PeeJay's Prudent Home-Brewed Organic Soil - Outdoor Out of Sight Deck Grow

[PeeJay]

The most logical place to start is with a picture of the plants in question as they are now. The suggested template for launching a new journal is a great guideline. I'll try to explain all of the suggested information but not with bullet lines. These plants are around 150 days old and only tweens when it comes to the cannabis plant lifecycle. Without further ado, here is a picture of the plants taken this morning.

Obviously, it is going to take some time to bring this all up to speed. These plants have an interesting history. Strain, medium, lighting, climate; there are no short answers.

For example, the strain is White Panther. I've grown it before. So has Graytail. I'll make another post with strain information. Here is a picture of two White Panthers taking a bottom flush from my first ever grow before I was using my complete soil (details to follow.)

And here's one later. I always neglected the WP - It just wasn't high on the priority list. No training.

It is shameful that I don't have any harvest pictures... I like the smoke, still have some in the jar, revisited it a few days ago. I vote it the best ever weed to take camping. It's a white dwarf strain. Won the Amsterdam cup way back in '01 (I think,) as White Smurf and was renamed White Panther by Ceres seeds in honor of the legendary John Sinclair recently.

It is a dwarf strain and is not supposed to grow over four feet -good for the prudent deck grow. I know Gray has some nice flowing pictures of WP grown is Doc's high brix kit. Maybe he will post some here. He recently dropped WP from his perpetual rotation in favor of Carnival.

That's it for now. I'll make additional posts in the next few days about medium, lighting, climate, social constrains upon my prudent deck grow,etc. Better to take some time organizing it all in stages.

 

[Graytail]

Haha! Front row center.

 

[PeeJay]

Welcome, Gray

One of the things you'll see, and already know, is that the WP can get slapped around like crazy. It is very easy to grow. I'll document its progression from seed soon. Don't know where I'll go next. Probably climate and medium before I get into history. I'll think about it.

Prudent is in the name of the journal title. I'm an old man with an "Easy Does It" bumper sticker driving five miles below the posted limit in the slow lane. I prefer to stay under my legal plant count and keep things on the down low. I feel the need to talk about that a little in this new journal, too. Reading the forums it's hard to feel good about just growing a couple for personal medicine while being blown away by larger producers... Reasonable harvests that meet my needs, stealth, and top quality produce are the priority. I'm fascinated by my climate which is less than ideal but can be exploited.

 

[PeeJay]

Climate:

The plants are growing at 35 degrees North. The altitude is roughly 5200 feet. The climate is very dry in the late spring and early summer. Relative humidity is mostly in the low teens right now. High temperatures are generally in the mid 90's currently with lows in the mid 60's. In July and August we can expect some monsoonal moisture, higher humidity, and lower high temperatures in the upper 80's. We will have multiple days over 100 before the monsoons arrive. 20-30 degree variations between the daytime highs and overnight lows will persist throughout the grow with highs in the 60's and lows in the high 40's in the middle of October.

Where the plants sit on the deck the plants are shaded almost all the time now. They are under a two and a half foot overhang on a South facing deck. The deck is also shaded by some crappy, mess-making locust trees. As the sun moves towards the southern horizon after the solstice the overhang will no longer shade the plants. They will get quite a bit of direct sun while they flower even though they'll still get some shade from the trees. Even in the shade it is pretty bright in these parts due to the elevation, dry climate, and relative lack of pollution. If the plants were not in the shade they would take a real, parching, sun pounding in June and July. The shady situation is not a bad thing right now.

Medium and feeding:

I'm growing in complete organic soil mixes. I use three slightly different mixes; one for seedlings, one for vegetative growth, and one for flowering. The plants are in a ten gallon and a seven gallon fabric pot. When I transplanted them into those pots they were put into flowering soil even though it ain't flowering time quite yet. I would have rather moved them into flower soil after the solstice but that would have been inconvenient. Here are the details on the soil:

For the seedling mix I combined 3 gallons of Sunshine #4, 1 gallon of FFOF, one gallon of chunky perlite, and 1/2 cup of granulated mixed mycorrizial inoculate. There is plenty of food in the FFOF to feed the seedlings, the Sunshine is not nutrient rich at all, and the perlite improves drainage. Seedlings like this lean, well draining soil.

The base for both the veg and flower soils is the same. Nine gallons of Sunshine #4, three gallons of FFOF, three gallons of worm castings, one and a half gallons of chunky perlite, six cups of Yum-Yum mix, and two cups of Excelerite. Here is a blurb from the Excellerite web-site about this product:

"U.S. Rare Earth Minerals has been blessed with the rights to mine what is widely considered the rarest source of ancient lake bed sediments in Panaca Nevada found to date. A host of scientists recognize it as the richest known source in the world for natural occurring macro, micro and nano nutrients. These minerals and trace elements have been naturally chelated in the presence of Humic and Fulvic acids to produce the powerful combination of Panaca minerals that we call Excelerite; Excelerite is approved by the Organic Materials Review Institude (OMRI) listed, and may be used in certified organic production or food processing and handling according to the USDA National Organic Program Rule."

Here is a picture of some Yum-Yum mix followed by a list of ingredients and what nutrients it provides.

Yum-Yum mix contains:

Alfalfa Meal: Nitrogen; Vitamins-A, B, E, carotene, thiamine, biotin, pantothenic acid, niacin, riboflavin, folic acid, choline; 16 amino acids, co-enzymes, sugars, starches, protein fiber.

Cottonseed Meal: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium.

Kelp Meal: Nitrogen; Potassium; Vitamins-A, B, B2 , C, calcium, pantothenate, niacin, folic acid; minerals-barium, boron, calcium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, sodium, strontium, sulfur, zinc; 17 amino acids.

Greensand: Iron, Potassium, Silicate, Phosphorus, 30 trace elements.

Rock Dust: Calcium, Sulfur, Magnesium, Boron, Cobalt.

Rock Phosphate: Phosphorus, Calcium, Trace Elements.

Humate: Salts of Humic Acid - improve soil characteristics and aids in releasing other nutrients to plants in usable forms.

Dry Molasses: Carbohydrates, Sugars, Trace Elements - feeds and attracts beneficial soil organisms.

Guaranteed Analysis -Total Nitrogen (N) - 2.0% - Available Phosphate (P2O5) - 1.0%. Soluble Potash (K2O) - 1.0%.

The Yum-Yum is great stuff - a well balanced amendment. It won't burn plants. I've actually put the stuff in my mouth and tasted it - not bad at all.

The only other thing the veg soil gets is 1 cup of 10-1-1 Mexican bat guano.

The flower soil has no Mexican guano. It gets 1 cup of 0.5-13-0.2 Indonesian bat guano, and 1 cup of soft rock phosphate.

Over the course of a couple of grows I've never seen a deficiency or lockout in these mediums. I don't feed the plants anything else. They just get RO water. Well, I have done some minor top-dressing with a little Yum-Yum once or twice but for the most part just RO water. The current plants have had no top dressing or anything as of yet. Two previous grows in these soils has produced solid brix readings - harvests at 17.5 and 16.

I haven't brixed the current plants. As you'll see when I detail the history of these plants they are probably not very high-brix at this point. I'll get a reading from them in the next day or two.

 

[PeeJay]

History:

These two White Panthers sprouted towards the end of January. I didn't really want to grow them. Some of us were discussing how to minimize stretch and promote tight intermodal spacing in seedlings and I sprouted them along with a Sage 'n Sour for demonstration and experimentation purposes. I chose those seeds out of my stash because I didn't put a terribly high value on them. The difference in sprouting between the two WPs was distance from bright white 23w CFLs. I honestly do not know which plant is which at this point. One of the two struggled shedding it's seed jacket and sort of screwed up the experiment. I murdered the SnS at some point back in February because I didn't want to mess with keeping it.

Here are some pictures of them at 15 days old in the original pots. The seeds were soaked and then planted in the soil to sprout in 1 qt pots. It is easy to spot the one who struggled out of the gate.

Notice the minimal stretch and tight node spacing? The experiment/demo was successful. Along about this time I lost interest in these plants and they hung out in the veg box under CFLs for a long time. I frequently forgot to check on them or water them. They almost died of thirst several times.

As far as I can tell from looking back at my old journal they were potted up into 1 gallon containers of veg soil about the 15th of February. Here they are at 27 days in the bigger pots.

There is literally no mention of these plants in the old journal until April 10th when they were 70 days old, still in one gallon pots, and rather neglected. You can see from the picture that they look sort of sad and had been topped a couple of times.

They were needing water very frequently so I root pruned them, cutting away a significant amount of the rootball with a serrated knife and put them into 2 gallon fabric pots of veg soil.

I also took some clones around this time. I hadn't done any cloning so I wanted to practice. Of the five cuttings I took four made it. I didn't need them and murdered three. The one I kept can be seen in the first picture posted in this journal. It has a history of disinterest and neglect, too.

They were left in the veg box from that point and watered occasionally and topped a little. Around the first week in June I transplanted them into the 7 and 10 gallon pots of flower soil and moved them out to the deck. Here they are on the 9th of June a couple of days after the transplant with some burning from the leaves touching the CFLs in evidence.

That brings us up to where we are today.

 

[PeeJay]

Here are a few more pictures I took this morning. The two plants are expressing themselves slightly differently. I'll just call this one Alpha.

And this one Beta.

They have been growing aggressively the last two weeks. It's kind of cool that the plants decided they no longer needed the lowermost leaves and has been shedding them at the same time as the aggressive growth has been going on.

As I've been getting this new journal together I realized that I overestimated the age of the plants they are 19 weeks and 4 days old, so 137 days. Funny stuff. The soil mix obviously can go the long-haul.

I'm topping them quite a bit and will continue to do so for another two or three weeks before letting them be.

 

[KingJohnC]

Subscribed

 

[CronicHempHog]

 

[Jay233]

Looks great PeeJay!...I really enjoyed reading about the history of the plants as well...Looking forward to following along

 

[GardenFaerie]

Subbed

 

[PeeJay]

KJC, Chronic, GF and Jay

Looks great PeeJay!...I really enjoyed reading about the history of the plants as well...Looking forward to following along

Honestly, Jay, they don't look that great, but given what they went through they are making a strong turn around.

 

[COorganics]

Ill be following along if ya done mind.
Reminds me I wanna try that Yum Yum, well... For my plants.

 

[PeeJay]

Come on Corgie, it doesn't taste bad at all! Yum-Yum is great stuff. I believe Ol' Festus got his hands on some, but I don't know if he's put it to use yet. It is a very well balanced formula with lots of mineral content.

A little more about the little deck. In this picture the plants are pulled out from under the overhang a little. I live in a duplex.The neighbor's deck is behind the screen - close proximity. When the plants are pulled all the way back it is just about impossible for them to see 'em if they peek through the screen. Not so much if they are further out. That is the main reason they will be in the shade until the sun starts leaning South. The neighbors are quiet, but they do spend time out on their deck and sometime have company. I don't consider them a threat, but you never know.

There are tons of container plants out on the deck, and many of them were selected because they are aromatic - hyssop, salvias, mints, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, lavender, citronella, etc. The garden is very fragrant. Anyone who goes to the effort of peeking through the screen will see all the stinky plants, but not the cannabis. I think I'm going to add several more pelargoniums (scented geraniums) to the plant mix this week. The White Panther had a strong pine/turpentine smell last time I grew it. It's the skunky smell that'll give you away. Hopefully the smell from the Panthers will meld with all the rosemary and stuff and not be too obvious. There are some more off-topic pictures of my ghetto deck garden on the Virtual Couch.

My only other security concern is, since this place is a rental, the landlord. He's an easy going guy, but I don't know how he'll react if he sees pot growing on the deck. I know he'll come on a Saturday in the middle of October and put the swamp cooler on the deck to bed for the winter, check the furnace, and such. The plants will need to be harvested before he comes, ready or not.

 

[Ole Festus]

Subbed up! Will be watching the "Play by Play". My Darkstar & 2nd round of AK48s are just loving the soil recipe you provided. Hopefully, I won't have to add one drop of nutes! Yes, they do like the Yum Yum, it's a very solid investment!

I'd say "Good Luck" on this grow, but your grow's have nothing to do with luck, so I'll say "Best of Fortune"!

Keep it Green!

 

[Lester Freeman]

Awesome presentation to start off the journal! I like the way you write and do things.

I'll definitely be following along

 

[PeeJay]

Thank you for the kind words Lester and Festus. Festus, it would be way cool if you got some brix readings from those plants. Refractometer will set you back about $30 on Cramazon. It's a fun toy to play with.

 

[B A R]

 

[Ole Festus]

It would be way cool if you got some brix readings from those plants. Refractometer will set you back about $30 on Cramazon. It's a fun toy to play with.

I hear you PeeJay, but honestly after my modest 1st grow, I sort of trained my eye a little and am trying to get a better visual understanding by watching the plants develop on this grow. I can imagine myself putting on a White Lab coat with a lighted mirror on my forehead playing mad scientist and trying to find out what the brix levels are. Thanks for the idea, but I think I'm going to stick with sampling 2 or 3 times and then harvest when I get the desired effects. I got them last time & I'm hoping to do a tad better this go around.

 

[PeeJay]

Totally understand where you're coming from, Festus. I'm just curious since we are using the same amendments in similar ratios. I don't respond to readings by changing anything based on them. It's just an indicator in addition to visuals of how the plants are doing metabolically.

Taking readings is not very difficult. Graytail made a nice DIY on taking brix readings recently. Check it out.

How to Take Brix Readings

 

[Ole Festus]

Thanks for the Link, I'll check t out. Also, the Darkstar is going to Veg until next March & if I time it right, I'll get a spring harvest. One thing that I have noticed is that the Darkstar grows pretty slowly, hopefully it's working on the root structure. It's only 6 weeks old and just got it's first full node last week. I think it's ready to get going now. Did your DS develop slowly also?

Congrats on your Nomination for MOTM.