HappyHippyBeads' Soil Grow From Seeds 2021

[HappyHippyBeads]

Sure looks to be coming along nicely. What are you using for lights?

Hey Nev- I can tell you now

ViparSpectra's Latest XS1000 LED Grow Light. It just showed up today in the mail

 

[Nev]

It just showed up today in the mail

Now that has to really brighten your outlook and I’m certain the plants will really like it.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 10: Sour Diesel coming along without issue

Jack doesn't seem to be unhappy about the accident. Hoping this continues

This poor beastie is a twentyfour - it's a super high CBD strain with super low/no THC. it had a difficult birth... cotyledons opened, and the first true leaves took a loooong time to show up. IDK what's going on with her. Odd genetics. Saving to breed out with something else. I weird genetic displays. they mean something changed. Change can be good, change can be bad. Never know unless you let it continue to grow and see the outcome.

 

[Nev]

Happy Jack is doing better. Does that Sour Diesel need a little help standing up?
Are they feminized seeds you started here and have you decided what you will be for nutrients yet?

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 11: Found that I can start a new post on my phone, and when I go to the computer, the post progress matches! I know that's probably old hat for some of you, but for me, that's exciting! It means no more upload, post, then edit post

Miss Jack isn't jacked up anymore She seems to be cool with the soil mounding method.
Lil Miss Sour Diesel isn't so little anymore. She's the beast of the bunch. After one day under my lovely new ViparSpectra lights, she's up and off to the races. Her stem is the uh, I guess you could say "most robust" of the lot. Like, uh, spaghetti at 3 minutes boil time as opposed to the rest who are like 6 min al dente strong

24's still lookin sketchy. I hate tossing plants out, and I'm growing for med effects / terps, so mutants can mean something new. If effects are beneficial/rare, I'll see what can be done about breeding the funky leaves out. Who knows? Maybe I'll find a new stealth strain where the leaves look like tomatoes or some shiz If it's an auto though, she's probably a goner.

Okay, the following clones are the the result of my experiment that came from a comment my hubby made. DH was growing somewhat old school in the garage with a setup his brother showed him in the 70's. The "somewhat" is due to the mix of bar burple and fluro grow lights instead of the sodium/mh lights at the top of the box he lovingly built (read: overengineered). There's light, but it's waaay not enough for a ginormous Panama Red (it's getting better lighting soon from budgetLED ). And yes, if you're wondering, he wanted to grow that particular strain b/c of the New Riders of the Purple Sage song LOL. He was getting antsy to take down his harvest, but didn't want to cut too soon. Magnification showed that the top half had matured enough to harvest, so the top half was harvested. His plant, he trims. I got to hear about all the popcorn buds; he was hoping for fat, hard, huge nugs. I wanted to change that if I could, and thought I had enough light in the inside tent. It didn't really fix it, but /shrug, it finished. Since he wasn't a fan of the popcorn, I decided to try to clone them. Never tried to clone at harvest, but /shrug a few popcorns wouldn't hurt. Out of seven, six showed roots in 2 weeks. Two of the six got the "awww, bless her heart" award for trying, and I choose the best three to pot up. There isn't a lot of green on them, IDK if that'll change. Well see.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Happy Jack is doing better. Does that Sour Diesel need a little help standing up?
Are they feminized seeds you started here and have you decided what you will be for nutrients yet?

@Nev the new lights, and adding a little soil fixed her Soil mix percentages is up in the air, some amendments are still on their way but I haven't had time to math it out. In the meantime, I'm using a mix of "hey! those ingredients aren't bad" organic potting soil from a local bigbox plus organic amendment granules at 1.25 stated rate plus 1/4 half-done worm poop (coir bedding). I'm using that to transplant out all of my veggie seedlings as well.

I've looked at the supersoil mix, @Emilya 's posts, other posts on random websites where they go over the pros/cons of the supersoil mix, and then I saw Dr Bugbee's video where he goes over the mix they use at Utah. He doesn't use LOS though What he "does" mention though, is that you can get your silicates from vermiculite. If you want the vid link, lemme know

With all the researching, I'm feeling like I've got information overload. I can understand why people buy the nute boxes and just roll with that. Simpler, in some respects, but I'm super tired of measuring a teaspoon of this, a 1/4 tablespoon of that, and then still have issues b/c the PR acts like a princess and sucks up waaaay more cal in veg than expected. I fixed that by using unfiltered water and adding humic acid to neutralize the chlor, but now since she's in flower, she put on her tiara again

So here's the things I'm planning on using:
1. As the base, I'm probably going to use that bigbox mix, 1/3 whatever the worms have made, and 1/3 (half vermiculite /half perlite). If I can find some other brands of soil mix that have good texture and nutes, I'm going to use those as well. Mixing your base compost was essential when I did square foot veggie gardening, and the smaller the container, the more it mattered.
2. I eat beef, so I don't really have qualms with bovine blood/bone meal, as long as it's organic. It'll be in there.
3. Dolomitic lime has mag and calcium, so going with that for calcium/mag. I'll add more as time goes along if the worms come out in force to base their acid.
4. I bought fish bone meal and will use that as well, like 50/50 with bovine
5. HF bat bloom stuff
6. Azomite for trace elements
7. Some crab meal
8. and some kelp from the kitchen pantry after I've thoroughly rinsed it and ran it through the blender to like coffee ground size. I went on a "Learn Japanese cooking" kick back in 2012, and I've got a lot of weird varieties that've been taking up space for too long. Found that there's only three types I use on any kind of regular basis. Yeah, I know it's not composted down into base nutrients, but that's what LOS is for it'll give the hatching earthworms something to munch on. I'm hoping I don't miss too many egg cases, or I'm going to have to feed the worms as well LOL they love cukes and melons. If that draws fruit flies, the sundews I put in the box are going to get FAT

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 11: spider mites are back, or at least that’s what the leaves look like with those tiny white dots. Weekly spraying of omri insecticide begins now.

 

[Nev]

Oh I hope not. Definitely start with an OMRI insecticide. Do you have a jewelers loop to get a better look? I periodically spray with Montereys horticultural oil up until they started to flower.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Oh I hope not. Definitely start with an OMRI insecticide. Do you have a jewelers loop to get a better look? I periodically spray with Montereys horticultural oil up until they started to flower.

@Nev I didn’t see them on this particular plant, but on another one I saw the tell-tale webs. The Panama Red in another tent had them soooo bad, but she recovered nicely. Was spraying dilute milk like twice a day to keep them in check and it was working ... up until I missed four days d/t family emergency and came back to find them swarming the tips in a writhing mass. It was simultaneously cool/gross/panic-inducing.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 12: ladies missed their 8am photoshoot, but just for fun here’s a pic of a young lady I found hiding in the sunflowers with funky leaves...

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 13 (lol of course) came home to find my girls unhappy. 24's always been an ugly duckling, but the colors on the others =

Decided to go all in, and repot the lot of them. I'm glad I did b/c the bottom layer of soil smelled stagnant. I'd added too much water when I added the soil on top. oops. Potting mix = hot soil in bottom 3rd of the pot, balanced organic potting layer of 1/3, myco granules over that, then after repotting, more of the balanced.

I gently removed as much stagnant soil as I could before the repot. Roots were unexpectedly small. Oddly, the ugly duckling had the best root system of the lot. Also glad to report that Ms Jack healed her stem. Has one of those bumps you get when you bend / crack the stems, but other than that, no sign of damage.

Sour Diesel's roots were only on one side. Jack Herer's roots seemed too small to get the job done

24's roots were spread throughout the pot

Hot soil = 1/3 of the balanced organic potting mix, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 worm compost about halfway done, about 3 gallons in a 5 gal bucket. Added fish bone meal 2tbsp, blood meal 8oz, azomite 1tbsp, FF cavern culture 4tbsp, langbeinite 1tbsp, crab meal 4tbsp, lime 1tbsp, and epsom salt 1 tbsp. Sat there and mixed it in the bucket by hand for a while. Mix, rotate bucket, Mix, rotate bucket- like a human cement truck mix was pretty dry, so watered using a Scotch glass to best control the amount. wanted enough moisture to activate the myco granules, but not enough to get them smelling stagnant again. Speaking of smell, fish bone meal and crab meal smell godawful foul.

I'm sure they'll recover and look good again within the week If not, expect a frantic "WTF do I need to do???" post

 

[Mdlroad]

Day 13 (lol of course) came home to find my girls unhappy. 24's always been an ugly duckling, but the colors on the others =

Decided to go all in, and repot the lot of them. I'm glad I did b/c the bottom layer of soil smelled stagnant. I'd added too much water when I added the soil on top. oops. Potting mix = hot soil in bottom 3rd of the pot, balanced organic potting layer of 1/3, myco granules over that, then after repotting, more of the balanced.

I gently removed as much stagnant soil as I could before the repot. Roots were unexpectedly small. Oddly, the ugly duckling had the best root system of the lot. Also glad to report that Ms Jack healed her stem. Has one of those bumps you get when you bend / crack the stems, but other than that, no sign of damage.

Sour Diesel's roots were only on one side. Jack Herer's roots seemed too small to get the job done

24's roots were spread throughout the pot

Hot soil = 1/3 of the balanced organic potting mix, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 worm compost about halfway done, about 3 gallons in a 5 gal bucket. Added fish bone meal 2tbsp, blood meal 8oz, azomite 1tbsp, FF cavern culture 4tbsp, langbeinite 1tbsp, crab meal 4tbsp, lime 1tbsp, and epsom salt 1 tbsp. Sat there and mixed it in the bucket by hand for a while. Mix, rotate bucket, Mix, rotate bucket- like a human cement truck mix was pretty dry, so watered using a Scotch glass to best control the amount. wanted enough moisture to activate the myco granules, but not enough to get them smelling stagnant again. Speaking of smell, fish bone meal and crab meal smell godawful foul.

I'm sure they'll recover and look good again within the week If not, expect a frantic "WTF do I need to do???" post

Good luck

 

[Nev]

The soil does look a little moist there. I’m sure this will all turn around shortly for you and turn out sweet.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Good luck

Thank you @Mdlroad ! Im using this journal as documentation so if it goes full sideways, I can see what didn’t work

The soil does look a little moist there. I’m sure this will all turn around shortly for you and turn out sweet.

I hope so too @Nev . I am soaking some more seeds just in case. I’ve never soaked before. Is floating good? Or does it really matter?

 

[Nev]

Is floating good?

I’m pretty old school and have stuck with the soak and paper towel method. As far as floating or sinking they do both. Some even start as floaters and then sink and it’s made no difference after an 18-20 hour soak for me.

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 14: Missing my babies being all green... On a positive note, the issues are providing ample opportunities for learning!

Soaked seeds are in soil, and I'm doing a paper-toweling start for more of the 24's. I want to try crossing them with other strains, especially the anti-inflammatory ones.

They survived the transplant fairly well. Other bigger plants are moderately unhappy. The Panama Red had a couple of taco leaves on her, but most of the new growth doesn't show the dotty leaves I associate with mites. The reflowering post revegging (rfprv) White Widow's making a fair amount of yellow leaves, and all the previous sugar leaves browned out. In the same tent, the rfprv Blue Mystic's still happy despite the leaves looking all bonsai sized. And the clones are unhappy.

Previous light/temp had been dialed in, but with the new light, I'd rearranged giving the panama a second smaller light. Checked temps, and they were out of range. I moved all the exhaust/intake tubes around and got temps down in the 70's again. Thought issues might be heat stress, so went googling.

Images weren't really matching what I've got going on, so I googled mites. Matching So broke out the magnifying visor + loupe to see details. Little red bodies, but not a lot of web production. Sprayed again, with a bit stronger solution, as the Mites suck

I'm halfway tempted to move everything out in the middle of the sunflowers so the ladybug population can feast

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

Day 15: They're pretty much unchanged. Propped up Jack with a toothpick. Temp range is better in the flowering tents now, it's a range, rather than a constant. Hoping the 15 degree Fahrenheit drop during darkness spawns some color.

 

[Nev]

There are some definitely looking a little healthier then the others.
Yes I do Believe mites are the worst.

 

[Gypsy58]

There are some definitely looking a little healthier then the others.
Yes I do Believe mites are the worst.

Is that mites or maybe to much light/burned

 

[HappyHippyBeads]

There are some definitely looking a little healthier then the others.
Yes I do Believe mites are the worst.

@Nev the ones in the background that look healthier are the results of the flowering white widow “can I clone it?”clone project I’ve got in the same area.

every time I have excess plant material, be it cannabis, raspberry, rosemary, or lavender, I want to clone it

Is that mites or maybe to much light/burned

@Gypsy58 I know there’s some mites, but not as many as would cause that much damage. Hadn’t thought about light damage, but now that you mentioned it, they started turning yellow right after I got my light upgrade. Further evidence = the areas of those yellow leaves that are covered by other leaves are much greener. Thank you thank you! I appreciate the tip

This grow is so weird. I’ve never had to baby weed at all. It’s always been pop, plant, train, flower, harvest. Worst issue I had was a phos issue that wouldn’t go away for weeks in the Panama Reds. Even with all the challenges, I love growing it. Learning opportunities abound!

I’m also concerned about how sparse the root systems are/were when I repotted them. I’m currently running an experiment with Basil seedlings. When I thinned them, they had tiny roots, so I put them in the water-spray cloner box to see if I could bulk up their root systems. It worked. Roots grew on stem that previously had none. They’ll go back into soil in a few days. I’m somewhat tempted to try that with the Jack-she had the tiniest root systems, and the longest stem. Either way, I’m also going to turn down the lights on the seedlings.

I’ll see how they look in the morning when I get home and decide then.