The Mountain: Grow Support From The Over 50 Club

[Marsh]

Hiya UTH and The Mountain Community. I wonder if you might throw a few pointers at me.
I am currently growing trees in large coco hempy buckets. They were potted up from solo cups , to 5l buckets , then 10l and 15l and now finally just before flower , into 20 l buckets. Over this time (6 month veg) the rootball has become extremely dense . Not visibly rootbound (no circling root to be seen when transplants happen). What I am noticing now is that its taking a lot of watering to actually achieve any runoff . To the point of overwatering.
Basically I need to water 50% of the pot volume to get to some runoff. (eg, 10l of water for a 20l pot!)
This is causing me concern . I have read that roughly a 20% of pot size watering should be sufficient to achieve runoff in a coco/perlite mix. So what should I look at here ?
Water less and not worry about runoff and do proper flush now and again?
Rough up the top few inches of my very dense rootball?
Install a dripper system to slow the watering process down ?
??
Thank you in advance,
Marsh

 

[JBUptown]

I haven't contributed to this thread in quite a while; for a couple of reasons. Health one of them ... I had a right hip replaced a couple of months ago. I thought it was going to be no big deal. It was. But, I'm back and strong again. Clone season is heating up in N. California and I'm busy with orders.

Good to see all you old farts still kickin .. and a couple of new/old farts.

~ Auggie ~

Glad you are feeling better, can we call you a half new Hippie now Auggie?
Best of Buds
JB

 

[uptheholler2]

Hey Marsh! Do you break the rootball up each time that you repot it? I generally take my hands and split it into 2 - 4 sections depending upon the size of the root ball. If your plant is in flower or getting close the amount of water generally needed increases dramatically as the plant needs to add a lot of mass as it flowers. best of luck in all you grow!

 

[Jonwayne]

I stumbled across this thread, and found it very interesting. I'm wondering if I could get a few pointers on the outdoor grow I'm preparing in the mountains here @ my home now. I'm goin with all clones for this grow, they will be over 12' and hardened before goin in the ground. But the questions I have are, as I'm digging and filling my 2x2 and 3x3 holes this week. A few spots I've picked have a tightly packed clay like soil, and im afraid that these holes will hold water, and drown or rot my roots later in the year as we get alot of rain. Few of the things that come to mind to prevent this from happening are maybe line the hole in weed barrier then layer of rock, to help drain the excess water and keep other roots from competing with my plants roots. Also just simply loosen up the soil 6' or so in the bottom of the hole to help drain. Any ideas or techniques out there you guys could share, and or ease my mind to just not worry about it. Thanks

 

[Rifleman]

If it's like here that red clay goes down to bedrock. Dig deeper and ammend any soil with gravel, sand, etc. to assist in drainage. Refill half of hole and plant on top of that.

 

[mcspade]

When I grew outdoors, where I live there's a lot of clay. When it's hard to follow the great tip from Rifleman, after I dig the hole, I take the edge of my shovel and carve some grooves in the clay to help roots penetrate and to aid in draining. Then I mix a 50-50 ratio of the new amended soil and the clay I just dug out of the hole. That's what I will fill the hole with. Filling a hole with 100% new amended soil in clay will be like planting in a pot with no drain holes. Good luck!

 

[brightlight]

Gypsum works well to help clay absorb H2O, promotes penetration to avoid H2O pooling up or running off. Also good source of Ca & S.

 

[Jonwayne]

I've already took a matic and loosened up the bottom of the hole as deep as I could. It rained the day after so I'll get a good idea of how bad they will hold water today. I'm gonna bring in some barn soil, vermiculite, wormcastings, perlite, and lime. Maybe a few other things to mix in with the clay. I'll try goin as deep as I can, and layer it as I go, using less and less of the native soil the closer I get to ground level. Picture it kind of lIke an upside down coke bottle, with the best drainage @ the top. What are some good ways to keep rival roots from other plants from raiding my rich little holes? Before this year, I used to just use a spade and chop as deep as I could and mix topsoil in and plant, but always had mixed results. Biggest plant I 3ver grew was planted this way in a old brush pile, with barn dirt mixed in around her. I'm looking to get a few plants close to this size here this year if all possible.

This was my first and sadly last, huge outdoor girl. Thanks for the advice fellors.

 

[cmay]

I have a question about clones, seedlings and light source. If I have some clones how long should I keep them under the T5 light till I move them to my veg light? Im running a Secret jardin L90 tent and it has 3 sections. One is a 2x2 (using that as my veg/bloom) right now. Then it has two other sections that are 1x2.

The upper I will use for clones and the bottom ill use to for veg. So when I have them in the 1x2 veg section could I still use a T5 fluorescent or they need my mars hydro light at that point? thanks in advance and check out my first grow ever. Its coming alone nicely with the help of the knowledgable people here.

 

[Jonwayne]

I keep and veg my clones under flouros, also flower under cfls. So they will be fine under t5's as long as you keep them there. I would wait untill there rooted nicely and you start seeing new growth before putting them under the led. Get a second opinion first though because I've never used leds as main lights just to supplements. There light is more intense than flouros, so I'd say to make sure there rooted and happy before putting them under leds.

 

[cmay]

thanks for the info ill be doing that.

 

[OlderGrower]

I stumbled across this thread, and found it very interesting. I'm wondering if I could get a few pointers on the outdoor grow I'm preparing in the mountains here @ my home now. I'm goin with all clones for this grow, they will be over 12' and hardened before goin in the ground. But the questions I have are, as I'm digging and filling my 2x2 and 3x3 holes this week. A few spots I've picked have a tightly packed clay like soil, and im afraid that these holes will hold water, and drown or rot my roots later in the year as we get alot of rain. Few of the things that come to mind to prevent this from happening are maybe line the hole in weed barrier then layer of rock, to help drain the excess water and keep other roots from competing with my plants roots. Also just simply loosen up the soil 6' or so in the bottom of the hole to help drain. Any ideas or techniques out there you guys could share, and or ease my mind to just not worry about it. Thanks

Ok when I 1st read this I was like holy chit batman now thats one way to grow huge plants outdoors, move them outdoors at the beginning of the grow cycle when they are already 12 foot to begin with. But then reality sunk in and realized he meant 12" not 12'. To bad though cuz that would be one freaking amazing grow to follow. As for your actual question, here is what I do here in Oregon. I live near the Tualitin River and other then the top soil I originally brought in when we bought the place everything is clay, nasty clay. And while water will eventually seep through it, it takes some time. I dig as big of a hole as I can and go as deep as you are able, this year I plan on digging a 4x4 hole and the center area will be between 3 to 4 feet deep, depends on how well my body holds up digging them. The top 12 inches of soil is good top soil but below that all that soil will be going to fill in along the fence line. Then I plan to put 6 to 9 inches of large river rock at the bottom of the hole and cover with sand and washed into the gaps leaving hopefully 2 1/2 feet to 3 for amended soil. In Oregon we are allowed 4 plants legally so I will be doing this 4 times, my guess would be that by the 3rd hole it will be considerably smaller
I tend to over-kill projects due to my OCD, I have a fence along the house that has a 16 foot swinging gate installed and when I set the corner post I used a 10 foot steel 4x4 post with 1/4 angle iron welded to the base in 2 separate spots 90 degrees from each other and dug the hole 4 1/2 feet deep and 3 foot around. That was not the hard part, the hard part was I mixed bag concrete to fill it, it took like 29 bags of concrete if my memory serves me correctly. I had originally figured 10 bags of concrete would be plenty, wow was I ever wrong, 10 barely made a dent. I will say though, that post is not going anywhere and has not for the last 18 years.

 

[Curly Beaver]

I just found you guys over here.... nice thread.

I've got a couple questions.... will start with this one:

I have a Paradise Nebula clone growing in a one liter beer stein..... guess you'd call it a "novelty grow. After seeing all the pics of big colas in a solo cup thread I figured I try it in the stein. A Is there anything I can do to to promote one bigger single cola?

Thanks

 

[Auggie]

Most of the beer steins I have used only have once place for drainage - out the top.
And I've drained a LOT of beer steins that way.

But, there's no drainage out the bottom.
Gotta let those roots dry out, and gotta be able to flush.

Drainage.

~ Auggie ~

 

[Curly Beaver]

Most of the beer steins I have used only have once place for drainage - out the top.
And I've drained a LOT of beer steins that way.

But, there's no drainage out the bottom.
Gotta let those roots dry out, and gotta be able to flush.

Drainage.

~ Auggie ~

10-4.
I bought a 1/2" glass hole saw bit to put on my drill press. Now I have 3 nice drainage holes.... and she's off to the races.

 

[Christine Green]

Way to go BeaverIslander!

 

[Curly Beaver]

Here's an update, I think it might work.

 

[Conradino23]

You're getting mad all of you with these solo cups

 

[Conradino23]

Hmm that is a question to NorCal members, and I remember there was someone from there. I'm gonna visit Humboldt in August, and I wanna know if Arcata is good to stay for 2/3 days? Or where is better weed without a medical card? I don't care much about the card to be honest

 

[FrankyG]

I would put citronella plants, around them, bugs don't like them at all...That's only for greenhouse and outside using the sun is the only way to go in my opinion....