Stunger's Organic Balcony: Growing Daughters Of Mulanje: Watering Via Root Aeration Chambers
- Thread starter Stunger
- Start date
They are just amazing!
Happy plants make me feel happy, not even joking.
Happy plants make me feel happy, not even joking.
Jungle Joseph
Well-Known Member
Looking good S.
- Thread starter
- #304
Cheers GDB!
Thanks Tra, happy plants do the same for me too
Cheers Joe!
Noone can say you are not efficient with your space.
You go the extra mile.
Happy vibes
You go the extra mile.
Happy vibes
- Thread starter
- #306
Cheers Lerugged, an extra mile would be nice or a big private section, but failing that, yup I gotta make work with what's available and squeeze 'em in!
Emeraldo
Well-Known Member
Downside is, if you jog the 10" length of your balcony 528 times, it will attract unwanted attention and possibly blow your cover.
Your balcony is looking amazing! 
Imagine if you didn't need to cull those 3 males - your balcony would have been swallowed up by now!
Imagine if you didn't need to cull those 3 males - your balcony would have been swallowed up by now!
- Thread starter
- #309
Jogging the balcony with those obstructions would quickly see me doing a Monty Python John Cleese funny walk and most likely tumbling off the balcony on my first lap!
Thanks Beez, oh yeah I can't imagine more plants now, to be honest even 2 would be more sensible except I made 3 seed strains last grow, so it is great to be able to grow out 1 girl of each.Your balcony is looking amazing!
Imagine if you didn't need to cull those 3 males - your balcony would have been swallowed up by now!
Porky82
Well-Known Member
Nice work mate!!Update - Before & after supercropping
Greetings 420 Enthusiasts! This afternoon I carried out another round of supercropping from which I have managed to lower their canopies about 20cm/8 inches. I also crushed a lot of stems than I didn't necessarily want to bend lower, but just 'soft' crushed them to slow them up a little as there are still several weeks of stretch ahead.
Before supercropping
After supercropping
Some measurements
I took a couple of measurements at this point. The Mulanje Sherbert which is in the smallest pot (30L/8gal) measures approximately 3.5 feet across her widest part and is about 14 inches tall from the pot rim. The other 2 plants, the Mulanje ME & Mulanje HP are in the larger pots (50L/13gal) and they both measure 4 feet across at their widest part and are about 16-17 inches tall from the pot rim. The balcony is 10 feet wide and the plants now fully touch each other and they reach to either end for the full 10 feet.
And finally from the side window..
Thanks for dropping in. I hope your own gardens are doing great and you've got some nice buds to enjoy!
They guna be big balls of buds soon!!
School of funny walks! 
- Thread starter
- #312
Thanks Porky! Up to this point it has been the relatively easy part, the next 3 or 4 months will be more challenging.
With those plants as obstacles, it'd be funnier for the observers than the one doing the funny walk!School of funny walks!
McRib
Well-Known Member
Saw this and thought of you
- Thread starter
- #314
Thanks McRib. It feels like it will get like this if I'm not careful.Saw this and thought of you
Cide Hamete Benengeli
Well-Known Member
How the type of facade with the butane canister on the balcony sounds to me... I'm sure I won't be far away...Saw this and thought of you
- Thread starter
- #316
Update - a modest topdress - pics before the coming rain
Greetings 420 enthusiasts! My plants have some rain forecast ahead for the next few days so I have used the opportunity to do a tiny top dress that the rainfall can help water in.
A modest topdress
I gave 2 tbsp of ground Neem meal to each plant (mostly as a pest deterrent) and 4 tbsp of Seafood Lush fertiliser which is mostly calcium in the form of Oyster shell flour, Dolomite lime, with some kelp and mussel meal too.
I also dissolved about ¾tsp Epsom salts in water and gave a third of that to each plant, a tiny amount.
I wasn't going to do another top dress until next month, when at which point I'll give them some organic bloom fertiliser. However, I have noticed several old leaves of each plant yellowing off to white, it's probably nothing as overall the plants are now 4 months old and appear green and healthy, so the earliest leaves are probably due to fall anyway. Recently I read some very interesting posts by @Gee64 on the importance of Calcium to living soil and as my plants have grown quite a bit since being final potted, it seemed timely to give a small amount, only 4 tbsp each.
Here's a cut n paste of what Gee64 posted on @Azimuth's SIPS thread on Calcium
Its more than a nutrient. In living soil its the main ingredient as it sets the colloidal charge to fill the colloidal plates with the proper ratio of all nutrients (aka organic chelation, but as nature designed it, not General Hydroponics, FoxFarms, etc..) so if its low, then your soil kitchen isn't able to properly load those plates and what does get loaded can and will get locked out as the charge isn't correct so nutrients stick to each other.
Different foods get locked out depending on how low it is.
PH is what allows cec to release the nutes from the plates. Different nutes swap out with hydrogen at different ph's and fall off the plate (become available, no longer locked out).
Thats why Cal-Mag is such a good rescue tool. It corrects the chelation and it also neutralizes magnesium back to its needed electrical state.
When calcium gets low in the soil the cal to mag ratio gets out of whack.
Magnesium starts to get electrically sticky and ties up other nutrients. It likes nitrogen the most so low cal in living soil usually shows as a nitro def 1st.
Calcium also, by using its double positive charge, which makes it your strongest electrolyte, sets the floculation of your soil.
Think of your soil particles as dinner plates stacked in the cupboard and held together by magnetism. Changing the charge with calcium changes that magnetism.
When you hold 2 magnets together they stick. Turn one around and they repel but spin around and stick by their own means.
When Calcium corrects the electricity in the soil structure it changes the polarities in the particles and every 2nd plate in the stack stands on edge forming I-beam structures in the soil particles that become hallways for air,water,microbes fungi... you get the picture.
<edit> I have just edited this to include a link to a post in @Gee64's journal, which has a great video link by Glen Rabenberg on soil health (which I am currently watching) --> here. Thanks Gee!
< further edit> My apologies for again tinkering with the post. I still haven't finished watching the above video, but Glen Ragenberg is talking about air in soil as being most important. As this current grow is using my home cobbled together 'root aeration chambers', this video is even more apt, makes me feel quite pleased, and plus my containers are all pretty heavily drilled too. Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I am really enjoying this video.
Pistils
Of the 3 plants, the Mulanje Sherbert is throwing out pistils the most but isn't yet at budset stage. The Mulanje HP is showing a number of pistils but fewer. But the Mulanje ME's pistils are harder to find, it was hot today, and I didn't want to risk messing around with my camera on the balcony and draw attention to my 'dodgy' gardening, so I just settled on finding an early preflower where the pistils had done their dash and died off. I think so far that the Mulanje ME has only thrown out a few early preflowers and she hasn't yet begun to produce them in earnest.
Pics of the plants
Looking ahead, I will carry out a pest deterrent spraying soon, and of course further supercropping will be in needed soon too. But anyway, that the scores on the doors today!
Cheers for dropping in. I hope you're all keeping well, and happy gardening!
Greetings 420 enthusiasts! My plants have some rain forecast ahead for the next few days so I have used the opportunity to do a tiny top dress that the rainfall can help water in.
A modest topdress
I gave 2 tbsp of ground Neem meal to each plant (mostly as a pest deterrent) and 4 tbsp of Seafood Lush fertiliser which is mostly calcium in the form of Oyster shell flour, Dolomite lime, with some kelp and mussel meal too.
I also dissolved about ¾tsp Epsom salts in water and gave a third of that to each plant, a tiny amount.
I wasn't going to do another top dress until next month, when at which point I'll give them some organic bloom fertiliser. However, I have noticed several old leaves of each plant yellowing off to white, it's probably nothing as overall the plants are now 4 months old and appear green and healthy, so the earliest leaves are probably due to fall anyway. Recently I read some very interesting posts by @Gee64 on the importance of Calcium to living soil and as my plants have grown quite a bit since being final potted, it seemed timely to give a small amount, only 4 tbsp each.
Here's a cut n paste of what Gee64 posted on @Azimuth's SIPS thread on Calcium
Its more than a nutrient. In living soil its the main ingredient as it sets the colloidal charge to fill the colloidal plates with the proper ratio of all nutrients (aka organic chelation, but as nature designed it, not General Hydroponics, FoxFarms, etc..) so if its low, then your soil kitchen isn't able to properly load those plates and what does get loaded can and will get locked out as the charge isn't correct so nutrients stick to each other.
Different foods get locked out depending on how low it is.
PH is what allows cec to release the nutes from the plates. Different nutes swap out with hydrogen at different ph's and fall off the plate (become available, no longer locked out).
Thats why Cal-Mag is such a good rescue tool. It corrects the chelation and it also neutralizes magnesium back to its needed electrical state.
When calcium gets low in the soil the cal to mag ratio gets out of whack.
Magnesium starts to get electrically sticky and ties up other nutrients. It likes nitrogen the most so low cal in living soil usually shows as a nitro def 1st.
Calcium also, by using its double positive charge, which makes it your strongest electrolyte, sets the floculation of your soil.
Think of your soil particles as dinner plates stacked in the cupboard and held together by magnetism. Changing the charge with calcium changes that magnetism.
When you hold 2 magnets together they stick. Turn one around and they repel but spin around and stick by their own means.
When Calcium corrects the electricity in the soil structure it changes the polarities in the particles and every 2nd plate in the stack stands on edge forming I-beam structures in the soil particles that become hallways for air,water,microbes fungi... you get the picture.
<edit> I have just edited this to include a link to a post in @Gee64's journal, which has a great video link by Glen Rabenberg on soil health (which I am currently watching) --> here. Thanks Gee!
< further edit> My apologies for again tinkering with the post. I still haven't finished watching the above video, but Glen Ragenberg is talking about air in soil as being most important. As this current grow is using my home cobbled together 'root aeration chambers', this video is even more apt, makes me feel quite pleased, and plus my containers are all pretty heavily drilled too. Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I am really enjoying this video.
Pistils
Of the 3 plants, the Mulanje Sherbert is throwing out pistils the most but isn't yet at budset stage. The Mulanje HP is showing a number of pistils but fewer. But the Mulanje ME's pistils are harder to find, it was hot today, and I didn't want to risk messing around with my camera on the balcony and draw attention to my 'dodgy' gardening, so I just settled on finding an early preflower where the pistils had done their dash and died off. I think so far that the Mulanje ME has only thrown out a few early preflowers and she hasn't yet begun to produce them in earnest.
Pics of the plants
Looking ahead, I will carry out a pest deterrent spraying soon, and of course further supercropping will be in needed soon too. But anyway, that the scores on the doors today!
Cheers for dropping in. I hope you're all keeping well, and happy gardening!
- Thread starter
- #318
ZebraCat
Well-Known Member
Hey Stunger,Update - a modest topdress - pics before the coming rain
Greetings 420 enthusiasts! My plants have some rain forecast ahead for the next few days so I have used the opportunity to do a tiny top dress that the rainfall can help water in.
A modest topdress
I gave 2 tbsp of ground Neem meal to each plant (mostly as a pest deterrent) and 4 tbsp of Seafood Lush fertiliser which is mostly calcium in the form of Oyster shell flour, Dolomite lime, with some kelp and mussel meal too.
I also dissolved about ¾tsp Epsom salts in water and gave a third of that to each plant, a tiny amount.
I wasn't going to do another top dress until next month, when at which point I'll give them some organic bloom fertiliser. However, I have noticed several old leaves of each plant yellowing off to white, it's probably nothing as overall the plants are now 4 months old and appear green and healthy, so the earliest leaves are probably due to fall anyway. Recently I read some very interesting posts by @Gee64 on the importance of Calcium to living soil and as my plants have grown quite a bit since being final potted, it seemed timely to give a small amount, only 4 tbsp each.
Here's a cut n paste of what Gee64 posted on @Azimuth's SIPS thread on Calcium
Its more than a nutrient. In living soil its the main ingredient as it sets the colloidal charge to fill the colloidal plates with the proper ratio of all nutrients (aka organic chelation, but as nature designed it, not General Hydroponics, FoxFarms, etc..) so if its low, then your soil kitchen isn't able to properly load those plates and what does get loaded can and will get locked out as the charge isn't correct so nutrients stick to each other.
Different foods get locked out depending on how low it is.
PH is what allows cec to release the nutes from the plates. Different nutes swap out with hydrogen at different ph's and fall off the plate (become available, no longer locked out).
Thats why Cal-Mag is such a good rescue tool. It corrects the chelation and it also neutralizes magnesium back to its needed electrical state.
When calcium gets low in the soil the cal to mag ratio gets out of whack.
Magnesium starts to get electrically sticky and ties up other nutrients. It likes nitrogen the most so low cal in living soil usually shows as a nitro def 1st.
Calcium also, by using its double positive charge, which makes it your strongest electrolyte, sets the floculation of your soil.
Think of your soil particles as dinner plates stacked in the cupboard and held together by magnetism. Changing the charge with calcium changes that magnetism.
When you hold 2 magnets together they stick. Turn one around and they repel but spin around and stick by their own means.
When Calcium corrects the electricity in the soil structure it changes the polarities in the particles and every 2nd plate in the stack stands on edge forming I-beam structures in the soil particles that become hallways for air,water,microbes fungi... you get the picture.
<edit> I have just edited this to include a link to a post in @Gee64's journal, which has a great video link by Glen Rabenberg on soil health (which I am currently watching) --> here. Thanks Gee!
< further edit> My apologies for again tinkering with the post. I still haven't finished watching the above video, but Glen Ragenberg is talking about air in soil as being most important. As this current grow is using my home cobbled together 'root aeration chambers', this video is even more apt, makes me feel quite pleased, and plus my containers are all pretty heavily drilled too. Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I am really enjoying this video.
Pistils
Of the 3 plants, the Mulanje Sherbert is throwing out pistils the most but isn't yet at budset stage. The Mulanje HP is showing a number of pistils but fewer. But the Mulanje ME's pistils are harder to find, it was hot today, and I didn't want to risk messing around with my camera on the balcony and draw attention to my 'dodgy' gardening, so I just settled on finding an early preflower where the pistils had done their dash and died off. I think so far that the Mulanje ME has only thrown out a few early preflowers and she hasn't yet begun to produce them in earnest.
Pics of the plants
Looking ahead, I will carry out a pest deterrent spraying soon, and of course further supercropping will be in needed soon too. But anyway, that the scores on the doors today!
Cheers for dropping in. I hope you're all keeping well, and happy gardening!
A cracking show you’re putting on. That super cropping works a treat, amazing how resilient that delightful plant is. Well done
- Thread starter
- #320
I must have missed this.
Yes the ratio on it's own is too high, but the Fert mix I used included other non Mg but Ca amendments like oyster shell flour so the dolomite was only a part amount of a small amount of what I used. It was more the thought that the plants had been working/growing hard for 4 months and they perhaps could benefit from a little. I gave each plant about 1/3 tsp of Epsom salt dissolved, so a bit more Mg there but overall seems kinda small. The fert company I used has stopped trading, but some years ago I talked to the 'creator' of it about the various farmers whose results spoke for it and Gee's comments triggered me to thinking, a little could be good now. After all on previous grows I have top dressed with I think double the amount of the same. Much of it is rather coarse and all of it has fallen on the mulch layer so I don't really think that it will be big quick hit but more of a trickle down, if the rain comes and along with the little top watering that I do. But anyway, we'll see, hopefully all continues swingingly.
Hey thanks Zeb, glad you found your way out of the woodwork. I will have more of think on what I can do with supercropping, I have tried weights but the strong winds just cause them to ride up/down or off. Maybe scrog netting, but overall it's not a showstopper, you're right, they can be really resilient.Hey Stunger,
A cracking show you’re putting on. That super cropping works a treat, amazing how resilient that delightful plant is. Well done