Update: The Raised Bed
First I have to put here for the record (because I left it out above), that the
White Widow got
Recharge yesterday (I’ll edit the original post)
.
Now - the raised bed
I’ve managed to get a nice side on angle that I don’t usually get to - this is yesterday morning:
As you can see, Critical Mass is quite a way into flower and CD1 is thankfully properly into the flowering stretch now as well. More on both in a tic.
I first need to share/record my calculations for the amounts of drench I should use here, to make sure I’m somewhere in the ballpark with everything, going forward.
I want a record of it and also to give you good folk (who are so inclined) the chance to spot any error in my math or logic, please
(feel free to skip on down to the garden if you don’t care!
)
Remembering that
none of these numbers have to be precise, I’m rounding up and down all over the place. And I’m metric - so I often convert before I calculate
.
The Brix Kit is developed in the world of large scale agriculture so the directions for drench application are given on a per 1,000 Sq. Ft. basis. Following is the method I have used to scale it down and work out the final amounts. I’m just going to lay out my steps:
This raised bed is 1.2m x 1.2m = 1.44 Sq. metres. (I said 3’ last week - that’s wrong, it’s 4’ Sq.)
1000 Sq. Ft = 93 Sq. Metre.
1.44 m Sq. is 1.5% of 93m Sq. ((1.44/93) x 100) = 1.5)
So I should mix my drenches at 1.5% of the recommended for my space.
The Drenches are prescribed
PER MONTH at:
1 qt. Drench (GI or TP)
2 oz. Tea
30 Gal. water
The reason I emphasised ‘per month’ is because I did these calculations ages ago and then just had the final amounts written down on a seperate card. I didn’t write the
per month on it tho’, did I? No
. No biggie really - just means I have given 2 -3 drenches at this strength in the first 4-6 weeks with Transwater in between. It’s a testament to what Doc says about higher quantities not being a problem because all is good! Anyway, I just consider that I’ve given it a good charging up!
Going forward though - thanks to the crew in the DBHBB Q&A (
@Duggan @TheGreenYeti @Mr. Krip ) for helping me think it through - I need to split the final figure into 4 weekly drenches per month with water in between (with a little tea added
) as needed.
I still need to record the amount for that (the 1.5%), and I want it in ml (my body understands ml):
1 qt. = 950ml (approx.)
950 x .015 = 14.25
So lets say
15-16mlper month - which fits exactly with what Yeti said (seemingly off the top if his head
)
I would look at it as roughly 4ml of drench a week.
So that seems right. I also worked it out to about 1-1.5ml of Tea so i’ll use more or less of that depending on how much has gone into the in-between waterings (it seems pretty well ‘populated’ right now!). If any of that seems out to anyone, please let me know!
SHOW ME THE PLANTS!!
Finally she flowers!
Grown about 4-6” in the last week. And the lowest node branches are reaching up well.
Another grower in the area saw my garden yesterday and said I’m further along in the flowering department than the others he’s seen locally - so that’s good to know. The whole season seems 2-3 weeks late, so I hope that means it finishes 2-3 weeks late as well
Back to my Bright Light. There have been some days where the dropsy hasn’t seemed so bad and I’m
speculating that this may correspond to having given the soil a very deep soak multiple times over the last 10 days - or maybe it’s just really finding its feet well. In any case, these
seemed to be full on sun days - and it’s not as severe as I’ve seen it.
Friday:
Saturday:
It may be no correspondence to the deep watering in the soil but I thought it worth mentioning just in case.
I have a groovy IR surface temperature gun now so I plan to check the leaves next time the dropsy thing shows up, to track and check if it has anything to do with leaf surface temp. It’s been hazy a lot so the problem hasn’t presented since I got the gun.
Meanwhile - here’s what the iPhone saw yesterday morning:
I love how the camera can give me a glimpse of lying down underneath. This bottom branch heading skywards is the 3rd or 4th node - I removed the first 2-3 before transplant.
And up top it looks like this (early evening light):
I’m super relieved it’s into flower properly now (phewf!):
Here’s a couple more in the early evening light - one of the most magical things about growing outside is the continually changing tones of the light.
It got a weaponised Brix with Snake Oil first thing this morning - ‘weaponised’ means it is a 1/4 strength mix that is sprayed vigorously (like the Leafwash product) every 3-4 days for a few applications, to clear various pests. Everyone got this (although White Widow doesn’t get the Snake Oil of course) because I’ve a few whitefly around and some evidence that is suspicious of mites.
Also lots of growth on both Candida and Critical Mass is too close to the soil so needs to be trimmed off once stretch is over.
Critical Mass - day 101(18)
This one will get lower hanging leaves removed later today actually - anything within about 3” of the soil
I
think it’s getting close to the end of stretch. At that time I’ll remove smaller branches and smaller lower leaves - anything not getting very much sun.
Training wise, I didn’t end up getting it as flat along sideways as I had been aiming for. Partly because I was nervous to go to long with the training so I stopped a little bit early.
Then, there was more stress on the centre stem than i realised and it split when I touched it very gently the other day
I taped it up using athlete’s rigid strapping tape which works really well - I had to undo the outside anchors in order to pull it together while I taped, and then I didn’t want to pull it out too hard again.
So I’ve let it become a challis kind of shape as well - like the White Widow (
@InTheShed). Next time I do this kind of training I will try what
@dynamo1 mentioned he has done; use a bamboo stick across the centre to keep the main stems flat down (Shed did this in an X on his Haze-Xtreme as well, I remember).
Anyway - oops too many words! Critical Challis!
And like with the others, the evening views on the same day (yesterday)
Already getting frost...
Looking svelte at end of the day
Maybe it’s been a while since there was a bird critter of the week. This one is known as a Noisy Friar Bird. They are a very large honeyeater! Their calls are amazing, squealing, squawky and jazzy, like an experimental sax player. Truly some amazing phrases and rhythms. They’re not a pretty honeyeater by any stretch or by our conventional standards of prettiness, but they are a very impressive bird.
I truly love sharing the ins and outs of my growing with you all here. It seems to go well and that’s mostly because of all the input and sharing and learning by osmosis that happens around here.
Hope you’ve enjoyed today’s romps through my Eden - see you about in yours
.
and 
to my Eden. I’m glad to have you along.
). I thought the stem looked cool tho’ 
I laughed right out loud when I read about the new toy.