kalahari kid
New Member
I live bang in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, about to start my first grow here, so just looking for a few pointers before I launch.
First, my growing medium is going to have to be soil, in buckets, grown outside. Planting in the ground won't work, it's just rock hard compacted sand. Hydroponics gear is too prohibitive to ship in, though a future option. So I'm stuck with buckets & home brew soil, which I could use some advice on. Being so remote, ingredient availability is very poor, but I can get enough interesting things to make a mix. I just need to know the proportions. The ingredients I have to work with are, well, sand. I can get bags of 'potting soil' from what passes as a garden centre. No idea of nutrient breakdown, but at least it's a soil consistency. Next up is 'potting compost' from said garden centre, which just seems to be small, semi-composted bark chips, which could replace vermiculite / perlite for aeration. The one thing I do have going for me is 2 wheel barrow loads of shit hot compost I've been brewing up for the last 18 months. I might be able to score a couple of small bags of worm castings, but I'm not counting on it. Any ideas on how to mix this lot up?
Second, need strain advice. I've gone with auto fems for this grow, just to get my eye in, but also because the weird photo period here. In summer we get 13 hours daylight (sunshine!), in winter it's 12. As I'm planning on breeding my own seeds in future (schlepping into town to sign for seed deliveries is not cool), what strains could I use to get round the fact that there isn't daylight for long enough to get me through the veg? Thanks.
First, my growing medium is going to have to be soil, in buckets, grown outside. Planting in the ground won't work, it's just rock hard compacted sand. Hydroponics gear is too prohibitive to ship in, though a future option. So I'm stuck with buckets & home brew soil, which I could use some advice on. Being so remote, ingredient availability is very poor, but I can get enough interesting things to make a mix. I just need to know the proportions. The ingredients I have to work with are, well, sand. I can get bags of 'potting soil' from what passes as a garden centre. No idea of nutrient breakdown, but at least it's a soil consistency. Next up is 'potting compost' from said garden centre, which just seems to be small, semi-composted bark chips, which could replace vermiculite / perlite for aeration. The one thing I do have going for me is 2 wheel barrow loads of shit hot compost I've been brewing up for the last 18 months. I might be able to score a couple of small bags of worm castings, but I'm not counting on it. Any ideas on how to mix this lot up?
Second, need strain advice. I've gone with auto fems for this grow, just to get my eye in, but also because the weird photo period here. In summer we get 13 hours daylight (sunshine!), in winter it's 12. As I'm planning on breeding my own seeds in future (schlepping into town to sign for seed deliveries is not cool), what strains could I use to get round the fact that there isn't daylight for long enough to get me through the veg? Thanks.
