Emmie's 6 Plant, True Living Organic, LED Grow Journal

Pennywise said:
I'll take a seat in the back, looking forward to learning from a true master!
Click to expand...
Not sure I am quite there yet Pennywise, but thank you anyway! :) We will definitely try to learn a thing or two as we go on here for the next few months though, and I am glad to have you here with us!
 
I was just in my tent and one of my seedlings had wilted. Yes, I actually do let even seedlings get that dry. Note that the stem wilted all the way to the ground, but the leaves on this happy plant are not drooping... she just lost the ability to maintain pressure in the stem when all the water ran out. :) I just watered her, and immediately she started to stand back up... those are some strong roots already!
@Jayblue
DSCF6705.JPG
 
:ciao:Hi Emilya, crossed your trail on a thread and thought I'd stop by and take a gander. I have a couple question, your recipe for ACT has 1 tbs kelp\feather meal mix. Is that a product? or is it 1 Tbs kelp meal & 1 Tbs feather meal ?:hmmmm::thumb: years old soil:goodjob:-till or no till? :popcorn:This show just started and so filled with knowledge, I'm in if it's OK with you.:high-five:Mind if I smoke?:rollit::Namaste:
 
dynamo1 said:
:ciao:Hi Emilya, crossed your trail on a thread and thought I'd stop by and take a gander. I have a couple question, your recipe for ACT has 1 tbs kelp\feather meal mix. Is that a product? or is it 1 Tbs kelp meal & 1 Tbs feather meal ?:hmmmm::thumb: years old soil:goodjob:-till or no till? :popcorn:This show just started and so filled with knowledge, I'm in if it's OK with you.:high-five:Mind if I smoke?:rollit::Namaste:
Click to expand...
Hi Dynamo1, great to see you! The mix is almost always used together in AACT, so I just combine it in one container at 3/4c kelp meal to 1 tbls feather meal which produces a wonderful slow release nitrogen component to the tea. The soil has been used over and over numerous times, sometimes in no-till operations... especially toward the end of my last production run last year when it was so easy just to move clones into the just harvested plants containers, but eventually every root ball, all trim scraps and debris as well as the leftovers from my teas, all have been added back to the soil and cooked down in order to provide the super soil for those who come after.
 
Glad to see you Blew, and I am so glad that my watering study was useful for you! Good to be back, but I never left in spirit... just had to go on the down low for a while to be safe. Even though technically we are legal as of yesterday, no one yet knows how to get a MMJ card here and no one is set up to take applications for grow ops or dispensaries. July is what they are saying, and until then we are in a sort of legal haze limbo here.
 
Emilya said:
Glad to see you Blew, and I am so glad that my watering study was useful for you! Good to be back, but I never left in spirit... just had to go on the down low for a while to be safe. Even though technically we are legal as of yesterday, no on yet knows how to get a MMJ card here yet and no one is set up to take applications for grow ops or dispensaries. July is what they are saying, and until then we are in a sort of legal haze limbo here.
Click to expand...
Well, forward progress is still worth celebrating. My bet is that as the bureaucracy gears grind, LEO will find better ways to spend taxpayers money than chasing down home gardeners. :)
 
DSCF6709.JPGDSCF6707.JPG
A couple of maintenance things in the tent this morning...
Note the discoloration on the fan leaf on Wappa, there on the right. Even though she is still unable to drain the cup in 24 hours even now 2 days after the topping, this discoloration told me all I needed to know. She was starting to get very cramped in that cup only 3/4 filled with soil and was starting to exhibit rootbound symptoms.
I tend to pop up all over the forum, mostly on threads where people are looking for answers to a problem in the tent, so you never know when or where I will let loose with a treatise or a small dissertation on how to water, why we pH, whatever got up my skirt that day... and you never know where or when little gems of logic and common sense will appear. I have had people tell me that they follow me just for that reason, so they don't miss one of these advanced papers on growing that I carelessly leave around in random places. Lately I have been going off about pH a lot, but also on the need to wait for a good scientific reason to up-pot, so it makes sense to address some of that here on my own thread and show that even when most gardeners out there would have transplanted to a larger container this morning, I knew to wait.
When I lifted both of these plants, Wappa and Jack Herer, out of their containers, there were all kinds of roots to be seen. The roots are just starting to hit the sides all over the cup and will be starting to wrap soon. Neither plant has achieved my objective though, to be able to drain their container in 24 hours. Instead of transplanting, I have exercised my option to raise them up on a new bed of fresh soil underneath the present rootball, with an extra goodie to give them yet another boost.
I have added a thin high nitrogen layer down there for the expanding roots to find. This layer consists of the following:
1 part oyster shell flour
2 parts high N bat guano
1 part feather meal
2 parts blood meal
This high N mix is so important in my garden that I premix a batch of it for each run. The next container will have 2 layers of this mix in it, as well as some high N spikes in a few places in the container. These layers and spikes are great for our gardens because the roots are pretty good about specializing their activity (gathering the right microlife} around deposits such as these. It is one thing to force feed uncooked materials into the soil, it is quite another to let the roots encounter deposits of them as they seek out their limits.
Oh, and raising them up like this moved their tops up one inch closer to the LED... now at the recommended 12" above the canopy.
 
Jack got his haircut today, I topped the soil up on those who still needed support and added calmag to the next gallon of grocery store spring water. The girls are all getting quite thirsty as they all are starting to get several sets of leaves working. I will be selectively uppotting all of these in the next week or two to 1 gallon containers, Wappa first.
Also, the tent was cold this morning, sitting at 67 degrees... the 5 year old space heater on a thermostat gave out. I quickly cut the AC plug off of it for later projects and wired a spare to the simple analog thermostat, and the tent regained its balmy 79 degrees.
 
I have actually been trying to slow Wappa down so the others can catch up with her a bit. She is now 22 days above soil, compared to Jack at 19 days, and the youngest, Trainwreck a full 10 days younger at 12 days above ground. By putting up with Wappa yelling at me I have stalled her a couple of days but no one could sleep around here with all that racket going on in the grow room, and today I decided to up-pot her and Jack. Jack was just now using all of her water in 24 hours and still had shown no signs of rootbound distress, so today was the perfect time to up pot for her.
Let's look at the tribe now, with the two big girls sporting their new 1 gallon containers.
DSCF6710.JPG DSCF6711.JPG
Wappa [22 days] Jack Herer [19 days]

DSCF6712.JPG Left to Right:
TrainWreck [12 days]
NYC Diesel [15 days]
Super Cheese [15 days]
Ice Breaker [15 days]

The new containers were both layered and spiked. The bottom of the container got a thin layer of supersoil and then a thin layer of a high Nitrogen mix
  • 2 parts blood meal
  • 2 parts high nitrogen bat guano
  • 1 part feather meal
  • 1 part ground oyster shell flour
and then a thin layer of 5-5-5 All Purpose Fertilizer.
Then i layered in about an inch of regular super soil and put the rootball on top of this. One Jobe flowering spike was put in the soil nearly to the bottom on the North and South edges of container. Now layering in a circle around the rootball I added an inch of fresh earthworm castings and then soil to an inch from the top. Another thin layer of 5-5-5 was added for the hungry top roots and then more soil on top of that to 3/4 inch or so from the top, where I will eventually put some bark mulch to protect the microlife and further the activity of the living soil underneath.
Next, at the East and West positions, again at the outer edge I poked a hole almost to the bottom and used a funnel to make a thin column of pure nutrient in a high Nitrogen VEG spike consisting of:
  • 2 parts blood meal
  • 1 part bone meal
  • 1 part high N bat guano
  • 1 part feather meal
  • 1 part kelp meal
  • 1/2 part oyster shell flour
The containers were then watered to runoff with calmag+ added at 1tbl / gal.
 
Back
Top Bottom