Fanleaf Tries For A TLO, True Living Organics, Grow With 6 Plants

Lights on this evening and they are so close to needing water. I was very tempted but my better judgment held me off.
My brand new ultrasonic humidifier is giving me fits in the tent. The stupid water level sensor was malfunctioning and keeps putting it in error mode. I have been running tap water in it since I got it only 1 month ago. After a disassembly and thorough cleaning of all the water scale it's back up and running. No more tap water in that thing. All RO water from now on..

Since they will be ready for water tomorrow I figured I would start brewing them their 1st tea. Now, more than anything the tea will be for the influx of new microbes so I will be diluting this tea down to between 40-50ppm before giving it to them. I only started this tea with 1 quart of RO water and after it's done I will dilute with at least 1 more quart of RO water. Here is the tea I just started brewing.

1/4 tsp Kelp meal
1/16 tsp dry kelp/seaweed
1/4 tsp alfalfa meal
1/8 tsp 9-3-1 bat guano
1/8 tsp feather meal
1/16 tsp blood meal
1/4 tsp molasses
1/16 tsp organicare all purpose grow
1 tiny dash of azomite powder
1/16 tsp oyster shell flour
1/16 cup Earthworm castings
1/2 tsp insect frass
5 drops of General Organics CaMg+

This will brew for 24 hours, be diluted to 40ppm or do and given to the seedlings.

The only real purpose of the 5 drops of the CaMg+ is to buffer the tea water with some dissolved minerals to improve the microbeastie population.

My plan is for this to be the only time they will get tea while in these small starting containers. Next time will be when they move into a new home.

Here is the tea. Only brewing for an hour. 70 degrees and now put in the dark to brew away until tomorrow.
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Well, the tea had been brewed for just over 24 hours. I had to dilute it by 3x to get to the 60ppm mark.
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They were all ready for water today do they each got a thorough water/tea.

On a side note, since my darned humidifier was messing up on me the last two days and letting humidity go Haywire as you can see a few of the seedlings leaves already responded to the difference in the humidity.

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Now that I have fixed the humidifier and the environment is back in control I'm sure the few that are showing leaves that are a little bit wavy should straighten back up in no time. I expect we will see some pretty decent growth in a rapid amount of time now. I have put the apogee par meter at the canopy of the seedlings and right now they are receiving about 900 micromoles . As soon as they start drinking all of their water about once a day we will be transplanting them into there first air pot. I believe their next stage will go to a 1-2 liter Air pot.
 
Scottsquatch said:
Grow dem plants Fan! Woot!
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I gotta say, it feels weird to be focused on microbes for me. So far though, this is a fun deal. I'm also watching growth rates closely right now too. Usually, or almost always, I have 4 nodes at the 14-15 day mark. Today is day 8. So far, I think we may get there. That will be a good sign for me to see. I fully understand that they are focused on building roots right now but I do expect to see nodes stacking here really quickly now. I wonder if giving them this early mild tea will help contribute to that.
 
Scottsquatch said:
I dont know either, but understanding the principles of organic growing, I dont think it could hurt to start getting those micro beauties built up a bit.
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Yeah, I kinda made an executive decision to give a weak tea this early based on I believe Em gives them tea early in veg also. I went back through my book and from what I can see, it should be fine to do as long as it's at least 10 days or so before they get another one. By then, they will have been transplanted into a bigger pot too, so I think this will work out well. When they do get another tea I plan to add Mycos to it before watering it in.
 
Pulled up a chair at your party. Hope you don't mind ;) I started my very first grow fall 2018. Completely TLO. Harvested my very first budz from 4 auto's 2 weeks ago a very happy 10.2 oz from those 4 girls. Next is 4 Durban Poison and two GYOF girls ready to harvest in 1 to 2 weeks and 4 others in the pipeline after that. Only 1 plant showed some phosporous deficiency 4 weeks into flower. Corrected problem and we are looking great now. TLO soil is totally the way to go. Let's get this show on the road.
 
GrowGirl63 said:
Pulled up a chair at your party. Hope you don't mind ;) I started my very first grow fall 2018. Completely TLO. Harvested my very first budz from 4 auto's 2 weeks ago a very happy 10.2 oz from those 4 girls. Next is 4 Durban Poison and two GYOF girls ready to harvest in 1 to 2 weeks and 4 others in the pipeline after that. Only 1 plant showed some phosporous deficiency 4 weeks into flower. Corrected problem and we are looking great now. TLO soil is totally the way to go. Let's get this show on the road.
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Welcome. There are plenty of seats open in the front row yet so I'm very glad to have you sit in. That's a great result for a first grow! For me, I just need to keep my normal growing habits in check so they don't interfere with the TLO ways. So far so good:).
Dont be afraid to chime in at any time!
 
JustMeds said:
Natural will be a bit slower then force fed salts. Then end results sit a touch higher on the shelves though.
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I'm going to try to do the best I can to negate that by keeping soil super aerated. Time will tell I guess.
 
JustMeds said:
Kinda like my bucket?
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Just started reading your current journal to find that. I keep getting sidetracked by the cool things that I'm finding in your Journal LOL
 
Glad you find some of it useful. If you see something you question just ask. If there is a way to torture a plant I have found it. Sometimes I think I get them healthy just to do something else crazy to them.
 
Well, just water for today. They are coming along well considering my humidifier issue a few days ago. Looks like about half of them are starting to put on a 4th node. They are staying quite compact, short plants because of the amount of light they are getting (ppfd 900). Still tweaking the humidity in the tent though. They are not drinking very fast and I think what is happening is I have the humidity sensor in a spot that shows the humidity lower than it actually is at the seedlings. I think they have been in way more humidity than I thought.
I'm gonna dry it up a bit to see if they start drinking quicker.

Either way, today is only day 12 for them so for half of them to be starting the 4th node so far, I am seeing NO slower growth than my previous Promix with synthetic nute results at this time. Day 12 from the day they popped from soil is quite quick.
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On a side note. I did bump the temperature in the tent from 78 degrees to 81.5 degrees today. This is my attempt to warm up the soil a bit to supercharge the microbes activity.
 
fanleaf said:
Well, just water for today. They are coming along well considering my humidifier issue a few days ago. Looks like about half of them are starting to put on a 4th node. They are staying quite compact, short plants because of the amount of light they are getting (ppfd 900). Still tweaking the humidity in the tent though. They are not drinking very fast and I think what is happening is I have the humidity sensor in a spot that shows the humidity lower than it actually is at the seedlings. I think they have been in way more humidity than I thought.
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I have found a higher humidity during veg 60 to 80 rH beneficial. It helps the plant by absorbing water through the plant and leaves making the plant stronger. I lower my rH to 55 during flower and in my flower room.
 
GrowGirl63 said:
I have found a higher humidity during veg 60 to 80 rH beneficial. It helps the plant by absorbing water through the plant and leaves making the plant stronger. I lower my rH to 55 during flower and in my flower room.
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I agree but I also want them drinking some water. They just went a solid 4 days without the soil drying out. 4 nodes high they should dry it up quicker than 4 days in these tiny pots. I think my ultrasonic humidifier was in a way, misting them the whole time basically. I agree a high RH in veg is good but not so good if its "misting" them 24hrs a day. They aren't getting wet or anything but the steam clouds the tent :rofl:
 
So it seems like the tweaks made to the environment yesterday when they got watered was just what was needed. By making sure that the ultrasonic humidifier was not over misting the plants at all times and bumping the tent temperature up a few degrees, made all of the difference. Last time they were given the tea they went until yesterday, a Solid 4 days, without needing water. Since changing up the environment a little bit, yesterday, they are already real close to needing watered again just 24 hours later. I'm going to give them a little longer before I give in to the urge to water them though as I can still feel a tiny bit of water weight.

So, I believe I may up pot them tomorrow when I give them some water with another inoculation of mycos. Now that the environment has been tweaked in their favor they are drying out rapidly so I believe they are about ready for a new home.

And, one more very important detail is that one of our Black Russian seedlings was ready to get topped today. I went ahead and snapped off the growth above the 4th node. I prefer holding the stem of the plant with my left hand and with my right pointer finger I just bend the new growth down and it will snap right off. I highly prefer that method over using a pair of scissors or a razor blade. This way makes it very clean with nothing touching the plant. So very importantly, here we are on day 13 topping one of the seedlings above the 4th node!
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So today was transplant day. That meant I also got my first taste of building TLO containers. What seemed in my head would be easy and quick turned out to be an awesome learning experience. It was easy but far from quick.
I just spent the last 2 hours building 1 gallon pots for the six seedlings.

Step 1
To start off with I mixed some water up with just a few drops of General organics Cal/Mag along with another round of Great White Mycos.
Step 2.
I took one of the same containers that our seedlings are in and filled it with pumice and put that on the bottom layer of the pot. (About 1" deep)
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Step 3
I then mixed up about 5 gallons of our TLO cooked soil and added about 2 quarts of fresh Earthworm Castings and mixed it up well to supercharge the soil with millions more microbeasties and added about 1/2" of it to the top of the pumice.
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Step 4
I now added a layer of a very high Notrogen Blend I mixed up. This was just enough to thoroughly cover the soil.
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As you can see in the picture above I also added a stripe of Bone Meal in the center.

Step 5
Time to fill the container 3/4 full with the TLO soil and place a seedling inside.
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Step 6
I wanted to water them in at this point just to let the next layer we will add to the top stay mostly at the top.
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Step 7
After watering them in I added a top layer of the same high Nitrogen blend to the top of the soil. This is all for the microbes. Microbes require a bunch of N to grow body mass and thrive. The top layer of the soil with this high N blend up top with the mulch covering it is to create a microbe Rave.
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I was careful to keep th he high N blend away from the stem about an inch.
Step 8
Time to re-mulch them. Also, I noticed what I believed to be a great sign of microbes and fungi when I looked at the Cannabis stem mulch that was used on the seedlings. What do you think @Emilya ? This is a great sign that things are alive and breaking down correct? It seems where the mulch was against the soil that microcritters were alive and well.
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Since they will only be in these pots for a short time I decided that the spikes were of little use for now. Even the Rev says he rarely uses them at all for veg anymore. That said, when we up pot to the 2 or 3 gallon pots next to finish off veg I think we may add 2 High Nitrogen spikes to each pot. We will judge it then.
So, here are all 6 babies in their new 1 gallon equivalent air pots. Quite a bit more space for the roots to grow.
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Also, tomorrow I will probably get topping several more of them.
 
Emilya said:
Looking great! Love those roots! I think you are right about the mulch too...I now see another stage for my big wood chips to go through before they make it back into compost. :love:
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Yes, so far so good for sure. I'm very happy with the way things are going so far. It's very neat to see things working. For example, when I first mixed up the soil to cook the pH of it was like 4.9. Two weeks later it was at about 6. Two weeks after that it is at 6.3 to 6.4. This is all a whole new way for me. So far I'm really happy. I'm sure their may be an obstacle or two in the grow down the road but just being able to learn about how living soil works and how things interact with each other and learning what organic fertilizers do what and how fast or slow they do it is neat. I can see it's a never ending learning experience already. I like it. I just hope I can do well enough this grow to continue with it.
 
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