Hey there! Thanks in advance for reading and replying.
I’m new to growing weed, but have been a home gardener for the last few years quite successfully. I’m also really into raising worms right now and have lots of home made worm castings that I’m putting toward my first grow.
It’s in a 5 gallon bucket, in a heated room, and I’m using 4L T5HO florescent lighting, around 225W.
The soil I made from 1 part peat moss to 1 part perlite to 1 part castings.
I’m happy with the look of the plant so far at about 4 weeks, but I’d really love to hear what you think about the soil mix and the look of the plant so far. The strain is CBD Blue Shark.
I’d also love to hear your thoughts about growing in worm castings and want to know just how crazy of an idea it is to grow exclusively with worm castings as the nutrient source. I’m trying to do it super sustainable and basically grow weed from nutrients from our own food scraps. But is that just a terrible idea?
If it’s doable, how would one deliver extra nutrients to the plant without messing with the existing soil? Could consistent top dressing with straight worm castings be a possible solution?
If it’s totally not doable, what is the simplest liquid nutrient solution? I’d prefer to not have to deal with a bunch of different expensive bottles of nutrients. Considering the plants already got a good bioactive soil mix with worm castings, what would an easy and cheap supplement to that look like?
Thanks again for taking a look! Any and all feedback welcome!
Word,
Deece
Hi - I haven’t used worm castings but I’ve seen some folks on this forum that do. I am sure they will come across this.
Welcome to the forum!
My general advice is that measuring and managing the pH and ppms of your water/nutrient solution going into you plants; and measuring the pH and ppms of the runoff that comes out the bottom is the key to a good grow.
the mix lacks dolomite lime, it needs 1 TBS per gallon of mix (4-5 TableSpoons)
i m surprised u have not experienced low pH and/or calcium def. yet.!
(re-apply every 6 weeks)
she looks sativa dominate,
might wanna check on that, sativas can really stretch during flower.
guanos and teas.!
u will need a high P guano to get descent buds,
top dress with it when u switch to 12/12 and again 3 weeks in,
still won’t be 2-30-15 bloom booster, but it will help a lot.!
Thanks for the insight guys. If anyone else has any advice or experience working with worm castings exclusively let me know!
To your point about pH, well I understand worm castings act to buffer pH so it’s likely that they are counteracting any potentially low pH due to peat moss. But I’ll get some pH strips and report back!
Thanks for the tip re guano tea. Guano is one of those random things that seems to be a lot more readily available in the US than in Canada. But I did some further reading and decided to go with 2-14-0 bone meal. Mixed a few tablespoons of that with a quart of worm castings as deep as I could into the soil without doing any obvious damage to the roots.
Just transitioning to 12-12 lighting schedule now. I’ll report back with some photo updates in the coming weeks.
So far though I’m happy with the look of the plants. I’m maintaining the hypothesis that using homemade worm castings (aka free nutes!) is a possibility, but with this being my first grow, I am supplementing with bone meal (and more castings!) for the flowering phase to be safe.
Still looking great. Buds really getting thick and sticky. 7.5 weeks into flowering.
I continue to top dress with more worm castings weekly (though it’s probably been more than that since last feed), but only a small amount. And, I haven’t once adjusted or even checked my pH!
This is my first ever grow with two plants. I’ve got a second round planned with four instead of two. Working on harvesting and sifting enough worm compost to make up 40% of four 5gal grow buckets… It’s a lot of worm poo! But I’ve got 10 worm bins, more than enough to satisfy a constant rotation of 4 plants (I think). Free nutrients with the benefit of having zero concern about nutrient burn or ph lockout…
I’ve gotten lazy with additional top dressings, thinking the plant might have everything it needed this close to harvest end. There is some obvious yellowing of the lower leaves, but they still seem healthy overall. For the next rotation of plants I’m going to get into making compost teas and add some bat guano to the existing worm castings regimen. For the nerds out there, I also started feeding my worms bone meal which should boost the castings phosphorus content while also apparently improving worm reproduction. :]
The plants are at 8.5 weeks and the strain calls for 9 weeks. Pistils are about 30% brown, and I don’t have a loup to gauge trichome quality. Anyone have any good simple pointers for when to harvest?
I realize this reply may be a little late, but here is something I gleaned from another member on this site last year:
Harvest when 60-70% of hairs have darkened for highest levels of THC.
Harvest when 70-90% of hairs have darkened for a more calming, anti-anxiety
effect as some THC turns to the more relaxing CBN.*
I use a loupe, but I kept an eye on the pistils as I was inspecting the trichomes, and what is said above seemed to jive.
Great! I also found that advice online. Use the pistils turning red as an analog for trichomes turning amber. I harvestee at about 80% brown and the result is great. Got high! My first ever legal homemade weed.
