:rofl:

How many of us do that? I slept probably 3 hours or less a night for two months straight.

That's a lot of journals to follow, are they all active grows?

lol Yes my journals are active.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who's losing sleep around here. lol
 
Emilya boy am I glad to have found you I have learned a lot from your journals I have done 5 grows 4 with some success but the last one was less than good I got ahold of some moisture controlled soil that I had never used before and ended up stunting the plants. I now feel confident I can blend a soil that will be suitable for cannabis but more importantly I will be able to read my plants needs better I am now in flower with the ones I stunted they are smaller but are producing some nice buds I have one plant that takes a gallon of water every other day but the rest are very sporadic at when they drink enough to warrant additional watering. I far that the root ball structure isn't adequate to use water on a periodic schedule as you suggest once in flower. My question is should I go ahead and water as they dry out or put them on a schedule?
 
Emilya boy am I glad to have found you I have learned a lot from your journals I have done 5 grows 4 with some success but the last one was less than good I got ahold of some moisture controlled soil that I had never used before and ended up stunting the plants. I now feel confident I can blend a soil that will be suitable for cannabis but more importantly I will be able to read my plants needs better I am now in flower with the ones I stunted they are smaller but are producing some nice buds I have one plant that takes a gallon of water every other day but the rest are very sporadic at when they drink enough to warrant additional watering. I far that the root ball structure isn't adequate to use water on a periodic schedule as you suggest once in flower. My question is should I go ahead and water as they dry out or put them on a schedule?
Glad I have been able to help Big; that makes me very happy. :) Yes, I have found that the roots you take into bloom are the roots you have developed before and up to the time stretch is over... after that, you got what you got. This is why I stress so hard proper watering in the veg cycle and the importance of successive up-potting, letting the roots tell you when it is time to move up.
It sounds like your plant taking all the water is doing very well, and that of course is your indicator of a healthy plant with a well developed root system, it's ability to take up massive amounts of water. Her roots developed to the point that you could get her on that every other day schedule, and that is exactly my goal in my garden. The one that can't manage this accelerated flowering schedule is only going to do what she can do, but she too has a schedule that she has set for herself... so don't force your own schedule on her. Just water her when she gets mostly dry, just like your bigger plant is doing, just faster. If you used the lift method on your fast plant you will see that she is using most of that water in those two days... so let the slow one do the same thing... she is just going to be on a longer schedule. Same pots, same amount of soil, same amount of water... just less roots to be able to deal with all that water each time... She never got to the point where she was able to reach the 2 or 3 day wet/dry cycle, but no sweat, she can still perform well at whatever her schedule in that container is; you just need to find her rhythm and carefully adjust your watering to the two different needs of your plants. You say the small one is sporadic, but I doubt that is the case. If you carefully let her dry out the soil at her own pace, using the lift method or the wilt method, you will find her wet/dry period. Once you do, let her do what she will with it. Over time she might be able to shorten it up a bit, but now her goal is to build buds, rootbuilding is done. Buds is what she will concentrate on once you let her have her natural cycle with the soil without interference by watering inbetween. She wont be as massive as the other plant, but if you get out of her way and let her make the decisions about watering, she will do the best she can do.
 
I get it, thanks for taking the time to explain it to me. For this grow I will continue to water by the lift or wilt signs. For the big girl I will have to water every other day as she is sucking all the water I give her up in two days
IMG_2307_copy.jpg
as you can see from her size she is a big girl for growing in a #5 air pot. The picture is just of the top half of her I can't get far enough away to get all of her in the picture

Thank you soo much!
 
I would bet that she is on a 3-4 day schedule, which isnt bad... it just isnt every other day. Try to judge with the lift method to get her to the same point that the big one is doing every 2 days... it isnt quite dry, and not quite to the wilt stage, but you really don't want to get to that point while in flower. That was the game in veg, to entice new roots to grow... now your goal is to feed your plants everything they will take, and to not ever really let them dry out all the way any more... that causes stress, and you want no worries to get in the way of 100% focus on building buds.
 
Hi Emilya, I have a question I've been wondering lately, I hope you could answer. I apologize if it's been asked before. I've been watering my girls everyday maybe within an hour of the lights coming on. Is this an appropriate time of day? Is it better right before lights out? Or does it even matter as long as you keep a schedule? Thanks :)
 
Hi Emilya, I have a question I've been wondering lately, I hope you could answer. I apologize if it's been asked before. I've been watering my girls everyday maybe within an hour of the lights coming on. Is this an appropriate time of day? Is it better right before lights out? Or does it even matter as long as you keep a schedule? Thanks :)
First thing in the morning is the best time, however they will deal with water whenever they get it, just as in nature. In the mornings though, they have just woken up and are pointing their leaves toward the light and are in full transpiration mode. If you water then, part of that water, almost 10%, can be immediately sucked up into the plant while you are watering. Saturate the soil at this point, and you have given them the most water (and nutes) that can possibly be given.
 
The Proper Way to Water a Potted Plant
Also covered: the importance of pH and why we successively up-pot


How to Water
Over the last several years I have put a lot of study into this, and I feel that I can now define the proper way to water a potted plant. Keep in mind that this discussion applies to at least 3 gallon containers and bigger. Please realize that this special plant of ours does not grow like anything else you have ever tried to grow, and no matter how good you are at growing peas, beans and tomatoes, you will have to change your methods to grow a weed.


The first rule of watering is to always water slowly, using no more than a quart at a time, pausing often to let the soil suck air in behind the water as it pools on the top. For me, that involves a routine of watering each of my plants with 1 quart, then taking a nice relaxing drink of whatever beverage I have brought with me to the tent. Then I take a deep breath, making sure to exhale deeply onto this plant, letting her know that I love her. After this, I take a nice big hit off of the pipe that also followed me into the tent, and then after a nice pause and maybe another drink, I go back to plant #1 and repeat the cycle. For 2 rounds, I water the entire surface of the soil, watching it pool up and get sucked down.


After this initial wetting of the top, my watering method changes a bit. Now, I want to do whatever I can to make the outside edges of the container, the wettest areas. Still only using a quart at a time, I now carefully water only there, all around the plant, only on the edges. While doing this, I slow down a bit so that the water doesn't pool as much in the center, always concentrating on the edges. The center will end up getting some too, and that's fine, but the wettest areas of the pot will be on the outside edges and you will be driving nutrient rich soil into the dense original root ball. Continue this, again going slow, maybe with a deep breath in the middle of it, and then continue all around, taking drinks, deep breaths and hits in between each round. Continue until you see the first signs of runoff, and then stop.


Look carefully at the surface of your container now. You will clearly see where the root ball is from your last transplant, because it will now be sticking up just a little bit above the original outer rim. Very fine soil has been driven through the original root ball with the flow of water and soil from the outer edges. This micro fine soil is very rich with nutrients because of its mobility. When you water from the outside edges, you force this micro fine sludge into the dense root ball, where it can do the most good. Once you establish this flow pattern in the container, you can be assured of totally replacing the micro soil in the center of the root ball with new soil, every time you water. Watering in the normal way does not create his circular flow, and root growth cannot be nearly as aggressive.
soil_with_arrow_640_1_.png

Lastly, take one last quart of water, and water very very slowly, just in the raised area where the original root ball is. As you do so, watch what happens at the outer edge of the original root ball.

You will see the very finest soil, almost a mud, migrating out of the old root ball, and into the middle! This completes the process of soil exchange in the container. In this manner, all the roots get to take advantage of the nutrients in the soil, and the roots follow the migration of the nutrient rich soil, toward the outer edges, creating lateral growth. I strive to actively drive the soil out of the middle, making room for the roots to grow more dense and bigger there, and as they do, the lateral growth also has to increase. Using this method, I have seen a steady increase in the amount of water needed to get to run off throughout the grow and by the end, plants watered in this way use approximately 30% more water than is seen using standard watering techniques. Watering in the manner I have described allows for a constant circular flow of soil throughout the container and will create an extremely dense root ball.
proper_potted_plant_number_2.jpg



Now it is time for a truism. It is best to water the roots, not the plant. A healthy and robust root system means a happy and productive plant. Neglect the roots and your plants can die, and certainly will be less than they could have been.

When do we water?
By far, one of the most common plant problems that I see with new gardeners is a lack of understanding as to when to water. New people get it set in their mind that watering every day or every other day is best, or that somehow, mysteriously, they know in their own human minds exactly how much water the plants need. These well-meaning new gardeners will determine that they will give exactly one quart or some other random amount, each time, no more... and no less, and really believe that they are doing a good thing for their plants, making these decisions for them.
Just as bad as these over-thinkers are the tomato gardeners, the "stick your finger in the ground" crowd, who proclaim: it's time to water when it is dry below the second knuckle. What they fail to realize is that when the top 2 inches is dry, the lower half of the container could still be saturated with water. Both of these common mistakes in watering methods are quick ways to drown your plants. These methods are not correct for growing weeds, and using them can actually kill your plants.


Marijuana is a weed, and the main thing that this scientific term refers to, is a class of plant that thrives in adversity. In order to grow it well, you need to understand that this incredibly robust plant works differently than other, less hardy plants. It is an extremely aggressive grower if you allow it to be, and to grow prize winning pot, you need to use its abilities to send out new roots to your advantage.


Watering incorrectly is the most common mistake that new weed farmers make. This plant needs a clear wet/dry cycle in order to thrive. If you keep it moist, you will kill it. The roots will aggressively chase your water, whatever you give them. If you just give a small amount every couple of days, that water will drop right to the bottom of the container. Your roots will follow, and will cluster on the bottom, instead of growing laterally throughout the container, and since they continually sit in the nutrient rich water, the plant sees little need to grow additional roots. How you water makes a huge difference in the formation of the root ball, and how this development happens is up to you.


There are many ways to tell when it is time to water, and if you wait long enough the girls will actually tell you that they are thirsty. They do two things when they see that they need water, they throw out a smell, and they begin to wilt, starting at the bottom, moving up. You can also use the lift method to tell when the container is dry, and almost always you will "feel" a dry container, before the above mentioned wilt and fragrance pump happens. Rusty Trichome taught me an important lesson; every time I think that I need to do something to my plants, I wait a bit... and I try to move at the speed that my plants are moving. "Patience, above all else." --Rusty


If you have a moisture meter you can also use it to find where the wet/dry (water table) line is in your container, and you can watch that wet/dry line move down over time. I used to graph my water table level by day, so that I could project ahead when the wet dry line would reach the last inch of container. Your wet/dry line will never go lower than that last inch or so, because once you get down in there, you are in all the big tap roots and mass at the bottom, and it tends to stay wet there longer because of capillary effect. Again, if you wait for the first sign of wilt and that perfume pump that happens at "water me" point, it will usually be just a bit longer than your measurements would indicate. Once the water table line is anywhere in that bottom inch is ok to water. You have dried out 95% of the water by that time and the roots have been chasing it as the wet/dry line progresses both downward and outward. The suction caused by the diaphragm that is the water table, will have pulled oxygen down deep into the container, and filled any voids. The roots will be happy.


Why do we up-pot?
The art of successive up-potting is important in growing a healthy root system. People like to be lazy. I am constantly seeing new gardeners take a little sprig of a weed and put it in a big 3 or 5 gallon container, thinking that they have done a good thing, and are now done with it... it's on to harvest time! The problem is, this doesn't work, because it gives you zero control over developing the roots, and without crazy watering techniques, almost no chance of a solid root ball forming. It is imperative to successively up pot your plants through stages so that the root system can roughly take on the same size and shape as the plant in order to get the maximum productivity. The roots grow aggressively in these weeds, and if you confine them to a container the size of the plant, they will fill that space in a short time with a dense root system. Putting a plant in an oversized container can and often does, result in all the roots going to the bottom, drowning the plant, root rot and overall poor health because of a lack of a root ball, and certainly less than optimum harvests. It is important to force these weeds into producing a root ball at various stages, to give the plant the ability later on to take in the massive amounts of nutrients needed to produce lots of quality buds.
The plants in the smaller containers can also more directly show you when they are thriving or more importantly when they are not. A strong healthy plant will eventually outgrow its container and an observant gardener is carefully watching the length of time between wet/dry cycles, and directly relating shorter cycles with more robust roots. A smaller container also gives the gardener the ability to see when the moment arrives that the amount of soil the plant is in is no longer large enough for the plant's abilities to be happy in it, because it will be obvious when the plant can drain the water that soil is able to hold, in less than 24 hours. Your soil and your container at that point have ceased at that point to be a good enough buffer, and it is time to double the space the roots have to work with. Let your plant show you when that time is, and try not to make decisions for her.


Why is pH important?
Some people claim that pH is not important, and if you are a pure organic gardener, never applying chlorinated water or salt based synthetic nutrients at your plants, pH indeed is not important. For the 99.9% rest of the world, a very important lesson for the new gardener to learn is the importance of pH. There is a scientific reason why a proper pH allows the plants to use synthetic nutrients, and why being outside of the proper range can cause deficiencies. If you want to grow pot using chemicals, you need to invest in a method to test the pH of any water going into the plant, whether it is plain water or water mixed with nutrients, and whether it is applied to the roots or sprayed on the leaves. If you neglect the pH, you can easily create deficiencies in your plants, and if left unchecked, you can even kill them. If you spend a lot of money on nutrients, it makes sense that you would want to also create the proper environment so that the plant can use these nutrients, but with a pH way out of the 6.3-6.8 range in soil, a lot of those expensive nutrients will just sit there, not doing the plant any good. If you are in a soilless mix, pH in the range of 5.5-6.1 is necessary. It is only within these ranges that all the nutrients are mobile, are able to be broken free of their salt bonds and be in the form that can go into the plants. Most soils and systems are designed so that you can apply liquids at a lower pH and then the soil or the soilless mix causes a drift, so that the pH can visit each spot in the usable pH range for that medium, and all of the 17 needed nutrients will be picked up, each in its turn.


I hope that this study on containers, watering and pH helps someone who reads it. This paper was a result of having to explain these same concepts over and over and over again to new growers at they hit the forums, until finally I put all these thoughts together into this paper. Some of the thoughts previously given have also been refined for this publication, as questions were asked and answered the last time I posted it, and I have learned better ways of explaining my thoughts. Here, I give you, approximately draft 10 of this paper.


Be well everyone and blessings from my garden to yours,
Sense Emilya
Hey Ms. Emilya,
Is this 1 quart of water per watering cycle or do I slowly water with 1 quart then continue with another quart? I'm trying to get an understanding on how to do this method. It could just be my ignorance, the reason I'm not getting it, or I'm trying to hard. Plz help me back use when I went to check on the girls this morning one of them were pointing in the roots direction.
420-magazine-mobile996050058.jpg


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Hey Ms. Emilya,
Is this 1 quart of water per watering cycle or do I slowly water with 1 quart then continue with another quart? I'm trying to get an understanding on how to do this method. It could just be my ignorance, the reason I'm not getting it, or I'm trying to hard. Plz help me back use when I went to check on the girls this morning one of them were pointing in the roots direction.
The 1 quart suggestion was in a 3-5 gallon container... in your little container filled half way with soil (always fill up to 1/2 inch from the top of the rim), you should use much less each time, maybe 1 cup. Then continue adding one cup at a time, every 5 minutes or so, until the soil soaks up as much water as it can hold, treating it like a sponge.

Due to the lack of lower growth on your plant, I suspect that you have been having a problem with watering too often.


After properly watering, then you need to wait. This is what I suspect that you do not do. You need to wait until the plant has used ALL of that water. Not just part of it. Not just until it looks dry on the top or feels dry when you stick your finger in the soil, but you need to wait until ALL of the water is gone, all the way to the bottom of the container. You will feel like you are torturing your plant, but until that container is so dry that you can not feel any water weight at all, you should not water again. It may take a week, but you must wait. Somehow you must figure out how to determine that all of the water is gone, whether that be by weighing the container with a scale or your arms, or sticking a probe or a stick down to the bottom to see if it is wet down there, or simply waiting for the plant to start wilting at the bottom (oh, you dont have bottom leaves any more), before you water again.


What I am describing here is not a visual thing, it is a subjective judgement you need to make. Most of us use the lift method and once you get used to how the plant weight feels when it is dry, it is easy to determine when you get to that point. Even if you cant physically lift the planter up later when it gets bigger, you can still lift up a corner or even shove it along the floor to get an idea of its weight.


You must do this however. Thinking you are being kind by keeping your plant moist, is killing her. This is a weed, not a tomato plant. The rules are different here. With a weed, you have to be cruel to be kind.


Good luck! Hope this helped.
Emmie
 
The 1 quart suggestion was in a 3-5 gallon container... in your little container filled half way with soil (always fill up to 1/2 inch from the top of the rim), you should use much less each time, maybe 1 cup. Then continue adding one cup at a time, every 5 minutes or so, until the soil soaks up as much water as it can hold, treating it like a sponge.

Due to the lack of lower growth on your plant, I suspect that you have been having a problem with watering too often.


After properly watering, then you need to wait. This is what I suspect that you do not do. You need to wait until the plant has used ALL of that water. Not just part of it. Not just until it looks dry on the top or feels dry when you stick your finger in the soil, but you need to wait until ALL of the water is gone, all the way to the bottom of the container. You will feel like you are torturing your plant, but until that container is so dry that you can not feel any water weight at all, you should not water again. It may take a week, but you must wait. Somehow you must figure out how to determine that all of the water is gone, whether that be by weighing the container with a scale or your arms, or sticking a probe or a stick down to the bottom to see if it is wet down there, or simply waiting for the plant to start wilting at the bottom (oh, you dont have bottom leaves any more), before you water again.


What I am describing here is not a visual thing, it is a subjective judgement you need to make. Most of us use the lift method and once you get used to how the plant weight feels when it is dry, it is easy to determine when you get to that point. Even if you cant physically lift the planter up later when it gets bigger, you can still lift up a corner or even shove it along the floor to get an idea of its weight.


You must do this however. Thinking you are being kind by keeping your plant moist, is killing her. This is a weed, not a tomato plant. The rules are different here. With a weed, you have to be cruel to be kind.


Good luck! Hope this helped.
Emmie
Oh my gosh. I think I'm getting it. I will be following your instructions my next watering. I'm sure my ladies will be doing better.
Thank you so much.

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Oh my gosh. I think I'm getting it. I will be following your instructions my next watering. I'm sure my ladies will be doing better.
Thank you so much.

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Hey Emilya,
I apologize for all the questions and I appreciate your help immensely. Do you think it would be a good idea to fill my pots with soil now, about a half inch from the rim like you suggested or should I just leave them alone?
Again, thank you.
Your awesome!
The 1 quart suggestion was in a 3-5 gallon container... in your little container filled half way with soil (always fill up to 1/2 inch from the top of the rim), you should use much less each time, maybe 1 cup. Then continue adding one cup at a time, every 5 minutes or so, until the soil soaks up as much water as it can hold, treating it like a sponge.

Due to the lack of lower growth on your plant, I suspect that you have been having a problem with watering too often.


After properly watering, then you need to wait. This is what I suspect that you do not do. You need to wait until the plant has used ALL of that water. Not just part of it. Not just until it looks dry on the top or feels dry when you stick your finger in the soil, but you need to wait until ALL of the water is gone, all the way to the bottom of the container. You will feel like you are torturing your plant, but until that container is so dry that you can not feel any water weight at all, you should not water again. It may take a week, but you must wait. Somehow you must figure out how to determine that all of the water is gone, whether that be by weighing the container with a scale or your arms, or sticking a probe or a stick down to the bottom to see if it is wet down there, or simply waiting for the plant to start wilting at the bottom (oh, you dont have bottom leaves any more), before you water again.


What I am describing here is not a visual thing, it is a subjective judgement you need to make. Most of us use the lift method and once you get used to how the plant weight feels when it is dry, it is easy to determine when you get to that point. Even if you cant physically lift the planter up later when it gets bigger, you can still lift up a corner or even shove it along the floor to get an idea of its weight.


You must do this however. Thinking you are being kind by keeping your plant moist, is killing her. This is a weed, not a tomato plant. The rules are different here. With a weed, you have to be cruel to be kind.


Good luck! Hope this helped.
Emmie


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Hey Emilya,
I apologize for all the questions and I appreciate your help immensely. Do you think it would be a good idea to fill my pots with soil now, about a half inch from the rim like you suggested or should I just leave them alone?
Again, thank you.
Your awesome!
it wouldnt do much good up there at this point, but what you could do that would be very helpful is to lift her up out of there and back fill some soil in below her to raise her up. She will then grow into that "new" soil.
 
it wouldnt do much good up there at this point, but what you could do that would be very helpful is to lift her up out of there and back fill some soil in below her to raise her up. She will then grow into that "new" soil.
You mean, kinda like transplanting, just not putting into another pot. How would I lift her up to put in new soil? What technique would you do to put in the new soil?

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if you squeeze that container a bit from several directions, you will loosen up the soil around the edges. Then simply support her between two fingers with your hand supporting the top of the soil, and turn her upside down. She should slip right out of there and you will be holding her firmly upside down. Dump some soil in the bottom of the container and set her on top of it, and then backfill around the sides and a bit of the top. If you do this right, you will end up with about an inch of new soil on top, and several on the bottom, and a bit on the sides too.
 
I wrote an addendum some time ago talking about the changes in watering habits that must be made upon going into flower, as compared to the carefully described method of watering a plant in veg, where we wait until the plant has used ALL of the water before we water again. This clearly defined wet/dry cycle is exactly what we need to do in veg so as to tease out more roots to grow, but in flower, the rules change.

Unfortunately, some people have missed my advice early this year, and to my chagrin are faithfully following my recommendations on how to water in veg, clear through the grow. While this will work, and indeed is how I used to grow our plant, it is not optimal. Therefore, just to catch the attention of those who missed it, I am repeating my advice to water differently in flower than you did in veg. As Shiggityflip put it, in veg you build the roots, in flower you use those roots.

In flower if you force the plant to wait till the container is completely dry, since the plant is no longer concentrating on building roots... you are simply stunting your buds. This is a weed, and she can take this abuse... but this is not the optimum method to use in order to grow prize winning buds.

I realized about a year ago that I was all wrong thinking that one watering method worked the best all throughout the growing cycle, so when it came to watering in flower I recommended some new methods to use immediately after the stretch is done in the first couple of weeks of flower. It turns out with experimentation, I proved to myself that to produce massive buds you have to do a mind flip as you begin flower, and you must begin to water a bit differently.

My new way of looking at watering the roots is this... In veg, you tease out the water and force new roots to grow by forcing a clear wet/dry cycle, and letting the plant go almost to the point of wilt before watering again. In flower, it is time to USE those roots that you managed to tease out, and the game changes from being stingy with the water, to seeing just how very much water and nutes you can get the plant to suck up... attempting to NEVER let them dry out all the way again. You won't kill your plant by making it go through the entire wet/dry cycle in flower, but as you might have noticed, the size of buds on a plant that is simply surviving can hardly be compared to the buds you get on a plant that is thriving.


These adaptable weeds will manage to survive no matter how we treat them, and the "waiting to water until totally dry" method works... but in flower it is certainly not optimal. If you have done veg correctly, your roots are healthy and robust and ready to go to work... and as long as you use your head, you can teach them to work as hard as they are capable.


I have found that given a good healthy set of roots going into flower, it is possible to train the plants to get to an every other day watering cycle, if not every day. These plants can be trained to suck up huge amounts of water, as long as you are consistent in how often you provide this water, and you can quickly get a large healthy vegging plant on a 3 day wet/dry cycle to adapt at first to an every two day cycle and then as you see them using more and more water, an every other day cycle. Once solidly in flower, these plants are growing mass like never before, and they can and will use all the water you can give them, if you allow them to slowly build up to that point.

With careful measured watering to runoff each time, you will be able to notice when it takes more water to get to runoff, and when it seems logical because they are drying out more between waterings and now can hold more, to shave off another day and water them a day earlier. If they would ever get to a point where water use slows down, then back off a bit... but if you are doing things right this won't happen. Once used to the new cycle and the extra water, they will keep needing that water on a regular basis, even though you know good and well they haven't dried out all the way to the bottom. As long as your flowering plants can take the water and use it, give it to them. They should be attempting to use more water all the time... if not, slow down a little and let them catch up. One trick to get them over to a faster schedule is to just give them a half watering one time... and let them use up that smaller amount of water in the shorter time. The trick is to force them to the schedule, using slightly less water to force them to catch up to the schedule you are suggesting to them. While you are setting the new schedule, don't be too concerned that it takes less water to get to runoff for a week or so... if you are watching closely, you will see them adjust quickly and then even in the shorter schedule, start using lots more water... typically twice the water/nutes you were able to get them to take in veg.


Stop scrimping on nutes too. Once bud set occurs, your plants need a lot of nutes. Those recommendations you hear of giving 1/2 or 1/4 doses... that is for seedlings and new clones... but healthy growing budding plants... you need to load them up with whatever your nute manufacturer recommends. If you are using synthetic nutes, go every other time, knowing that leftovers are still in your container from the last feeding and that plain water activates them for a second round. Also know that you need to flush often when using synthetic nutes... at least every couple of weeks in a normal heavy feeding situation. Again, the rule in flower is if they can take it, give it to them.


This by the way is one of the huge differences between organic and synthetic gardening... My advantage in an organic garden is that I can add fresh organic nutrients every single time without building up salts in my soil or having the need to flush. All the nutes stay in my soil, until they are used up.


If you change your watering method in flower to watering way more often at a regular schedule, and attempting to get to at least an every other day schedule, you will also be fertilizing way more often. More in... more out... and you should expect the size of your harvests to significantly increase, just with this one very significant mind flip on watering.


Em
 
Upon further reflection tonight (under the influence of course), the following thoughts ran through my wide open brain. Please feel free to comment as you may wish.

Tonight I had somewhat of an epiphany, and I realized what I had just explained to myself up above, earlier today. You know how they say that hydro is more efficient than soil, and how you can get better and faster production out of hydro vs soil? There is a reason for that of course, and it is because you control what goes in, and you make sure that a lot goes in, constantly.

What I realized tonight is that a hydro system, by its very nature, trains our super survivors to work within that hydro system. The plants learn to adapt to full on nutes, at whatever cycle the system applies them to the roots. Hydro is not natural, not at all... but the plants ADAPT to what the gardener and his/her system tells them to do.

Enter the master gardener, who understands that his/her plants in soil can also be trained to act in this way, even though in a living soil. Even with the wonderful buffer that is a container of soil, a growing system that affords us the flexibility of being able to have a wet/dry cycle to use in the vegetative cycle, and flexible enough that we can switch up in flower and run the soil in the same way that we would use a water-every-day coco hydro system, but with the advantages of being a true living soil.

All it takes to do this is training your plants to be on a 1 day cycle. They can do it. They just need to know that this outrageous schedule is the lot in life they have been given. They will adapt to life as it is given to them, and if it rains every day... they adapt to those conditions as super survivors have to do.

The trick is to train them to this cycle, without overwatering. It is hard to do. You have to be able to read your plants, and that means knowing how much water they take in relation to the last time you watered. You have to understand how much water they need per given container, per watering, per day... and know when they want more or less. If you can do this, you can train your plants to whatever schedule you wish by only giving them one day's worth, or a half day's of water while adjusting their schedules. For some gardeners who don't want to be slaves to their garden, watering every day without an automatic system is too much work, as is figuring out exactly what your plants are using each day. Soil provides a wonderful buffer for those sorts of gardeners too, and you simply need to train your plants to expect watering every 3 days, or every 5 days. They can handle it, and they will adjust to you... and your yield will adjust accordingly.

Blessings everyone,
Emmie
 
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