Hmm, I’m lost on what you guys @JoeCrowe and @ChemicalDependant are referring to…
Also @Rogue, this is just a logical guess, but wouldn’t the more a soil is living require watering more often?
The reason I came to this theorem conclusion is that wouldn’t all the life be using/drinking up the water faster and things like worms would also help aerate the soil no?
I don’t know why, I just observe it in my pots, the older my soil gets the longer they stay moist. I have a seedling going that I sowed on the 1st of April and I still haven’t watered, looks like it’ll be good until the end of the month and beyond.
One watering for a month for a seedling?
How big is your pot?
My cat nip for instance has aerated edges. And grow in 2 branches. Your seems smooth edged and 4 branching. Sorry, I’m not sure the correct words. Look at the Nepeta family of plans.
All my pots and bags are 10 L.
But I did have them stand in an inch of water the whole winter, then pulled a couple out and sowed them, so I guess it’s teeming with anaerobic microbes in there and they somehow hold the water in there. Fungi are also capable of holding a shitload of water.
Interesting, that’s not crazy big in fact that is an approx potential up pot size I have and am considering for some micro moms…
What size do your plants get in those containers?
And when you say bags, are you referring to fabric pots?
So you’re not really concerned or don’t experience much overwatering? What about things going anaerobic?
I got four flowering Tatanka CBD plants between 55 and 70 cm, but I fucked up the light cycle and they started vegging again, so they may have gotten a little bit bigger still. The temperature is on the low side too. I let the inch of water dry up because the gnats got really annoying, so now they’re all standing on dry ground since a couple of weeks, didn’t water them since then, still very moist.
Yes, fabric pots / grow bags.
There’s always a mix of anaerobic and aerobic in living soil, they work together, it’s never one or the other. I don’t understand this fear of anaerobic microbes, they’re vital. The Tatanka’s were grown with the pots standing in an inch of water from the get go, they seemed to love it. I also lost 4 to fungus gnat larves so I think I’m gonna cycle, keeping half of my pots in water with a cover crop and pulling the other half out and placing them into dry saucers for growing weed to keep the gnats in check.
It’s an interesting ongoing experiment.
I’m no expert in it, but I think there are some baddies in anaerobic, maybe you’re thinking of the good guys that are aquatic micro organisms from like fish poop?
I will also be experimenting with this cap mat setup in conjunction with a soil horizon whole deal, could very well not work… that will be when I up pot, stay tuned 
Good and bad is very subjective, I can see how root rot and mold happens in dead soil and synthetic hydro setups because there’s no competition from other organisms to keep them in check, but if you have living soil I wouldn’t worry about it, it balances itself if you feed it right. Just keep in mind that your first couple of yields might not be all that impressive as it may take a while to figure out what your particular soil needs and for the microbes to find their balance. In the beginning it’s a whole bunch of surges of different organisms taking off and being eaten by the next surge until there’s some agreement and stability. That’s how I understand it.
Lacto bacillus can function in either a aerobic or anaerobic environment. Anaerobic bacyeir usually don’t smell so good either.
If you drown your pots, this will tilt the scale in the favor of the anaerobic bacteria. They normally work together in keeping balance. I belive the time when you have issues is when there is not a balance
Yeah you guys are right on about the balance…
This recent video takes all this to the next level of explanation:
Thanks, I downloaded his first book.
This phrase by Geoff Lawton comes to mind: “Soil is all mouth and teeth.”
Feed it organic matter, harvest organic matter.
I covered my garden beds in hay yesterday. The birds kept throwing the layer of horsemanure all over the place and it started getting too dry, but meanwhile they also left their droppings. I noticed that whenever I add a layer of new mulch, afterwards I always discover multiple benefits I didn’t know before, just through observation.
A few lil updates:
So yesterday my defective driver (I think there’s a loose connection) shutoff maybe five hours before nite time and then didn’t discover it a few hours into this morning so I guess they got one day of flower lighting (or almost like a serious overcast day lol)… hopefully it won’t effect them… altho a consequence of this was a dark environment with 70F and maybe 80% RH 
… haven’t noticed any PM or anything and they looked still somewhat fine but very slightly less happy…
This may also have to do with the soil finally drying out a bit.
I feel like everything that has been happening has been sort of stress tests in a way, so whatever makes it through might have that extra bonus…
Besides that, after I fixed the light, I bottom watered a full saucer (which isn’t much at all)…
Came back later today, saucers of course empty, top of soil still dry, so I figured it was a good time to water in some top feeding just a hair…
Mixed up a stupid complex light concoction of FPT & FPT (O.A.), aloe, yucca, mycos, and soy aminos… it prob averaged out to about 0.1ml of each of those per about 250ml of water… I then gave maybe 10-15ml top fed… so yeah not much but you might be surprised how much that covers on the top of those lil 3” containers…
Also, decided to bottom water some more, maybe a half saucer of water filled with AMOs (Fish Shit).
Also, took a leaf surface temperature reading, think they could be 2-3F less…
Knowing that, and wanting the plants/soil to transpire a hair more, I moved the RH controller down to *64% (it will avg a bit higher than this, maybe 65/66) from approx 70%, and I moved the temp up to 26C (79F) from 24.5C(77F)…
*nevermind, my setup right now seems to keep it mostly at %70RH because it is not getting that hot in there (because low light height & thus lower light power) and so the exhaust fan don’t come on that much…
I may raise the height and power a bit to see if that helps.
All gut feeling lol, def could all be bad moves, that feeding concoction prob is better in separate feedings but they hadn’t been fed in a bit and kinda just couldn’t say no to those things when they were sitting in front of me
Here’s a pic right after the lighting debacle, right when I gave them the first bottom watering:
Yeah, that SS2 with the messed up leaves, shooting up like crazy lol it’s almost as if it was a totally different cultivar? Maybe it’s a sativa, I think these are all supposed to be indicas but I could be wrong about that.
@JoeCrowe & @ChemicalDependant, I haven’t forgotten about finding out which catnip those are, but I misplaced the package (hopefully not thrown out) and will let you know if I ever find it…
Also, since one of the catnips died, I decided to throw a few Purslane in there just to get some experience with it and maybe toss them in a salad 
The soil is feeding them, no need to add anything but water.
There’s nothing growing in the topsoil, no roots there so why should it be wet? Dry topsoil keeps the gnats away. I added a thin layer of peat & sand mix to my topsoil a few hours ago and it’s already nicely dried out and the gnats were reduced drastically. 
SS2 looks like it got too much N. Darker color and curling leaves. No more nuting, trust your soil a little.
Well, I’d say moist, not bone dry top.
For the living microbes in that part
I’ve heard there are feeder roots up top or that they’ll be encouraged to grow up there when top feeding.
My understanding is it’s a light soil, not a water only soil (which would need to be reammended anyway), maybe it only has enough for two weeks?
Are you suggesting you never have to feed the soil?
In this situation, it could be a lil early, and that’s why I tried to only give a lil…
Also, my understanding is that with organics, you’re supposed to be sort of adding before it’s needed, but a lot of that has to do with granular and slow release.
Also, there aren’t any worms in it yet to help break things down more.
You could be right about the too much N but also that may not be the issue. Yes it’s curling, but it’s actually seems to be starting to yellow on the edges.
Also, the only nutrient in all that I believe is from the soy aminos (N+) and apparently that supposed to make it so the plants don’t have to work as hard to convert the N…
I’m guessing it is silvervine, if that helps you any. Same chemical as catnip but instead of a mint it’s related to the kiwi plant. Nepetalactones are like kitty cannabinoids.
Well, I don’t know if that is just a type of catnip, but it is supposed to be a catnip, at least I know the pack said that lol
And I agree, seedlings don’t need a lot of nutrients. Doesn’t makes sense to me feeding them teas.
I feed the soil ofcourse but only topdress (mostly between growcycles) with organic matter: banapeels, nettles, clover, dandelion, seaweed, tree leaves, wormcastings and basalt and such, no teas or anything, my way is keeping it as simple as possible with the least amount of effort, following what happens in a forest. No compost teas there, only stuff that naturally falls on the soil.
So it sounds like you basically use a water only type soil?
You said you run 2.5 gallons if I remember correctly?
Was there something out of what I top dressed with that was not organic matter?
I guess you could say it was like a tea since it had mycos in it, but it wasn’t really a traditional “brewed” tea other than me shaking the bottle right before applying lol
The reason why it was watered in as opposed to a classic top dress where you just layer on top of existing soil is just because these pots are so tiny, already filled to the brim, and not adding that much right now… light soil drench is just easier at this point
