Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

[36Gr0w]

I love leaf. Looking great BB.

 

[bobrown14]

For God's sakes Bo, would you please defole that headband lol. I'm totally joking bud. If there's anyone on here that doesn't need advice its you my friend. You've forgot more about organics than I'll ever know. I'm really loving your grow. Every time I see a new email reminder with your name I get excited to see how the ladies are doing.

I am soaking up the info. Please don't feel like it's wasted on me. It just takes some of us stubborn old farts longer than others lol.

Beautiful as always!

Thank you very much Doc... but it's just me being completely lazy.

I'd rather be lounging around letting the ladies do their thing without me. When I'm mixing up a batch of soil tho... that's a different story.

You know how you are with your ladies right? Well that's me with worms and composting. I get all giddy walking the dog when I see a big pile of worm castings... sometimes instead of scooping up poop I scoop up worm castings. I can never have enough... same thing when I see a big pile of (wild) rabbit droppings, I'll scoop them up in a NY minute and they go right into the pot of the largest lady in flower... then its like ... yawn time to go hang out and maybe puff a bit.

I do like a pretty lady in flower tho.. I particularly like the smell of fresh resin on my clothes after messing around a bit in the gardens. I don't roll around in there per se but you know what I'm talking about. I'd probably love to pic a fresh bud or 3 and stuff them in my pockets just for the smell. Man I love the smell of freshies. Too bad they don't taste as good as they smell... hahahaha.

 

[drcannabi]

Thank you very much Doc... but it's just me being completely lazy.

I'd rather be lounging around letting the ladies do their thing without me. When I'm mixing up a batch of soil tho... that's a different story.

You know how you are with your ladies right? Well that's me with worms and composting. I get all giddy walking the dog when I see a big pile of worm castings... sometimes instead of scooping up poop I scoop up worm castings. I can never have enough... same thing when I see a big pile of (wild) rabbit droppings, I'll scoop them up in a NY minute and they go right into the pot of the largest lady in flower... then its like ... yawn time to go hang out and maybe puff a bit.

I do like a pretty lady in flower tho.. I particularly like the smell of fresh resin on my clothes after messing around a bit in the gardens. I don't roll around in there per se but you know what I'm talking about. I'd probably love to pic a fresh bud or 3 and stuff them in my pockets just for the smell. Man I love the smell of freshies. Too bad they don't taste as good as they smell... hahahaha.

LOLs!

I'm a little jealous that you have an eye for wild worm castings! If you ever get a chance to snap a pic, I'd love to see that. where do you normally find them, old dead log etc...? I can pick up the wild rabbit poo and even some bear poo in the Olympics LOL! I would just love being able to find the natural freshies when it comes to the worms.

I'd love to hang out with you but my range is like an electric car where yours is probably in the 500 mile range. I'd probably ruin your fun. You know the fat kid that just can't keep up hehehe!

Looking forward to your next update my friend.

 

[kelticBlue]

If you ever get a chance to snap a pic, I'd love to see that. where do you normally find them, old dead log etc...?

I think I can help. He posted some pictures back in the Fall here is a link to the post.

I hope I have done the right thing. Link to post not pics, Hmm sorry.

Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

 

[kelticBlue]

I was writing about collecting worm castings in Sweet Sue's journal the other day. We collect the worm castings in the woods where we live. Now is the time to collect, right before all the leaves fall again. What happens is the euro night crawlers like to hang out under logs I think for a few reasons. One probably is shelter from predators (birds and critters), the other may be they like the wood dust from the insects eating the fallen trees.

As all the leaves collect around the fallen limbs and debris in the forest, the worms eventually find them and start to eat them all spring and summer. By this time of year - beginning of fall the worms have pretty much eaten all the leaves from last year leaving nothing but castings all over the forest floor. The best place to take a bucket and scoop and find them is around the large dead trees and/or branches. We can fill a 5 gal bucket full in about 10 minutes. It takes me a month to have that much in my worm bins/compost piles at home. We collect this from the forest because this is European night crawler castings and our worm bin is primarily red wigglers. So this mixed with the home made EWC is VERY good for the bio-diversity and is a main ingredient in our soil mix.

So here's a few pics that show where to look for worm castings:

Find a log - see the dark soil around the edge of the log? Thats actually worm castings and you can tell by the texture - it sort of looks like little balls of soil but its actually worm castings ... this has EVERYTHING your ladies need to grow big ass buds. Thank me at New Years when you are firing up a bowl or J of your new harvest! This is absolutely THE BEST soil amendment you cant even buy - it's FREE.


Notice the sparkle - thats actually naturally occurring silica from the breakdown of the granite formations where we live. It's another good soil amendment - granite dust and the worms dig it up and put it right there on the surface for plants to absorb and use. Wow there's sooooo much those little worms have to offer gardeners. Worm castings is really the only soil amendment you really need, the rest is just bonus. To find it naturally is even better, this cannot be beat.

I think I can help. He posted some pictures back in the Fall here is a link to the post.

I hope I have done the right thing. Link to post not pics, Hmm sorry.

Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

OK here it is. A little better perhaps. Cheers!

 

[drcannabi]

OK here it is. A little better perhaps. Cheers!

Thanks Keltic!

That is absolutely what I was asking for. I appreciate your kindness!

 

[Radogast]

Recognising worm castings is mostly about seeing the texture of little piles. When standing up, it looks like scattered dirt.
Up close you see the texture captured in the excellent photos from the other post.

The "dirt" in this photo is worm castings left on the surface of a pile of marijuana stems after 2 weeks in my worm bin.

 

[drcannabi]

Thank you Rad!

I'm going on a hunt soon. I've got a 12 acre public plot a mile away and there are lots of fir and alder. Plenty of downed limbs I can check out.

This community rocks! Thanks more than words can say!

 

[bobrown14]

Wow you guys are awesome... worm castings are my thing for sure. When walking in the woods with my lil old buddy 14 year old dog, we take our time and get to really SEE whats going on. Yeah find a dead log and you should see the castings there. What the worms do is use the log to hide from predators. So yeah just think like a worm... you want a nice moist place with lots of dead leaves and some place to keep safe.

What we get at the end of the day is a mix of different bacteria. The soil in the woods is completely different than the castings form the worm bin in my yard. Remember we humans are 90% bacteria too.. so we have an influence on bacteria that grow from our kitchen scraps but not so much from castings in the woods. So for me its good to have variety and I think the ladies like it that way too. Its funny talking about this cause I was just putting handfuls of castings in all the pots in flower. Give the ladies a little kick heading down the back stretch to harvest.

Here's some pics from tonight right before lights out:

California Dream... starting to stack it up. Lots of leaf here, doesn't really = dense buds at the end of the cure so I'm interested to see how this turns out. But there's a lot of frost on all those leaves so hey never know. I'm keeping a open mind. She's changing shape. She was more X-mas tree shape but is now looking more and more like a huge cola bud with many side branches.

More of Cali Dream.... nice large fans still going strong here where the Krystalica already is dropping fan leaves like it just snowed.

Cali Dream front, Krystalica Crappy pic girl in the back there. Her buds have had to be tied up starting around the 30 day mark in flower. She's pretty much homely looking but top heavy buds even the side branches have to be propped up is always a good thing.

Cali Dream Main cola

Crappy Pic Girl - all propped up and she's even got some clawing going on... from the last round I found the clawing plants to be extra potent meds... I'm not sure what it is TBH but from last round I'm not complaining. The claw girl buds from last round are FANTASTIC.

More of Crappy.. she's got lots of orange pistols and still putting out lots of white and best of all bulking up those big fatty buds. Me likey.. something about the homely girls that I really like. What is lacking in one part of life is made up with something else, we just have to find it and celebrate differences. Humans can learn from plants. Makes sense since these plants have been around WAY WAY longer that humans and figured out a way to live in a symbiotic relationship with us. Think about that for a minute and think about successful reproduction with help from us. Lots of annual (and perennial) flowers do this with our help. Notice the frosty buds even the low down buds have it.

Back to Cali Dream up close on a side branch

Cali Dream.. pretty picture hope the buds taste this good.

OK - into the VEG room, this is Krystalica from seed from the last run. I've got 2 going from seed. They do not look exactly like their mom - so thinking maybe cross pollinated some how.... more to come on that. Things will change in flower. These are certainly looking more perky and larger fatter fans than the clones beside them.

Here's a wide shot - all the big tall girls on the side and back are Krystalica clones - the fatter fan girls in the middle (there are 2) are from seed from the last run, and there are 2 clones from the same plant I got seeds from in the center - one is hiding behind a tall clone but we can see there's a difference. This shape and look can absolutely change when going into flower as we saw with the Cali Dream. What I expected to see was the same Pheno but with seeds Pheno can change.. so I will be tracking this and cloning.

 

[Radogast]

Wow you guys are awesome... worm castings are my thing for sure. When walking in the woods with my lil old buddy 14 year old dog, we take our time and get to really SEE whats going on. Yeah find a dead log and you should see the castings there. What the worms do is use the log to hide from predators. So yeah just think like a worm... you want a nice moist place with lots of dead leaves and some place to keep safe.

think like a worm I like that!

In Charles Darwin's book on worms, he talked about the worms covering up stepping stones with a layer of worm castings, the rain and large mammals moving that layer downhill, and the worms creating another layer of worm castings. (He and his son took lots of measurements and made predictions about soil deposition rates in different parts of England.) I was wondering why the worms operated mostly under the path instead of the ground a few feet away, and you have explained it - safety from predators !

What we get at the end of the day is a mix of different bacteria. The soil in the woods is completely different than the castings form the worm bin in my yard. Remember we humans are 90% bacteria too.. so we have an influence on bacteria that grow from our kitchen scraps but not so much from castings in the woods. So for me its good to have variety and I think the ladies like it that way too. Its funny talking about this cause I was just putting handfuls of castings in all the pots in flower. Give the ladies a little kick heading down the back stretch to harvest.

I don't think too much about the bacteria in the worm bin, because once I get to the marijuana pots, I want the dominant species to be Glomus intraradices feeding the roots of my marijuana girls. Species diversity includes a competition for space and resources.

Lovely plants in the flower room. I've got nothing to say about them

I do have a question about your 'christmas tree' girl in the front left of this veg area photo. I run HPS and there is a strong dropoff of light penetration. Because of this I tend to remove the foliage from the bottom 1/3 of the plant when entering flower. On a christmas tree shape, that is half the foliage - half the leaf nutrients available during flowering. I'm thinking this is either a bad idea, or a good idea where I waited too long.

Do you have any words of wisdom about preparing a Christmas Tree Girl for flowering?

 

[drcannabi]

Great discussion guys. I'm enjoying this tremendously!

 

[bobrown14]

think like a worm I like that!




Lovely plants in the flower room. I've got nothing to say about them

I do have a question about your 'christmas tree' girl in the front left of this veg area photo. I run HPS and there is a strong dropoff of light penetration. Because of this I tend to remove the foliage from the bottom 1/3 of the plant when entering flower. On a christmas tree shape, that is half the foliage - half the leaf nutrients available during flowering. I'm thinking this is either a bad idea, or a good idea where I waited too long.

Do you have any words of wisdom about preparing a Christmas Tree Girl for flowering?

Thanks for drool there on the ladies in flower Rad... The flower room looks great for a week or 2 then all hell breaks loose when the ladies get pissed and figure out there's no guys around ... they start slacking in the looks department. I have to give them showers and they NEVER comb their hair ... they are starting to look messy already.

On the defoil question. The only time I do that is for ventilation when it's a lot more humid, say in the late spring and summer. This time of year I don't even touch the plants much at all.

I've been reading a book called "What a Plant Knows" by Daniel Chamovitz. Plants definitely react to human touch, all of them do. Some will drop leaves and some plants will even die back just from touch. I think canna plants have learned to live with us humans and I even think they live a sort of pampered symbiotic relationship with us.

That said there's another thing plants do called translocation. The plants have the ability to absorb energy thru the roots and the leaves and move and store that energy and use it when they need to. Our canna plants like to translocate lots of stored energy into the flowers to get ready for reproduction. All we humans do is trick the plant into working harder to produce larger stickier flowers. So that said I don't like to remove any fan leaves because I know going down the stretch the plant will use those fans stored energy and move it to the buds in the last ditch effort to produce seeds. They will produce seeds if you let then go long enough (or too long). I'm experimenting with seeds from bananas right now. This is not the same as a hermaphrodite (which is a genetic defect).

Basically my style of growing is leave them alone and get out of the way. I'm way too lazy to trim leaves and I don't feel it's going to help me with yield any way. To be clear; my goal is quality of yield not quantity of yield.

I want my ladies to devote all the energy to flowers. As soon as we snip chop or whatever the plant will use energy I want them to use for flowering and instead use those energies to figure out what I'm doing to them and they even are able to tell their close neighboring plants there's an animal or pest eating leaves with feramones. The other plants will react to that and make changes to help fight off whatever pest may be in the area. Plants know we humans are close by we don't even have to touch the plants.

My deal is, IF I have to physically interact with our plants its going to be an IPM shower and we all know how appreciative the ladies are to a fresh shower and a nice clean drench, FTW.

 

[Radogast]

Thanks for your thoughtful and complete answer.
I know you have given advice that I haven't taken (YET!) and I believe that is based upon my desire to roll an idea around and look at it from several sides before acting. I am from the less is more camp, but it is difficult not to be swept up to follow ideas from growers who obviously grow fine plants but with entirely different principles.

Am I extreme at times - sure. This morning my wife was chiding me for eating a bananna and throwing away the peel because a non-organic bananna peel wasn't fit for the worms consumption. I informed her I wouldn't feed a non-organic bananna peel to her either

 

[bobrown14]

Nice Rad - pampering the worms is what this organic thing is all about for me anyways.

Our worm bin only gets the best inputs. Quality in quality out. That's 100% right there.

On advice, no worries I just put down how I do it and try to show by example. Take what you will and find helpful for YOU. I really not doing anything new here, its basically how we've grown our outdoor gardens organically and I've just adapted a few extras for indoor no-til container gardening, and I'm still learning.

I still make mistakes like over watering ... sheesh you'd think I would know better but hey I mess up. I just get up every day and yup still alive, we won another day in paradise. Yay us! Everything else is bonus.

 

[bobrown14]

A Little update here. In the flower room we have a few ladies that are coming down the back stretch. I don't really track days/weeks too much. If its a strain I've never grown out I "usually" put a date on a sticker then spill mud and water on it so I cant read it any more. The plants I've been growing I know when they are ready to chop by the looks of the flowers.

So last night I took these pics right before I did my usual 2x a week IPM. Last night I splurged on the ladies and added in some compost tea (kelp meal, worm castings, rabbit berries and a bit of aloe and coconut water), filtered and foiler sprayed with spinosad for any insect issues FTW. I checked the ladies tonight and they look extremely happy, well except for the 2 that are almost ready for harvest. They are top heavy buds and those 2 plants have all the buds supported.

The ladies are looking a little ragged again. They are picture worthy for maybe a few weeks ... then its dropping leaves and falling all over the place like drunken sailors.

This is Cali Dream from Mandala Seeds - she's pretty nice with lots of leaves and frosty nugs. She was a Christmas tree shape and is actually loosing that shape a little as the buds are bulking up. I've not trimmed any leaves off at all.

Krystalica there in the backround - that one has some large buds and they are way heavy and all of them are falling over - she's been propped up for a month now.

Cali Dream again.. she's probably one of the prettiest ladies I've grown for in while.

Cali Dream again - frosty fan leaves is always a good sign

Cali Dream again

Cali Dreams stall mate next plant over she's been in flower maybe 20 days or so.. she really changed a lot. I left her in VEG pretty long and she was getting shabby looking for a VEG plant. Now she looks a lot happier.

Krystalica - she's in senescence, loosing all the fans. I leave them fall of naturally. Doesn't look that great but I've found that I don't really need to mess with them. They are actually performing a function (translocation) so I let them be. They fall off when they are ready.

More Krystalica ...

More krytsalica - notice fans yellowing from low to high. Signs of N deficiency ... not with this cultivar. They all do it and I can give then straight up kelp meal/rabbit manure/alfalfa meal/worm castings which is a hot N fix and they never skip a beat and just keep doing what we see here. Lord knows I've tried everything.. now it's just acceptance and thanks.

Headband ... classic Indica look... this one is going to take a while to finish. I bet 90 days... that's a lot longer than I like to go. Krystalica is a 75 day flower girl and I like that ... 90+ days, meh.

Headband again different view. Her buds are actually hard to see she's got soo many large fans its crazy.

One of the Krystalica ladies getting closer to finish - her buds are falling over. This is a 5 gal no-til I'm going to retire after 6 runs... I'm moving up to 7gal-10gal containers. I will recycle the soil into the worm bins, which will go back into more no-til soil mix in about 6-8 weeks.

The other Krystalica coming down the stretch. Doesn't look like much but this lady packs a BIG punch. Lots of medicinal properties. When I roll up a fatty, my lips, hands and face are numb before I even smoke or vape anything, I'm already there from breaking up buds to roll. This is the only cultivar that does that, and my dogs nug of choice, and he's extremely selective. My dog has glaucoma and this really helps him and he knows it and so do I. She actually looks pretty in this pic ... her twin sister next to her has bigger fatter buds.

On to VEG .... wait for it.... HSO Chemdog... I have to try this one. All the pretty flowers I've seen of this cultivar right here on 420mag in the grow journals ... I may try my hand at breeding. I've stashed up some Krystalica pollen. Lets see what we can do with this one! She's about 3 weeks old now from seed.

The water on the leaves is after my IPM foiler. Tonight she is 2X the size of this pic - overnight boom!

Dark Devil - FINALLY a tall one.. no purple YET.. she's about 15" tall, leaves have a purple hue so I'm betting this one will finally be a big tall Devil beast.

This is a Krystalica from seed out of my last grow. I had a small flower that produced about 50 seeds. I am growing out 2 of them - her sister is right there on the left side. They don't look like Krystalica per se.. maybe some local pollen .. we will see when this grows out. They look VERY healthy and vigorous.
Cheers - keep it green and purple!

 

[Radogast]

A cornocpia of bountiful blooms - Headband and the Krystallica in veg have superb leaves

 

[drcannabi]

I'm with Rad!

Can't wait for your smoke report on the headband. It's supposed to actually feel like your head is under pressure. Great job Bo!

 

[kelticBlue]

That's is brilliant. I hope that devil is the one you want. Better the Devil, ya kno. : - )

 

[bobrown14]

I'm with Rad!

Can't wait for your smoke report on the headband. It's supposed to actually feel like your head is under pressure. Great job Bo!

It's going to be a while Doc - that plant is taking her sweet ol time. I popped 2 seeds one was a male and I collected pollen then into garbage (not compost). This lady is taking her time.. looks like she's into bulking up on sugar leaves. Her leaf/calix ratio seems to be off the charts, at least to me anyways. She's got a lot of leaves and flowers but the flowers are not really getting larger per se.. seems she's got a fair amount of Indica in her and I don't have very much experience growing Indica cultivars .. one reason I'm trying it.

I do have a smoke report of sorts. I grew out an Auto GDP - that turned out absolutely fantastic. Not much of a yield but wow the smoke and taste is fantastic. I got instead of a head band feeling, I got a face band starting around my jaw line and then my whole face. Pretty much a very nice uplift with giggles and a hazy glaze to my eye site. Woke up this morning and I felt absolutely fantastic - mellow and no aches or pains. I think that's the first time I've felt like that (no aches) in the morning for a very long time. I'll take some pics of the finished buds which really look fantastic = eye candy with the meds to back it up. I'll get some bud pics up with a proper smoke report.

I usually give my auto buds away to my friends or trade up .. good to have options. My growing friends don't really do the organic thing for whatever...

I think the chem grow is more due to what most folks do in Cali and what was taught to them. I'm glad when I started growing flowers and veggies there wasn't really an option to use chems. That stuff was only available at the feed store and in WAY large containers for commercial farmers.

I'm trying to grow by example - give buds to my grower friends in hopes that they will taste and feel the difference. Oh and when they show me a receipt from the hydro store I almost faint!

 

[drcannabi]

lol

You aint kidding Bo! 50 bucks for this 70 bucks for that. I bought 1 gal BSM, 1 Gal GEM liquid fish, 1 Gal Budswell, and the rest is worm poop and seaweed. I Still have quite a bit left after 1.5 years lol.

Peace of mind Priceless!

Do you still use your Microbeman 5 Gallon Vortex brewer? Mine is pretty much running all the time. Upgrading to the EcoPlus 3 has really brought sound signature down to a very reasonable level. Those EcoPlus 1's are louder than a 45 HP outboard Johnson LOL!