Hi all! Well, a new year has come and I finally decided to get into no-till gardening. I had some good success with my 2nd grow in 5G and 7G pots. This time I went with 2 15Gs and new soil batch using castings for humus. I have Punch Pie clones in them that were transplanted from 1L pots at 6 weeks old. Pic taken Jan. 6: Jan. 25 Feb. 2 Feb. 15 after a light trimming: Everything seems to be looking good so far. Haven't suffered from any issues other than my 10 thumb clumsiness. I have fed them once with molasses at 1T per gallon otherwise it's just straight de-chlorinated water. I do have white dutch clover growing under those leaves and I've also introduced wigglers in there. It may have been too early to do so. I think the soil was a little too hot for them. Time will tell. I did start a worm bin and I noticed that the worms would really wiggle about as if they were in contact with an irritant. More research is required I guess. As usual, any suggestions will be appreciated. Cheers.
Well, after all was said and done, the Punch Pie hermied on me. Whether it was due to my ghetto closet setup or due to bag seeds which came from a feminized plant, it's hard to tell now that they are up in smoke. I wasn't really too concerned as my goal was to cycle the soil and see if I could proceed with the no-till concept. I germinated a Grand Daddy Purple and Afghani then transplanted directly. The GDP damped off while the Afghani took a while to get its roots going. Afghani May 5, germinated then straight into the 15G. I did top dress with neem meal, karanja meal and malted barley then watered with neem tea. Afghani May 20, finally got its roots going: Afghani currently, using crushed eggshells to try and ward off gnats: Aside from the gnats and poor watering practices, I am pleased with the soilmix. The PP never did show any deficiencies although I noticed a slight nitrogen toxicity but not enough to burn them. Time will tell with this cycle. That stump in the first picture (at 1:00) was another PP that suffered from my dropping my reflector on the plant and would have been the same size as this White Widow in May 5: White Widow flipped May 22 after a 10 week veg period: Overall, I am pleased with the progress and happy to have learned from my errors. Aside from poor watering practices, my biggest mistake was in using hard pots instead of fabric. I did rectify that by drilling more holes at the bottoms. I may need bigger holes though. I am trying to germinate another Grand Daddy Purple and hope for a male. I need to make some seeds for more practice. I re-amended the soil that the first GDP was in with some neem & karanja cake meal, gypsum and malted barley sprouts. Fun stuff! Cheers.