do-nothing garden

Oh shit that's funny thanks man!

I've been following the videos from this dude:

It's been a lot of fun and rewarding to learn. If you or anyone is interested in doing something similar I'm happy to help!

 

Oh man those sound delicious! Cannabis-infused treats like that are dangerous for me. If I make cookies or brownies or whatever I can never resist eating more than necessary and I'll end up knocked out on the couch lol.

Thanks Mainah! Oh man, the Ag robots are getting pretty crazy. Even in the cannabis industry we're seeing more and more automation--especially on the packaging and processing side of things.

I do think that robotics could actually be one potential path toward scalable regenerative agriculture. I can imagine a future where ai-driven machinery is able to manage really complex poly culture fields on massive scales. Sharing information across farms could lead to more efficient crop planning, reducing waste, improving disease forecasting, conserving natural resources, preserving diverse habitats etc. etc.

But then I also dislike the idea of dehumanizing food production. Idk but it seems like the AI future is inevitable at this point.

Thanks Deez! Feels so good to consume my own herbs again. I sure won't miss making that monthly trip to the dispensary lol.

Man, getting the grow set up with all this new shit has been a lot of fun. Now I think a good CO2 sensor would be the cherry on top.

Hope you're doing well man. I'm always jelly of you desert dwellers this time of year haha.

 

Sup, Growmies

Hope you're all doing well and get to spend some time with your families this holiday, be it in person or virtual or whatever your flavor.

The Sour Stomper is a little over a week into flowering, now. It's my little Charlie Brown Christmas tree lol.

Here is what she looked like last week (day 28):



And here she is today (day 35):



That is a 10-gallon smart pot for scale. Pretty tiny plant, I don't expect to pull more than an ounce or so. Not the biggest plant I've grown but it looks like the quality is there. The bud sites are already covered in fragrant trichomes. I've smoked some of @Patanjali 's homegrown GrapeStomper OG a few years ago, and it was awesome from what I remember, so I'm pretty excited to watch these flowers develop! (I seem to remember my GF hoarding those buds lol).



This is not the happiest looking plant I've grown, either. There are chlorotic leaves and the plant just generally is looking kinda 'meh'. I think it's probably a combination of the soil biology not really cranking and some inconsistent watering on my part.



I grabbed about 2L of compost from my garage storage/curing bin and mixed in some kelp meal, dried comfrey, and malted barley. I wet it up a bit and now I'm letting this stew at room temp for a couple of days, then I plan to topdress with it the next time I water. Maybe it will help. At the very least it should add some biology, there is a lot more visible macrofauna activity in this material than the soil the plant is currently in.



Right now I am using some soil that I bought from BAS, to which I have added some coco coir to dilute it a bit and counter some of the peat's hydrophobicity. I'm gathering materials now to mix up a fresh batch of soil with my homemade compost. Once I get that done, I want to send some in for soil testing, just for shits n grins. I also bought a pH meter and an EC meter so I can do a little testing of my own at home.

 

Another little side project I have been working on... I added some Phosphor Coated Red and 4000K White LED Buddies to provide some nice diffused side lighting in the tent. So far I have just rigged up the PC Red buddies. I need to get another stick of 3/4" PVC for the 4000K whites.





The buddies have 3M foam tape stuck to the back, so I designed these little 3D printed clips to mount them on the 3/4" PVC sticks that I set up last round.





The buddies are powered by a 24 VDC power supply and controlled by an esp8266 wifi-enabled microcontroller with a few relays. I brought this into Home Assistant using the esphome add-on. This was super easy and required zero coding. I'm using a voltage regulator to step the 24V down to 5V to power the esp8266, so it just uses one AC wall plug.







I soldered about 1.5m of 18AWG 2-conductor cable to the ends of the LED strings so I can keep the relays in an enclosure outside of the tent. Waterproofed the solder joints with adhesive-lined heatshrink. The voltage drop across the string is pretty negligible, less than 0.5V.





I put it in this cheapo plastic box that I already had on hand. Simple, cheap, and effective! And I have two free relays that I could use for something else...maybe a water pump for automated irrigation?

 

Thanks dude! I know you're interested in the soil moisture sensor tech, so I'll try to cover those in some more detail at some point.

Man, that's awesome that you have been able to hold onto her for so long! One of these days I'll upgrade the grow and keep a nice stable of cuttings. May be sooner rather than later if I can't grow decent autos lol.

Yeah let's do it, I'm not really working this week so I can make some free time whenever you're available

 

Thanks dude, Happy New Year to you, too!

I started my first successful grow 6 years ago today. Bit of a growaversary haha

 

Hiya TimJ thanks for coming thru. Great to see some familiar faces still holding it down on GCO. Hope all is well with you!

'Sup GTG! Great to see you buddy, hope you've been well.