Chef De Green Does It All: Reveg, Clones, Autos & Photos

Well folks, bit of an update here.

no photos to show, but my plans have changed a bit. Before I was talking nonstop about my switch to The Rev’s True Living Organics style growing. In light of this pandemic and being laid off, the funds just aren’t there for the switch. That said, I still want to grow some organic plants.. so today I ordered a 3.5cuft Clackamas Coot amendment mix. It’s nutrients and minerals with malted barley for top dress. I’ll pick up some organic compost from a nearby nursery, and then I’ll be set to mix and cook some organic soil. I plan to get a bucket of Vulx just to make life easier on the microbes. I’ll probably end up getting a bag of recharge as well, depends on how big of a bag of compost I can buy.

I really want organic produce for my head stash folks. Unfortunately I can’t jump right into the system I want to learn, but I think it’s still gonna be a lot of fun and a good learning experience. What I’ve seen grown with the Clackamas mix looks absolutely stellar, so I’m excited. I’ll do some photos when I get to mixing and cooking the soil.
 
As far as what to grow in the Clackamas mix... i know I’ll be doing a clone of Star Pupil, Cookies n Chem, Sour Bubba, and Northern Lights. Those four strains are basically my keepers for now. I have to grow my Cookies n Chem pheno in organic soil. To date I’ve produced just over 1lb of Cookies n chem, so I’m very familiar with it. I’ll notice any difference in buds with the organic. I’ll most likely have star pupil and NL to compare the organic to when it does come down. After that, I’ll do a few new things in the organic. Maybe a cut of the It’s It Punch.

what do I need to be setup for AACT? Air stone and pump, 5 gal bucket, compost.... that’s it
right?

so I’ve got some pics from yesterday for you all this morning. First my Sour Bubba. Her calyxes are forming well now and she’s going to be ooey gooey, sticky like the CnC. She’s got that same look of already frosted calyxes. Can’t wait to smell this girl in a jar at two months of cure. So something you guys might notice about my plants, sometimes they get that light claw even though they look extraordinarily healthy. I realized the exhaust fan is pulling too much air through the small leaves. Today I’m going to flip my exhaust around and pull air through my filter. That will fix the problem of too much wind on the bud tops.

Sour Bubba

Sour Bubba


Sour Bubba

Sour Bubba


Next the Xanadu... she’s got these big girthy side branches... it’s like she doesn’t put out anything unless it’s massive. I cut her down to 6 mains, cause her space in the flower tent is uh... not the biggest. I’ve got quite a few cuts that are set to be rooted.. over the next couple weeks I’m just going to work on keeping her canopy flat while her lower 2 mains come up and join the canopy. She’ll go into flower 4/15 or so. There’s some before and after pics there.

Xanadu

Xanadu


Xanadu

Xanadu


Xanadu

Xanadu

Trained

Xanadu

Xanadu



@Emilya i took one hit of the Cookies n Chem and these last two posts are what came out... how’s that for distracted :laugh:
 
Good morning Chef, too bad about the times. I think you'll have a great Clack grow!
 
morning Otter!
Yeah it’s a shame, but the clack mix isn’t too expensive and seems to produce well. It’ll be good to get my feet wet in the organic realm.
 
@ChefDGreen Besides the nutrient/mineral Clackamas Coots mix you need 4 things things. Sphagnum peat moss, Earthworm Castings, Organic compost, and aeration (I use perlite). It's a 3 part deal the way I make it. I use 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 perlite, and the other 1/3 is half compost and half earthworm castings. If you mix up enough of these 4 items to equal 7.5 gallons you've made 1 cubic foot of soil mix less the minerals and nutrients which you'll add in of course. If your wife will help the easiest way to mix this up is in a cheap $2.00 tarp from Tractor Supply or somewhere similar. Get it all mixed incredibly well and then slowly, very slowly start to add water to it while it's still in the tarp. Add some water and mix, add some water and mix and repeat until it's moist enough that when you grab a handful and squeeze it holds together but not solid like if that makes sense. If you drop the clod it should fall apart. So you want it nice and moist but not soaked. Think Star Pupil.

NOTE: I think your soil will be okay without the earthworm castings but if you can swing it they made a difference in my soil when I started adding them to the mix.

Cook for 30 days in temps over 65 degrees for absolute best results.
 
beez0404 said:
@ChefDGreen Besides the nutrient/mineral Clackamas Coots mix you need 4 things things. Sphagnum peat moss, Earthworm Castings, Organic compost, and aeration (I use perlite). It's a 3 part deal the way I make it. I use 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 perlite, and the other 1/3 is half compost and half earthworm castings. If you mix up enough of these 4 items to equal 7.5 gallons you've made 1 cubic foot of soil mix less the minerals and nutrients which you'll add in of course. If your wife will help the easiest way to mix this up is in a cheap $2.00 tarp from Tractor Supply or somewhere similar. Get it all mixed incredibly well and then slowly, very slowly start to add water to it while it's still in the tarp. Add some water and mix, add some water and mix and repeat until it's moist enough that when you grab a handful and squeeze it holds together but not solid like if that makes sense. If you drop the clod it should fall apart. So you want it nice and moist but not soaked. Think Star Pupil.

NOTE: I think your soil will be okay without the earthworm castings but if you can swing it they made a difference in my soil when I started adding them to the mix.

Cook for 30 days in temps over 65 degrees for absolute best results.
Click to expand...
I have the peat moss already. It’s what I’ve been using for a long time now, it’s just peat moss with a little perlite and a tiny bit of vermiculite. I was just going to get a cuft of local organic compost and mix that with a cuft of perlite and 1.5cuft of the peat moss I have. If you say the EWC is worth it then I’ll look into getting some. They only sell EWC by weight though, is 15lb enough for the 4 gallons I need? I want to mix all 3.5cuft and set it to cooking so that once it’s ready I’ll be good to use it anywhere i want. What about recycling the clack soil?
 
ChefDGreen said:
Mornin sticky!
Nice I like the spout. I’ve got the bucket, air pump and air stone. I just need the compost and I’ll be good to go.
Click to expand...
I take a sieve for a 5 gallon bucket and pour the mix through to get the big pieces out. Then I use a transfer pump later to water.
 
stoneotter said:
I take a sieve for a 5 gallon bucket and pour the mix through to get the big pieces out. Then I use a transfer pump later to water.
Click to expand...
That’s a good idea if I ever set up an automated watering system.... which I’d love to do for the flower tent. For now, since I’m hand watering, no need for straining. This is gonna be a fun run. If I can mix my soil next week, I’ll be good to go in a month or two.

Do you guys ever transplant MC plants into organic soil? Or do you mostly grow seeds and cuttings in organics start to finish?
 
ChefDGreen said:
Mornin sticky!
Nice I like the spout. I’ve got the bucket, air pump and air stone. I just need the compost and I’ll be good to go.
Click to expand...
Sorry to throw a spanner into the works here, but compost is not the best way to make a compost tea. Compost contains a vast number of different species and types of microlife, but not all of them are beneficial to the plants, and very few of them are specific to the stage of the grow you are in. To grow the microbes that specialize in supplying Nitrogen to the plant, your tea has to have the things in it that are rich in Nitrogen, so that those species of microbes have everything they need, whilst others not so fortunate to have their favorite food in the bucket will not do as well. To produce the correct microbes for each stage of the grow I have 4 recipes that I rely on... an early veg tea, late veg, flowering and finishing teas, each with their specific inputs that the plants are needing at that stage of the grow. I am not supplying enough of those nutrients in that tea to actually feed the plant what it needs at that time, but there are enough of those specific nutrients in the brew that those microbes become dominant.
So to brew proper teas, you are going to need a few more inputs than just compost. Consider the compost as a starter.... but then you have to fine tune what is actually created in the brew.
 
3.5 cubic feet equates to 26+ gallons of soil? That is a lot of mixing. The EWC I buy comes in a 25lb bag which is approximately 20 quarts. Mixing it 50/50 with the Coast of Maine Lobster compost I use is enough for 30 gallons of soil with a little left over to use as a top dressing.

The soil loves to be recycled. Some say it needs no amending @bobrown14 and others say it needs amending by adding minerals and nutrients the plant sucked out of the soil.
 
My seedlings start in Promix, move from a solo cup into a small container that holds about 1/3 gallon of promix. When ready to be up-potted at that point moves into the organic soil.
 
Emilya said:
Sorry to throw a spanner into the works here, but compost is not the best way to make a compost tea. Compost contains a vast number of different species and types of microlife, but not all of them are beneficial to the plants, and very few of them are specific to the stage of the grow you are in. To grow the microbes that specialize in supplying Nitrogen to the plant, your tea has to have the things in it that are rich in Nitrogen, so that those species of microbes have everything they need, whilst others not so fortunate to have their favorite food in the bucket will not do as well. To produce the correct microbes for each stage of the grow I have 4 recipes that I rely on... an early veg tea, late veg, flowering and finishing teas, each with their specific inputs that the plants are needing at that stage of the grow. I am not supplying enough of those nutrients in that tea to actually feed the plant what it needs at that time, but there are enough of those specific nutrients in the brew that those microbes become dominant.
So to brew proper teas, you are going to need a few more inputs than just compost. Consider the compost as a starter.... but then you have to fine tune what is actually created in the brew.
Click to expand...
Have you run the real growers recharge?
 
I amend my soil with EWC, Kelp Meal and malted barley ground fine. Good stuff...

Coast of Main makes a product Stonington blend - its kelp meal and EWC already mixed. I've been using that also I add in some cut horsetail fern to the hole at up pot.

I only add a few tbs of any of the above.

Aerated COMPOST tea - EWC/Kelp meal. 1 cup of ewc and 1/2 cup of kelp meal into a bucket of water. Aerate or not over night and pour in. There will be plenty of microbes.

1 handful of compost has billions microbes and fungi.

"A single handful of soil contains in excess of 500 species of fungi and potentially more than 50km of fungal mycelium. There are 10 000 species and a staggering 100 billion individual specimens of bacteria."

article here:

What’s in a handful of soil?
 
Just a handful of compost is not the way to brew an AACT, and if you find that you have to top dress an organic grow to supply the needed nutrients to the grow, you might as well start over... the time for amending a soil is before the grow, not during.

ChefDGreen said:
Have you run the real growers recharge?
Click to expand...
yes, I ran my last organic grow only on Realgrower's Recharge, and did not brew even one compost tea, trying to prove that with this new product, anyone could run an organic grow, without any of the mess, materials or skills needed to brew a proper AACT. Recharge brings in all of the possible beneficial bacteria that we know of and no matter which stage of the grow you are in, there are plenty of the correct microbes being brought in with each recharge that the roots are getting all that they need.
 
Did you know that some of the microbes eat each other? Did you know that amoebas are particularly aggressive? Did you know that some of our most beneficial microbes and fungi are very tiny and fragile and cannot survive in an aggressive mixed culture? Did you know that compost brings in both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and applying to many of the bad bacteria can "sour" a soil? If brewing proper actively aerated compost teas was as easy as throwing in a little cow dung and compost... why would we need nutes? Brewing a proper tea isn't just about producing microbes... that's easy... it is about producing the right microbes.
 
Emilya said:
Just a handful of compost is not the way to brew an AACT, and if you find that you have to top dress an organic grow to supply the needed nutrients to the grow, you might as well start over... the time for amending a soil is before the grow, not during.


yes, I ran my last organic grow only on Realgrower's Recharge, and did not brew even one compost tea, trying to prove that with this new product, anyone could run an organic grow, without any of the mess, materials or skills needed to brew a proper AACT. Recharge brings in all of the possible beneficial bacteria that we know of and no matter which stage of the grow you are in, there are plenty of the correct microbes being brought in with each recharge that the roots are getting all that they need.
Click to expand...

I will probably go with the recharge then. It’s about the same price as one of the dry amendments to make good teas. I’m hoping the Vulx will really help to curb the losing steam problem. I’m hoping between the two I’ll be able to keep my plants healthy green til harvest.


Emilya said:
Did you know that some of the microbes eat each other? Did you know that amoebas are particularly aggressive? Did you know that some of our most beneficial microbes and fungi are very tiny and fragile and cannot survive in an aggressive mixed culture? Did you know that compost brings in both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and applying to many of the bad bacteria can "sour" a soil? If brewing proper actively aerated compost teas was as easy as throwing in a little cow dung and compost... why would we need nutes? Brewing a proper tea isn't just about producing microbes... that's easy... it is about producing the right microbes.
Click to expand...

You know you’re right. The soil is like the African planes with tons of different wild life. I’m going to start going through your tea recipes so I can learn the ins and outs. For now though, I’m too budget restricted to dive all the way in. I’m going to have to rely on the Vulx and Recharge

...hey @PCaddict ! I realize now that I’m planning the exact same grow you’re doing now! I’ll be watching very closely to see how your Clack+Vulx+recharge plants go!
 
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