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Thanks Sweetsue, sweet you .
Ok so this is with perlite, would the same apply for mixing the Osmo+ with soil do you think?
With perlite the osmo pellets can more easily slip through and congregate together, creating too much concentration, but soil you wouldn't have to be as careful about placement. However, if I were growing in soil I'd use either an organic system like Doc's or a really good nutrient line like the RX Green Solutions I use or the Remo line, which are getting incredible results for everyone using them. I love that I don't need to pH adjust with the RX line. The difference that makes......
And, you used to always mention soaking your seeds in coconut water or aloe Vera juice. You don't seem to mention that anymore. Have you stopped doing it, or have you just stopped mentioning it?.
I stopped doing that. I soak them for 12 hours in distilled or RO water and then plant.
I've had a blast reading back over your journals, including all the tangents that sent me on to other folks' journals. I'm still amazed that you're now using bottled nutes - your passion about growing in the soil is still fresh with me as I've only just read it all this last week (your first 2grow journals in a week - phew!). I haven't actually covered the parts of your journals where that last transition to perlite and bottles happens yet! What happened?? . is it just the case that, as with the highbrix kit, you tried it and found it superior? Do you still feel that the grow process is organic?
Tead tempted me beyond endurance and I had to try hempy, which sent me into the world of bottled nutrients. I hear all this yammering about how superior the product is with organic, and in my garden that hasn't played out the way I'd expected. The first plant I grew with bottles was a Carnival that ended up with dense buds and nuanced flavors that caught me by surprise. She definately rivaled all of my soil attempts at Carnival.
So I tried again and got more comfortable with bottled nutrients. The osmo experiment was just that, an experiment to see if it could rival the bottles. In the meantime I won Member Of The Year, which brought me the RX Green Solutions nutrients, the use of which blew right past the soil plants in health and vigor, and I won't be using osmo anymore. Now I'm eyeing the soil with a thought to eventually phase it out and stay with hempy from now on.
Hempy is easier to manage than soil in almost every way. No need for huge bins of stored soil. No need to mix soil in the living room. No back-breaking hauling around gallons and gallons of soil, or working to make more room in limited floor space. In the end though, it'll come down to quality of harvest. I haven't taken one grown in the RX line to harvest yet. Carnival 4.1 will be the first to do so, and she's the strongest and healthiest Carnival I've taken to harvest.
Lots of questions I know, but this fascinates me! I would be the same as how you started out... a soil woman too in awe of the plants to disrespect them by doing something like trimming fan leaves etc .. But now I see you're not at all squeamish about all of that!! I may be making those transitions vicariously through your experience. can you help me see the light!!?
I love questions.When I trim or train I remember that in the wild critters would be chewing away at the plants. In response to that continuious abuse the plant produces essential oils to fend off attacks - oils at the lower reaches manufactured to make the leaves unattractive to grazers and super stickiness on the buds to trap insects that might otherwise make the plant a meal.
So when you manhandle or trim you cause the plant to react in a way that it interprets as a means of self-preservation. The same thing applies to watering, incidentally. Plants in the outdoors that get parched on a regular basis in flower will be more potent than those that always have enough.
I had difficulty with what seemed like abuse, but over the years I've noticed that the abused ones produce oils that are more potent and therapeutically valuable, so I let myself pretend that I'm a grazer, or a wicked thunderstorm and I make a nick there, a snap over there. It's hard the first couple times and then you get more free with it.
It's like watering. I used to take such time with watering. Then I thought about that "let them get parched" statement and started not getting too involved with the method. Where I used to spray careful to run off, now I have the pots sitting in a tray, and I pour half the gallon of water unto the tray and the other half over the surface, and I'm none too gentle about pouring it on. I splash it quite vigoriously and get the whole process over in less than five minutes. It used to take me up to half an hour to gently spray. The plants are actually happier with my casual approach.
I also notice you don't do the back building technique on the buds anymore- is that right? Any particular reason for that? (See, I've learnt a lot as I've been reading ..)
Backbuilding buds is done to improve bag appeal. It does nothing to increase yield, just redistributes growth. I don't care about bag appeal. Too much work for a lazy gardener.
Hahaha! Sounded just like Tead there.
I don't know how you keep up with that many plants on rotation! Kudos! (Can't access the 420 emojis on my phone, dang it! And don't remember the codes yet...). You must have one hell of a spreadsheet going on somewhere ...
I have a calander that gets daily generalized notations,
and individual flow sheets that get more detailed notations.
It's a lot to keep up with, for sure, and every once in a while I make a critical mistake. Thankfully I have cosmic forces that watch over me, and everything always works out for me.
Thanks sue
.Amy (not Julie - dunno where that came from! No probs of course - just clearing it up for the future .).
My apologies. I believe we had a news moderator named Julie Gardener at one time. My brain confused the names. Won't happen again.
Ahhh...... the ECS, that passion CajunCelt infected me with.
When I say raw I mean freshly harvested. Most people juice the buds. There's actually a decent plan for planting a seed a day in a solo cup, running them 12/12 from germination to harvest (I'd go 11/13), and harvesting enough every day to juice 1/2 ounce of bud daily. This would be enough to stave off and potentially heal any disease you might be treating or attempting to avoid. One of these days I'll figure out how to make it work.
I might be able to pull it off on the shelves, with the proper lighting setup. A therapy with no risk of euphoria at all. Think of the implications. Think of the patients that could potentially benefit from such an approach.
