@Cap_Ron
I usually do one brick at a time. One brick makes about 3 gallons of coco. I usually soak the brick in 2 gallons of water so it’s nothing but soup. The two gallons of water has 15 mL of cal/magic.
I think it’s coming back to me now it’s been awhile since I made it. I soaked the first batch for 24 hours and drain it. It goes in for a second soak of a fresh 15 mL for another 24 hours. Then I simply do a quick wrench strain it until it’s field dry and stored in the bucket.
The technique is fine, but I’d definitely check the runoff before I considered it properly rinsed for use. I’ve buffered coco, then thought I rinsed it enough, but found the runoff still much higher than I expected.
Keep in mind, you’ll only be rinsing away what’s suspended in the solution and hasn’t been absorbed by the coco fibers. You don’t need to worry about rinsing away the efforts of your buffering. Once the coco has the calcium and magnesium locked up, it won’t let it go, so you don’t need to worry about over rinsing.
@Cap_Ron
I like to take 10% coco buffered at another 10% perlite and add it to my Happy Frog as the entire base soil it’s very nicely aerated and The Roots love it.
What I do for the seedling is I pack my bucket/bag with that base soil, I take my fist and I pull out a handful from the center. I then take the handful and mix it with 50% cocoa. So it’s now 50% cocoa 50% Happy Frog. I take two teaspoons of the micro mushroom spore shit. And I add it to that fist of soil. I then take the fistful of modified soil and put it back in the hole and lightly tap it down.
I then use a pencil and make a perfectly round hole be exact size of the eraser up to the metal point about a quarter inch Tap Root down goes the seed. The seeds pop out very easy and very soon. 50% of my tent was done this way on this grow. The other 50% I use the same 50/50 soil mix and use Solo cups and transplanted after 13 days.
Other than having to transplant I saw no different in how they grew or popped out of the dirt. I’m assuming I’ll do the same 50% test to see if I can actually get a difference. I’m able to get some mushrooms for shit on the established roots when I transplant seems to be the only benefit that I can see.
@Cap_Ron
That makes total sense. I’ll start rinsing better. I didn’t realize that only the unused calcium magnesium was being rinsed off that’s why I kind of didn’t rinse a lot.
As always thank you for your explanation and full detail.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the way you’re making your soil mix, especially if it’s working for you, but I don’t have any experience doing that. The only time I’ve ever made any kind of mix for my seedlings is back when I used FF Ocean Forest soil. Since it can be a little too strong for seedlings, I would mix it 50/50 with FF Light Warrior in the solo cups. Other than that I grow in straight Coco with Perlite, or a ready made soil that already has some coco mixed in like Mother Earth Coco Peat, or in my current grow, the Roots Organics Original Blend.
Again, I don’t think it’s bad to make your own custom mixes, but for me I prefer to keep it as simple as possible.
@Cap_Ron
For me it’s difficult to find any good aerated soil that’s very comfortable for the roots unless you buy straight coco. I like Happy Frog for the minimal amount of nutrients to get started and the price is fair simply adding some extra coco gives you that perfect mix that you’re looking for so the roots can stretch anywhere they want with comfort. I would love to find that perfect medium that has the microbial life, cheap, and sold at my home Depot. But guess what. That ain’t going to happen.
A brick of really good coco the best 7 dollars my hydro store has Happy Frog it’s only 21 bucks for two cubic bag.
It’s when I got to buy the stuff at Amazon for 40 bucks a bag kind of makes you sick
@Cap_Ron
Theoretical question. Let’s say your tap water is 300 EC straight out of the spicket.
Then let’s say your plant eats at 600 EC this means you can only give her 300 EC of nutrients. Is the other 300 actually bad stuff for the plant? Can you actually go through a grow successfully with tap water?
Unless you were to have the tap water tested, I don’t know any way to determine what’s making up the EC content.
You are correct that you do have to count the EC of the tap water in your total feeding, so your plants would be missing out on 300EC worth of base nutrients or additives. That’s why I use RO water. The tap water is horrible where I live. Out of the tap it can be over 700EC sometimes, and a pH over 8!
@Cap_Ron
I’m lucky , my son builds and works on water systems for commercialized applications. It’s very rare but he usually brings me about 30 gallons a week home plus the rain water that I catch. But I’ve always wondered what would happen if I had to use tap water. I do believe there’s something on Amazon called the RO buddy for about 60 bucks. I may look into getting that so I don’t have to keep bugging him for water
The RO Buddy is what I use. I installed it under my bathroom sink and ran a line that reaches my tub. I fill the 5 gallon jugs in the tub because sometimes I forget it’s running and overflow them!
@Cap_Ron
Good morning Ron. Here’s a 55 day old Do-Si-Dos (sister of the once yellow sick girl). Believe it or not I fed this morning and she was right next to the big girl. And yes she is the exact same size tall as big girl she’s been super cramped once grew out of it and had to be put on the floor of the tent to get her required light.
Needless to say she’s early flowering, wasn’t very receptive to low stress training, she’s got lots of popcorn buds hopefully to grow in soda can buds.
Looking at her from the top it looks like anything as far as light getting through her canopy is kind of impossible. See pictures below however. When I did her lollipopping about a month ago my thinned her out up top as well I can see straight through her but I can’t see down into her. I feel as though air flow is perfect for her but I also feel hardly anything from above in lighting is getting to her midsection. What do you think?
@Cap_Ron
It’s truly amazing. I counted 22 tie downs with jumbo size twist ties five super heavy duty dowel pins and big girls still can’t support herself. If I took her ties off she would simply fall over. Even wet her butts are like bricks. She is one incredible girl
The big girl looks awesome! With the other one, I’ve been in the same position many times where I feel like I should remove some growth to open things up a bit, but not wanting to slow her down too much once she’s flowering. I wish I could give you concrete advice one way or the other, but the truth is I’m not even sure how I end up making my own decisions when it comes to defoliation in flower. I think I’ve just learned to trust my instincts, because sometimes I’ll just let them be out of fear of ruining them, and other times I’ll grab a pair of trimmers and go at them like I’m Edward Scissor hands, lol.
I can say this though, I really don’t feel like I’ve done much harm when I’ve removed some lower skinny branches during flowering. On average, I’d lean more towards cleaning them up a bit rather than playing it too safe. I think the benefits outweigh the risks. If you remove some smaller and lower growth, it might slow her down for a few days, but in the end she’ll have more resources to direct up to the top bud sites.
I’ll be honest with you. (I always am) if these were Girl scout cookies extremes, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation she’d be entering the barber school section of the grow room as we speak. However, Do-Si-Dos grows so differently and seems to be very delicate. This is why I have reservations on even touching her. If you recall I started this tent grow for experimentation. I believe this girl is going to be the part of the experiment where you just leave her alone and this is what happens. LOL
I need more experience with this strain. It starts out very slow almost to the fact that you think it’s stunted. The last week of veg it explodes in growth in unimaginable numbers. As I’ve stated before she wasn’t very receptive to low stress training. There’s tons of empty space room between her growth where in other plants it’s just pure growth all the way up the stem. This girl’s got 5 inch bare spots.
Like I said I think I’m just going to leave her as that experiment portion of “what happens if you just love her” and just let her be her. Thank you for your honest opinion brother man
That’s the best idea, whichever decision you make is a learning experience one way or the other. It’s good that your instincts are telling you what to do based on what you’ve already observed from each strain.
@Cap_Ron
I’m talking to an old buddy of mine that I went to school with back in the day. Our state become legal earlier this year. Seems like everybody’s got to grow going on.
He said he’s been growing two plants on his back porch patio three straight seasons. He sent me a couple of pictures and he didn’t even know what they were but they look healthy happy. He says he gets 4 oz on average between both plants each year it’s enough to getting by for the winter. He says he harvest every October.
I showed him a picture of one of my girls and he couldn’t believe how big and fluffy and Buddy and beautiful they were. He never heard of an auto flower. He says whatever the strain is he doesn’t know it’s just a bag seed. He said it’s really good and he loves it.
He made the comment you can’t beat it for a $10 investment. And I asked him what he meant by that. He said the seed is free he pays $5 for a home Depot potting soil and five bags of $1 dollar store topsoil bringing his entire investment to $10 because he has the pots.
I asked him what about the cost of the nutrients the water etc. He says once or twice a week he unrolls the garden hose and soaked her down if it didn’t rain that week. I’ve been seeing something I asked him again how much are you paying for nutrients? he said what nutrients.
Here we are spending our last dollar on grow shit. Hundred dollars on nutrients not to mention what it cost to keep the proper environment. He replied, like I said 10 bucks. He asked me how much I had in it. I told him I stopped counting after $1700
It amazes me the time that I put into these girls. Takes me 2 hours a day to mix their nutrients for the next morning. Granted we’re getting better yields by far. I would hope what we do with far supersede the quality as well.
It amazes me that he can actually spend $10 and do nothing but break out his hose once or twice a week. I’m asking myself did I do it ass backwards
I’ve heard similar stories, and that’s great for people who are willing to settle for pot luck results, or folks who don’t have the means or desire to do much more, but I’d assume there’s a bigger difference in the quality of the end results than those growers think.
It’s true that growers like us often go overboard and spend money on things that aren’t critical, or sometimes maybe not even necessary, but I believe that for the most part, we’re rewarded for our efforts!
