Learned a lot from this forum last year, my first growing season. One of the biggest choices I’ve made was to upgrade the soil I’m using, and picked up a BAS soil kit. I’m a hands-on kind of learner, so just jumped right into the deep end. With what I learned mixing their kit together I made a plan to upgrade all the soil in my greenhouse. Spent a couple months gathering components, mixing and “cooking” my freshly upgraded dirt. Looking forward to this new season to see what my efforts produce. Soil was mixed using equal parts for hydration, compost, and aeration, also added in some minerals, kelp meal mix, and myco to kick things off. Hopefully my girls and my veggies all reap the benefits.
I started a few autoflower seeds in January, had a couple that didn’t sprout, but the Apple Fritter sprouted in only a few days and is already in her forever home out in the greenhouse, and growing like crazy. I started two more seeds, about a week behind the A Fritter, they are also autoflowers, one Blueberry, and one Wedding Cake. Thought I’d do a short spring grow with the autoflowers and I’ll be starting my photos in a couple weeks.
I’ll add to this as the season progresses to help keep track of how it all goes…
How do you combat the heat during the summer in the greenhouse?
I installed two exhaust fans to pull warmer air rising to the top and also installed an evaporative cooler, all on thermostats. It also catches some shade from a large tree toward the hotter part of the day, which helps.
I can keep it 15-20 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature typically. Which, where I live, can still be pretty warm. We hit 110 F last summer. I kept everything watered to help keep roots cool and did pretty well. Did have one plant (autoflower) hermie on me in August during the hottest days. Veggies produced well, but saw some heat stress there too. Always a work in progress…
One of the seeds I dropped, a Wedding Cake auto, sprouted up with a helmet head. I left the seed shell in place, figuring it would eventually come loose, but after several days and losing one of it’s starter leaves, I carefully removed it. The plant was definitely stressed, and starting off slow, but I had to let it continue just to see what happens. Now, about a couple weeks later, my gimp plant has produced a secondary set of starter leaves, and an interesting set of paired leaves as it’s first true leaves. Might have to give it a handicapped parking space in the greenhouse…
I had a shiskaberry do this exactly. It took 2-3 weeks longer than the rest to “grow up” to their size and is still smaller overall than the others. I haven’t flipped them yet but I expect it to end up normal after stretch.
I started a few seeds on Monday from two photo seed strains I have on hand(ilgm Super Skunk and ilgm Gold Leaf). Dropped them into shot glasses of water with a dash of hydrogen peroxide. 6 out of 8 already had healthy tap roots going by this evening, three days later. Each strain had one straggler, so I freshened up the water in each shot glass and set them on a seed warming mat for encouragement. The seeds with tap roots were moved to their starter pots 3/13.
Well, major screw up on my part. Apparently the BAS soil I started using this season retains water much better than the FFOF I used last year. I over watered my freshly planted photo seeds and all but one got soggy and drowned. Kinda disappointing after the great start. I did save two of the SS ladies and transfered them to different pots with fresh soil and better drainage. Started six more seeds yesterday to round out the roster and made some adjustments to the watering cycle. Got some learning to do with the new soil.
You will never stop learning… 
Keep learning…
You wont be disappointed… 
Agreed. I’m always working on something, refining a previous project or planning the next one. Keeps me interested.
Update on the autoflowers I have growing in BAS Clackamas Coot soil. The Apple Fritter is almost 8 weeks from seed now and started to flower last week. I’ve done a little LST on her and trimmed a few leaves to improve exposure to sunlight. Looks kinda small in that 10 gallon grow bag.
The Blueberry and Wedding Cake plants are a week or so behind the AF. They are still a bit small, but have likely been setting deeper roots before the next growth phase. I’ve been watering all three plants every third day, checking the soil for moisture content. This BAS soil mixture does a great job of holding moisture, even here in the dryness of the US southwest.
I started noticing the leaves on the Wedding Cake didn’t look happy. There was slight discoloration and even some small holes, but no bugs. Got me thinking about chlorine levels in the water. I tested my water and sure enough, chlorine was present. So, now I’m filling a couple five gallon buckets every day to let them sit 24 hours before using to water all my beds in the greenhouse. The change in all my plants, veggies, herbs, and the girls is already noticeable.
Here’s a few shots of the Blueberry and Wedding Cake autoflowers. Closeup of the WC leaves.
Lastly, after my botched start on my photoperiod plants I now have six above ground, still waiting for two to break ground. The one survivor from the first start, an ilgm Super Skunk(at 2 weeks) was just placed in it’s final grow spot this morning. Looking good this evening, enjoying the new digs.
Final pic should be all the fresh seedlings that popped in the last couple days.
Everybody got a dose of humic acid today for a little boost too.
Week 11 for the Apple Fritter af, and week 10 for the Weeding Cake and Blueberry autos. They’ve stayed smaller in comparison to the plants from my previous grow which used FFOF and Jack’s nutrients. I’ve got some learning to do to improve results. I’ve given them a steady diet of “compost tea”, BAS Gnarly Barley, humic acid and fish emulsion, while adding in some mycorrizhea every few weeks.
Photoperiod girls are in week 4-5. The larger one is a week older than the other three and is already overtaking the autos in size. Again, steady diet of compost tea, fish emulsion, humic acid and Gnarly Barley. I’m really impressed with the size of the leaves on the larger girl. If plant leaves are like puppy paws, she’s gonna be a big girl.
And, finally, had a volunteer pop up in the potato patch after I had planted my taters. I had dumped my used soil in there last fall after harvesting, and apparently there was a dormant seed in there. I have no idea whether it’s auto or photo, or what strain she is, but decided to run it and see(Science!). She’s now setting roots in her new space.
Hope everyone is having a good week.
Those always turn out to be the best one.
Week 14 for the apple fritter auto, almost time to cut her down. The buds are nice and full, and I started checking trichomes this week. Looks like they need a little more time yet.
Wedding cake and blueberry autos are filling out, they are about 10 days behind the apple fritter.
All three are doing well in the BAS living soil. They have been on a steady rotating diet of compost/worm casting tea, fish emulsion and humic acid. I started adding banana peel tea a few weeks ago to boost the buds. Also did add some BAS BuildAFlower top dress for flower a week ago and switched to their BuildaBloom bloom booster when watering at the same time. Autos go so quick, I’m not sure they have enough time to get the full benefit from those, but they can’t hurt.
The photo period plants are growing like weeds, they are now at 9 weeks. I plan to spread them out in the greenhouse once the auto flower plants have been harvested.
They are on a steady diet of fish emulsion, compost tea and humic acid. They have all grown so tall and full they have covered their electroculture coils. The tallest one, an ilgm Super Skunk, is acting like it wants to flower already. It’s actually 10 days ahead of the others.
Bringing up the rear is the volunteer that I rescued from the potato patch. She’s doing well, likely a few weeks behind her sisters. I had to share this photo just because the symmetry of the plant was pretty cool.
The greenhouse is rockin’ this year, had a great head start on the season.
Adding in a few more photos. Everything in the greenhouse is growing well. The autoflowers are in their final phases, I check the trichs every few days, waiting for them to begin turning amber before I harvest. Once those plants finished I can move the photos out of the corner and get some space around them. Photos are currently about six feet tall, one of them had even started to flower(seems a bit early), they could use the extra room. Maybe a couple more weeks.
Still feeding them twice a week, photos get fish emulsion, humic acid and compost tea, autos are getting banana peel tea and BuildaSoil’s BuildaBloom bloom booster. The rest of the greenhouse benefits from what I’m learning about growing in living soil with organic additives. Tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, radishes, various greens and more are all doing really well.