PeeJay's Perpetual Organic Homebrewed Soil - Stealth Cabinet And Greenhouse Grow

Hiya, PJ :ciao:

I'm all caught up - can't believe I missed out on this journey!

One thing I want to add is that after my GDP sprouted, I pulled those CFLs in the reflectors even closer than what they were in the photo. I kept the bulb about 2-3 inches away from the leaves the whole way through - occasionally even closer.

I really hope you get a refractometer. I noticed the luster on those leaves immediately and was wowed. I'm really curious as to what their readings are. (I've had my eye on a $30 beer/wine/fruit refractometer with good reviews on the 'zon.)

I think my next venture (once I have some extra money to throw around... which may be never :rollingeyes:) will be into super soils or high brix.

Anywho, I'll be tagging along now.

Have a great Sunday!
 
PJ, timing could not have been better. The timeline between this seedling & mines is just what I needed to finally learn how to grow a stout & bushy plant.
 
Still waiting for the seeds to show their heads. I'm sure by tomorrow morning at least one will be up. I misted the top of the soil on the BAR plant (under the lights at 2-3" while the seed is underground) just because the top of the dirt has more evaporation going on.

Since I was not certain of the # of days for the darkstar I'd said was ten days old, here is the og seedling at 10 days old for certain. It is a little droopy since it was watered right before the picture.

og10d1.jpg


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She's growing leaves not stem and hauling ass.
 
Dres, thanks for stopping by and checking out my antics. I really like growing in custom-fortified mineralized soil. It beats the heck out of measuring gross bottled nutes! When I was initially using the General Orgainics line there were four or five different things to mix each feeding, and there was lots of guessing how much to give. Then there was the endless looking for signs of deficiency or lockout. I don't worry about it any more. I've also decided that brewing teas is a messy proposition. I don't do that either. It's pretty hard to go wrong with Doc's kit from what I've seen. I may try that soon. The downer on Doc's kit for me is reading all the debating about when to use this drench or that drench or foliar spray. I want easy and stress free.

I didn't use any recipe for my soils - just common sense. I really like the Yum-Yum since it contains an awful lot of the things that go into supersoil. It wont burn plants when used as a top dressing. Google it to learn more. It is formulated to feed the micro-herd. I've even tasted the stuff. lol. It has a pleasant nutty flavor. Here is a picture of what the yum-yum looks like.

yumyumm.jpg


I'm getting very strong growth in the soil. Here are pictures of a cola on the flowering DS - one from five days ago and one from today. I tried to duplicate the shot quickly and did a less-than perfect job but I circled a fan leaf in the older picture and drew a pointer to the same fan five days later for reference. With 4-5 weeks left this is going to be really nice!

ds31.jpg


ds4rd.jpg
 
Hey PeeJay.I was searching around for,Idk what,but came across some info I thought you would find interesting.Have you ever heard of -Helical Buckling of a plant's root's.?

I wasn't familiar with helical buckling. I did a google scholar search and read a study where they were looking at how roots deal with penetrating dense soils. They grew the plants in a clear gel with different density in layers. When confronted with hard to penetrate soil, say clay, the root actually coils it's self like a spring and corkscrews through. Cool stuff. It takes a lot of energy to do that - energy that won't be going to produce foliage. From what I gathered by my quick read the interest is in breeding or genetically engineering plants who are adept at the buckling process so they can grow crops in soils where they wouldn't have grown previously.

Implications for weed growing... I'm not sure. However I'm thinking that it is an argument for using a light soil for seedlings. We want to make root growth as easy as possible for the young plant. Don't really know...
 
PJ, timing could not have been better. The timeline between this seedling & mines is just what I needed to finally learn how to grow a stout & bushy plant.

Seedling are easy to experiment with. It is harder to experiment with things that go longer term. Seems like it makes sense to look at how to get out of the gates quickly when growing in soil. I'm happy you are finding this helpfull.:thumb:
 
Very nice ghetto set up! Hahaha. I'm so ghetto I'm in the closet with all the clothes and all! it won't be long till they are out day and night in the greenhouse. I'll post photos of the plants later when I turn the lights on.

I fear that there are only about four or five months a year where it's actually possible to leave the plants out in the greenhouse day and night where I live. Middle of April through most of May, and from September until the middle of November. The temperature swings are too drastic at this altitude. They can go out frequently for many more months. I've never had the thing over a summer, but the sun is SO strong that even if I vent and blow out hot air it will go well over 100 in June. We'll see....
 
subd if im not already,

i just read your flushing comments a few pages back, now when i started growing i was always told its best to flush after each stage of growth, so flush after seedling stage and let the pots dry out, then when you move on to veg stage feed you then flush at the end of veg and again let the pots dry out before moving onto the flowering feed,

so thats what i was told is the best to do but i dont flush at all i just stop feeding at the end of flower,
the strain hunters vids do something different which made me change the amount i water my plants, they say its best to flush a couple of times in the middle of flower, this removes everything from the grow medium and just allows the roots to take in oxygen, this then makes the buds get much fatter, so their may be something in flushing throughout the grow.

during the grow if your feeding to much then salts build up and problems can start then you end up flushing anyway, but if you using a good nutrients and you have got it dialed in then you should only be giving the plants exactly what they need so nothing should be building up in the soil or medium.

strain hunters get great results with their growing method though, so i now water a lot less often and let my pots totally dry out between waterings, before id check the soil a few inches down and if it was dry id water, that worked ok and growth was ok, but now my plans are going several days longer than they was and im getting much better growth and bigger buds at harvest. so their must be something in getting as much oxygen to the roots as possible.

thats why hydro and dwc do so well as the roots are constantly getting as much oxygen as they need, in soil the roots only get plenty of oxygen when the pot is totally dry, so i let mine nearly wilt before watering and im getting much better results, i was watering every 5 to 7 days in the past but my plants easily go 10days plus without wilting, i also water less and have very little run off and thats if i have any at all, we often give the plants more than they actually need and this does more harm than good,
 
I fear that there are only about four or five months a year where it's actually possible to leave the plants out in the greenhouse day and night where I live. Middle of April through most of May, and from September until the middle of November. The temperature swings are too drastic at this altitude. They can go out frequently for many more months. I've never had the thing over a summer, but the sun is SO strong that even if I vent and blow out hot air it will go well over 100 in June. We'll see....

Don't get me wrong, my greenhouse is portable and consists of a giant one piece of spun, heavy bound poly fiber and it goes over a pavilion frame which is 10 x 20. In May, the greenhouse is removed and I put up a piece of shade fabric which shades out 75% UV. From June till end of October it is usually triple digit temps every day and only going into the 90s over night. I know hot! So, I didn't mean I was going to grow in the ghouse all summer. I should have been more clear about that.
 
id love to be able to grow in a green house, it dont get to hot here in summer or at least not to hot for to long so as long as the GH had vents then temps would not get to high, but i dont have a garden to grow in at the minute,

outdoor growing is something i want to try, but then i dont have crazy high temps to worry about here. we just tend to have lot of lots of rain all year round
 
subd if im not already,



so thats what i was told is the best to do but i dont flush at all i just stop feeding at the end of flower,
the strain hunters vids do something different which made me change the amount i water my plants, they say its best to flush a couple of times in the middle of flower, this removes everything from the grow medium and just allows the roots to take in oxygen, this then makes the buds get much fatter, so their may be something in flushing throughout the grow.

during the grow if your feeding to much then salts build up and problems can start then you end up flushing anyway, but if you using a good nutrients and you have got it dialed in then you should only be giving the plants exactly what they need so nothing should be building up in the soil or medium.

strain hunters get great results with their growing method though, so i now water a lot less often and let my pots totally dry out between waterings, before id check the soil a few inches down and if it was dry id water, that worked ok and growth was ok, but now my plans are going several days longer than they was and im getting much better growth and bigger buds at harvest. so their must be something in getting as much oxygen to the roots as possible.

DP, it is unrealistic to think that you can feed plants "exactly" what they need. Animals urinate out excess nutrients. A plant in the ground has a huge amount of earth around it for built-up salts to migrate into when it rains. A plant in a container does not.

Built up salts lead to lockout and pH issues which not only make conditions less than optimal for the plant. They make life VERY hard for the micro-herd in the soil. After a flush all the nutrients are there again on the very next feeding. The micro-herd has much more favorable conditions and reproduce like crazy and break down organic matter in the soil at an increased rate. This is the reason Strain Hunters flush even though the plant looks healthy. You may not see problems in the plant, but that does not mean the salts are not building up. The other thing that builds up are metabolic waste from the micro-herd. Some of those wastes are great for the plant (bacteria manure) but others are not so good.

The strain hunters videos are nice. On the watering issue they give you a chance to see where the stuff grows wild. Many climates at quite wet but the fiels are on slope and the soil is commonly volcanic and well drained. You can watch all the videos and never see the wading through a mucky swamp. I totally agree with your watering observations.

I don't know if it says it in the photos documentation of the flushing process, but for o2 I put an airstone and pump air through the water while i"m doing it to increase o2.

All I can say is try it and see what happens. Have the water at room temperature, give the girls some tub time, and check out the results. It won't hurt anything, honest.
 
im not saying its something bad, its what made me adjust my watering method, i know they flush to get the most oxygen to the roots as possible, its why i sent the links to a few member so they could see the results strain hunters was getting by using the flush method,

im sure ill give it a try at some point and possibly with clones so i can compare the flushed results with the method im currently using, i know my buds are much bigger using the watering schedule i now use, my plants get top heavy between waterings so i know the roots are getting more oxygen than they was in the past, i never over watered but following the standard watering schedule i was getting ok results but now im watering a lot less often growth is crazy and its allowed me to cut my veg time down and my yields have increaed by quite a lot, its perfectly clear the bud size has increased as well,

so the o2 at the roots is helping increase growth rate and flower size, ive not tried co2 yet apart from the diy co2 bottles but thats not monitored and maintained at the correct levels, so that something id also like to try when i get a grow tent,
i would use the flushing method but id need to change the make up of the medium im using as it dont dry out very quick so theirs no point in me flushing until i start a new grow and amend the soil im using, its why i dont flush before harvest as my pots just dont dry out if i flush with the stated dose so after trying it i went with the other option of not feeding 2ish weeks before flower and just use plain water.

so ill give it a try in the near future but its pointless me trying with the compost i use as it is as it just would never dry out quick enough to benefit the plants, ive followed strain hunters for a while and its why i sent members to watch their vids as what they say makes sense and they get good results,

how ever i know for a fact my soil grown plants grow quicker and produce as much if not more than their soil grown plants, their hydro plants do really well but to me their soil grown plants dont seem to be doing as good as they should be, but then their hydro guys so thats pretty much expected.
 
I think their hydro is so dialed in soil indoors can never compete with it. Soil will never equal a spare no expense, completely dialed in, adjusted for specific strain hydo system. I'm sure those Green House seeds guys have people watching the conditions full time!
 
i agree, chances are they dont touch the plants until harvest, they dont need to and if i could do the same then i would, im sure we all would,

hydro and dwc will always grow 2 or 3 times quicker than soil grown plants, ive always grown dwc alongside soil but i only do 2ltr dwcs and these grow crazy quick compared with anyones soil grown plants, if i had the cash then i would flip to hydro tomorrow, but i dont have the cash to buy a nice set up so maybe thats something i can invest in in the future. i can go 12-12 from seed with my dwc plants and easily pull 2oz off them, 12-12 from seed with soil you might get an oz to 1 1/2 oz, i dont need to start my dwc as early as my soil grown plants due to how quick it grows,

id love to do a sog with lots of 2ltr dwc plants, i could easily fit 100 of them in my grow space but i cant go to mad with plant numbers, so my only real option for now is big soil grown plants, i dont have the equipment to do a big dwc grow or several dwc plants at one time. hydro is really where the really fast growth is, thats perfectly clear. id say my dwc plants grow 3 times as quick as my soil grown plants and bud size is bigger as well,
i did a lollypopped dwc a while back and ended up with a singe bud the same size as a 2ltr pop bottle, that was also 12-12 from seed. ill be running some autos under dwc soon as ive got my own auto strain stable and pulls 2oz dry per plant when grown in soil so it will be interesting to see how an auto compares when grown in dwc as it reaches harvest in its own time so that will be a good comparison to make.
 
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