Fellow Blades, Although this is my third grow, this is my first grow journal. I've debated over whether or not to create a journal, but I think that the value of your help and input is worth the time involved in maintaining a journal. If this experience meets my expectations, I may maintain this journal for future grows, and I hope that my lessons learned will help other blades in the future. My indoor setup: - One 2' x 4' tent (primary) - One 4' x 4' tent (backup) - Two Advanced LED XML 350s (primary) - One Mars Hydro Reflector 96 (backup) - One Titan Controls Apollo 9 Digital Timer for the lights - Two 11" Honeywell circulating fans - One Apollo Horticulture 6” Inch 440 CFM Inline Duct Fan - One Phresh Filter 6" x 16" rated for 400 CFM (I tend to keep the inline fan on low) - One LG 12,000 BTU window A/C unit that I have set to 70°F during the day and set to 'Fan' overnight. The girls end up in about 73°F temps throughout their nighttime and a max of 79°F throughout their daytime (this was on the hottest day so far). The backup equipment was used (along with other equipment that I've since sold) for my previous grows. I may use the backup tent as a dry tent once harvest time comes. My outdoor setup: - Mother Nature Medium: - Currently using Kind brand super soil (I was limited on space and time to make my own). - Kind recommends adding a layer of other medium on top of its soil so I used some FFHF that I had. Pot size: - Seeing as my girls are seedlings, they're in Solo cups right now, but they'll graduate to 3 gallon fabric pots soon. - I've used name brand and off-brand fabric pots in the past. I'm trying one that Kind recommends called Root Trapper II on this grow. Nutrients: - I'm trying out Kind's super soil because I love the idea of no-till growing, and I struggled with taking care of my girls in past grows, particularly because I travel every few months. Work trips and visits to the in-laws are only a few days long, but vacations are up to a few weeks. It was difficult to find someone knowledgeable, that I trust, that's willing to do what it takes to treat my plants right. - Kind is supposed to provide any and all nutrients that the plants need throughout their life cycle. I have Earth Juice nuts on hand from previous grows, if I need them, but I would much prefer to supplement the soil with teas so please feel free to chime in with recipes or suggestions on what my girls may need. Currently, I have three seedlings: one AutoWhite Widow from Dutch Passion and two Y Griega CBD from Medical Seeds Co. All three seeds are feminized, and all three seeds are from my personal seed bank that I established a few years back when I lived a short drive from the Netherlands and a short flight from Spain. I started keeping notes of the girls' progress when I first scarified them on 5/18. I will post the daily updates that I've made since then in a follow-up comment.
I first started building a personal collection of seeds in summer 2014. I preserved all of my seeds in individual dime bags, surrounded by silica gel packets, in an air tight container that was covered in duct tape to limit light exposure. That container was placed in my refrigerator to limit exposure to warm temperatures. The goal was to send the seeds into hibernation mode. Since then, when I've needed to pop a couple, I've found it useful to apply a few different methods of germination. 1) Scarification: I lined a matchbox with some fine grain sandpaper, dropped the seeds in the matchbox (not mixing up strains), and shake the matchbox back and forth, gently. My goal was to gently score the surface of the shells to allow water to penetrate them more easily. I'd continue this for a few minutes, maybe less than five. 2) Drowning: I'd gently plop my girls into a glass of room temperature tap water, keeping like strains in the same glass. I'd place the glasses on a seedling heat mat and cover them with something to give the seeds some darkness. 24 hours later, I'd hope to see a teeny, tiny taproot making an appearance. 3) Paper towel trick: I'd take my seeds with the baby taproots, place them inside of a damp paper towel (again, keeping different strains separate) which was inside of a plastic bag and resting on the same seedling heat mat. I'd keep the heat mat set to 78°F, and I'd estimate that the paper towel was actually maybe 5°F cooler than that. I'd place something over the bag to give the seeds some darkness -trying to replicate being in soil. 4) Planting: After seeing a (roughly) 1cm long taproot, I'd use a spoon to pick my baby girl up and place her -taproot pointing downwards- into my medium of choice, about 1/3"-1/2" deep (ballpark it). Gently pad the medium over my daughter, and say 'goodnight' until she made an appearance a day or so later. 5/17 (retroactively typed these notes) Scarification on all three seeds. Water glass trick on all three seeds at 8:20pm, with a paper bag covering the glasses. The glasses were on the previously-referenced heat mat. Prepared paper towels to 78° for after the seeds drop. 5/18 Around 6:30pm, two very tiny taproots were beginning to show on the Y Griega CBD (YG CBD)s, and no tap root was visible on the AutoWhite Widow (AWW). No seeds had sunk to the bottom of their glass, however, each seed dropped to the bottom when I tapped it with a spoon. All seeds were moved into a moist paper towel on a heat mat. 5/19 By evening, each YG CBD had one cm long taproots so they were planted into solo cups and tossed in the tent. Water was pH'd to 6.6, and the cups were lightly watered prior to planting. Cups were lightly watered after planting. Run-off came out as 7.85 pH. Disconcertingly high for what is supposed to be a combination of two 100% organic soils... Lights set to one on, one off. Only white spectrum at 35% power. Small fans set to high and deflected off tent walls. Inline fan set to lowest setting. AWW had no taproot exposed so it was left in the paper towel. 5/20 YG CBD showed no movement. AWW showed no movement. At the end of the day, I scarified and dropped another AWW seed in water. 5/21 YG CBD showed sprouts that were trying to shed their shells by the end of the day. I sprayed them with pH'd water. AWW1 still showed no movement. AWW2 showed a tiny sprout in the water so it was moved to the paper towel trick. By the end of the day it was showing a 3-4mm long taproot. It's 3 gallon pot of soil was moistened and prepared. It will be planted in the morning. 5/22 By the end of the day, one YG CBD sprout had fully shed its shell and grown roughly three inches. The second YG CBD sprout had grown an inch or two, but it had a clump of dirt on it. Squirting with a spray bottle knocked the clump off, but the cotyledon leaves were stuck together under a membrane. A few hours later, the leaves began to spread apart. By evening, the membrane was still on the baby leaves so I removed it. I also turned up the intensity of the light to 50% to reduce stretch and provide appropriate light. In the morning, AWW1 was thrown away because of lack of progress. AWW2 had shown a 1.5cm taproot that had curled down (like it was trying to bury itself in soil). It was planted in its final home -a 3-gallon pot- and moved outside. By the end of the day, the AWW had shown a bit of the stem that would pop out of the soil. I'll provide today's update a little later tonight.
Day 3 (since they broke soil) The YG CBDs look pretty normal at this point, if a bit stretched, looking for light. I upped the light to 100% of the white spectrum, and lowered it by at least 6". It's probably about 28" above them. Day 1 (since it broke soil today) The AWW looks pretty teeny. Sorry for the dark photo -I got home pretty late, and my porch light sucks. This is my first outdoor grow so, comparing it to past indoor grows, the cotyledons look pretty normal, but the stem looks a bit brown. I've never grown this strain before so maybe that's normal. We'll see what happens. The weather should cool to the mid-60°Fs for a few days before going back up to the high-70°Fs. Nighttime temps shouldn't drop below 50°F, except for the next few nights, where it'll hit about 48°F. I'm curious to see how she'll handle it. I'll probably hold off on giving an update for a few days, unless/until something interesting happens.
Day 8 for the YG CBD The top picture is from this evening, and the bottom picture is from yesterday morning so they're starting to grow at a better pace now. They've grown some, and I've lowered the light some so now the light is approx. 21" over their tops. I turned it up to 100% for the white spectrum on 5/24. They seem to appreciate the adjustments. Day 6 for the AWW She's turned into a lovely young lady, and she has weathered the cooler nights very well. Her first set of true leaves are about as big as her cotyledons so I'll hold off on a picture until she's a bit bigger. It's pretty cool to see her adjust to the position of the sun throughout the day, especially when I rotate her 180° at night, and she adjusts around once the sun comes up
Day 15 for the YG CBDs I transplanted on Day 13, and the roots were developed enough that the soil held together, but just barely. It would've been better to wait a few more days. I was out of town for the last few days, and I was concerned that the solo cups couldn't hold enough water so I transplanted them because their new pots could hold enough water to tide them over until I got back tonight. All in all, they seem pretty happy. The internode spacing on the new growth seems a bit tight. They've grown a bit so the distance between their tops and the lights has shrunk to about 17"-18.5". I'll probably raise the light two or three inches so they can maintain the spacing that I want. One concern that I had is that the pH of the runoff after watering is pretty high -it's coming out around 8.17. Since I've never grown fully organic, I'm not sure if that should concern me. My tap water is about 7.2, and I'm pHing with crystals down to ~6.8. Should I bring it down further so the runoff pH is lower? Any input is appreciated. I'll spend some time looking that up tomorrow. Day 13 for the AWW She seems happy with life, but she's so small! This is my first outdoor plant, and I've read that things move slower outdoors. I am kind of concerned, though, because other autos that I've grown have begun to stretch and show signs of flowering in their third and fourth weeks! This girl is no where near where I'd like her to be before going into flower. We'll see how she does, I guess. I mainly threw her out here because I had the seeds, the weather was right, and because I've had an auto hermi before. I didn't feel like dealing with cleaning up pollen in the tent.
Spent a bit of time reading today, and it sounds like I don't need to worry about pH, whether it's going in or coming out. I'll keep using my air pump on my water and call it good. I also spent some time reading about aerated compost tea so I think that I'll pick up a little bit bigger air pump and mix a tea sometime in the next week or two.
That Y Griega sure looks interesting! Nice looking grow and journal. Welcome to the world of organic gardening.
Sup Bacon! Just stopping by to check out your grow. Your plants are looking like they got a nice kick off! I'm also an organic grower and Im getting the sense that youre finding yourself heading down the rabbit hole that is Grasscity Organics....strap in....cause you ain't never going back . Jk, but seriously though, please read read and read some more. You won't regret it. There's so much free info in these forums it's crazy. Some of it has changed over the years so you'll see how those who have been around have gotten to see things evolve in real time. You get the luxury of cutting through the experimental phases and running with the most tried and true (depending on opinion). As for pH...I'll tell you what I was told by another blade when I was trying to wrap my head around it. pH issues aren't non existent in organic growing. Think of it as a dog kept on a leash. The way you keep it in check is to have the BEST QUALITY growing soil you can source. I'm not familiar with the brand you are using but if you're doing a no till set up, I'd say that you have a good opportunity to work what you have through simple soil building techniques that are outlined in the "no till" thread (I think it's a sticky in GC organics). Also hit the "Organic Higher Learning" thread. It's been around for a long time and is a collection of hyper links to all sort of good stuff...including how to make apply various types of teas from compost to botanical. In my experience, soil building really improves soil profile to the point of eventually making pH issues a non factor due to the subsequently higher level of microbial activity. I literally just feed my soil...and in turn the soil feeds the plants. It's a bit more in depth but I'm giving you the short version here because there is simply a TON of this very info spread throughout this section. I encourage you to check it all out! Please feel free to ask away with anything you can't find and I'll try to answer as best/soon as possible. I hope this helps you out some. Sorry I couldn't link the suggested threads. They aren't hard to locate though. Subbed.
Hiya Baconman. I've just bookmarked your Journal page and will stop in as I get the time for sure if that's ok. As suggested above it'll definitely be worth your time to do whatever reading you can in the GC Organics forum Sticky threads - here - Organic Growing Organics can be really rewarding and at the end of the day are the easiest way of gardening - gardening as gardening was meant to be imo. Supper time here but - J
Subbed up in here. I wouldn't go running out to buy a bigger pump for compost teas. There are a few around here growing cobwebs. Even Ingram came around and figured out a top dressing works just as well. Anxious to see your progress.
And since you're going to grow an outdoor plant, you may as well plant a few veggies.......... Organic veggies FTW! Organic Vegetable Gardening
dont mind me im just raiding the snacks! looks like you're off to a good start! welcome to GCO! +1 on the advice to read as much as you can. i can recommend you start with the old no-till thread, its pretty long but most of the interesting stuff is in the first 100 pages or so No-Till Gardening also plenty of info in the new no-till thread No-Till Gardening: Revisited and of course there is Gimiks awesome library of everything and anything organic GiMiKs Library of Organic Gardening PDF Files you can also use my notes compilation as a reference for many of the key posts here on the GCO section. All Organic Recipes and Notes Compilation ill be back for more snacks!
@baconman1945 - have you considered making up your own soil even if it's for your next run? IMO this really needs to be your next step... it's quite easy to mix up much better soil than you can buy simply because YOU control the quality of the inputs. I also say ixnay on the layering thing. J
^ couldnt agree more! and space shouldn't be an excuse, i live in a tiny pad, mixed my soil in buckets, 5 gallons at a time. if i can do it so can you!
This is the best advice there is. Homemade compost, although it takes quite a while for the first batch to be ready, is very simple and cheap, not to mention the best. I am not an outdoor grower, but I remember people advising against amendments that attract animals, like fish meal and others. Happy growing.
Oh and worms!!! I saw much happier plants, longterm, after adding worms to my flowering pots. They will continue to make worm castings in your pots.
Even if you've gotta buy some good compost it's worth doing to make your own soil. I just don't trust soils out of bags these days unless you're talking peat or Pro-Mix that you'll be adjusting/amending anyhow. There's also the cost thing - you can make much better soil for much cheaper cost - no brainer IMO. J
@baconman1945 Mind if I pull up a chair? Always enjoy tagging along on others grows. Best of luck to you with your grow.