Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

Bob,

What are your thoughts on using 2yr old leaf mold in place of the sphagnum peat moss in the coots mix? The guy at BuildASoil mentioned it in passing and I couldn't tell if he was suggesting it could replace the spm or simply that it has similar proprties.

I know you had issues with a bad leaf batch at your old place, but I was wondering if there were certain characteristics only found in spm that favor its use, or if that was a part of the mix that has some flexibility.
 
I wood use leaf mold that is 2 years old.

My place in Philly was unique - the whole city has American Sycamore trees. They are very prone to contracting Antracnose (a plant virus) so using those leaves was problematic for me.

Our new place we have access to leaf mold and use it liberally in our gardens both in the soil and specially as a mulch layer. It's gold.

You can use it along with CSPM i wood go 1/2 and 1/2 with it just because I haven't used in to totally replace Peat but I'm sure as long as its 2 year old you will be fine. 2 year old leaf mold looks more like soil that leaves but a combination of soil and leaves. Its the best you can use tbh.

For container size - you will run out of everything in a 1 gal container. I suggest a #3 square nursery pot.

Here's the difference in size from a square #1 (1 gal) to a #3 (3 gal)

6 inch – 6″ x 6″ x 8″ tall (1 gallon)
9 inch – 9″ x 9″ x 10″ tall (3 gallon)

I don't know the footprint of your closet I'm just giving you some idea of the sizes we are talking about here. #3 a little taller and a little bigger. Not a lot of difference but you outcome will be better with a slightly larger container.

I've gone thru this and the square pots are what I've found to work the best. I've got so many empty pots laying around... Prolly have more than my local nursery center.

Square shape is easily more economical as far as space saving goes.
 
Hmm. That's interesting. I'll have to break out the tape measure and see if I can make that work. Thanks for the nudge.
 
Yeah been thru this a lot growing AUTOs. The depth makes a difference in yields with AUTOs since once the root hits btm of pot she flowers and stops vertical growth.
 
bobrown14 said:
Yeah been thru this a lot growing AUTOs. The depth makes a difference in yields with AUTOs since once the root hits btm of pot she flowers and stops vertical growth.
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Hmmm... that's interesting. :smokin2:
 
May as well post a few pics of my new t project.

Transkei from Pondoland

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Yes they are HUGE plants - partly my fault due to lazy not putting them into flower due to trimming...

These girls are going to take a little while! Gonna get interesting. Beautiful plants too bad they dont fit in the picture!
 
Could be but I've never had a rootboud AUTO.... I have had a lot of runts tho. Always thought it was because the root hit the btm of pot and that was that.
 
Found this on alchimia web


"However, this gene is activated by some factors that make plants to reach it more or less quickly. The most important factor to consider is the amount of substrate used to grow autoflowering cannabis, and how it is distributed on the plants. It is important to stress that autoflowering plants start flowering when their roots reach the bottom of the pot. The longer it takes for the root of the plant to reach the end of the pot, the taller the plant will be, so you will get a higher yield."

Article link:
Growing autoflowering cannabis- Alchimiaweb

I have not confirmed this to be true.

Possible bro-science alert. User be-aware.
 
:thumb: I’m think the bro-science alert is a good one to have there. It’s not a topic I have investigated much really. But there’s a big swath of growers around here with the view that it’s a dubunked theory. Checking in Shed’s journal if anyone can point me to the experiments and discussion that I know happened here on the mag somewhere in the last few years.
 
For what it's worth on the plant reaching the bottom of the pot and starting flowering. I have only grown 3 autos and will chuck in my experience.
I recently grew a CBD Express auto in a 30L (7gal) pot. It turned out a small runt of a plant about 1 foot tall which I put down to the reduced sun on my balcony. A grow buddy grew one of the same strain in a pot half the size but in all day sun, his grew to a couple of feet tall so I thought the lack of morning sun on my balcony was most likely the problem. Now I have a second CBD Express auto underway over Summer (here in NZ) and even with increased sun in the same 30L pot it is still only a foot tall, whereas my photo girls are charging ahead in size as I fight to restrain them from breaching their stealth limits. Last year I grew a Gorilla Glue auto in the same pot which grew to a good size and gave me nearly 4 ounces, so I am tending to think the small runty size is perhaps more to do with the specific strain responding to the environment the strain in given. :hmmmm:
 
I would tend to agree with that analysis @Stunger :thumb: and I think it was lots of that kind of thing that led to folks questioning the belief. Flytier did a long pot grow for the purpose of checking - I asked Shed (cause he is who i) and he shared the following:
InTheShed said:
I don't recall a thread to it, but I have posted a number of times that BeezLuiz gets his autos pretty rooty in solo cups before transplanting (no flowers there) and that flytier grew his autos in really tall homemade airpots that would flower even though the taproot never touched the bottom.

Here is BL's Lemon Potion auto on transplant day:
full


And here it is 4 days later, still no flowers:
full
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Not necessarily a scientific study ;) but the myth seems kinda busted, for now.

Variety dependant as Stunger suggests is the most likely I reckon.
 
bobrown14 said:
Could be but I've never had a rootboud AUTO.... I have had a lot of runts tho. Always thought it was because the root hit the btm of pot and that was that.
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Wow Bob i had a look at some of grows amazing stuff. :adore: I'll go through it more thoroughly when I get time ,great info.
 
Could be the bro coming out in me but now that I think about the root at btm on AUTOs I got from breeders of AUTO strains.

Prolly making stuff up because runts are a thing with AUTOs for me in organic soil. Best harvest I've ever had with an AUTO is like 1.5 zips in the can.
 
:thumb:
bobrown14 said:
runts are a thing with AUTOs for me in organic soil
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Bit the same here. They do benefit from the rapid early growth that non organic can bring. The genetics are improving though...
 
I could probably coax more out of them using something like MegaCrop. I'm just too cheap to wanna lean on that sorta thing.

I'd prefer to use that stuff outside where the plants are growing at such a fast pace that's when it helps to give them a boost for me anyway.

I've got strains that finish flowering in 40-45 days that get very large plants in the same time frame and some of the best weed ever to go with. Thats faster than some AUTOs run.

Those same strains I can run outdoors and harvest late September which is perfect for where we live. Everything still green nothing standing out and it beats the rainy season.
 
bobrown14 said:
got strains that finish flowering in 40-45 days that get very large plants in the same time frame and some of the best weed ever to go with. Thats faster than some AUTOs run.
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:thumb: I’m growing autos sometimes because I won lots of free seeds ;) - and because the DDA is special (even tho it’s often very runty!)

Last run I experimented with flipping some photos very early, like at 3 weeks and got some nice results in the same time that many autos take (almost 12/12 from seed hut with long days the first 2-3weeks). I’ll probably do that a bit more - it doesn’t work with everything tho. Many indicas/kushes would likely need much more veg, but some hybrids and many sativas will get tried that way now - it’s a great way for me to test stuff without taking up med space in the tent. I had a Panama do really well that way. Only couple of ounces, but in 3gal of soil and 12weeks seed to harvest (or thereabouts). Either way it’s variety dependent.

Is that the jellium you have that is super fast? Think I’d remember, I’ve been following this garden for long enough
 
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