They look great @Das_Fonz me personally i would go organic route Das_Fonz for ur next grow either use natures living soil mixed with promix hp and worm castings or go full organic with mushroom compost and worm castings and bat guano and volcanic rock dust and superworm frass and kelp meal and alfalfa meal fish bone meal and put in some live worms aswell and so a cover crop , already doin the organic way but im putting a dew new things in my mix .Here are the results of wat i do daz
When you moved them to the 7 gallons did you continue with COM versus build a soil 3.0 experience?
I had one outdoors start the march of yellow early in flower. I ended up top dressing with some of the vegetative fertilizer - not sure if that was the right thing to do but she did quit yellowing.
I stick 2 photos they about the same time as autos if u got feminized seeds. I’m all the way with COM and Jack’s 321
@Aussie_autos I’m leaning more towards organic as well. I definitely want to try a bed versus pots. From what I understand it’s easier to maintain living soil. I may be wrong. Plus I kinda want to stick with the organics. The terp profile I achieved so far is pretty special along with amounts of tri comes. They both give off a lemon cleaner smell with a slight funk. Hope it sticks around. I’m also sticking with coast of Maine. They make a good mix. Might add some extra rice hulls though for a bit more aeration. I was also considering The soil @MeEasy uses it seems pretty fool proof with good results. Either way I’d like to do an auto grow before the end of winter. Since I’d like to put some outside this summer. Along with adding blu Matts. I’m sure autos will do fine in living soil. I only threw in the synthetic side to just follow a set feeding schedule that’s proven. And if I play my cards correctly by the time the autos finish I can start my veg for outside and have a jump on that. I dunno so many options
@JaneQP each plant stayed in their perspective soil. One was in 3.0 other was in stoneington. The com started out pretty hot showed signs of nitrogen toxicity and took three to four weeks for the plants to acclimate. One of the reasons I veged so long. On the other hand the 3.0 was balanced in the beginning and lasted most of veg. But I needed time for the com plant to catch up. Looking back this when I should have top dressed the 3.0. The plant vigor definitely slowed down substantially when com was peak vigor in veg. And not top dressing the 3.0 at that point definitely stunted the growth of the over all grow. But technically I can’t base that solely on just lack of top dressing. It could also be the pheno difference in the two. Bud structure and plant structure are definitely different. I top dressed both with build a flower and verm pre flip. And it definitely didn’t have enough nitrogen as I started dropping yellow leaves I think third week of flower with 3.0. I feed both teas with a little veg nutes in them. And then topped dressed four weeks after flip but six weeks since the last topping. It definitely slowed it down a little but came back with a punch. It did nothing but burn the com plant that clearly didn’t need it.
Anyway…
I have a handful of fem seeds I really want drop from pure breeding. But also have a bunch of Amy Aces regs and blueberry x Bruce banner testers a breeder gave me. And I’m itching to try. I was considering doing almost a sog from seed in a bed with solo cups until they show sex and I do a little Pheno hunting at the same time until I find a couple mother plants for summer. So many choices I can’t make up my mind. I wish I had space for at least one more tent. I think it’s really going to come down to the final harvest weight of this grow. To see if I have time to tinker or just go straight to business.
Thanks for the information! Very interesting grow and you have some ambitious plans ahead. Best to you!
@JaneQP Also I forgot to mention I followed build a soils feeding schedule and amendments excluding their craft blend veg fert and the build a flower fertilizer. I had roots organics terp tea veg a bloom left over from last summers outdoor. I swapped them out. I did very well with a continuing top dressing like every two weeks due to run off from rain. It was also mixed into ocean forest soil like midway through the summer and used alongside the fox farm trio. My guess is the the constant run off from rain kept the soil right. I basically recharged the soil with it. Thats the only thing I miss from salts. You see an issue you can fix it right away. Organics need to almost know how the plant is going to feed ahead of time to stay ahead of the deficiencies.
Agree 100% on that last sentence! Making the switch has taught me patience.
@JaneQP Thank you. That’s my issue I like to tinker too much. But I’d like to get the organic grow down. I really wish I could just double my square footage somewhere. I’d like to think I learned a bunch from this forum and this being my first real attempt on indoor in over 15 years.
This grow I have switched to the product @MeEasy uses, Earthdust. I am trying to make growing as simple as possible. I am not trying to grow monster buds - just enough to keep the family from paying dispensary prices.
This is what my goal is and in my opinion earth dust has made that possible for me, as I’ve said many times dust was supposed to be temporary until I could learn how to make my own soil but I fell in love with the stuff and the less I add to it the better things go
It is much easier daz cause ur goin to be feeding the soil not the plant all microbes will be feeding the plants if u put live worms in ur plant bed and a cover crop the cover crop will become nutrients for the plants aswell the live worms will put more microbes in ur soil and they will help break down any organic compost or matter . I will be re using the soil mix im using it has two containers of worms in my pot and u will find that u will get better results less work and worries plus much bigger yeilds also less deficiencies aswell
@Aussie_autos This grow I added about three dozen giant earth worms to each pot. I know I lost a couple to them crawling out of the pots. But they are definitely still in there. They like to stay under the alfalfa straw I put down as mulch. I mixed chitin, insect frass, along with bokashi mix in with my top mulch. You can definitely tell the worms went to work on the straw as most of it is broken down by now and and the soil is starting to show. The only thing I didn’t do was put in a cover crop.
But as far as microbes I used the rootwise microbes and enzymes in most of veg and flower Along with growers recharge and fish shit through the second week of of flower. Then switched to mammoth p through flower. I’m pretty sure I had the microbes covered pretty well. I also fed them with blackstrap about every two weeks.
I guess what I was trying to say earlier is I fell short in the nitrogen with the 3.0 pretty early. Like mid veg. I probably should have front loaded nitrogen a little earlier and longer to prevent the yellow leaf spread. And did what @JaneQP said and top dressed with veg booster earlier and longer than I did. And not wait to see deficiencies. I’m still learning organics as I used salts in the past.
Where I screwed up was I treated both soils the same and they are definitely different. 3.0 seems to require more amendments through both cycles. Where as the com comes pretty well loaded from the start and lasts much longer with less adding. But it took a grow to learn it on my own. Now I know for the next grow.
I’m almost tempted to mix both together next go around as it should lighten up the com out the front gate along with a tad more aeration and water retention from the 3.0. I also like the idea to what @MeEasy does and basically have a water only soil that needs to only be fed a handful of times throughout the grow.
I guess it all breaks down to how much I want to tinker. But the array of products that are used to maintain one over the other is a little crazy. But next grow around things may be completely different as each strain and even pheno feeds differently. And it’s starting to make sense to me why big growers like @Hellraiser keep mothers and grow from clone to learn each strains and pheno specific needs. But in all honesty I may be completely wrong since most switching to 321 in soil and soiless applications. To which is starting look like less is more type deal.
I learned a lot this grow. And still have a very long way to go. With my time being more drawn away from my grows I need to simplify things a little more. That’s why I’m leaning towards beds with blu mats. As the larger beds sound like they can be loaded a little more and hold nutrients longer so reamending isn’t as needed as quickly versus the smaller pots. Give more chance for throwing the balance off in the soil. Like I said I could be completely wrong with everything I just said. All’s I know is how this grow went and looking back see what I could have done differently to prevent the issues I have now. But I guess that’s how we all learn. Thank you for the feedback.
Sounds like u have it all sorted daz and it sounds like the worms are doin there job u will see the big difference in ur grows das i would like to keep up with ur grow to see how it goes ,what size beds or pots are u using ,have u ever grown moby dick autos that strain produces some big buds and so does super skunk ,as u see so does white widow auto .keep up with updates so we can see how its goin for u
Thanks man. I’m far from having it figured out. I just try and due my due diligence. I can also read feeding schedules pretty good.
I’m honestly just getting back into growing. Last time I grew we had to mail in money orders to Amsterdam. And hopefully you would get some sort of seeds months later. It’s totally different world now. Anyway I’m definitely thinking about picking up a pack of autos this weekend with some sales going on.
The girls are in 7 gallon fabric pots. I did three transplants. Solo cups to one gallon to where they are now. I only put maybe five gallons of soil to leave room for top dressings. Right now pots are pretty well topped off.
My next grow im re using the soil from this grow i will re amend the soil with worm castings and bat guano and volcanic rock dust fertilizer and superworm frass and kelp meal and alfalfa meal and sea bird guano and fish bone meal with a bit of mushroom compost as well it should be good for six months before i will need to top dress im thinking about running two plants a auto and photoperiod plant or even two autos yet
Yea I’d really like to reuse this soil as well especially if going into a bed type grow style. Going to need a lot soil. But in the beginning of the grow I broke the golden rule of putting inside plants out and outside plants inside. I dropped these seeds aug 1 and there was still good days to be had outside it was really hard not to give them sun. Along with not having really a proper inside grow set up. I’ve been at war all grow with mites and thrips. So these two pots of soil are going outside and cooked off for my veggies next summer.
So next grow I’m starting fresh. Pretty sure I’m going the COM route again. The grow shop by me carries it for very reasonable price. But before they go straight into the stoneington blend I’m either going to get a bag promix and do like a 50/50 blend from solos to 3 gallon pots. Or a blend of another COM soil that isn’t so hot to start. I’m still going to stick with their seedling starter which I could probably mix with the stoneington blend. I really haven’t made my mind up yet.
All I do know this I want to maximize the 9 sq ft that I have to pull quality which in turn should bring quantity.
I have not added worms, yet. Believe it or not a childhood fear of mine…I was what they called a tom girl back in the day and would go night crawler hunting with the boys for fishing or sell to the local bait shop. One night one of the boys took a whole handful of those things and dropped them down my pants!!! The horror.
That’s a pretty amazing story. But you really don’t need to handle them. I got a couple box’s from the local bait shop and just tosss them under the mulch. They climb right in and feel right at home. Every once and awhile I try to looses the top layer a bit and there will be one hanging out in the straw. They like to come up when I water as well.