How not to be a salt farmer or a wasteful grower tips

[budnoob3]

More tracking info:
Momma is at 42” tall
Electro clone is 17” tall
Fed clone is at 13” tall though none have had first feeding yet (most likely because a mole or chipmunk dug it up a couple weeks ago and she needed to recover)
Non fed clone is at 18” tall (tallest of 3 so far)
Bean bonanza surprises are at about 3-4 “

 

[budnoob3]

Some more historical notes and facts worth sharing.
If you’ve looked at the tracking pictures I’ve posted with the measuring stick I’m using you may have noticed how old it looks. My grandfather gave that to me more than 36 years ago and I have no idea how long he had it before that but damn I feel old now.
And I think my grandfather was way ahead of his time with gardening. He was using worms and compost at least 45 years ago when I first started helping him in the garden and with chickens, rabbits and goats etc. He already had a separate pile for animal waste compost that he only ever used in landscaping and flower beds but I never really knew why. I always just assumed because there was poo in it, but now have a much better understanding. Gramps also didn’t grow in pots so I never had the inclination to put worms in pots until many years later in the early to mid 2000s. One day I was sitting around looking at my plants that I had just recently moved outdoors and noticed the dramatic difference and wondered to myself what I could do to improve indoor growth aside from lighting etc. That turned out to be probably the most significant improvement I have ever seen even to this day. The second most significant improvement I probably saw was when I started adding perlite everywhere around that same time. Finally 3rd for me was switching to Pro BX organic around 2009 or so when I was experimenting with High-Brix kit. I loved my results ever since that first run and have used that medium ever since. One day I might try to reproduce a comparable mix without spending that much money but I doubt it, it’s no more than a couple hundred a year for me and have been doing it for 15 years now. My only issue with using kit is that I had zero idea what was in it or why it worked at all. Plus I like to simplify things as much as possible which is why I just merged grandpas methods with new knowledge and experimented for years to get where I’m at today.

 

[Azimuth]

If you want best worms like red worms etc just look up vermiculture or Vermicompost for info, You can buy on Amazon if not available in your region.

Red worms are also known as manure worms so, if you know any horse owners that muck out their barn stalls into a manure pile, you can have all you want for free.

 

[budnoob3]

One of the most controversial things I do is the light sprinkling of flour along with my top dressings. That’s another thing I took from gramps. I don’t know how beneficial it is science wise, but it’s literally just a light sprinkle every 4 weeks. I did look up more information on this recently that did say it’s great balance of nutrients, has benefits for reducing pests, and worms like it too. My suspicion is that it has helped me avoid deficiencies over the years because you’ve never seen posts from me freaking out on any forum ever about why this or why that regarding deficiencies or over feeding etc. mostly because I adhere to less is more as well I think. Next round as I add more experiments I really hope to find that doing what I already do is at least close to the same quality so I can just keep following the simple path, but more than willing to adjust for significant improvements.

 

[budnoob3]

Babies

 

[budnoob3]

Top o the morning to ya’ll

 

[budnoob3]

Taking vacation next week but leaving girls in hands of trusted friends who started following my methods about 5 years ago so not worried at all. I’ll send a last batch of tracking photos and some refractometer readings before I leave as long as it gets here on time

 

[budnoob3]

Watering strategies that may hopefully be helpful for organic soil folks.
When I’m dealing with seedlings or new clones I want to keep them moist at all times but not drowning. I happen to use a no dome strategy personally because I’m generally able to be able to keep them moist without drying out. Just a little rain water and spraying with rain water fairly frequently until they’ve been sprouted or started rooting. Probably checking on them at least 3-4 times a day. Once they’re about 3-4” tall for seedlings or 3-4” taller than when clone started I will start giving them a couple quarts and then waiting till top few inches of soil are starting to dry out, not completely dry but think of a sponge you’ve squeezed really hard and can barely get another drop out of it. It’s all about moisture vs timing to me. Once I’m up to 3 or 4 nodes is when they move to a 10g typically. This is also when they start getting about a ga of rain each and waiting for at least the top 3 in are all most completely dry but ever so slightly moist before they get more. Since I have worms everywhere it’s important to keep them happy as well. As time goes on and the worms are tunneling away generating castings and helping aeration etc they gradually drink more and more and roots have opportunity and incentive to grow down and out. This gets adjustments to how much water they get until the end. Incidentally, they typically peak at thirst mid to late bloom and gradually get less thirsty towards the final couple weeks or so. I would agree using a moisture meter can be very helpful but I still check the old fashioned ways using a combination of feel and weight of pots…

 

[budnoob3]

Ok, read up a little on senescence and it makes perfect sense to me now how you might tell the difference between senescence and other problems. If you look back at my pics of momma and notice that the older lower growth just gradually went from green to light green to yellow with no browning or clawing or curling etc. To me that’s a healthy case of senescence. Old growth that can no longer collect and share as efficiently as the newer growth. It will send what it can back to other parts of the plant or even the roots as necessary. That’s just me ballparking my understanding of all the technicalities of what I read…

 

[budnoob3]

Back to top dressing and trimming. As old growth dies off I like to wait until I have approximately a 50-50 ratio of fallen leaves to leaves still hanging on but mostly yellow. Each time I get to that level I will trim the mostly yellow leaves and add them to the completely dead ones on top of the soil and throw a thin layer of perlite on top of them. I generally like to do that when top dressing time is about a week or so away based on my schedule covered multiple times earlier. Day of top dressing I throw a thin layer of EWC with a very light sprinkling of flour and give her a little diluted molasses water. Further along when senescence works its way up gradually I will treat the mostly yellow leaves much in the same manner as I do for clones by cutting half of them in half first and leaving the cut ones to be the next round of fall off on your own. I don’t know if it helps necessarily but my logic says to me that if cutting the leaves on clones helps promote root growth why wouldn’t it do same for the whole plant. The other thing is I always try to perform these activities just before sundown similarly to when I do my watering and other feeding activities. I will occasionally do them at dawn time as well. Again, that’s mostly because that’s what gramps did for pruning, feeding and watering as well and if it works why change it.

 

[budnoob3]

Clearer pic of what I did last night

 

[budnoob3]

Refractometer showed up, looks like at least 10 1/2, fuzzy at 11. Not gonna make any adjustments yet for this round. Still want to see what it ends up at just using my methods for this round.

 

[JiggiLotus]

Ok, read up a little on senescence and it makes perfect sense to me now how you might tell the difference between senescence and other problems. If you look back at my pics of momma and notice that the older lower growth just gradually went from green to light green to yellow with no browning or clawing or curling etc. To me that’s a healthy case of senescence. Old growth that can no longer collect and share as efficiently as the newer growth. It will send what it can back to other parts of the plant or even the roots as necessary. That’s just me ballparking my understanding of all the technicalities of what I read…

Agreed. @Gee64 was discussing this as well. It definitely made a lot of sense and set some of my fears to ease with the explanation of senescence. Natural plant cannibalism.

 

[budnoob3]

Daily visitor

 

[budnoob3]

And funny story, I originally didn’t specify the breed of seed to make a guessing game out of this grow for fun. My buddy that hooked me up with the seed and I were reviewing things and it dawned on us that we still have about 14 1/2 - 15 hours of daylight right now yet already showing pre-flower. We’re not 100% yet, but thinking he may have mixed up and given me one of his auto seeds. May end up being a good guessing game for us all lol. Worst case, I’ve never grown an auto before so I’ll be able to scratch that off the list if that turns out to be the case lol

 

[budnoob3]

As for refractometer reading, it just may actually be above 12. Rained and thundered for 3 days in a row then rained and thundered again last night after I took sample. Gonna give it a couple days and take again before we leave for vacation

 

[budnoob3]

So glad I made it back to 420 Mag. Everyone here is just so awesome and I missed a lot of folks in my absence. If it’s not obvious to anyone yet, I’m in that stage of life where it’s very important for me to share as much as possible information in the hopes that it helps others, even future generations after I’m gone. I try my best to have a do no harm policy, but at times I still open my mouth or keyboard and end up being proven wrong about things. That is not a deterrent for me because every time that happens we all learn from it. Also I feel that if there’s ever any chance of my utopian goals of ubiquitous organic gardening and a cancer free world then I need to do everything in my power to keep those conversations going and moving forward. Cheers!

So please do provide constructive criticisms, alternate views etc. They are encouraged and more than welcome here. I’m an open book.

 

[Trump]

I've been in this industry for 30+ years and I still learn new things.

 

[budnoob3]

I've been in this industry for 30+ years and I still learn new things.

Don’t we all! Even if it takes a min to admit that to ourselves

 

[bluter]

i dunno dick but i still grow weed. it's nice to see those who do know richard as fantastic as the folk here. there's so many many grow styles from awesome growers. hope to try more.

i don't get to do outdoor here. keep it up.