Plushberry Clones In Soil

[MedFarmer]

If you are scared of rats being attracted by your compost why not use a worm farm to do the composting for you as they can be indoors or in garages/sheds etc. Then use the castings as your compost but this will take a fair while for you to get a decent amount.

Another alternative is to buy some bagged compost to get you going. The quality should not be an issue(as long as it's not sterilised) as the amendments bring it to life and make it a good compost.

UncleCannabis, could you post your recipe to give Kriaze another option or to let him split the difference in our recipes?

Don't feel I am trying to sell you the organic way Kriaze, it's just that I am a believer in getting the information out there to help then let people decide for themselves.

 

[UncleCannabis]

Hey there Kriase,
MedFarmer has given you some very good advise. IMHO organic soil is the only way to go for a personal stash or medicinal grow. If you make the change to growing in organic soil your girls won't be having daily mood swings as they sometimes do with hydro.

The soil mix that I use is nothing special and all of the ingredients are easy for me to purchase or source within a 10 mile drive from my home. Here is a copy/paste from my current journal.

My Soil Mix

Ingredients:
Soil Base. Consist mostly of composted black soil containing lots of leaf matter.
Worm Castings
Bone Meal
Blood Meal
Bat Guano
Chicken Shit
Sheep Shit
Alfalfa Meal
Crushed Pumice Stone
Crushed Oyster Shells
Ground Egg Shells
Used Coffee Grounds
Neem Cake Meal
Rice Hulls
Coco Coir
Dolomite Lime
Epsom Salt
Humic Acid
BioChar
EM (Effective Microorganisms)

After mixing I put into clear plastic tubs with clear covers and let it set outside in the sun for at least 4 to 6 months before using. While simmering I turn and water a few times per week until it's ready to use.
Before using the mix for potting up plants I add a bit of perlite along with more coco coir, more worm castings, more bat guano, more bone meal, more dolomite lime (based on ph adjustment needs), more epsom salt, and more neem cake meal. I mix everything well then use.

Ingredient Quantities:
To be honest my gardening habits are similar to my cooking habits in that I don't really measure ingredients when making a batch of soil. I just know from experience about how much of which ingredients to add for different purposes. I was raised on a farm and I've had many years of organic growing experience with fruit and vegetable crops so it's not like I'm just throwing darts at a dart board hoping that I get close to bulls eye. There is a bit of knowledge and experience at play but it's probably an even mix of luck and skill that gets me by by the skin of my teeth sometimes. LOL!

IMHO due to variations and inconsistencies in regards to the ingredients that are contained in most organic based products that are the standard fare when making a custom soil mix it's really an imprecise science. Example...If two groups of bats are eating different diets, the bat dung from both groups of bats will not contain the same NPK ratios. Same goes for worm castings. All worm castings are not the same. Anyways, you all get the picture.

I sometimes compare building a healthy soil to what it takes to build a healthy body. If you want to build a healthy body you need to feed the machine with a WIDE ASSORTMENT of CLEAN and HIGH QUALITY foods. Eating too much of anything is usually a bad thing but eating too little of those same things are bad as well. Same goes for building a healthy and balanced soil. In most but not all cases the amounts of each ingredient are not as important as the variety of the ingredients that are used and getting the soil texture right. I won't get into soil cation exchange capacity (CEC) but those who may have a real interest in organic soil gardening monster should read up on this subject as this is they key as to how plant uptake and utilize nutrients.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that IMHO there is no PERFECT SOIL RECIPE folks!! There are however some recipes that are better than others and the key reason lies in the variety and quality of the ingredients used. There's more to gardening than just N-P-K and Cal/Mag.

 

[Kriaze]

Thanks for the ingredients fellas, I really appreciate that. I'm definitely go organic over time, I just have to bring the wife around to my way of thinking and everything will be rosy We actually discussed it again today and there was no mention of rats, just how much it's going to cost me. I'm guessing she's getting a bit wary as I have a bit of an addictive personality and quite easily run overboard with my spending a lot (£2500 on a bloody ipad game once, got carried away there), so she tends to keep her eye on me and my hobbies nowadays.

I actually think it would work out cheaper in the long run, and as it's only a personal grow it's not like I'll be having truckloads of the stuff dropped off and stinking out the street, maybe if they change the laws over here in the future, a man can dream

Anyway as for this grow the 2 ladies in the tent are looking good, the Lonely girl doesn't seem much better than yesterday though. I'm awaiting some more advice via pm, failing that I may just well pull the plug on her, or even try to get her back into reveg and see if I can make her stronger before trying to flower her again.

The girl in the big pot (I no longer need to call her poorly girl!) was pretty dry so I fed her 12litres (around 2.5 gallons) of water mixed with 10ml of Micro, Grow, Bloom, CalMag, Cannaboost, Humboldt's Secret Golden Tree and PK13/14. There was less than a cm of runoff and the soil is actually quite powdery, almost like dust. I found this strange as yesterday she was still quite wet and no temps have changed since, weird but she's been fed now.

Then I decided to take a sugar leaf from a bud to check the trichomes out under the microscope. It was a bit of a learning curve and hard to focus due to the very shallow depth of field, then sorting the right amount of light and contrast to help bring things into focus but I enjoyed myself for a good hour or so playing around. The pictures are by no means perfect but they were fun to make

Here are some pictures from that leaf:

I wondered what this was:

Then I had a look around:

I started to get more comfortable with using the microscope and camera and spotted these amber trichomes:

Finally I went back to the first picture to retake it and see what I could make of it:

It's a little strange, I have no idea what it is but it looks like it has trichomes growing out of it. Any suggestions?

I hope I haven't bored you all with my musings/ramblings but this is still all new and fresh for me and a great amount of fun. If I go organic you can bet I'll be trying to catch those microbes in the soil on here too lol. All the best everyone, have a great day!

 

[uhewekguilw]

Love the new toy!
I have no clue what that is. I don't have a microscope and if I saw something like that i probably wouldn't smoke my herb... haha. Kidding bro, I'm sure someone who has seen those before can tell you what it is. Good luck!

 

[Kriaze]

Hahaa GB thanks for that. I was just sat here thinking someone will come on and tell me it's Powdery Mildew or something and I'll have to bin all my plants lol. I'm hoping it's not and there's plenty of air movement but yeah, it's really got me wondering too. I wouldn't even know what to look for via Google as I've been thinking about that too, maybe I should bite the bullet and go look at some Powdery Mildew, I'll be back with an update later after binning my plants All the best pal

 

[Kriaze]

OK I went and searched Google regarding Powdery Mildew just to be sure and had a look at some pictures. They were similar to what I was seeing but I didn't have enough detail in the picture to be sure, so it was off to the tent checking out my plants thoroughly. While I was there I chose a nice white bud to check out and stuck it back under the microscope. I found out what it was by doing a closer and more thorough examination. It was a pistil that had dropped onto the leaf, panic over!

Now I always assumed that pistils didn't produce trichomes but looking at these I must have been mistaken. Whilst some of the glands don't have heads I'm pretty certain that some do after having seen these. It's like a whole new world in there, and I'm going in

A touch of medication can make even the most mundane things seem interesting, so apologies for the plethora of pictures but I got carried away and thought I would share my findings. Here goes:

I found a little Emerald Forest, really peaceful in there:

These are some pictures of the pistils that do indeed seem to be sporting trichome growth:

Well what can I say, I've not had as much fun in years since starting this hobby of mine. I will get into the souls of my plants, I will visit their Emerald Forests in my haze of dreamy clouds

All the best everyone

 

[MedFarmer]

Don't bin your plants it's not mildew but I don't know what it is. If nothing else, it's worth keeping your plants for the learning curve. Mistakes made now will help you later.

 

[Kriaze]

Hey Medfarmer, it was a bit of a tongue in cheek comment but there was also a mild apprehension too. It wouldn't have surprised me in the least to find that my two best plants were doomed lol. I must have been posting as you wrote this but all is well in my happy, if slightly dazed world. Thanks for caring pal

 

[MedFarmer]

Hey Medfarmer, it was a bit of a tongue in cheek comment but there was also a mild apprehension too. It wouldn't have surprised me in the least to find that my two best plants were doomed lol. I must have been posting as you wrote this but all is well in my happy, if slightly dazed world. Thanks for caring pal

Yeah when I posted you had just put your later pictures on so I was a bit late. I too have a microscope and they are great things.

 

[uhewekguilw]

Awesome news! Was going to say to just send them to me and I will dispose of them
GB80

 

[MedFarmer]

Awesome news! Was going to say to just send them to me and I will dispose of them
GB80

Can we send you the stalks after trimming?

 

[Kriaze]

Hey hello all. Today is the day where I will mourn the loss of Lonely Girl.

She has never been happy since I moved her from CFL to LED, I'm guessing she just never agreed with the lights. I went in today and she was in such a pitiful state that I have decided to end it for her. On top of that as I'm particularly unhappy with the Mars Hydro Reflector series I'm tempted not to give them even one more chance to prove themselves. I've never been a fan of having green LED's in a grow light and after my being told constantly that they're not green but warm white and being made to feel like I'm the only one that can see they're green (my wife and a friend of mine are the only other people that see this grow, they must be colour blind and uninformed too as they think they're green) I'm unhappy with the whole fiasco. All I wanted was a little honesty, instead all I got was a pack of fanboy wolves tearing me down so fuck it, the plant is a gonner.

Don't get me wrong, I know that I've made a lot of mistakes but I also should have gone with my gut feeling which was to switch the CFL in during veg as soon as I realised that the plants were stretching and looking tired. I can't blame her death on these lights, but as she is so far gone now it would not be worth me putting in a HPS to finish her off, plus I hate trying to control the temps with HPS. I will be using HPS for my winter grows though. I had to at least try the experience of LED, but rather than go and buy a Mars II 1600w when I felt that the Reflectors were lacking, I should have looked around at other options (I'm reasonably happy with the Mars II, but I still don't think it can beat HPS yet, I'll know more after this harvest and maybe a couple more grows).

Sorry to everyone that uses these lights, this is purely my opinion and my experience watching my plants when I switched the lights out for the reflectors. They're cheap in comparison to other lights and in my opinion there is good reason for that, but each to their own.

OK sorry about the rant, it's just for the last couple of days I've been made to feel like an idiot on the thread and as I don't wish to p*ss everyone off and get banned I'm assuming that I can put my own thoughts down here in my journal, and I apologise to anyone reading this if you are offended. That aside I'll also understand if I end up alone in here and you will all be missed, but I have to have my say.

Here are a couple of pics:

All the best everyone and once again my apologies. I just wish I could have said all this on another forum, but over there the trees are blue and the sky is red, it feels like la la land. All the best

 

[Kriaze]

As an addendum I should state that I don't believe the lights killed my plant, that was definitely down to me. I do think that the lights didn't help the plant as much as a different brand of LED or a HPS would have though. Disclaimer done

 

[Kriaze]

White balanced photo's to show off my warm white LED's

 

[MedFarmer]

Lonely Girl you will be sorely missed.

Hey chin up Kriaze. We all have bad times growing and we all make mistakes. It's what makes us better prepared for the next grow.

 

[Kriaze]

Thanks for the well wishes MedFarmer, I guess the last couple of days just really got to me. Best wishes to you and yours, all the best

 

[UncleCannabis]

Best of luck moving forward my friend.

What lights do you plan to move in now that the Reflectors are moving out?

 

[Kriaze]

Hey UncleCannabis. I still have the Mars II 1600w flowering the two girls in the other tent and they're doing fine apart from the buds not being as full at this stage as they were in my last grow, even with the problems I had with that one

Luckily I still have my CFL and 600w HPS from the last grow, so I'll be using CFL for vegging and the HPS for flowering. Hopefully by the time it comes to flower the seasons will be changing and the temps getting lower here, I'll just have to keep an eye on the central heating as my wife is a bit cold blooded and loves keeping us just short of melting point

Thanks for the well wishes and best wishes to you and yours. All the best

 

[MedFarmer]

I've had good results using a Mars II 1200. A couple of my signature grows show this.

Night Queen in RDWC 2014 - My First RDWC

Fluxing NL x BB

if you're interested.

 

[Scarfinger68]

Well, those warm white LEDs look green to me. And, she did look very pitiful. Probably a combination of PH problems and the plant adjusting to the LED's.

I don't use LED's but From my reading it seems that there is a better transition to LED flowering stage if you use LED in VEG. I don't know anything about the MARS but... Can you use any of the MARS in your VEG room? If so it may help the transition form VEG to flower if you plan on sticking with LED.

Best of luck