I just transplanted this girl into her 5 gal forever home last night. I have a couple ph inquiries, so I’m kind of limiting all of the details, forgive me.
Strain: Girl Scout Cookies Extreme Auto-fem by ILGM
Age: 15 days from sprout
Soil: FFOF, no additional nutes
Water: distilled
I put her in here because she was having small issues with her first home . Load her in, nice big gulp of water a couple inches from her stalk.
Fast forward to this morning.
Check the ph of the wet dirt, with distilled water, and it’s in the red, below 5.0😵.
So I do some other tests. Dry dirt with distilled, dry with tap. Already wet dirt (with distilled) filling reservoir with distilled, and filling with tap.
With the tap and dry dirt I’m getting right in the 6.5 area. Maybe .1 or .2 up or down. Every reading with distilled, though, drops the ph. My tap water by itself runs just under 7. Now that I think about it, 6.5 is a pretty good ph number isn’t it? So now,
Questions…
Should I try just flushing out the wet dirt with tap water?
Or should I let it soak and just give her tap from now on?
Also, if anybody has info on the curls on her first 3 pointers? This happened yesterday morning and has not gotten any worse, but hasn’t undone itself.
Get yourself something like the aperia ph20. Bad readings or inaccurate #'s dont help, its especially important with FFOF. There are some tools you can scrimp on, a Ph meter ain’t one of those!
Ya, I’m learning the hard way that most of the equipment I’ve accumulated should have had a little more financial investment. I’m starting to get supplies and stuff for next run that I’m not touching for this.
Already on Prime looking. When I popped the tablet and added it to the distilled water and wet soil, it almost immediately turned red to indicate acidic. If it actually is that low, though, I gotta figure some stuff out. Hopefully I can find a meter to get here today.
I’m still glad I got mine. Order some ph probe storage solution and keep it in the storage cap (real important). Did you get the kit with the calibration fluid?
22 days from sprout. Stunted by a stuck seed membrane for first 3 days, then wicked rain for three days, then a damn caterpillar on the 7th. First week was hell for her, but she’s come back…
Got my meter in yesterday afternoon and have been testing and calibrating and retesting and recalibrating. Thank God for this group, because I was getting completely backwards/opposite readings from what my tap water really was. Thought my water going in was 6.2-.5ish, turns out it’s almost 8.0!! With soil I was showing way less than 5.0… with the cheap plastic shaker reader.
I put about 1 ½ - 2 tablespoons of lemon juice in a gallon of tap water, tested immediately and it was at 6.3. Am going to test every few hours for a couple of days, until she is dry enough for a big drink and if the ph holds, I will use it. If I have to, I’ll buy PH Up and PH Down. I’m just glad I hadn’t been giving her super acidic water her whole 2 ½ weeks of life. I’m not a bad parent I swear!!
Does anybody know if lemon juice, like 1 tablespoon per watering, will hurt her? She isn’t old enough to have actually incorporated a watering routine, but she got ½gallon when I dropped her in this bigger pot 2 nights ago, and will probably continue that once a week for the next 3 weeks.
Oh, also, she’s 16 days from sprout. Does she look too young to start LST? TIA guys and gals…
You should be on a routine watering schedule. I would water in a circle a couple of inches outside the main stem. That’ll get the roots searching for water and spreading out. The curled leaf could be turned up a little if there’s a fan blowing, unless it’s oscillating and you’re good. No worries though.
Ya, I said that a little wrong. She has just started her watering routine, I’ll say. I put her in the 5gal 2 nights ago because her original home was having a little draining issue. She got a good soak in the manner you said. Watered a ring around her, waited a few seconds, watered another ring, waited, until the bottom started draining. The curled leaves happened the morning before I transplanted her and I think may have been a rooting issue. They haven’t changed in 2 days. Her 2nd three pointers started to also, but they went back to normal on their own.
