Sweetsue's First Grow - Stealthy Trio of Autos Under CFLs

[SweetSue]

Sue,
Question for you. I wanna purchase more worms as well. Do you think it's a crazy time of the year to do that? I noticed yours came just fine. Who did you buy yours from?

I got mine from Jeremy, my favorite soil building resource (BAS). He's right in your back yard CO, so you should have no problem getting them. Shipping is done on Mondays to insure they don't sit over a weekend, but they won't ship until they're sure the weather won't be a problem.

 

[COorganics]

I got mine from Jeremy, my favorite soil building resource (BAS). He's right in your back yard CO, so you should have no problem getting them. Shipping is done on Mondays to insure they don't sit over a weekend, but they won't ship until they're sure the weather won't be a problem.

Ty

 

[SweetSue]

Today is the scheduled watering day. It's important with a no-till to stick to that schedule. I've determined that a quart, slowly added to the tray, allows for the proper wicking from the bottom. For the top drench I decided it was time to use the comfrey fertilizer I pressed in the fall.

This is potent stuff that will really jump start lots of action in the pot, but you have to be careful to dilute it properly. According to my calculations 1/2 gallon of rainwater is 64 oz. Diluted 15/1 with comfrey juice means around 4oz of juice. I went with just under 4 oz and used it up between the two pots.

I love the earthy smell of the mulch when you water. It's so reminiscent of the forest it makes me smile. This grow space is still wide open to the living room, which I prefer, so the scent of forest floor washes through the room as the fan moves things around. I realize that at some point I need to close it up to control humidity levels, but I'll put that off as long as I can without compromising the health of the girls.

 

[COorganics]

you're going to have to adapt your watering schedule as the plants grow up and uptake more water, right?

Are you liking watering from the bottom? Are you watering thru the top as well?

 

[COorganics]

Oh yeah, and I've been reading about smartpot worm farming today. Seems most are putting something like a pallet underneath so there is some air flow. And to insulate it hay is recommended. I understand that a pallet and hay aren't what you need as the pallet is too big and you don't want a bunch of hay in your hallway. (Hard to buy hay in the city to, I bet). Just something I read today that might help get you thinking of the best way to keep your worms happy and working: Eating and reproducing.

 

[SweetSue]

Oh yeah, and I've been reading about smartpot worm farming today. Seems most are putting something like a pallet underneath so there is some air flow. And to insulate it hay is recommended. I understand that a pallet and hay aren't what you need as the pallet is too big and you don't want a bunch of hay in your hallway. (Hard to buy hay in the city to, I bet). Just something I read today that might help get you thinking of the best way to keep your worms happy and working: Eating and reproducing.

As the plants grow I know they'll require more water. My process is to water slowly from the bottom until it stops wicking, then give it a few more minutes to soak up what may have been left in the tray. For this part I only use rainwater. If I'm adding anything to the water I do that for top drench, which is done slowly and only until I see run off. I plan to water in increments and wait a few minutes in between to determine the saturation point easier. Dale taught me to do this when he was raising bonsai.

Yes, I'm enjoying watering from the bottom first.

I'd already considered the need for something underneath. Thankfully I still have one of the large drain covers I had planned to set under the pots, before deciding that I wanted to water from the bottom. I can stick that under the worm pot. I don't think insulation will be necessary. It never really gets that cold in the storage space since it's right off the hallway.

Where were you reading about worming in smart pots? I'd like to read through myself.

 

[SoilGirl]

Hahaha Sue - my mom has a bunch of miniature Christmas village dioramas - the old porcelain/clay ones with lights inside and little people, and one even plays music with a tiny choir. We set them up every Christmas religiously. Are those what you're talking about? My mom is just in love with hers. She gets so endlessly happy once they're set up. maybe we all have our little god complexes, seems very human to me.

Awesome, leaves for worms and comfrey juice for the soil. You have such an awesome journal lol, can't stop saying that.

 

[wildjim]

Subbed in for your very interesting grow.

I had a triple a few years ago. It gets better every day.

Best of the holidays to you and your husband.

Frosty Holidays !!

WJ

 

[SweetSue]

Subbed in for your very interesting grow.

I had a triple a few years ago. It gets better every day.

Best of the holidays to you and your husband.

Frosty Holidays !!

WJ

Welcome wildjim. So glad you decided to follow along. The girls are starting to take off at his point, so it will begin to get more exciting. I'm humbled that my rambling style of posting has been so well accepted.

I have a new-found respect for those who survive open heart surgery. Dale and I have been through numerous surgical procedures together over just the past four years as his vascular system, kidneys and heart all decided to play games (even had the dreaded cancer come and quickly go), but nothing holds a candle to the pain of open heart. It's amazing to watch him at this point, 7 weeks out, changing and growing stronger and more like himself by the hour. In the midst of the worst of it I found myself wishing I'd found this forum and started this garden a year ago. Having to survive this with a limited supply of substandard meds was beyond frustrating. My resolve is to become well-versed at no-till indoor gardening so that he always has a steady supply. We know more trying times lie ahead for him, although after two major surgeries this year I would hope to keep things at bay for a few years at least.

 

[SweetSue]

Hahaha Sue - my mom has a bunch of miniature Christmas village dioramas - the old porcelain/clay ones with lights inside and little people, and one even plays music with a tiny choir. We set them up every Christmas religiously. Are those what you're talking about? My mom is just in love with hers. She gets so endlessly happy once they're set up. maybe we all have our little god complexes, seems very human to me.

Awesome, leaves for worms and comfrey juice for the soil. You have such an awesome journal lol, can't stop saying that.

Thanks for the laugh SoilGirl. I can completely identify with your mother. Putting up the tree is my exclusive activity. The ornament collection spans my lifetime and being restricted to a four-foot tree means only the best make a show every year. That means I have to find alternative ways to display more than the tree can bear. I'm in my glory at this time of the year, working to find a fine balance between tasteful and gaudy. The porcelain village is overseen by Dale because he's the train buff, but he leaves the fine tuning to me and I let my inner artist loose. The end result is often breathtaking, if I do say so myself.

 

[SweetSue]

It's time to begin processing these leaves. I want to start a worm bin in the extra Geo Pot and I've spent hours reading about vermiculture in fabric pots. The very first thing I need to do is to cut these leaves up to speed their decomposition. This is most easily done with a chipper or, at the very least, a weed wacker. We live in an apartment located in an urban area with no yard to speak of. The weed wacker went with the house we lost years ago and I have neither of these tools available to me. What I do have is time while Dale take a morning nap and a sturdy pair of kitchen shears. I set to work.

Step one; decide how many leaves will be necessary to fill the pot. I packed the pot to the brim....

..... put the rest of the leaves that were left in the bin back into the collection bag, then dumped the leaves into the empty bin. Now to begin chopping. I found the best approach was to grab a handful and simply begin slicing through it. After that it's a matter of repeating that process over and over and over and over.......

I know some of you are thinking I'd have to be crazy to take all this time, but it got the work done. It also gave me the opportunity to take notice of the healthy amount of fungi already at work on the leaves, which made me smile a lot as I worked.

I quickly learned that you need to let the scissors do the cutting or the hands were going to suffer later. About ten minutes in I decided that I needed to begin watering the girls, which would give me a break from the monotony of cutting (truth be told, I wasn't bored by this process - I used the time to give some deeper thought to what I had learned from my research).

This gives me an opportunity to share the evolution of my watering technique. I begin by gently adding plain rainwater to the tray, allowing the pots to wick up as much as they could. This only takes a few minutes. We live in an old Victorian building. None of the floors are level, including the grow closet. I just keep slowly watering until water begins to collect.

I went back to chopping leaves for ten minutes to allow this excess to wick back up. We don't want any standing water when we begin top drenching. When I came back this is what greeted me. Sorry about the sideways shot.

Time to begin the top watering. Today's water had 1/4 cup of coconut water mixed in. I've developed a system of two spiraling passes per plant, alternating back and forth, with a ten minute pause until the next two passes. For that ten minutes I went back to chopping leaves.

As I water I thin out the living mulch. We want plants that will always be growing. We don't want plants that crowd the cannabis. You can see where I dump the pulled ones off to the front right of each pot (sideways shot here - I'm still learning guys). This adds food for the worms. We need to keep them happy and healthy.

The Buddha is growing nicely.....

..... and the THC Bomb is beginning to explode in growth.

I kept up this process until I came back after ten minutes of chopping to find excess water in the corner. This is my indicator that I have successfully saturated the soil. I love the way these pots let the excess water just run out.

I take this slow watering process for two reasons; first to keep from overwatering and second to conserve rainwater. Particularly at this time of the year rainwater can be hard to come by and I'm trying to make mine go as far as possible. I collect the rainwater in a basin on the balcony. It's a matter of staying on top if things so it doesn't get wasted. This picture was taken after I relieved it of four gallons of newly fallen rain.

I kept at the leaves until I couldn't find any more whole leaves or large pieces. By the time I was finished, this was what the leaves looked like.

The excess leaves got tied up in the bag, making sure that gases could escape during decomposition, and set out on the balcony to winter over in the sun. By the end of summer at the latest I'm going to have some serious plant "manure" to use.

The next step is to add some interesting things to the chopped leaves. That will have to wait until later. Domestic duty calls.

 

[brightlight]

Hi Sue. Interested to know if those other non 420 seedlings provide some sort of benefits for your cannabis?

 

[SweetSue]

Hi brightlight. Good question. Although they don't directly benefit the cannabis they do benefit the living organic soil. Most importantly, the mycorrhizal fungi must have living roots to stay alive. If there isn't something growing that they can attach themselves to the roots of they will cease to be and the soil has lost one of the most vibrant communities for plant growth, and at some point the cannabis gets harvested and their roots die off.

The living mulch also helps to keep the top layer of the soil moist and alive. When individual plants of the living mulch die they add their energy back into the soil food web. That soil food web is such a beautiful dance of life performed by multitudes of micro beasties working in concert to grow our plants. It behooves us to do all we can to assist that dance in its search for balance. Growing a few clovers and such is one more small thing I can do on my end.

On a side note, it appears that plants benefit from being in close proximity with other plants. Like humans, they do better as part of a community. I believe (although I couldn't prove it) that diversity in plant communities is as beneficial to plants as is diversity in human populations. I'm sure there are probably studies to back that up, but I've never sought them out.

They add a nice esthetic to the pot, don't you think? So they appeal to the artist in me as well.

 

[brightlight]

OK...thanks for explaining. Sounds good. I like it.

 

[36Gr0w]

Sue, do you know of any living mulches that are more sugary? I was thinking strawberries. Anything else? Any reasons against strawberries?

 

[SoilGirl]

great informative update, thank you Sue!

as it just so happens, I became an accidental fabric pot worm gardener today ... I was cooking a seedling mix of soil in a 10 gallon fabric pot, about 5 gallons in all of SS#4, FFOF, perlite, Yum Yum mix and Azomite all mixed together... and I started hearing plopping, and I looked down, and a chunk of red wigglers were in the pot... lol I left them. they were escaping from my open worm can >.< Actually I watered them in and covered them with a plastic pot with air holes hahaha. When I came back, they were all dug in. So. I guess my seedling soil batch is going to be the beginning of my first LOS No-Till batch instead. - and I was all worried about not being able to use PeeJay's 3 stage system... hahaha, it's like the world is pushing me towards truer organics. I'm going to add a bunch of leaves now. I'm so excited. First No-Till LOS soil batch coming up!!

 

[SweetSue]

36Grow, the nature of strawberries to spread into a mat might be problematic unless you had a large (think huge) pot or were growing outdoors. I have read of growers who include cooking herbs in their larger pots. Borage is extremely beneficial, given the space, and is a beautiful plant in its own right. From what I've read you couldn't do much better than borage as a companion plant to cannabis. If you grow outdoors yarrow will enhance any plant grown nearby.

Your question intrigues me. I'll research while Dale does cardiac rehab today. I'll try not to overwhelm everyone with the info I discover.

From this point on I won't be pulling any of my living mulch up, but will be cutting it back and dropping the leaves on the surface to degrade and feed the soil. Most of mine are clovers, which are nitrogen binders, making nitrogen more easily available in the root zone. That part DOES benefit the cannabis.

 

[COorganics]

That's the thing really, never taking from the soil, but continuously adding to it. Things like clover become fertilizer when chopped and dropped back into the soil, as sue is doing. Living mulch serves many purposes in a no till system. Nutrient cycling, protecting the upper soil horizon, and finally as fertilizer.

Strawberries and their sweet nature seems like they would attract the wrong kind of bugs, but having never tried that I'm just guessing there. When I first started playing around with living mulches in my garden I wanted to grow things I could eat in my pots. This is really not the best approach though. The living mulch is best kept in the container. Plants should be selected for what they can add to the system. There are nearly limitless options there, but probably not strawberries. The cooking herbs sue mentioned above as living mulch have powerful pest deterrent properties. Everything should have a purpose.

 

[SweetSue]

Brightlight, your question reminded me of a gardening chore I'd neglected to get done before the deep frosts of winter arrive. About six years ago I had a busy year with container gardening on the balcony (I have twice the available balcony space since our daughter's apartment shares ours). Dale's health went terribly bad right after that and the pots were neglected. I never removed the soil or pots, so all that has been sitting fallow for over five years. My plan it to reclaim all of this soil for the spring and give container gardening another go, this time using Living Organic Soil and setting them all up as no-tills.

During my gardening year we had a hanging bag with strawberries that did so-so. When I would harvest, overripe fruit would be casually tossed into one of the nearby containers of daisies that are long gone now. When I went out last month to check on my soil supply for reclamation I found this surprise.

I decided right there and then that the appropriate course of action was to save these little mavericks. Then Dale had open heart surgery and everything became secondary to that. The temps are going to begin nosediving this week, so today was the day. Posting here has made me more conscientious about our other plant charges. I took a quick trip down to the local community garden and raided their stock of hay again. Hay makes excellent mulch. It allows air flow without compaction and insulates from the cold.

First I added a nice 2" layer Worm Power top-dress.

Then I carefully covered the surface with hay, being gentle and making sure it was all nicely tucked under the leaves of the babies scattered around the edges. You can see their little leaves peeking out. I left a mound of extra hay in the center to give me something to shift over the leaves to offer better protection when it gets bitterly cold.

In the spring, when I get the new soil batch cooked I can replant these into another pot or two. I weighted the hay down and now I can just let nature take it's course.

Thank you brightlight. This pot sits all the way on the other end of the balcony and it completely out of sight. I would have found them dead in the spring but for your curious mind.

 

[SweetSue]

That's the thing really, never taking from the soil, but continuously adding to it. Things like clover become fertilizer when chopped and dropped back into the soil, as sue is doing. Living mulch serves many purposes in a no till system. Nutrient cycling, protecting the upper soil horizon, and finally as fertilizer.

Strawberries and their sweet nature seems like they would attract the wrong kind of bugs, but having never tried that I'm just guessing there. When I first started playing around with living mulches in my garden I wanted to grow things I could eat in my pots. This is really not the best approach though. The living mulch is best kept in the container. Plants should be selected for what they can add to the system. There are nearly limitless options there, but probably not strawberries. The cooking herbs sue mentioned above as living mulch have powerful pest deterrent properties. Everything should have a purpose.

Excellent points CO. I replied with the quote because I believe it was important enough that people should read it twice.

It's quite a change of mindset from what the soil can give us to what we can give to the soil so that that micro community can grow plants that benefit us.