucerne) if needed. Anything more will be worked out as I go along.
At the moment I'd love some help on where I'm at with the current thinking. Please if there's any small detail in there that seems a bit off, or misguided, I'm relying on folk to point it out. I'm a details person - details, I love em. There's nothing to learn if one's ego gets in the way so feel free to, recommend, point out any errors, or impending issue you may spot, in general - edutain me! I hope the grow entertains you! I'm excited and I haven't even dropped the seeds yet!
Just got here. If its ok id like to follow your outdoor grow. LOVE a good outdoor grow! Cant wait to tune in!
Especially considering that it's still so young - flowers are just prior to being 'set' I think. We had a lovely evening - smoked the second half of the J after dinner (we put it out beforehand because we were quite high and she was cooking dinner for me and we realised there was a risk that might not happen if we finished it in one go!). We both noticed also that it was very relaxing and that this continued beautifully into the next day. I can vouch for it's pain killing properties (I still had to take something extra for the nerve pain in my legs in order to sleep but I nearly always do, especially after walking around the garden tending my girls). There was a little left over (mostly leafy even) which I vaped for my saturday morning wake n bake, while my friend took herself off to the beach for a walk & swim. I was curious to see the daytime effects - and the vaping effect. It was lovely, very gently uplifting. I'd say this is a good one for depression. There's been some concern that the strain would be too energetic and wind me up into doing things when I should be resting, or tempering my activity. It didn't. My fatigue was at a pretty extreme level when I had it and all it did was relax me, ease pain, ease nerve twitchiness, and make me happy - which, when you can't do the activities you love (like taking long walks or going surfing/swimming), is priceless really. 
It'll get more intense of course... so it's going to be pretty potent... I'm excited!
mmm “MacOS high sierra hangs on startup after successful install” - that’s the google search I’m currently reading the results of unfortunately 
I don’t mind a bit of trouble shooting, but these things really should ‘just work’ a lot more often than they do!
I'll join you. 
That deserves a couple more hits. 
