Those moisture meters are not crap. Somewhere on this site or a video I watched, showed them to be decent. You should test in more than one place. About drilling holes I would keep them low where water could pool. Higher and you might develop preferential channels and nothing makes it to the deep roots. I am no expert-just my two cents.
Thank you @JaneQP , everything you said sounds perfectly reasonable. And I have to agree about drilling the holes. I want the roots to be able to use the entire pot, not just the top half. I found that out by under-watering in my starter cups way back when…
And I definitely don’t want my nute money flowing out the side of the pot! 
As far as that meter thing goes, it’s one of those 2 prong soil Ph/Moisture deals. I’d trust it for moisture over the Ph tbh.
I’m trying to learn the “art of run off” now as I head into the later part of my first “serious” grow.
That applies to my inside ladies.
With the outside girls I feel they’re much more adaptable to things and I’m pushing them as much as I feel comfortable!
It’s a free-for-all out there! 
Thanks Again for the tips!!
Happy Growing Everyone!!
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@Tylersays whereabouts are you that the outdoors are still happy? I’m contemplating throwing an auto outside soon just for giggles, but wonder if I’m cutting it too close. Won’t see a real freeze til mid-October I don’t think.
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I’m in Central Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains!
We won’t get a hard frost for quite some time here and crazy low night temps can give you some crazy terpene reactions!
Did I spell that right or does Firefox not know what I’m talking about? LOL!
I do have to take extra care being in pots vrs the earth but they won’t go THAT long.
Our current overnight temps are averaging 67F.
Lower in the tent - I live with a polar bear!
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I have a long brown box laying in front of my tent! YAY!
Blah, blah, blah…nothing done tonight! It’s Friday LOL!
Am I taking this way to cavalier or not cavalier enough? Sometimes I do wonder…
Suffice it to say Pineapple Cake Breaks aren’t quite the same as coffee breaks.
I did do a little something…
Can really see who’s doing the best now. There’s still some larf I know I need to take, but I’m a newbie - still timid. I’ll get there. 
The Experiment continues! LOL!
I don’t have any pics, but Mary J and Lauryn H are both definitely thirsty. Mary showing drooping this evening just before LO. First thing in the morning the light is swapped out and the girls are quenched.
HGE!!
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Hey! Looking forward to watching your grow! I’m on the purple majesty part of the US. Temps are dropping and leaves are falling. Just hoping the outside girls can hang on to finish.
Best of Luck to you!!
HELP!! BUGS!!
UGG!!
I think I see what’s causing Mary J’s leaves to look funky!!
I have Safers Insecticidal Soap spray and one other, I’ll have to go see what it is.
I know I’ll need to treat all 3 and do I spray the soil too?
This sucks ball! UGG!!
Any idea if I’m on the right track with the Safers? @MadamCalamity @PurpNGold74
I’m off to the guides to see if I can identify them now!!
This BLOWS!!
Thanks in advance for any help!
HGE!!
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I’m curious to know what the other thing you’ve got is. I used ivory soap and water initially but it was making my leaves look weird. @Hellraiser pointed out that soap is much harder on plants than something like neem oil.
I ultimately treated my bug problem with a combo of neem oil every other day and Captain Jack’s Dead Bug every day that I wasn’t using Neem Oil. Took about a week to go away completely.
Only spray when the lights are out, no matter what you use.
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Is that bugs? My eyes suck lol if so Neem oil or captain jacks. For soil use mosquito bits.
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It’s Safe Garden Funjicide 3 in 1.
I think she got it at Lowes.
I gotta go up there in the morning and get more 3/4" PVC - Somehow I royally screwed up my math when figuring up for my scrog frame. English was never my strong suit! LOL!
I think they have neem oil but not sure about Captain Jacks.
I’m hitting them tonight with the Safers before lights out.
I wonder if I should kill the fans?
My dry fit for the footprint looks pretty good.
It’s all good though - I gotta go dig a bucket of sand out of my 10,000 lb bale! LOL!
So I wouldn’t have finished until tomorrow anyway.
Plus - I kinda got something else to worry about tonight…ugg!
I’ll see if I can get a better pic. I could actually see them crawling with the naked eye and my eyes are old! LOL!
It’s a black, shiny body and a kinda fuzzy yellowish face.
I’m not seeing any webbing though, so I’m thinking not spider mites.
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SOME HDs carry the Capt Jacks Tyler, the one in Waynesboro (ONLY one “close” to me, lol) was OUT…but had the same brand of NEEM oil, that’s how i got that one while waiting on the Cpt Jacks DB coming from A’zon 
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Ace carries Jacks and a bunch of organic pesticides.
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dang, that’s a WHOLE lot closer than HD (Ace Hardware) but it’s a local mom & pop shop one and after the price gouging i’ll pay it will work out the same as if i drove that in gas they really OUGHT to be ashamed of some of the price gouging they do. I GET it, small business, but some of us are small business owners too and as much as i’d LIKE to support my local ones, hard to do when you make a paint brush for instance, cost what i can get two and “a half” (if they sold halfs, lol) of same brand at those two big box stores dang shame…“you can’t make it all in each sale” lots of small owners fail to recognize that.
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I would say it’s about convenience. It’s a close neighborhood store. Just like a gas station has swollen prices for chips and drinks.
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I hear you and i gripe about that too, lol. I know i can go in food kitty (food lion for those familiar ) and get a ROW of candy bars for 1.29 and ONE candy bar at the local gas station up the road from me is 2.29. THEY, SERIOUSLY gouge folks, lol. freaking 5 1/2 oz bag of UTZ party mix, $2.99 but i can get TWO FOR FIVE of the EIGHT.5 ounce bags at food kitty it’s about BUDGET for me, over supporting INFLATION to help locals. I don’t gouge folks for the work i do, i am told often i undervalue my services but that’s because i want return customers and i have a good base of them. it’s just getting them to NEED work when you need money that sucks, lol
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High point, low point…
First - the good!
The Un-Boxining!
I’ve got to come up with a new way to hang the exhaust. I only have another couple of inches before it’s strapped hard to the roof. The light is currently hanging on my ratchet straps, which are smack against the bottom of the exhaust. It is on the factory hangers they provided, which are really nice, although the ratchets they sent are the EXACT same as the ones Spider Farmer sent. Go figure.
I have the driver at 4 clicks from off, if I remember correctly. Since I currently can’t raise the light I made sure it wasn’t too bright to shock the ladies.
The PPFD Meter app on the S21+ was showing DLI in the good range at the lowest parts of the canopy and the screen went red up top! That was on the 18hr setting. Finally figured that bit out! LOL!
And the light coverage is pretty well spread out. It covers the 2x4 footprint very well.
The light has a much more substantial weight and feel than the SF’s and the light, to the eye, seems more into the blue spectrum.
Totally happy with this upgrade! 
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It’s so pretty!!!
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Hey! I have had good luck with 20 shakes of essential oil and a squirt of Dr. Bonner’s Castile soap diluted with water to a quart sprayer and soaking my plants right before lights out to get rid of pests. I used rosemary, mint, pine and tea tree oils each for about three days before rotating to the next. I killed off spider mites!
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Update on the bad… 
Still trying to figure out exactly what I’m fighting but I soaked the shit out of them in the Safers insecticidal soap.
It actually did look kinda spider like when it moved. I’m wondering if it’s mites and i just caught them super early before the colony got established?
About halfway through I thought to myself - Why didn’t you put on a long sleeve t-shirt and vinyl gloves? LOL! I tried to make sure I got everything - top and bottom.
They looked like a wet kitten - so sad and pout-y! LOL!
I also drilled three more 3/4" holes in the bottoms of the pots equally spaced between the existing ones.
I hit roots on each plant, but not each hole. And I didn’t let the drill just plow into the roots, I went slowly and as soon as I broke through I stopped and pulled the little plastic disc out.
All in all the roots looked pretty good and not like the pics of root rot I’ve seen before. They were white and pretty healthy looking.
I didn’t have my tricorder with me and probably wouldn’t have touched it if I did at that point, as I did each plant in succession and placed it into the tent. The first one I did might have been in there 15 minutes with the light on but I had the flap wide open too si it wasn’t as intense as it could have been.
I’m hoping I can get these critters under control quickly. They’re really responding well after that last trimming and I really feel like I could flip soon. I guess I should wait a bit and see what happens with these bugs.
@JaneQP - thanks for the tip! I would definitely prefer a natural method but when something like that takes you by surprise you go with what you got! LOL!
Safer’s is good stuff and can be used I think, up till harvest - on veggies, at least!
But I do want to learn about organic and natural growing - I’ve seen some quite impressive plants from organic growers.
EDIT: Forgot to mention - I didn’t see signs of bugs on the other 2 but they of course had to be treated due to the close proximity they have.
I did contemplate booting that girl out of the tent…She’s strong - she’d survive! LOL!
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