The Proper Way To Water A Potted Plant

[Mike420husker]

Emilya thank you I reread post #195 and it makes sense outside is a living soil ph wont matter to much and minerals will help. So I was going to try to have a living soil inside too. So what kind of teas are you talking about? I can get RO water at the store for $00.39 a gal. it ph about 6.5 I was thinking maybe add my well water to it at 50 to 50.
happy growing

 

[Emilya Green]

So what kind of teas are you talking about?

actively aerated compost teas, a whole new subject and one we could spend days on

 

[Gazoo]

actively aerated compost teas, a whole new subject and one we could spend days on[/QUOTE]

Days and Days

 

[Berulakide]

my grandmother always put aged seaweed mulched into her garden and made what she called ` COW POOP TEA ` two or three year old dried cow patties mashed in the bottom of a big garbage can left to fill with rain water and added some compost. she would cover as to not overflow when it rained. filled her wattering can from it and it worked really well. old school organic.

 

[Armayer]

Hello, a very informative read. Thank you for taking the time. I had a question in regards to new seedlings. I have a seedling that it is four days old in a 6 L airport, I have not yet watered it as I saturated the air pot a lot before planting. But now the top is quite dry, but when I poke to the bottom I noticed there is still some moisture. My question is this: if the top is dry, am I supposed to spray or keep the top moist? Or should I ignore the dry top and wait until the pot has almost completely dried out to the bottom to dictate when I water?

 

[Emilya Green]

Hello, a very informative read. Thank you for taking the time. I had a question in regards to new seedlings. I have a seedling that it is four days old in a 6 L airport, I have not yet watered it as I saturated the air pot a lot before planting. But now the top is quite dry, but when I poke to the bottom I noticed there is still some moisture. My question is this: if the top is dry, am I supposed to spray or keep the top moist? Or should I ignore the dry top and wait until the pot has almost completely dried out to the bottom to dictate when I water?

hi Armayer!
a seeding in a 6l pot is a bit excessive and if you watered at planting it is going to take quite a while to use up all the water in the container, and actually because gravity settles all the water down to the bottom, a new plant just starting out can lose sight of the water that has settled deep down in a large container. Since our advice normally is to wait till the plant has used all of the water all the way to the bottom before watering again, it might take a week or longer for your new plant to use that lake you have provided for it. The problem is that since you have already broken the rules about using smaller containers for smaller plants, you now have to break another rule. Your tiny roots have not reached the bottom yet so there is no way they can use the water sitting there. You are going to have to water from the top again, so you can keep the roots alive long enough to be able to reach down to the bottom. Don't be excessive with this emergency watering, just give it enough to water the top roots and give them the ability to reach down to the bottom. Please note that the top being dry has nothing to do with this. What I am concerned about is the bottom of your new feeder roots not having water, several inches below the surface.
Once your plant has finally established in this large container by sending its feeder roots all the way to the bottom, attempt to restrain yourself from watering until the plant uses all the water that you gave it, all the way down to the bottom. Use the lift method to make sure this happens. It will drive you crazy, but there is going to be a point in here soon where you need to let her go for a week between waterings if you are going to do this correctly. For now, until you can be sure that the roots have gone deep (about a week old) water with small amounts every other day. Forget misting... that is not going to send the roots deep, it will train the plant that all the moisture is at the top... you need your plants to quickly settle into that large container and send those roots deep. If you can keep from watering and let the plant adjust into this container, and keep doing this through every water cycle until flower, you can recover from your mistake and end up with a root ball capable of producing superior pot. If you continue to make mistakes however and end up drowning these already potentially sickly roots by watering too often and fail to learn how to develop a root ball, your plant will be sickly, scraggly and will not produce anywhere near its capability.
Also, once established, so as to help your plants figure out what to do in this overly large container, water only around the outside edges, trying not to send water straight down the middle. This will make the outer edges the wettest spots in the container, enticing the roots to grow laterally to get that water. Having made the first mistake with the large container, now you have use extraordinary methods to develop a rootball.
Next time to avoid all this, start your plants in solo cups.... its much easier. Plan to up-pot 2 or 3 times during the grow so you can develop solid rootballs without resorting to extraordinary watering methods just to keep your plants alive.

 

[Armayer]

hi Armayer!
a seeding in a 6l pot is a bit excessive and if you watered at planting it is going to take quite a while to use up all the water in the container, and actually because gravity settles all the water down to the bottom, a new plant just starting out can lose sight of the water that has settled deep down in a large container. Since our advice normally is to wait till the plant has used all of the water all the way to the bottom before watering again, it might take a week or longer for your new plant to use that lake you have provided for it. The problem is that since you have already broken the rules about using smaller containers for smaller plants, you now have to break another rule. Your tiny roots have not reached the bottom yet so there is no way they can use the water sitting there. You are going to have to water from the top again, so you can keep the roots alive long enough to be able to reach down to the bottom. Don't be excessive with this emergency watering, just give it enough to water the top roots and give them the ability to reach down to the bottom. Please note that the top being dry has nothing to do with this. What I am concerned about is the bottom of your new feeder roots not having water, several inches below the surface.
Once your plant has finally established in this large container by sending its feeder roots all the way to the bottom, attempt to restrain yourself from watering until the plant uses all the water that you gave it, all the way down to the bottom. Use the lift method to make sure this happens. It will drive you crazy, but there is going to be a point in here soon where you need to let her go for a week between waterings if you are going to do this correctly. For now, until you can be sure that the roots have gone deep (about a week old) water with small amounts every other day. Forget misting... that is not going to send the roots deep, it will train the plant that all the moisture is at the top... you need your plants to quickly settle into that large container and send those roots deep. If you can keep from watering and let the plant adjust into this container, and keep doing this through every water cycle until flower, you can recover from your mistake and end up with a root ball capable of producing superior pot. If you continue to make mistakes however and end up drowning these already potentially sickly roots by watering too often and fail to learn how to develop a root ball, your plant will be sickly, scraggly and will not produce anywhere near its capability.
Also, once established, so as to help your plants figure out what to do in this overly large container, water only around the outside edges, trying not to send water straight down the middle. This will make the outer edges the wettest spots in the container, enticing the roots to grow laterally to get that water. Having made the first mistake with the large container, now you have use extraordinary methods to develop a rootball.
Next time to avoid all this, start your plants in solo cups.... its much easier. Plan to up-pot 2 or 3 times during the grow so you can develop solid rootballs without resorting to extraordinary watering methods just to keep your plants alive.

Thank you so much for the insightful answer! I knew I was breaking a cardinal rule by not transplanting, but I am using autoflowers and was told that transplanting will stunt growth and should be avoided. However, I think developing a root ball in a large pot is very difficult, as well. I was told that autoflowers are easier for beginners, but now I'm starting to wonder if the watering technique with small plants and large pots is too much for a beginner. Regardless, I will heed your advice and try and make the best of the situation I'm currently in. Thanks again!

 

[Emilya Green]

Thank you so much for the insightful answer! I knew I was breaking a cardinal rule by not transplanting, but I am using autoflowers and was told that transplanting will stunt growth and should be avoided. However, I think developing a root ball in a large pot is very difficult, as well. I was told that autoflowers are easier for beginners, but now I'm starting to wonder if the watering technique with small plants and large pots is too much for a beginner. Regardless, I will heed your advice and try and make the best of the situation I'm currently in. Thanks again!

I have always had trouble with this advice to start autos in the 3gal containers for just this reason. No one has yet convinced me that simply setting an auto that was started in a solo cup, down in a hole made to fit it in a 1 gallon container, and then later on moving it gently to a 3 gallon container, is going to stunt the growth of that plant. EVERY time I transplant there is a growth surge, not stunting, as a result of the fresh soil. I have also never read on one of these forums a story of an intrepid gardener, defying the advice and successively uppotting anyway, coming back and saying that they were right, with stern advice not to do what he/she so foolishly had done. One of these days I am going to grow out some autos just to prove this... oh wait! Someone has already done that! So there you go. I see documented proof that you CAN get away with uppotting an auto, and even trimming and training them... yet I see no one documenting a failure blamed on the fact that they were using proper gardening techniques. Makes you want to go hmmmm.
So yes... follow the money. If you as a beginner are given bad advice in growing a quick flowering auto and you fail... do you blame yourself? no. Do you try again? yes. They sell a lot of seeds to people just starting out, looking for an easy way to grow pot. They sell the seeds cheap, and give advice as to how most easily (with the least amount of effort) to grow pot. The marketing is perfect... the results less so.
A plant is a plant is a plant. Use proper techniques for the best results.

 

[kaiyaGold]

You should right a book, lol

 

[Emilya Green]

You should right a book, lol

.
working on one now!

 

[BrokenBranch]

Glad to see you on here Emilya, and still teaching the ways. Are rusty and weezard about on here to? I was originally "higher_than_you" on C.com, some new issues in the new garden inspired the new name and the said site wasn't having any love chucked at it.. I'm quite interested in the transplanting side as at the moment as I just sprout my seedling in a 20 gal pot and leave them go.. From what Iv just read is not the said way to do it.. I used to do it but stopped, I guess I didn't think it was important.

Also have you grown in coco yet? What do you make of it? It took me a while to work out feed times, I'm in week 1 of flower and they are drinking about a gallon each every other day.. Although I let them go an extra day yesterday as I treat the coco similar to soil it they just looked like they didn't need it. Glad you on here and look forward to you future posts. Peace

 

[Emilya Green]

Glad to see you on here Emilya, and still teaching the ways. Are rusty and weezard about on here to? I was originally "higher_than_you" on C.com, some new issues in the new garden inspired the new name and the said site wasn't having any love chucked at it.. I'm quite interested in the transplanting side as at the moment as I just sprout my seedling in a 20 gal pot and leave them go.. From what Iv just read is not the said way to do it.. I used to do it but stopped, I guess I didn't think it was important.

Also have you grown in coco yet? What do you make of it? It took me a while to work out feed times, I'm in week 1 of flower and they are drinking about a gallon each every other day.. Although I let them go an extra day yesterday as I treat the coco similar to soil it they just looked like they didn't need it. Glad you on here and look forward to you future posts. Peace

.
Hi BrokenBranch! Good to see you with a fresh new look and congratulations on finding the best cannabis forum in the world. That other site is dying from neglect and I am glad to see you moving on and away from that trainwreck. I have not seen Rusty and Weeze on here and suspect that such a large community is not their cup of tea. It is easy here to just fade into the woodwork and with so much going on at any given time the focus here goes to content instead of personality. Since it was always my personality that got me in trouble, this seems to be a good fit for me. You can probably find those other guys strutting over at GrassCity... not my cup of tea. I am actually in the process of fading away a bit online and concentrating on personal endeavors, such as an actual book summarizing what I have learned over the years in the cannabis world.
No, there are no valid shortcuts, like planting a seedling in a 20 gallon container. Sure, you can make it work... but did it produce the best plant it could have? Probably not. Successive uppotting is the best and most effective way to build up your rootball, and this rootball is the key to everything. To get up to 20 gallons would take me at least 3 months and several uppottings before they even got to look at that large final container. It is a lot of work, but nothing in life is free... why should this be?
I tried coco once just to get it under my belt, but I was not impressed. I followed it up with a grow in pure perlite... and got the same results, which are mostly dependent on the brand of nutrients you use. You have probably heard my opinions on the synthetic nutrient companies... I simply choose to not support them, knowing that the natural way is superior, and much cheaper. So yes, I consider coco to be a cute trick to grow pot... but I moved to organic living supersoil and natural organic nutrients for very good reasons.
Be sure to click my magic link to all of my stuff in my signature lines, and see all of the cool natural organic experiments I have done on this forum. Welcome to 420mag.... where personal conflicts and self appointed grow gods do not exist. I hope you enjoy it here.... I do.
Emmers

 

[Gamerdad2017]

So i have to repot twice? I thought i just had to put my seedlings when they have enough roots into a 3 gallon pot and thats it. Do i buy a 2 gallon and wait for a month or so then repot into a 3 gallon or bigger??

 

[Emilya Green]

So i have to repot twice? I thought i just had to put my seedlings when they have enough roots into a 3 gallon pot and thats it. Do i buy a 2 gallon and wait for a month or so then repot into a 3 gallon or bigger??

You don't "have" to. You get much better results and a much easier time of it if you do though. Most of us start seedlings in a solo cup, move up to a 1 gallon in a couple of weeks, move up to a 3 gallon at the end of a month, and into a 5 or 7 or 10 in 6 weeks... or something similar. The more times you up-pot, allowing a solid rootball to build in the previous container, the larger the solid rootball you will have in flower. Once you stop actively trying to build the rootball, she will simply send roots deep and will be content with the nutrients found there. The rootball that you have at the point that you get lazy and stop up-potting, will be the rootball that you take to flower. Properly formed, dense root balls the size of a container do not grow on their own without restricting the roots ability to go deep and get constant nutrients at the bottom. You do this by restricting the container size, and forcing the container to dry out each time. This makes the roots grow laterally, forming the rootball.
When you examine a typical plant started out in a large container after the grow to get a look at the naturally forming root system, you won't find a ball, you will find that you get a large mass of roots at the top 3 or 4 inches because this is a weed and that is what they do to choke out surrounding plants... then nothing much in the middle of the container with no dense roots until you get down to the lower root system, where they wrap into a mass along the bottom and the sides of the lower third of the container. If you had successively uppotted, a solid root mass would fill the entire container, and the only way you can differentiate the upper and lower root systems is by the type of roots that occur there.
Bottom line, the more roots you take into flower, the more water that can be used, and the more nutrients that can be utilized. Larger root systems develop larger, stronger and better producing plants... every time.

 

[ConstantGreen]

You don't "have" to. You get much better results and a much easier time of it if you do though. Most of us start seedlings in a solo cup, move up to a 1 gallon in a couple of weeks, move up to a 3 gallon at the end of a month, and into a 5 or 7 or 10 in 6 weeks... or something similar. The more times you up-pot, allowing a solid rootball to build in the previous container, the larger the solid rootball you will have in flower. Once you stop actively trying to build the rootball, she will simply send roots deep and will be content with the nutrients found there. The rootball that you have at the point that you get lazy and stop up-potting, will be the rootball that you take to flower. Properly formed, dense root balls the size of a container do not grow on their own without restricting the roots ability to go deep and get constant nutrients at the bottom. You do this by restricting the container size, and forcing the container to dry out each time. This makes the roots grow laterally, forming the rootball.
When you examine a typical plant started out in a large container after the grow to get a look at the naturally forming root system, you won't find a ball, you will find that you get a large mass of roots at the top 3 or 4 inches because this is a weed and that is what they do to choke out surrounding plants... then nothing much in the middle of the container with no dense roots until you get down to the lower root system, where they wrap into a mass along the bottom and the sides of the lower third of the container. If you had successively uppotted, a solid root mass would fill the entire container, and the only way you can differentiate the upper and lower root systems is by the type of roots that occur there.
Bottom line, the more roots you take into flower, the more water that can be used, and the more nutrients that can be utilized. Larger root systems develop larger, stronger and better producing plants... every time.

What about smart pots? Can you go straight from a solo cup to a 3 gallon (or larger?) and let the roots air prune and fill out the pot?

 

[XobeMan]

What about smart pots? Can you go straight from a solo cup to a 3 gallon (or larger?) and let the roots air prune and fill out the pot?

You can but the plant will grow slower do to it not filling the pot size set of roots.

This is why transplanting is needed from a solo to a 1 gallon then to a 3 gallon, try to only do Two transplants this includes the final pot.

 

[Emilya Green]

You can but the plant will grow slower do to it not filling the pot size set of roots.

This is why transplanting is needed from a solo to a 1 gallon then to a 3 gallon, try to only do Two transplants this includes the final pot.

.
I have to agree... smartpots make it much easier to develop a full rootball, especially if you have them raised up so that the air pruning is working on the bottom as well as the sides, but these weeds will take advantage of going deep every chance they get, and the only proven way to tightly pack the roots into what we are calling a "rootball", not to be confused with naturally growing roots, is by restricting them into a container that they will eventually outgrow, forcing the completely artificial construct called a "ball" to form. The tighter you can get this to form, taking up the entire container, the more roots you are going to have going into flower. Please understand the point that we are forcing the plant to do something it doesn't naturally want to do, and there is a recognized method of forcing the plant to do this. There are no shortcuts... you either train the roots or you don't. Those who learn to concentrate on the roots and take the extra steps to successively up-pot end up with better results. Do you have to do all this? Absolutely not. You get out of these plants exactly what you put into them. Zandor used to say that if you go cheap, you grow cheap... and I would like to add that if you grow easy, you harvest easy.

 

[308jerry]

Great, just great..... Found this thread last night. Yesterday morning I stuck two Blueberry Kush AF seedlings in three gallon soft pots. Hey on the bright side, now I know. Would it help me out now to down size, then work my way back up.? Maybe do one as a test?

 

[Emilya Green]

Great, just great..... Found this thread last night. Yesterday morning I stuck two Blueberry Kush AF seedlings in three gallon soft pots. Hey on the bright side, now I know. Would it help me out now to down size, then work my way back up.? Maybe do one as a test?

Yes,
It would be helpful to back up and do this correctly. If you are skeptical, by all means, leave one alone as a test and you will become a believer soon enough.

 

[totalnoob]

Just took my auto seeds out of 5 gal cloth pots and put them into solo cup sized pots. This method makes sense to me, and I will up pot as needed. Thanks Emmie.